Retailing in the Global World: Case Study of Metro

2019

Prior to World War II, the grocery market in Western countries consisted of small independent grocery stores, which were owned and run by local families. These families made an effort to get to know their customers and to maintain a personal connection with them. They "knew where their customers lived, how many children they had, even how they liked their meat cut" (Koch, 2013, p. 6). The customer would ask at the counter for the food items, and grocery shopping had a large focus on customer service. Customers would regularly visit the same store to purchase their products because they were able to obtain store credits. In 1916, Piggly Wiggly, an American supermarket chain, introduced the self-service grocery store where customers were able to walk through the store and select their own products (Koch, 2013). In contemporary society, most individuals purchase their groceries from convenience stores, supermarkets or hypermarkets, and increasingly online. Convenience stores are usually small (average selling area of 2,800 square feet), closer to consumers, and charge higher prices than supermarkets (Hovhannisyan & Bozic, 2016). These stores are often run by small independent retailers and consumers use them to do their top-up shopping. In contrast, supermarkets are relatively large (average selling area of 4,000À27,000 square feet), on city outskirts, and offer more convenient shopping hours. Here, consumers are able to buy food and household products at more affordable prices. Recently, the market has been dominated by a limited number of large-format, multiple-store retailers where consumers do their bulk shopping (Dobson, Waterson, & Davies, 2003). The food superstore or hypermarket/supercenter has become the dominant retail format in developed and developing countries (Gustafsson, Jönson, Smith, & Sparks, 2006). Here the traditional supermarket has been complemented by warehouse stores, supercenters, and combination stores (Binkley & Connor, 1998). These changes have led to the decline of Case Studies in Food Retailing and Distribution.

2009

Before the introduction of supermarkets, fast food outlets, supercenters, and hypermarts, various other food retailing formats operated successfully in the US. During the latter half of the 19 th century, the chain store began its rise to dominance as grocery retailing format. The chain grocery store began in 1859 when George Huntington Hartford and George Gilman founded The Great American Tea Company, which later came to be named The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (Adelman, 1959). The typical chain store was 45 to 55 square meters, containing a relatively limited assortment of goods. The major advantage of the chain store over its single store counterparts was its volume purchasing power. Volume purchasing allowed chains to lower overhead costs, due to the lower prices per unit charged to chains purchasing larger quantities of goods. The chain store also thrived because of changes in food production, most notably, the mass production of consumable goods. In 1916, a major change in grocery retailing took place when Clarence Saunders opened in Memphis, TN, his patented Piggly Wiggly store; the (debatable) first "truly selfservice market." This revolutionary idea gave customers the opportunity to make direct choices of consumables without assistance of store clerks, which significantly cut labor costs. The chain store thrived and by 1930, A&P, American, First National, Kroger, Safeway, and National Tea companies combined for over 30,000 stores (Mayo, 1993). As the US entered the great depression, negative demand shocks led to additional developments in food retailing. Michael Cullen is widely regarded as the developing the first "supermarket", opened in 1936 under the King Kullen label. Originally an employee of Kroger, Cullen had the idea to offer lower prices, operate enough stores to reduce wholesale costs, and eliminate the need for warehousing, by using a planned retailing outlet with its store size between 470 to 580 square meters. To further lower overhead costs, self-service and cash-and-carry were fully implemented (Mayo, 1993). Soon after the introduction and success of King Kullen, Robert Otis and Roy Dawson joined with a grocery wholesaler to form Big Bear, in Elizabeth, NJ. Otis and Dawson combined 1,350 square meters of grocery retailing with another 3,200 square meters of various departments, such as automotive accessories, hardware, and drugs. As King Kullen's and Big Bear's success attracted national attention, the chain stores were no longer able to ignore the supermarket experiment, and for good reason; in 1932, the Big Bear supermarket generated a sales volume equal to 100 A&P chain stores located in the same New Jersey vicinity (Mayo, 1993). Despite its success as a retailing format, the supermarket concept drew criticism. Even though it was the size of 10 chain stores, it required significantly fewer workers. Wholesalers who refused to stop supplying supermarkets were subsequently blacklisted in

Springer eBooks, 2006

The global retail landscape is changing in some dramatic ways. Retail sales are currently improving. At the same time, competitiveness of both the U.S. retail and global marketplace is escalating. Whereas category dominant retailers were once the store of choice for a variety of products, chains like Wal-Mart, Carrefour, METRO Group, Tesco and Target have taken over in most categories ranging from toys to jewelry. As the world's leading retailer, Wal-Mart has a formidable history of providing greater value to consumers than its competitors, in part due to its innovative supply chain management. French-based Carrefour, the world's second largest retailer, operates five different formats in 30 countries (but not in the United States). 1 Based in Germany, METRO Group is ranked fourth in global sales after Wal-Mart, Carrefour, and Tesco, and it operates four different types of retail formats in 32 countries (Table 1). Costco is the sixth largest retailer in the U.S. and the ninth largest in the world. 2 It has developed a unique retailing strategy that has allowed it to outperform other warehouse club stores such as Sam's Club. A critical component of their strategy is value-based pricing. They generally do not markup merchandise more than 14 %, compared to most supermarkets and department stores who markup products 25 and 50 %, respectively. They also create a lot of excitement by offering limited assortments of prestigious merchandise, such as Waterford Crystal, Polo/Ralph Lauren apparel, and fine diamonds. Their total assortment is about 4,000 stock keeping units (SKU), compared to about 150,000 SKU in a typical Wal-Mart store.

International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management

Purpose-Town centre management (TCM) schemes in Spain have generally evolved primarily from a retail perspective, led by small and medium sized (SME) retailers. However, their development has often focused on business goals (e.g. profit, increase in footfall, etc). In doing so, they have often overlooked the very social issues that have embedded retail historically in the socioeconomic matrix of our towns and cities. This paper, adopting a case-study approach, seeks to re-address this imbalance by exploring some of the key success factors of Gran Centre Granollers (GCG)-one of Spain's most advanced retailer-led TCM schemes located in Granollers (near Barcelona). Design/methodology/approach-This paper, adopting a case-study approach, explores some of the key success factors ofGCC.. Findings-GCG's visionary motto of "city, culture and commerce" and its inclusive approach to the management of the area's stakeholders have captured the imagination of the town's independent retailers (75 per cent of them are members of the scheme). It has also proved pivotal in engaging the town's residents with the scheme's vision, purpose and ethical values. This is reflected in the success of their customer loyalty credit card initiative and the steady growth of the scheme's membership from ten to three hundred businesses in the last ten years. Originality/value-This case study should be of interest to town centre managers, SME retailers, researchers in the social sciences and students of urban regeneration and retail management.

Universidad & Empresa, 2017

This paper suggests links between postponement, mass customization and rapid fulfilment in the light of merge-in-transit retailing (MIT). The paper asserts that the value offered by MIT implementation can be exploited only if these operational strategies are well understood. An extension of this concept is explored to critically consider whether MIT is a feasible strategy in the context of micro-businesses (MBs). MBs are usually treated as if they were big corporations that mainly follow economic-based drivers. However, the owners of MBs operate based on additional motivations such as family orientation, heritage, lifestyle, and prestige.

Journal of Shanghai Jiaotong University, 2021

The Indian retail sector is one the most complex and dynamic sector, it is an amalgamation of the traditional mom and pop stores and modern retail, modern retail although is still in its nascent stage is growing at the very fast pace and transforming the retail landscape of India. The retail sector has evolved as one of the largest players among all the industries. The growth in the organized retail during the recent years is evident by the fact that various shopping malls are sprung up all over the country which is the evidence of its growth. This rise of organized retail has posed many challenges to the unorganized retail as they are constrained by the lack of technology, limited storage place, low investments and many more .These stores have to adopt strategies that would make their business relevant to the current scenario. They have already started taking measures like for making the store air conditioned, hiring right employee for the job, active advertising and promotion of the business, etc. By implementing this course of action the unorganized retail can sustain and survive in the competitive market. The purpose of this research paper is to seek impact of organized retail malls on grocery stores and approximate the various challenges faced by grocery stores, with the advent organized retailers and suggests various effective strategies to grocery store owners to overcome the competition offered from the organized retailers in Nashik city.

Belgeo, 2006

2009