Alan Hallsworth

The internationalization of the high fashion brand : the case of central London

The globalization of fashion brands has occurred as major fashion designer houses have expanded their product ranges and diversified into middle‐market diffusion lines. Central London has been the target for some of this development activity in the 1990s. Charts the growth of designer outlets in the UK capital with particular attention to foreign companies and their market‐entry strategies.

Local resistance to larger retailers: the example of market towns and the food superstore in the UK

One important arena for the study of the impact of larger retailers is, in the UK, the market town. This paper shows how locational policies of larger retailers – akin to WalMart openings in the US Midwest – are affecting these traditional towns in rural areas. The paper takes a case study approach by examining the pioneering fightback using the local loyalty card first adopted by Leominster in Herefordshire. Through time it emerges that the community has not been able to sustain its trading opposition to a large format intruder. However, its successes are noted – and study is made of copycat schemes in the UK. A paradox emerges: the most cohesive smaller communities with many independent retailers lack the resources to maintain the fight. Larger settlements can and do support more viable card schemes: but these towns (and cities) having greater populations are themselves already dominated by larger retailers.

The Steady Advance of Wal-Mart across Europe and Changing Government Attitudes towards Planning and Competition

Aggressive internationalisation activities by global retailers frequently encounter, in addition to responses from indigenous rivals, the regulatory mechanisms of the governments of host or target nations. However, these public regulatory mechanisms are themselves in a state of flux, often as a function of internal conflict between government policy sectors. Internationalisation itself is also an agent of change and we illustrate this using the example of retail regulatory systems in Britain and the Netherlands at the time of Wal-Marts entry into the EU. In both countries, an ambivalent stance by the central government was evidenced by the publication of reports by planning authorities and investigations by competition authorities.

Cards in context – the comparative development of local loyalty schemes

Over the last five years, a great deal of attention has been paid to the genesis of what have come to be termed local loyalty cards. Researches the development of the pioneering card – based in Leominster, Herefordshire. This programme of research has led to contacts with a large number of such schemes in Britain – totalling over 60. With the creation of a database of these cards it has now become possible to produce a typology of local loyalty cards. Examines the motivation to adopt and, ultimately, the process whereby individual localities came to select a particular system from the increasing range of available card systems. Also illustrates the remarkable diversity in the nature and scope of such card schemes.

WHO SHOPS WHERE? AND WHY?

The analysis of attitude statements made in respect of grocery shopping has now been undertaken in several locations. Results from the Portsmouth area are reported and such statements are related to the grocery store actually reported as being used by respondents. A further refinement is to disaggregate the results by contrasting two source areas of shoppers, one with a higher socioeconomic profile. It is noted that differences do sometimes emerge in the responses offered by this segmentation. Implications of these findings are discussed.

TRANSPORT POLICY-MAKING: THE CURSE OF THE UNCOMFORTABLE CONSEQUENCE

In this paper we suggest that it is important for policy-makers to resist the notion that desirable change can easily be achieved through sea changes in the thrust of legislation. We utilise a range of examples to show how policy can often be resisted, circumvented or merely misguided, above all, that the outcome is rarely that which was predicted. At the root of the problem is the fact that to predict change we must try to assess how the population at large will react to the new realities. At any one time we can usually only see how they react to present circumstance: predicting how they will react after a change has been made is far more difficult.

The perceived impact of an off‐centre factory outlet mall: the local community dimension

Revisits a retail development near Stoke on Trent, UK, first reported on in 1998. It draws on recent work by Arnold and Luthra which has called for attention to be paid to the effects of large format (big box) retailing. To do so it draws on the opinions of members of the public who live within view of the Stoke on Trent development. It utilises before and after surveying, supplemented by interviews with a community leader, to show how redevelopment is viewed by those it most affects. Findings suggest that even the redevelopment of an existing site can generate protest. However, post‐opening, the concerns are more muted. The research process also reveals that the case study is one with implications for current concerns regarding future use of sites with A1 or open consent as defined under locally‐applicable land‐use planning regulations.

England’s Potteries: past and present pioneers of factory shopping

This research note discusses the difficulty which factory outlet operators are experiencing in finding suitable sites in the UK and, using the example of Freeport Leisure’s acquisition of United Norwest hypermarket in Stoke and other converted “failed” shopping formats, shows how redeveloped sites with low acquisition costs are a likely option for future factory outlet developers. The acquisition has been successful because of the selection of product type for sale (ceramics which lend themselves to discount prices) and location (at the heart of the Potteries).

Tesco and Marks & Spencer: Some Findings on Trading from a Shared Site

Discusses some of the implications of a policy such as that of Marks & Spencer to augment its high street floorspace with a limited selection of out‐of‐town developments. One such proposal was the plan to develop sites jointly with Tesco. Examines the experience of one such joint venture: the Brookfield Centre at Cheshunt.

The transport sector and protected postal services: regulating the activities of Purolator Courier Services in Canada

The signal importance of policy and regulation in the transport field is beyond dispute. Equally, it is said of transport issues that they are all too often at the mercy of policy innovations from cognate sectors (Hallsworth et al., 1998). In this paper we suggest that this is precisely the case in the courier services sector. In the past two decades the fast courier sector has been the fastest-growing sector of physical transportation—and it is perhaps most simply defined by reference to such key players as UPS, DHL and FedEx. The rise in the numbers of delivery-dedicated fleets of aircraft, vans and trucks has been inexorable—impacting on all facets of the “transport problem”. However, rather than concentrate on the wider effects of this important transport sector we choose in this paper to focus on the roots of the industry and the signal importance of policy in the form of market regulation and competition.