Selling dreams: advertising strategies from grands magasins to supermarkets in Ghent, 1900-1960

As argued above, the specific historical role of the grands magasins follows directly out of their capacity to fuse modernist bourgeois culture and commercial mass production into a dream marriage. The commercialization of modernism took place in the heyday of the department store, the last decades of the nineteenth century. From the 1920s on, a major change was taking place. As consumption was on the rise, paralleling the welfare society coming into being, the department stores, with a high concentration of capital in their hands, were not to remain indifferent. Following the prix uniques principle, expansion was to take place on three levels. Geographically webs of ever more local branches were created; commercially the emphasis upon fashionable goods faded away as basic products like food stuff were taken in; and finally socially the department stores were to come out of their bourgeois background, addressing themselves to a much broader stratum of the population. By 1960 the transformation of the former grands magasins had become irreversible, destroying most of the historical identity of the stores, and leading them into a confrontation with the maisons à succursales. Still, as contrasted with the end of the nineteenth century, during this second phase of the development of a consumer society from the 1920s on, the grands magasins were no longer fore-runners, merely good followers as stores in general were making way for brand-names on the publicity market. Still, paying a last tribute to their social and cultural roots, the grands magasins found a compromise in an advertising style of their own, convincing through low prices and seducing through genteel images

Sale the seven Cs: Teaching/training aid for the (e-)retail mix

The ‘4Ps’ of the marketing mix have long been popular with students, tutors, trainers and practitioners as a learning and teaching aid. The purpose of this paper is to present an equivalent tool for retail and e-retail: ‘Sale the 7Cs’. The approach is by reference to other authors’ versions of the marketing, retail and e-retail mixes, distilled into a simplified framework: C1 Convenience; C2 Customer value and benefit; C3 Cost to the customer; C4 Computing and category management; C5 Customer franchise; C6 Customer care and service; C7 Communication and customer relationships. This simplified mnemonic is new for (e-)retail. Mini case examples are used to illustrate the applicability. These have a practical value for trainers and educators as specimen answers to activity exercises. Retailers may find the convenient 7Cs structure useful when planning strategies and tactics

SUPERMARKET PRICING AND GAME THEORY: THE PRESENCE OF WAL-MART

Wal-Mart is a giant in the grocery industry and its influence is growing at a rapid pace. Despite Wal-Mart's success with Everyday Low Pricing (EDLP), there is little to no evidence to suggest that other supermarket chains wish to follow a similar path. Why? This research addresses this question.Marketing,

Internationalisation of Spanish fashion brand Zara

Zara is one of the world’s most successful fashion retailers operating in 59 countries. However, there is little research about the firm in English as the majority of publications have been written in Spanish. This paper seeks to address this gap in the literature by examining the internationalisation process of Zara. This study adopts an in-depth case approach based on extensive secondary research. Literature published in both English and Spanish has been reviewed, including company documents such as annual reports. The paper starts with a brief overview of the global textile and clothing industry, followed by the case study of Zara. The main part of the case examines the key aspects in the internationalisation of Zara namely: motives for internationalisation, market selection, entry strategies, and international marketing strategies. In the final section, comparisons are made between Zara and two of its main competitors, H&M and Gap

Retailing under resale price maintenance: economies of scale and scope, and firm strategic response, in the inter-war British retail pharmacy sector

The article examines the impact of resale price maintenance (RPM) on market structure, productivity, and competitive advantage in British retail pharmacy. In contrast to influential studies, but consistent with contemporary and recent work, it is shown that the major multiples were able to ameliorate the negative growth impacts of RPM. Higher profit margins ‒ principally from larger manufacturer discounts and backward integration – were used to fund initiatives aimed at boosting aggregate sales and economies of scale and scope. These relationships are explored using a recently discovered national establishment-level survey of retail pharmacists’ costs and margins, together with internal data for Boots Ltd

Competing in a Mature Market: The Case of Super AM Food Markets

The EXPO-AM supermarket entered the Rochester, Massachusetts food market using a retailing format that its parent company had used successfully in England where it went under the store banner “Super EU.†This case describes how the concept was developed and implemented in Rochester over a three year period, 2000-2003. At the time of the case, 2003, Ted Edwards, the general manager of Super AM Food Markets, has been asked to prepare a turnaround plan for the banner after it has shown poor performance.supermarket, competitive advantage, competitive rivalry, strategy implementation, organizational structure, Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis, Production Economics, Q10, Q11,