Retail History

This volume brings together research on retailing and shopping and their embeddedness in urban space, themes that have attracted wide interest in recent decades. Addressing these themes over an era that bridges the early modern and modern period, the authors argue that the 'modernity' of the nineteenth century is often overemphasised, at the expense of recognising the continuities with the earlier period and the degree of innovation that took place before the onset of 'modernity'. This collection compares long-term developments in retail locations, retailing formats, regulation of shopping streets, and the cult of shopping for pleasure across a number of neighbouring countries and regions (Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands), and offers surprising new insights into the processes of cultural transfer, appropriation and exchange.

Voilà plus de treize ans qu'Auchan, fleuron de la grande distribution alimentaire française, est implantée en Russie. En 2002, lors de l'ouverture de son premier hypermarché dans la banlieue de Moscou, tous les spécialistes étaient d'accord : la Russie, avec sa classe moyenne dépensière et sa croissance annuelle à deux chiffres, représentait le 'nouvel Eldorado' pour les enseignes étrangères. En effet, le pays semble avoir particulièrement réussi à Auchan, qui y emploie aujourd'hui plus de 37000 personnes dans 78 hypermarchés, 122 supermarchés Atac et 34 centres commerciaux. Toutefois, le climat politique actuel, avec notamment la crise ukrainienne et l'embargo russe des produits alimentaires occidentaux, a sérieusement changé la donne pour le groupe nordiste, qui commence à regarder la Russie d'un autre oeil.  Dans notre intervention, nous tenterons d'expliquer les raisons du succès d'Auchan en Russie, avant de nous interroger sur ses perspectives d'avenir dans le pays.

There are three main parts in this thesis: Retailing, Retailology, and Experimental Research. The first part tackles the complexity of retail design and tries to understand why shops are what they are. Now and in the past, some of the most innovative developments and interiors can be seen in the retail sector. Therefore a closer look at the history and development of shops and shopping is made, with a focus on two aspects: the retail architecture (i.e. the building and interior design) and the managerial aspects. Three types of stores are described: the department store; the chain store and its derivative the boutique chain store; and the supermarket. A graphical timeline is designed to visualise the trends and innovations, and the influences of all three types on each other and other retail environments. Next, a clear set of definitions of related terms to the retail design discipline is provided, together with an explanation of the added value retail design can provide.
Retail design is a multidisciplinary field of study, which includes scientific research. However, interior design in general and retail design in particular only recently started to develop a proper body of knowledge. The second part of this thesis focuses on this emerging development. Two important challenges are explained: first, communication to the field of designers (from all related design disciplines) and other stakeholders involved. The second challenge is of a more methodological nature: how to find a harmonious reference framework that combines
three different research disciplines that study spatial features – design, environmental psychology, marketing and communication. Therefore, a theoretical framework is introduced as the basis for our research set-up for experiments discussed in the last part. Important for discussion here is the designer’s perspective to be considered when conducting experimental research. Next, within this framework, lighting is outlined as a case study and its empirical possibilities are explored by focusing on atmospherics. A brief historical contextualisation of lighting retail spaces is sketched, followed by a list of lighting related terms and concepts. The justification for such research is provided by interviews with experts and a literature review concerning lighting spaces.
The final and third part of this thesis focuses on describing the experiments conducted regarding lighting food. Five experiments are set up that deal with questions on the impact of lighting on the appearance of products, product preference and sales – from the product point of view -, and the way lighting influences the perception of atmosphere, and customers’ affect – from the spatial point of view. A gradual shift from a photograph of products over a controlled lab-supermarket towards a real supermarket is made. The results indicate that lighting plays a crucial role in how the atmosphere of a retail space is perceived and experienced. What is more, lighting can be used as a tool to communicate a message (e.g., image). Furthermore, it is argued that
there is a correlation between affect and perceived atmosphere, and the resulting behaviours. To conclude, the results of the experiments are set back to the context of this thesis. Finally, the limitations and implications are discussed.

The research addresses a central tension of modern society between materialism and retail expansion on the one hand and growing environmental awareness on the other, during the 1970s and 1980s. It does so through a study of the operations of Marks and Spencer, with comparative reference to other leading retailers, principally Sainsbury’s and the John Lewis Partnership.

Marks and Spencer experienced a complex renegotiation of its relationship with the environment and resource use as it underwent rapid expansion and changes in the period 1968-1992. This has yet to be addressed by academics, especially in relation to the notable growth in environmental concern at this time. It is this changing retail context, as experienced by Marks and Spencer, coupled with the evolving significance of the broader environmental agenda, which this thesis addresses. It makes extensive use of the Marks and Spencer Company Archive to address the importance of the company’s changing commercial operations, its relationship with consumers, the government and British society more broadly, in shaping its approach to the environment and resource use.

The thesis contributes to existing academic literature concerning retailing and the environment by illustrating the extent to which the environment was a highly constructed and negotiated retail concern, which invariably predated the environmental fervour of the late eighties and early nineties and the subsequent commercial clamour to be seen to be green. The research addresses Marks and Spencer’s response to environmental issues, its energy conservation efforts, its retail store development, as well as the internal and external environments of its stores. It shows how the relationship between retailers and the environment was shaped as much by the outlook and operations of individual retailers and the changing nature of modern retailing, as it was the wider environmental agenda and growing popular concern.

This chapter appeared in a book looking at outward investment by Australian firms. We explore the growth of shopping centre giant Westfield into one of Australia's most successful multinationals. We identify a series of firm-specific advantages the firm has leveraged into international markets. We argue that the firm benefitted from its experience of certain aspects of the Australian busienss environment, and that these have proven particularly transferable to the USA.

This article examines multiplex cinema development and its close association with shopping centre expansion programmes in Australia. The article argues that while multiplex cinema construction in Australia echoed international developments, it also resulted from coalescing interests between local retail developers and film exhibitors, was guided by planning legislation and shaped by escalating institutional investment in the retail industry. Data mapping the emergence, growth and consolidation of multiplexes in Sydney, Australia’s largest city, is used to illustrate this development, contributing to urban histories of the city and understandings of the ways in which its contours have been reshaped by consumer capitalism.

Presented Monday 1 February 2016 at:  Icons: 13th Australasian Urban History/Planning History Conference (UHPH) Gold Coast, Queensland Sunday 31 January – Wednesday 3 February 2016.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, entrepreneurs eagerly built numerous European-style shopping arcades in Australia’s cities and regional centres. Popular throughout the world, they were ostensibly elegant shopping spaces for a genteel middle-class clientele. Such was the enthusiasm for them in Australia that both Sydney and Melbourne possessed arcades in a quantity that rivalled many other international cities. Today only a few of these spaces survive. The best-known examples, restored to an approximation of their original form, have become iconic heritage sites that are drawcards for both locals and tourists. Marketing campaigns and tourist brochures invite shoppers to step back in time and encounter the bourgeois elegance of Australia’s retail past. But these often idealised and simplified interpretations elide the far more diverse, complex, multilayered and sometimes uneasy histories of these sites.

Arcades were not static spaces, forever caught in the nineteenth century, nor simply bourgeois shopping malls. Rather, they were significant social spaces that housed a variety of businesses and attracted patrons from all walks of life and underwent diverse historical trajectories. For the handful that survives, many more have been lost, only living on tenuously in the collective memory. Looking beyond the imagined façade, this paper examines the forgotten histories of some of the Australian arcades, peeling back the layers in order to reawaken their hidden stories and the complexity of their role in the urban past.

One of the most characteristic features of the tabernae of Pompeii and Herculaneum is the distinctive shop counter or mensa. The significance of this element is that in many cases the purpose of a building or room is unknown, and it is frequently through the existence of a taberna counter that a building gains its identity. As such, the selling counter has become an important diagnostic key for the identification of the function of the surrounding space. For example a taberna is often described as a 'tavern' if the counter within enclosed large earthenware vessels known as dolia. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the function of many counters has been misinterpreted. There are vague references in the ancient sources to the type of furniture that could be found in taverns, for example Martial (V.70) mentions stools and chairs, but it is interesting that none of the sources mention a shop counter. This paper will briefly discuss the form and decoration of the shop counters of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The paper will also examine the interpretation of a specific counter type, those that contained dolia, to evaluate if these counters can so easily be associated with taverns, and to discover if the selling-platforms that enclosed dolia have become imbued with a meaning that they may not have possessed in antiquity. In general, the paper will discuss the use of counters within tabernae and the role of selling-platforms in retail.

Das Handbuch betrachtet soziale und wirtschaftliche Aspekte des Konsums in der Breite, setzt dabei starke Akzente im Bereich der Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensgeschichte und berücksichtigt auch transnationale Bezüge. Dabei wird die Entwicklung der Konsumgesellschaft seit der Industrious Revolution ebenso in den Blick genommen wie der Konsum der Hochmoderne und „nach dem Boom".

The last decade has seen a renewal of interest in the varied nature and changing structure of retailing in the nineteenth century. Published work has covered aspects as diverse as the theory of shop location, the modernity of retail structure, the so-called “retail revolution”, and the role of retail provision in the expansion of the suburban fringe. Jefferys’s pioneering work on general trends has now been supplemented by several detailed studies, but as yet little of substance has been added to our scant knowledge of the various specialist retailers who seem to have traded in some cities from an early date. The purpose of this paper in looking at milk retailing in London between 1790 and 1914 is to outline the development of one trade which completely changed its nature in the nineteenth century. It will not be argued that the milk trade was typical of food retailing in general, or even that London was representative of the national evolution of milk selling, but it is hoped to show that studies of individual trades in their urban setting can contribute to our understanding of how the Victorian city economy behaved in the important everyday function of supplying retail goods. After an initial exploration of the development of types of milk retailing and a discussion of problems in interpreting available source material, the expansion of the trade will be considered structurally in terms of the “retailing revolution”. The stability of the retailing price will then be shown to have been an important element of associated service provision by dairymen, especially in the doorstep delivery of milk.

La presente ponencia combina, como ejercicio de contrapunto de casos, dos investigaciones centradas en agentes comerciales y redes de comercialización mayorista y minorista en la Argentina de comienzos del siglo XX. En su desarrollo se yuxtaponen temas y problemáticas diversas, aunque se trasluce el interés común en las tareas de intermediación en la economía. Por las razones que iremos definiendo a lo largo del texto, el papel desempeñado por los mercaderes al intervenir en las transacciones y su inserción en redes de comercialización tienen aquí un valor explicativo central, en todo caso no inferior al de otros factores a los que se suele apelar en esta materia, como por ejemplo, las ventajas comparativas entre países o regiones. La primera parte del trabajo se ocupa del comercio de importación de artículos de consumo masivo. Se trata de un sector económico al cual se ha concedido escasa atención en lo referido a las diversas modalidades a través de las cuales se realizaban las operaciones, principalmente en Buenos Aires. Al definir dichas modalidades se insistirá sobre la pluralidad de agentes que intervenían en el tráfico comercial, particularmente respecto del papel, renovado a comienzos de siglo, de los agentes y representantes de empresas exportadoras europeas o norteamericanas. Dado que entre todos esos agentes era muy elevada la proporción de extranjeros, se destina un parágrafo específico a la discusión sobre las relaciones entre importaciones e inmigración. La segunda parte, centrada en los minoristas rurales y en los cambios detectados en los perfiles comerciales y canales de comercialización hacia el interior del país, pretende sumar evidencias sobre la importancia tanto cuantitativa como cualitativa del sector minorista dentro del mundo de empresas y empresarios locales. Cabe remarcar que no es habitual el enfoque desde la óptica de los minoristas, y menos aún de aquellos que operan en áreas rurales. Los estudios suelen enfocar a los extremos de las cadenas de comercialización –industrias/consumidores-o bien a los mayoristas e importadores, y no a estos agentes, a los que, por estar diseminados y contarse por miles, se les asigna un papel secundario en las transformaciones económicas del período. Ambas partes del artículo combinan abordajes macro y micro, con referencias a experiencias específicas de empresas y empresarios, reforzando así la propuesta de contrapunto de casos. En paralelo, entendemos que la posibilidad de combinar enfoques regionales –por ejemplo en el estudio de los minoristas-con el abordaje del comercio de importación –centrado en la escala nacional – también contribuye a complementar y yuxtaponer evidencias en diferentes planos para enriquecer el estudio de los agentes económicos y las redes de comercialización que operaron en la Argentina de principios del siglo XX.

The towns and settlements of Roman Britain have produced a rich variety of building types and many of these structures have been interpreted as tabernae (shops or workshops). Generally, when the buildings of Roman communities are considered, the concentration is usually on the more prestigious structures, such as public buildings. These buildings are important, but they account for only a small part of the built up area in any settlement. Tabernae were a feature of every type of settlement, large or small, official and unofficial, and as such their existence must be seen as an essential, rather than a marginal, feature in the social and cultural life of Roman Britain. There has been a steady development in our understanding of tabernae from the earliest excavations in the late nineteenth century to the present day. However, it is surprising that despite the scholarly work that has been carried out on Roman Britain in the past a systematic study of shops and workshops has not been produced with the exception of a posthumously published paper by Richmond entitled 'Industry in Roman Britain' (1966, 76-86). This provides a summary of the tabernae, or more particularly workshops, excavated up to that time and attempts to place tabernae into their contemporary framework, emphasising the similarity in function of the tabernae in Roman Britain to those found in Italy. This paper builds upon the work of Richmond and brings together some general observations on the shops and workshops of Roman Britain. Building layout It goes without saying that the archaeological remains of Roman Britain cannot compare with the spectacular ruins that have survived in Pompeii and Herculaneum in terms of scale, height and preservation. However, sufficient evidence survives in the form of ground plans to demonstrate that there was a great diversity of structural types in Britain from simple single roomed buildings, to multi-roomed tabernae, to tabernae that were attached to large complex domestic buildings. As such, the ground layout of a taberna is the most useful interpretative tool to examine the development of tabernae in the major settlements of Roman Britain. The plans of the early tabernae seem to have been relatively simple in form and are one of the most common types of structure that can be seen during the Roman settlement of Britain. In their apparently simplest configuration, tabernae consist of utilitarian, relatively long, narrow, rectangular plots, set perpendicular to the street. These are often known as 'strip-houses' or 'strip-buildings' and are an urban feature known throughout the empire (Stambaugh 1988, 174). Tabernae could comprise a single room, but more usually, they were initially composed of two rooms. The layout of the internal divisions of tabernae almost habitually follow a pre-set pattern with the room or rooms that were closest to the street used as a shop or workshop, with the chambers behind functioning as living or store areas (Todd 1970, 121; Wacher 1995, 66-7). This characteristic of tabernae in Italy led Boëthius to term this form of architecture as 'shop-houses' or 'taberna-houses' (Boëthius 1934, 164). The twofold function of tabernae also existed in Roman Britain, and probably contributed greatly to the evolution of a form of architecture consisting of a long narrow rectangular building. This sequence sometimes becomes somewhat distorted with later developments but, as was practical, the front

This chapter appeared in a book looking at outward investment by Australian firms. I argue that Australia's largest retailers have neglected internationalisation (beyond some incursions into New Zealand) as a growth strategy, chosing instead to diversify across the local retail domain. This choice is partially driven by the relative isolation of the Australian market, and the neglect of this market by large international retailers. The chapter also looks at the experience of four smaller retailers from Australia who have surprisingly large global footprints in niche retail markets.

International expansion in the retail sector is still a relatively rare strategy. Many of the world’s largest retailers operate solely domestically, or in a narrow range of countries. Retailers have struggled to transfer their firm specific advantages across international borders. In the international context, macro-level national differences in buying preferences and considerable supply-chain variation, coupled with micro-level location advantages, play into the hands of domestic incumbents – those that were early movers in securing real estate and introducing retailing processes. For a geographically isolated country such as Australia this has lead to very limited engagement with the rest of the retailing world. I explore the constraining effect of Australia’s location on both inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) for the largest retailers. I identify and analyse several smaller-scale Australian retailers who have successfully internationalised in recent years. These firms are shown to have developed appropriate ownership advantages and expansion strategies to overcome the distance hurdles. Particular attention is drawn to the strategic initiatives taken to surmount supply chain issues. In a broader sense, the paper highlights the interaction between industry structures, location differences and firm strategies that lie at the heart of international business theory and research.

The most distinctive features of the known tabernae of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Ostia are the taberna counters, doors and porticoes. It was amongst these amenities that the real activities of the 'retail arena' took place. The features of the shop were the most important elements of the 'taberna-house' as it was through these features that the building gained its identity. Without these traits, most of the evidence for tabernae would be lost. Given the constraints imposed by the limited extant remains of Roman Britain, a complete reconstruction of the retail arena cannot be made. As a consequence, comparisons must be made with surviving standing examples. The excellent standing remains of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Ostia enable a hypothetical reconstruction of these activities to be discussed. Although there is a great distance between Britain and Italy, many similarities can be found. Britain was part of the Roman empire, and its buildings and the way in which they were designed and functioned reflect this. Perhaps the most distinctive and visually imposing feature of a taberna is its counter. Given the limited extant remains of Roman Britain it is perhaps wisest to initially discuss the surviving remains of taberna counters in Italy, and then to examine the evidence for their use in Roman Britain.

Although it has not generally been recognized, tabernae (shops and workshops) were an important part of the process of urbanization and the urban form of the towns of Roman Britain. The objective of this paper is to examine the location of fixed-point retailing establishments within the urban landscape. Workshops (also known as officinae) and retail activity probably constitute the largest and perhaps one of the most distinct aspects of any urban settlement. Based upon the discussion presented below, this paper will seek to show that there were important contests for retail space in the major settlements of Roman Britain. This paper also considers some of the factors that influence retail location to show that the towns of Roman Britain were complex socioeconomic environments.

Buildings are the living space of people. The manner in which a structure is arranged can indicate a great deal about how its inhabitants viewed their world (Scott 1990, 152). While many crafts and trades must have been practised in tabernae, at times it can be difficult to determine specifically what these practices were. As census returns or any form of official enumeration are non-existent and tombstones naming specific occupations are rare in Roman Britain, knowledge of the economic activity of any settlement is primarily based on those industries that have left discernible traces on the ground. This is made even more complex as the changing commercial and productive uses of tabernae can make it even more difficult to determine function from the surviving fragmentary evidence of ovens, hearths and possible vats. This chapter will consider the evidence for the number of possible activities which took place within tabernae. It should not be seen as an exhaustive survey of the economic activities and productive rôle of tabernae, but as a summary of some of the main taberna occupations for which good archaeological evidence of their existence remains.

For a long time, historical research into early modern retail growth and practices has focused on retailers’ guilds, in particular the mercers. This article shows how ‘traditional’ circuits of producing craftsmen equally contributed to this process of economic ‘modernization’. Via a system of multiple guild membership, producing guild masters extended their production and distribution activities, or they integrated goods and services into their shop, which were produced by other craftsmen or imported from elsewhere. Artisans belonging to several guilds increasingly concentrated on retailing instead of manufacturing and they shifted distribution activities from the market to the shop. A case study of the Leuven victualling, clothing, and art and populuxe trades reveals that the practice of joining multiple guilds was part of a larger trend towards retailing in the Southern Low Countries. Indeed, the surprisingly high retail ratio’s in Netherlandish provincial towns are explained by the far-reaching entanglement of manufacturing and distribution activities in those smaller centers. Hence, multiple guild membership contributed to the relatively high level of commercialization in the provincial Netherlands. Any further study dealing with the retail revolution in the Southern Low Countries should take this complex dynamics into account.

This article examines the ways that Australia’s largest retail firms
accessed and adapted external knowledge flows, largely from the
USA, to develop discount department store chains from the late-1960s
onwards. In doing so, it extends work on retail internationalisation
by focusing on the importation, rather than the exportation of business
models. The three firms – Coles, Myer, and Woolworths – exhibited
differing degrees of absorptive capacity in identifying and
commercialising knowledge flows. This was reflected in fluctuating
levels of success, the scope of store networks and relative positioning
in the Australian market. Further, the role played by informal
associations between managers in non-competing firms in different
markets during the development of discount department stores in
Australia advances the case for socialising analyses of business
knowledge transfer more broadly.

This work has been concerned with creating a credible reconstruction of the tabernae of Roman Britain from the actual buildings. This has been achieved by a concentration on the production of retail space to describe and explain the phenomenon of the taberna in its contemporary form. Based upon this, the manner in which tabernae reflect the social and economic environment of the province of Britain can then be observed. It has been the consensus throughout this thesis that commercial buildings are more sensitive and responsive to the economic and social climate than monumental structures. The study of tabernae has largely been ignored at the expense of public buildings or prestige dwellings. This would seem to be very much at odds with the view point of Reece, who states in his important discussion on The end of Roman Britain that 'the use of strip-buildings as an index of commercial activity is far too insensitive an indicator of 'town life'. …The building of strip-buildings is not in itself demonstrative of commerce'. 1 However, this is a statement that is applicable to any building type in Roman Britain. In contrast to public buildings, tabernae must have accounted for a large part of the built up areas in towns. They would have been a very visible, familiar and active part of urban life. With their open fronts, goods on display and commercial activities which spread onto the street, they must have left as much an impression of urbanisation as monumental structures. Retailing was an essential and integral component of the urban environment, and when examined, presents a more sensitive picture of the social and economic life of the settlements of Roman Britain than public buildings. Tabernae were a major element of the urban environment, and retailing was an activity with which the inhabitants would have had frequent dealings. A comparative approach to the study of the nature, size and location of tabernae in the settlements of Roman Britain can give clues to the broader issues concerning social identity and function. This integrated approach to the building patterns of Roman towns provides a more genuine view of urban development than consideration of a single building type or class of structure in isolation, and this is why the study of tabernae is significant. The results gained by this analysis of tabernae are far from ideal, but are certainly more representative of the evolution of towns in Roman Britain than the examination of any one building type. This is perhaps the most interesting by-product formulated during the development of this study on tabernae. In fact, tabernae were probably as much of a feature of romanization as any programme of public buildings. Tabernae in the Roman empire had a very ancient history, evolving from the earliest times in Italy. The Italian tabernae became the model for tabernae that were built throughout the empire, and their construction went hand in hand with the expansion of Rome. Tabernae were a Roman import into Britain and nothing of this nature seems to have existed in pre-Roman Britain. Although many tabernae were probably 1 Reece 1983, 150 owned and operated by settlers from other parts of the empire, many native Britons would have lived and worked in tabernae, and the impact on their lives must have been significant. Contemporary attitudes to tabernae and tabernarii in Italy varied, from the disdain of the social élite, to the pride of those who lived and worked within. Although there is no indication of the way in which tabernarii were regarded in Roman Britain, it is possible that a similar variety of attitudes existed, but perhaps with a higher level of acceptance. Regardless of the manner in which tabernae and tabernarii were viewed by their contemporaries, they were an important element of the urban framework. We have seen that the epigraphic evidence for tabernae and tabernarii in Roman Britain is sparse and any discussion on the rôle that tabernae or tabernarii played within Romano-British society must rely upon the surviving archaeological remains. Excavations have revealed that Britain was a province that had a great diversification of structures, from the simplest of strip-buildings, to elaborate basilicas. The purpose and function of tabernae had an influence on the type of building plan. Contemporary plans for these utilitarian buildings have not survived and were probably only crude drawings, if indeed they existed. They are simple in design, and a taberna was so uncomplicated and malleable as an architectural unit that it could be adapted to almost any purpose. It is clear that the taberna-strip-building provided inhabitants with a great deal of control over what could be done with limited space, without undue modification. It could develop from a retailing outlet of one or two rooms, to comprising part of a more evolved dwelling. The taberna-strip-building form is likely to have been a development from an attempt to insert as many structures as possible into an important retail location. As a simple architectural form tabernae could evolve and be adapted by the addition of appendages to the back of the building, or by the amalgamation of neighbouring property. This common evolution clearly represents a higher level of prosperity for tabernarii and taberna owners and a willingness to express this in the construction and adaptation of larger and more expansive premises. Tabernae plans changed and grew as the lives of their users changed and the economy and society of Britain developed. The great number of strip-buildings in the towns of Roman Britain clearly emphasises the commercial attraction of the early settlements. However, there is little evidence of any corporate or organised retail planning above that which was shown by the accumulation of capital by individual retail owners. Without doubt, the taberna-strip-building plan was a typical feature of the urban settlements of Roman Britain, which had evident similarities to shops in the rest of northwestern Europe and Italy. The taberna was a very successful building form that was regional only in detail. The taberna plan was arguably the most adaptable of the entire spectrum of multipurpose building types created by Roman architecture.

The purpose of this chapter is to place the tabernae of Roman Britain into their social context within Britain and the wider Roman empire. Although it is quite possible to consider Roman Britain in isolation from other parts of the empire, this would place Britain out of context from the rest of the empire which must have had a major impact and influence on the province. To do this in a meaningful and systematic fashion the meaning of the term taberna and its origin in Italy will be discussed. After this, an impression of contemporary attitudes to shops and tabernarii will be explored by an analysis of the surviving ancient sources. As the literary sources in Roman Britain are limited, Italian material will be used. Although there are difficulties with this, the literary sources at least hint at how people may have related to tabernae and tabernarii in their society in Italy, and by implication in Roman Britain. The scant literary evidence for tabernae in Roman Britain will then be discussed. The following chapters will focus upon the material evidence for tabernae in Roman Britain.

This paper is set up as a survey of the historical development of large-scale retail enterprises and their interiors. Rather than being exhaustive, it is aimed to give a critical and relevant - from an interior designer’s perspective - review of the literature. Also, two innovations are explained: one technical, being the escalator, and one conceptual, being the self-service concept. The escalator enabled the department store to develop, while the introduction of self-service in supermarkets drove their expansion and caused a shift in store design. To visualise the rather complex historical development of the three types, a graphic timeline is developed.

The retail industry is intimately tied to demography. In the 1960s, as the car drove populations outwards from the urban core, Australia’s big city stores watched their sales stagnate. The market had moved to the suburbs and companies with the vision and opportunity followed. Using examples from Sydney, this paper examines the idea of home through the lens of this rapidly changing retail geography. It argues that by reading retail we can gain fresh perspectives on our understanding of the early postwar home in Australia.

This article focuses on the marketing strategies of the two most successful discount department store chains in Australia between 1969 and 1984 when consumer acceptance of both brand and format were being determined. It examines how they approached marketing a new format national retail chain to the Big Middle of the market, as well as the ways that brands were differentiated. This article expands our understanding of the ways that new national retail chains are developed and marketed. It explores the intersection between public relations material and media coverage and the ways that existing brands can be leveraged to legitimize new formats and encourage adoption. More broadly, it contributes to a literature on the “Big Middle”, a space occupied by dominant, volume-oriented retailers. In doing so it demonstrates that foreign adopters can draw on Big Middle retail formats to quickly gain access to large population segments in their home markets.

This chapter appeared in a book looking at outward investment by Australian firms. We explore the growth of shopping centre giant Westfield into one of Australia's most successful multinationals. We identify a series of firm-specific advantages the firm has leveraged into international markets. We argue that the firm benefitted from its experience of certain aspects of the Australian busienss environment, and that these have proven particularly transferable to the USA.

The doorway to any Roman dwelling had a very important rôle in defining the residents’ status and the way in which those outside would treat them. Doorways that belonged to tabernae, with their wide entrances opening on to the street, were one of the most distinctive features of the Roman street. They punctuated someone’s peripheral vision as they progressed along the street. The importance of doorways is demonstrated by the fact that they have been divided into two classes by Packer; those that belonged to tabernae and those that did not.1 The plans of these tabernae have been described as being non-traditional. They had a wide entrance to the street, which did not lead into an atrium through a deep corridor, which was known as a fauces (Packer 1971, 21). However, this is a misleading characterisation as taberna entrances are as frequent as structures with fauces, and belonged to a tradition of their own. It should also be noted that a wide doorway, although very common, was not always necessary in a taberna. A great number must have had quite ordinary doorways at that their entrance, although lacking a fauces, and were similar in width to a doorway in a domestic dwelling.

In this paper, I examine the link between politics, national identity and fast food in Russia between the 1930s and the present day.  While the paper begins with a brief discussion of Mikoyan's food policy in the 1930s, the emphasis is on post-Soviet Russia. This paper is taken from the first chapter of my book, "Consumer Culture, Branding and Identity in The New Russia: From Five-Year Plan to 4x4" (fothcoming in Routledge's Interpretive Marketing Research Series).  A version can also be found on my research blog: https://consumer-cultures.u-paris10.fr/?cat=24

This paper joins a growing movement in marketing history that aims to include the voices of consumers in historical research on retail environments. It shows that consumer perspectives offer new insights about the emergence and reception of large-scale, pre-planned shopping centres in Australia during the 1960s, and allow one to write a history of this retail form from below. This sits in contrast to top-down approaches characteristic of the broader literature on shopping mall development. The written testimony methodology used in this article is unique in this context and provides new understandings of Australian retail property development. For current marketers, the historically constituted relationship between people and place also offers potential for community targeted promotional campaigns.

http://www.researchmoz.us/supermarkets-more-than-just-food-retailing-spain-november-2013-report.html

Spanish consumers and retailers have had a very difficult five years with the country in recession for much of this time. 2013 continued to be tough for shoppers and businesses alike. Although there have been signs of improvement and the country inched out of recession in the third quarter, the recovery has been very slow and tentative and it remains risk-bound. In the short term, people will continue to suffer as a result of high unemployment and public spending cuts.

From the emergence of department stores in the late 19th century to the financial disasters of the years following the end of World War I, the history of large-scale retailing in Germany was dominated by a pioneering generation of German-Jewish entrepreneurs who found fortune and influence only to have their livelihoods taken by Hitler and the Nazis in the 1930s.

Drawing on a range of archival sources and private collections, The Kaiser, Hitler and the Jewish Department Store reveals how, contrary to Nazi claims, Jewish-owned department stores were decent employers, popular with customers, and well integrated into the economy. In fact, such institutions were so integral to German society that, when Hitler came to power in 1933, the Nazis were forced to abandon their pledge to abolish them. As this revelatory history argues, the end of the Jewish-run store cannot solely be attributed to the rise antisemitism: it was also the consequence of financial mismanagement and the indifference of the German people.


John F. Mueller reveals the German-Jewish department store as a powerful force in society and politics as well as a leader in architecture and design. His book challenges common assumptions about the relationship between consumer culture, the German-Jewish business community and the rise of Nazism, providing fresh insights into the social history of modern Germany.

Temporary retail spaces, or pop-up shops, are becoming a promotional strategy for retailers. In this study, a survey of retailing organizations reveals that among those that had implemented at least one pop-up shop, more than 80% considered it a success. The results show that reasons for activating pop-up shops were to create connections with customers, increase brand awareness, introduce a new product/brand, and staging new products/brands. While the respondents deemed revenue generated at pop-up shops important, they considered improving market visibility a more significant objective. This research provides retailing organizations with guiding principles for developing and operating successful pop-up stores.

The transformation process of Belgian retail since the Second World War offers specific and quite paradoxical characteristics. The country counted several strong big distribution companies, clearly at the forefront of retail innovation in Europe. But independent retailing retained a dominant position, even in the grocery sector. In this paper we highlight the evolutions of the different retail branches and briefly introduce the main companies. The political elite clearly embraced the modernisation of retail and applauded the efforts of the leading big distribution companies and their managers, for instance Innovation and Emile Bernheim (1886-1985) or Grand Bazar and Maurice Cauwe (1905-1985). But public policy also remained extremely keen on securing a future for small, family-based shopkeeping. From 1937 until the end of the 1950's the expansion of local department stores was restrained by the so-called Padlock Law. After a clear 'growing rage' of big distribution in the 1960's, a new regulatory framework was introduced in 1975. This Law on Retail Establishment advocated that a balanced retail landscape would serve consumer interests the best. But in practice it would particularly favor the expansion of franchise chains. Management abstract This paper deals with the history of the postwar Belgian retail sector. It urges to approach retail history using a broad interpretative framework, not only paying attention to commercial or technical innovation, the role of more or less visionary entrepreneurs or the simple logic of the market. The Belgian offers several interesting perspectives, for instance the impact of both (small) business and consumer interest organizations and how their political agenda's helped sculpt retail policies. Government officials, parastatal structures and even academics monitored but also influenced retail practices. In order to fully understand the retail (r)evolutions in the 19th and 20th centuries, historians need to evaluate the interactions amongst these and many other actors and agents, with particular attention to retail policy.

One of the most important matters to be discussed is the form and plan (forma) of tabernae, and to relate them to structures in other regions of the empire. In Britain, structures from the Roman period mostly survive only in plan. As such, the layout of a taberna on the ground is the most useful interpretative tool to examine the development of tabernae in the major settlements of Roman Britain. The plan is very significant because it represents the horizontal projections of a building and determines the arrangement of rooms. These will be discussed in the forthcoming chapters. This chapter will explore some of the socio-economic factors that determined the choice of ground plan and the way in which tabernae, as a form, developed and evolved over time. The purpose is to examine tabernae in their entirety, that is not just spatially but also temporally, to understand how tabernae interact with their environment. This is not a simple task, as it cannot be assumed that form ever follows function, even though this is one of the most important assumptions that archaeologists use to interpret buildings. This is not meant to be dismissive of the scholarly work carried out by archaeologists, who often have only limited material on which to base their interpretation, but merely to point out that the function of a building cannot really be anticipated by form. Regrettably, the archaeological evidence is often not subtle enough to adequately identify the function of a building beyond any doubt.

Before the First World War, British food chain stores catered mainly to the working classes and they did so with a limited range of products, minimum cost and minimal service. In Belgium, the multiple food retailer Delhaize Le Lion started business in 1 867, expanded rapidly, and acquired its own factories and brands as well as a nationwide distribution network. In contrast to the British retailers, however, Delhaize appears to have aimed at a heterogeneous clientele, emphasizing both price and service. This article investigates differences and similarities between Belgium's and Britain's food chain stores prior to 1914, dealing with business organization, product range, and clientele. In the second half of the 19th century, a new class of retailers emerged in Britain, setting up food chain stores (" multiple grocers ").' As historian James Jefferys explained, there were two types of stores, the " grocery " and the " provision " type, with the former selling a considerable range of groceries and the latter specializing in a very limited range of imported products in mass demand such as ham, bacon, dairy products, and, after 1880, tea. 2 Even multiple grocers (such as Sainsbury) that had a somewhat wider product range specialized in a limited number of products. 3 The multiples of the provision type especially were highly successful and grew rapidly. 4 This growth occurred despite a lack of sophistication in selling methods. Products were distributed via a large number of outlets with minimum cost and minimal service. The clientele was almost exclusively working class. After 1900, multiple food retailers endeavored to improve the layout of their shops, their product displays and customer service, but only after the First World War did British multiple food retailers diversify their range of goods and begin to no longer solely serve the working class. 5 Jefferys linked the 87 Van den Eeckhout end Scholliers

After 1680, alcohol retail at the Cape of Good Hope was controlled through a lease (pacht) system whereby free burghers could buy, on a competitive basis, the right to sell a specific type of alcohol in a certain region for one year. In this way, the VOC remained assured of a major direct source of revenue. However, this lease system was not in place with the establishment of a VOC outpost in 1652, but had a troubled and complex development in the decades before 1680. This article traces this development and shows how it was linked to changing ideas about the role of free burghers in the nascent colony, their economic conditions, and their relationship with the VOC authorities. It is argued that the system of alcohol retail as it was established in 1680, constituted a victory for free burgher interests, and that this development demonstrates how local political and economic interests were linked to the changing fortunes of the VOC in a wider context.

Today, the terms ‘supply chain’ and ‘supply chain management’ are in common use. In the global economy, supply chain is part of everyday business across industries, and retailing is a leading example. On this 25th anniversary of the Oxford Institute of Retail Management we look at how the concept of supply chain management was introduced in retailing and how it has evolved over time. This exercise is based on a selective review of OXIRM publications between 1990 and 2010, mainly articles from the Retail Digest (formerly the European Retail Digest).

Sino-Thai business/retail history in Bangkok; argues that Sino-Thai business families (like the founders of Central Department Store) developed the modern consumer economy in Thailand, decentering Europe in the history of modernity in Southeast Asia. Attention to gender, ethnicity, and sexuality.

Este texto debruça-se sobre as corporações de mercadores e sobre a sua adaptação a uma conjuntura política difícil que culmina já no período liberal. Reorganizados em linhas bem rígidas no rescaldo do Terramoto de 1755, os interesses corporativos do comércio estabelecido de Lisboa perduraram até ao triunfo final do Liberalismo (1834), resistindo de permeio à gradual difusão de um pensamento económico que lhes era profundamente hostil. Segue-se aqui na peugada da historiografia mais atual, que rejeita a ideia da persistente decadência das instituições corporativas, do seu inerente conservadorismo e do seu im-pacto negativo no desenvolvimento económico. As atividades da Mesa do Bem Comum dos Mercadores de Retalho, instituição de suporte jurídico e onde se resolviam muitos dos problemas que afetavam os lojistas de Lisboa, mostram até que ponto esta comunidade se conseguiu manter fechada e protegida de interferências exteriores, precisamente como os seus estatutos prescreviam.
Palavras-chave corporações, comércio de retalho, Lisboa

This paper traces the growth of working-class street markets in Victorian London and argues that they possessed the capacity to disrupt axiomatic narratives of liberal reform and commercial progress. It contends that accounts by slum writers (James Greenwood and George Gissing) and the visions of market reformers (Baroness Burdett Coutts and Arthur Cawston) sought to define the parameters of a proscribed sphere of informal commerce and to replace it with a sanitized, formal ideal. Rather than meekly fading away into obsolescence, however, street traders challenged these ‘static images’ in spaces like Whitecross Street market, which flourished on the frontiers of urban modernity.