Retail history is a rich, cross-disciplinary field that demonstrates the centrality of retailing to many aspects of human experience, from the provisioning of everyday goods to the shaping of urban environments; from earning a living to the construction of identity. Over the last few decades, interest in the history of retail has increased greatly, spanning centuries, extending to all areas of the globe, and drawing on a range of disciplinary perspectives. By offering an up-to-date, comprehensive thematic, spatial and chronological coverage of the history of retailing, this Companion goes beyond traditional narratives that are too simplistic and Euro-centric and offers a vibrant survey of this field. It is divided into four broad sections: 1) Contexts, 2) Spaces and places, 3) People, processes and practices and 4) Geographical variations. Chapters are written in an analytical and synthetic manner, accessible to the general reader as well as challenging for specialists, and with an international perspective. This volume is an important resource to a wide range of readers, including marketing and management specialists, historians, geographers, economists, sociologists and urban planners.

Introduction to Business covers the scope and sequence of most introductory business courses. The book provides detailed explanations in the context of core themes such as customer satisfaction, ethics, entrepreneurship, global business, and managing change. Introduction to Business includes hundreds of current business examples from a range of industries and geographic locations, which feature a variety of individuals. The outcome is a balanced approach to the theory and application of business concepts, with attention to the knowledge and skills necessary for student success in this course and beyond. This is an adaptation of Introduction to Business by OpenStax. You can access the textbook as pdf for free at openstax.org. Minor editorial changes were made to ensure a better ebook reading experience. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Retail Marketing and Branding, 2nd Edition looks at how retailers can make more out of their marketing money with retail best practices in branding and marketing spend optimization. The second edition of Retail Marketing and Branding includes the following updates: * New and updated case examples * Updated figures and examples throughout * New interviewers with recent experiences * Additional chapters

This book surveys the landscape of supermarket retailing in Africa, showing how this expanding part of the retail sector is changing consumerism on the continent. Drawing on research covering retail formats, consumer behaviour, strategies, operation research, ICT, relationship marketing, and market linkage, the book investigates the many factors impacting the growth of supermarkets in Africa. The contributors employ theories, concepts, and methods in order to help us to understand changing consumer behaviour, the strategies used by suppliers to access supermarkets, the role of service suppliers in the growth of the sector, and ultimately how supermarkets can assist in making the market linkage between producers and consumers in Africa. The chapters provide a comprehensive exploration of modern retail, discussing its growth and future, identifying consumer preferences, as well as suggesting solutions to the challenges that retailers and suppliers on the continent face in developing the sector. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of the retail sector and retail management in Africa.

Retail shelf management means cost-efficiently aligning retail operations with consumer demand. As consumers expect high product availability and low prices, and retailers are constantly increasing product variety and striving towards high service levels, the complexity of managing retail business and its operations is growing enormously. Retailers need to match consumer demand with shelf supply by balancing variety (number of products) and service levels (number of items of a product), and by optimizing demand and profit through carefully calibrated prices. As a result the core strategic decisions a retailer must make involve assortment sizes, shelf space assignment and pricing levels. Rigorous quantitative methods have emerged as the most promising solution to this problem. The individual chapters in this book therefore focus on three areas: (1) combining assortment and shelf space planning, (2) providing efficient decision support systems for practically relevant problem sizes, and (3) integrating inventory and price optimization into shelf management.

In many FMCG companies, the challenges for the sales function are to develop effective sales strategies and to deliver excellent sales operations in order to support the achievement of business targets. The purpose of this book is to provide a practical guide to sales management through the analysis of its key components: route to market, sales strategy, key performance indicators, organizational models, sales force management, customer business planning, order to cash, and sales and operations planning. For each of these topics, the content of this book is a balance of theory, practical tips, and useful tools, keeping in mind not only the “what,” but also the “how” of the implementation. The reader will learn how to map sales channels, assess a customer base, design a sales strategy, build a sales scorecard, and organize a sales team’s frontline and back ofi ce. The book also covers how to structure trade category plans, customer business plans, and customer negotiation plans and how to optimize the sales team’s contribution to the company’s key fundamental processes. It concludes with an overview of the future challenges of sales management.