Posted by: Alan Giles on October 31, 2008
In November 1909 the first Woolworths store in Britain opened in Church Street, Liverpool, with the proud claim that nothing cost more than sixpence. With such strong value heritage, one might expect today’s Woolworths to be hoovering up market share from more expensive generalists such as WHSmith, in the same way that cash-strapped shoppers are […]
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Posted by: Jonathan Reynolds on October 29, 2008
I recently gave a presentation on the nature of retail brands in the virtual world, Second Life, at a conference in Zagreb hosted by the European Association for Education and Research in Commercial Distribution. Apart from giving some insights into how much attention I pay to my avatar’s clothes compared to those in my first […]
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Posted by: elizabeth on October 6, 2008
OXIRM member and executive education Fellow Elizabeth Howard thinks that retailers don’t cater well for the older shopper. How to find out? She goes shopping with her Mother. Read on… I have been ticking the last box in the list for some time now. I am talking about the list provided by market researchers from […]
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Posted by: Jonathan Reynolds on September 5, 2008
The Oxford Institute of Retail Management was commissioned by NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) to examine innovation in the retail sector, as part of a broader government investigation into innovation in services. The Government’s over-arching paper on Supporting Innovation in Services was published in September, alongside research reports produced on […]
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Posted by: malobi on August 26, 2008
As a ‘returning Indian’, OXIRM researcher Malobi Kar recently had the opportunity of comparing retail experiences between the UK and India. Here is her report. As a researcher who specialises in the field of customer relationship management, I will have to admit that all my retail experiences seem to be influenced by the tenets of […]
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Posted by: Jonathan Reynolds on June 20, 2008
We wouldn’t normally draw particular attention to retail executives moving jobs, but this is an interesting one. David Wild has been appointed CEO of UK car accessories and bike retailer Halfords. This in itself is unremarkable, but Wild was formally Senior Vice President at Wal-Mart US responsible for the development (amongst other things) of Wal-Mart’s […]
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Posted by: Jonathan Reynolds on June 6, 2008
This survey develops a number of themes on environmental aspects of retail branding, and has an interesting comparison between US and UK consumer attitudes. Retailers feature strongly, particularly in the UK.
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Posted by: Jonathan Reynolds on June 3, 2008
The evidence on the extent to which present economic concerns might weaken certain consumers’ propensity to consume sustainably – perhaps reluctant to incur a green premium – is slow to emerge. But a recent FT article, with early evidence from IPSOS/MORI, can be found here. MBA Stephen Doll helpfully pointed me to some recent data […]
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Posted by: Alan Giles on June 2, 2008
After an exhausting but satisfying day at yesterday’s Retail Forum I arrived home to find my wife calming down (slowly) from a carrier bag rage moment. The reason: Marks & Spencer’s attempt to charge 5p a bag to carry home £10 worth of items for dinner. Her anger was magnified because minutes earlier they had […]
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Posted by: Alan Giles on May 14, 2008
Tesco has announced that it is acquiring South Korea’s `Homever’ chain for £958m, which incorporates the old Carrefour stores bought by E.Land in 2006. This involves 36 new stores to integrate, which are marginally profitable (but, in a built-up area such as South Korea, organic growth is more difficult so still huge value in the […]
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