From the Retail Brand to the Retail-er as a Brand: themes and issues in retail branding research

When we discuss research into retail branding, the natural starting point is the retail product brand – invariably referred to as the “private brand”, the “store brand” or the “retail brand”. Private brands have generated a vast body of research on both sides of the Atlantic over the past forty years. In a recent review article, Hyman et al (2010) generated 73 articles published since 1990, simply through a key word search in the Business Source Premier database. Whilst such an approach is likely to underestimate the total volume of material, this figure is nonetheless impressive. The authors also comment on the variety within this body of work in terms of the origin of the article (ie USA or not), the product categories investigated, the research methods used (eg sample frames, sample sizes and types of panel data), and the analytical tools employed

A tactical retreat? Conceptualising the dynamics of European grocery retail divestment from East Asia

The internationalisation of the firm is a highly dynamic process, in which periods of investment and expansion intermingle with periods of divestment and retrenchment. Academic research to date has focused on identifying the reasons for and the processes of divestment. Empirical studies either evidence generic pressures or provide case studies of specific incidents. There few longitudinal studies of international divestment, consequently the dynamic interactions between host market, home market and firm level factors, and how the institutional context changes over time is underplayed. This paper seeks to rectify this gap in our understanding. We explore the rationale and evolving dynamics of European grocery retail divestment in East Asia over a thirty year period. Taking an inductive approach and drawing on analysis of contemporary narratives drawn from company documentation, trade journals, newsfeeds and market reports, three phases can be identified characterised by specific factors and combinations of factors which intersect to provide the key pressures and stimuli for divestment. We conclude that at different time periods, different internal and external contextual influences manifest themselves through different priorities within the firm’s strategy - marked by a switch from local (host) market, to regional, to global firm-centric considerations. Longitudinal analyses allow a greater recognition of this dynamic interplay of factors, and the changes in these relationships, and provides a more nuanced understanding of the international divestment process

Biological inventory of Rio Grande and Conejos counties, Colorado

Prepared for: the Nautre Conservancy.March 31, 2000.Includes bibliographical references

Dissecting embeddedness in international retailing

Embeddedness, and its constituent types, has been employed as a conceptual framework to explain the processes of host market acculturation in retail internationalisation. The retail industry is not, however, a homogeneous business sector. Differences exist between retail sectors, retail formats and governance modes in how retail business models evolve and how a retail business operates in a market. These differing characteristics alongside the coercive, mimetic, and agency pressures arising from interactions amongst institutions, consumer market cultures and firms determine the emphasis placed upon different embeddedness types and how embeddedness occurs. Consideration of these factors allows us to “dissect” the generic embeddedness concept and gain a more nuanced understanding of the processes involved. A deeper understanding of the nature and process of embeddedness will support future studies using the concept across many economic sectors

Categorizing Patterns and Processes in Retail Grocery Internationalisation

The last two decades have been characterised by an increasing internationalisation of retail activity and a considerable number of academic attempts to classify or categorise this activity. A number of different classifications have been proposed based mainly on interactions amongst geographical spread, market entry, managerial outlook and managerial flexibility. However, an examination of three leading international grocery chains on such criteria reveals little communality in pattern or process. Instead internationalisation is marked by different, perhaps serendipitous, patterns and by periods of retrenchment and reconsideration of activities, within a generic strategy of front of store adaptation and back of store standardisation. Previous classifications are therefore partial, time-bound semi-descriptions which need to be supplemented by detailed long-term examination of the internationalisation activities and processes of individual companies

Revisiting the Concept and Classification of Distribution Service Outputs

Distribution service outputs structurally play a pivotal role in retail and channel management. This paper critically assesses the nature of Bucklin’s classic formulation, which is concerned with numerically expressible economic benefits resulting from the execution of the distribution function, within a perfectly operating economic channel. It is distinguished from post-classic extensions which provide alternative multi-functional or institutional approaches. The paper captures both approaches in a generic higher-order customer value scheme, which also redefines and broadens the traditional economic customer benefits. The proposed generic framework also extends to any marketing subfield, and provides the potential for more focussed theoretical and empirical research.

Retailer brand development and handling processes : a comparative study of Tesco Korea and local Korean retailers

This research began with the question: why is the retailer brand market share of Tesco Korea higher than that of local Korean retailers? Of the foreign grocery retailers who have expanded into Korea, Tesco has achieved the most outstanding performance, with the highest retailer brand share in the market. After the withdrawal of Wal-Mart and Carrefour from Korea in 2006, Tesco Korea has been positioned as the successful foreign retailer. Accordingly, how the retail operation of Tesco Korea differs from that of the local Korean retailers attracted the author’s interest, specifically in terms of the development and handling processes of the retailer brand. Rather than examining the customer perceptions of both Tesco Korea and the domestic Korean retailers, the researcher concentrated on identifying the differences between both parties from the point of view of their retailer brand program operations. Based on in-depth interviews with retailers and suppliers, store observations, the author’s own experience in retailer brand development, and company documentation, this research explored the differences between Tesco Korea and domestic Korean retailers in how they develop and handle their own brands. Tesco Korea has taken advantage of retailing know-how, that is, retailer brand development skills created by Tesco UK. With the help of Tesco UK, the retailer brand development process of Tesco Korea is differentiated in a number of areas from that of the local Korean retailers. The flows of retailing know-how from Tesco UK to Tesco Korea has also influenced the whole retailer brand market in Korea, as well as stimulated the local Korean retailers to improve their retailer brand development skills. The entry of retailers with advanced retailer brand development knowledge into markets where retailer brands are less well developed is a catalyst in promoting retailer brand markets, and in intensifying retail competition. Also, the retailer brand development know-how of domestic retailers is enhanced by imitating or benchmarking foreign retailers. This research suggests that retailer brand share is related to the degree to which retailers are proactively involved in the development and handling processes for retailer brand product ranges, as well as to how sophisticated or advanced their knowledge of the retailer brand development process is. Advanced development and handling skills make a considerable contribution to increasing retailer brand share in markets with a lower share or no presence of retailer brands.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

HEPCloud, a New Paradigm for HEP Facilities: CMS Amazon Web Services Investigation

Historically, high energy physics computing has been performed on large purpose-built computing systems. These began as single-site compute facilities, but have evolved into the distributed computing grids used today. Recently, there has been an exponential increase in the capacity and capability of commercial clouds. Cloud resources are highly virtualized and intended to be able to be flexibly deployed for a variety of computing tasks. There is a growing nterest among the cloud providers to demonstrate the capability to perform large-scale scientific computing. In this paper, we discuss results from the CMS experiment using the Fermilab HEPCloud facility, which utilized both local Fermilab resources and virtual machines in the Amazon Web Services Elastic Compute Cloud. We discuss the planning, technical challenges, and lessons learned involved in performing physics workflows on a large-scale set of virtualized resources. In addition, we will discuss the economics and operational efficiencies when executing workflows both in the cloud and on dedicated resources.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure

Below-cost legislation: lessons from the Republic of Ireland

This paper traces the emergence, evolution, and demise of below cost legislation in the grocery industry in the republic of Ireland. The paper adds to our understanding of the legislation by adopting the view that, by using the net invoice price as its definition of cost, the legislation increased two streams of quasi-rents, first on suppliers’ brandeds and second on retailers’ own brands which acted to depress competitive forces and direct supplier-buyer negotiations to off-invoice discounts. Supplier generated quasi-rents financed discounts, and when coupled with retailers’ higher margins on their own brands, provided little incentive for a return to a price competitive environment. Two factors undermined this situation: the substitution of discounters’ products for suppliers’ brands as the discounters share of the market grew and the increase in cross border shopping. These had the combined effect of reducing the available quasi-rents earned in the Irish market resulting in the breakdown of the status quo and a return to price competition. Through its impact on negotiations, the legislation also introduced inefficiencies to both retailers’ and suppliers businesses representing additional waste that could have been more productively used to reduce consumer prices. The paper endorses the Government’s decision to rescind the order and remove an important constraint on both vertical and horizontal competition. Lessons from the Republic of Ireland suggest that the competitive response to the removal of below cost legislation, and reductions in prices, may take time and will depend on economic circumstances and a change in the prevailing norms of organizational behaviour and quasi-rent seeking opportunitie