It's a business truism nowadays that electronic commerce is a volatile, rapidly changing landscape. Despite recent discouraging trends, the fact remains that e-commerce is an integral force in business that must be reckoned with. Current research, however, has been limited to several narrow approaches, such as documenting economic performance, describing business models, and generating new applications and technologies. Charles Steinfield calls instead for an examination of how e-commerce influences fundamental relationships between consumers and firms, across firms, and between firms and the larger society in which they operate. New Directions in Research on E-Commerce offers an international group of scholars and practitioners representing eight countries at the cutting edge of electronic commerce. The essays are divided into four basic topics: understanding consumer responses to Internet stores; market structure and business-to-business e-commerce; e-commerce and industry structure case studies; and social and policy concerns in e-commerce. Collectively, they will help researchers, business leaders, and policy makers to arrive at informed, stable approaches to an essential facet of contemporary life.

A "digital divide" threatens the global trade regime. And it is not narrowing - it is rapidly becoming an unbridgeable chasm. Nor is this a problem merely for developing countries: the headlong trend toward dematerialisation of trade documents in the developed world will grind to a halt unless all trading countries without exception possess the legal and operational ability to participate in paperless trade. This work not only describes the obstacles to universal support for paperless trade, but also provides solutions that can be implemented if stakeholders make the collective effort to achieve this goal. Dr. Laryea investigates such central issues as the following: legal problems and security risks not encountered in paper documentation; accommodating low-tech problems with electronic documentation; and funding the construction of information and communication technology infrastructure in developing countries. The presentation focuses on each of the essential contract documents in turn, from the quotation to the documentary credit, explaining exactly how the electronic versions of each work (particularly in terms of security), and why each is desirable.

"A Nation of Shopkeepers" reflects research on retail history and cultures of consumption. The contributors challenge existing ideas about retail development, showing how, for example, large-scale retailers played a far lesser role in the development of the modern city that is generally thought, and how the success of department stores was determined less by "entrepreneurial" spirit and more by the unforseen consequences of legislation. With the growing interest in cultures of consumption, this book should be useful to specialists and students in retail history, human geography and social and cultural history.

"A Nation of Shopkeepers" reflects research on retail history and cultures of consumption. The contributors challenge existing ideas about retail development, showing how, for example, large-scale retailers played a far lesser role in the development of the modern city that is generally thought, and how the success of department stores was determined less by "entrepreneurial" spirit and more by the unforseen consequences of legislation. With the growing interest in cultures of consumption, this book should be useful to specialists and students in retail history, human geography and social and cultural history.

This study of the brandy trade explores the origins, production and marketing of brandy from the Cognac region in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Professor Cullen shows that the brandy trade was based on a sophisticated regional economy, which, by 1720, had become a key component of French involvement in the modern international trading system. Notwithstanding competition from a surplus in other cereals and from foreign markets, regional specialization in the Charente was an indispensable element in ensuring the quality of stable output, and was recognized in the region's success in attracting foreign houses, such as Martell and Hennessy.

This book analyzes the business, geography and politics of shopkeeping in Milan between 1886 and 1922. The author studies the trades, techniques, tax structure and topography of the Milanese retail sector, addresses questions relating to petit bourgeois identity, and explains why shopkeepers were to be found on the political right in the years that led up to the Fascist takeover. This is the first full-scale study of any aspect of the experience of the Italian petite bourgeoisie in the pre-Fascist period.

Textiles are central to our lives and are at the heart of the world's largest industries. In recent years there has been a dynamic shift in attitudes toward textiles, fuelled in part by explosive developments in technology. While textiles have always retained roots in craft and industry, the discipline now embraces a much wider range of practices. Innovations in the industry demand a fresh approach to the subject, which this comprehensive introduction ably supplies. Taking as their starting point the very meaning of textiles, Gale and Kaur go on to show the astonishing range of opportunities for careers in the field, from the creative (artists, craftspeople and designers) to the social and industrial, to the commercial and associated practices (buyers, journalists, researchers and scientists). The Textile Book takes us behind the scenes with professionals to reveal what various jobs involve, what influences decision makers, and how their decisions affect what we buy next season. What happens to clothes before they reach the shops? What determines the 'must have' item? How can recycled bottles be transformed into silk-like yarns? These and many other questions are explored to show the diversity that makes up the contemporary global textile scene. Woven, printed, embroidered, knitted -- textiles are pivotal to the everyday experience of people in all parts of the world. This wide-ranging and informative book conveys the excitement and new challenges textiles represent and is essential reading for anyone working with, studying or simply interested in textiles.

Sequestered within the heart of a cosmopolitan city is an exotic world -- a place where diamonds, astronomically priced, are bought and sold on the strength of a handshake, and business disputes are resolved according to ancient Jewish principles of arbitration. Yet it is also a modern industry facing the same fundamental global changes affecting all businesses today.

In Diamond Stories, Renee Rose Shield leads us into the unexamined realm of wholesale diamond traders in New York. Related to several well-respected traders, she had unprecedented access to a society normally closed to outside inquiry. Here she deftly blends her personal relationship and her anthropological training to provide an insightful exploration of this tradition-bound industry, the new challenges it faces, and the ways both industry and individuals adapt to and endure change.

Shield begins with a fascinating history of diamond mining, combining the story of the De Beers cartel, the role of Jews in the trade, and the part diamonds have played both in war and liberation. Throughout, she incorporates commentary by current diamond traders. Succeeding chapters explore the evolving nature of both the global trade and the New York diamond district. Shield takes a close look at the increasingly complex ethnic makeup of the district, illuminates the rarely documented work done by women, chronicles the resilient system of arbitration, and reveals the ways in which many traders work well into their eighties and nineties. Their long lives of work, cushioned by the trade's social environment, offer hints for successful aging in general.

In a challenge to the widespread belief that poverty and poor living standards have been characteristic of India for centuries, Prasannan Parthasarathi demonstrates that, until the late eighteenth century, laboring groups in South India were in a powerful position, receiving incomes well above subsistence. It was with the rise of colonial rule, the author maintains, that the decline in their economic fortunes was initiated. This is a powerful revisionist statement on the role of Britain in India that will interest students of the region, and economic and colonial historians.

Just as the crash of 1929 did not presage the downfall of the United States, neither will the economic crisis of 1997 mean the end of the rise of Asia and the Pacific Rim. Leading them out of a temporary setback, says Bullis, will be the new high-tech sectors of their economies: information services, communication technology, and electronic delivery systems such as e-commerce and e-business. His book is thus a non-technical look at the state of information technology (IT) and how people in the emerging Asia marketplace are thinking about it, especially in places like Singapore and Malaysia, the only two countries in the region pursuing the sorts of large-scale information infrastructure projects that will eventually determine the region's long term commerce in IT. Not a state of the technology book but a state of the mindset book, it offers businesspeople worldwide an important understanding of this vast and burgeoning market for their products and services, insights that will help decision makers recognize the big mistakes they can make before they make them. An important and fascinating study for executives in all industries that hope to do business in the still vital Asian market.

Bullis makes clear that a great deal of investment money and corporate prestige can be wasted if companies attempt to enter the Asia information technology (IT) services arena with no clear idea of what IT wants. Overseas firms often assume that their potential clients think the way they think and have the same needs. This is especially true, he says, with the sorts of decision makers who assume that marketplace forces alone condition investment decisions. But Asia is not a marketplace; it is a cultureplace. Basic issues, such as freedom of expression, the social utility of information, who should benefit from commerce, and the structure of organizations--all these are viewed differently in Asia. Bullis' book explains just what the mindset of the region is, largely in the words of Asia's IT movers and shakers and those who are rising in the economy to become tomorroW's leaders and influentials, precisely the people with whom their counterparts elsewhere will soon have to deal. Readers will find not only a much better understanding of the kinds of services they should be offering, but how to tailor those services and their delivery systems to local realities.

The story of Britain's market halls-built to replace traditional open-air markets throughout England, Wales, and Scotland-is a tale of exuberant architecture, civic pride, and attempts at social engineering. This book is the first history of the market hall, an immensely important building type that revolutionized the way Britons obtained their consumer goods. James Schmiechen and Kenneth Carls investigate the economic, cultural, political, and social forces that led to the construction of several hundred market buildings in the two centuries after 1750. The market hall was frequently vast in scale, revolutionary in plan, and elaborately ornamented-indeed, it was often the most important architectural statement a proud town might make. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary records, the authors show how municipal authorities used market buildings to improve the supply and distribution of food, convey social ideals, control social and economic behavior, and declare a town's virtues. For the Victorians, Schmiechen and Carls argue, the enormous investment of energy, seriousness, and funding in the market hall reflected a belief that architecture was a primary agent of social reform and improvement. Generously illustrated with more than 180 drawings and photographs, this book also includes a Gazetteer with information about some 300 specific market buildings. Published with assistance from the Annie Burr Lewis Fund

Shoplifiting is the single largest crime impacting U.S. retail merchants with annual losses over $21 billion and with merchants spending hundreds of millions of dollars to prevent it. To add insult to injury, individuals apprehended for shoplifting may sue stores for damages resulting from their apprehension and detention--and sometimes win. There is good news though. States have enacted merchant protection statutes and civil recovery laws which allow retailers to deal more effectively with the problem. Merchant protection statutes give retail merchants the right to apprehend and detain individuals suspected of shoplifting, while enjoying a conditional privilege of civil liability immunity; yet, despite the offer of civil liability immunity, merchants still lose civil suits with alarming regularity. To avoid losses, merchants must know and follow the specifics of their state's statutes to enjoy the immunity.

Well-written with numerous real life experiences and sound advice, Budden's book will help retail store executives better understand shoplifting's enormous financial hazards to their businesses. Budden uses real life cases to show what executives and managers can and cannot do in their efforts to apprehend, detain, and prosecute shoplifters. They will also find up-to-date advice on using civil recovery laws and information about what is being done to make shoplifters pay for their crimes. Budden makes clear that to gain maximum benefit from both merchant protection statutes and civil recovery laws, retail store executives must understand how such legal measures work and how best to apply them to reduce inventory shrinkage. These retail professionals will find Budden's book a useful guide for developing their own safe, workable protection plans.

By 1760, with the alleviation of the French threat to the western frontier, colonial fur traders headed west to reap the bounty of trade with the local tribes. However, when dissatisfied French interests conspired to instigate a revolt, the resulting Pontiac Uprising would force the British to rethink colonial trade policy. The fur traders, who had considered the British government their ally in exploiting the west, now saw the British allying themselves with the French and local tribes to keep the colonists out of the region. The prominent merchants who suffered financially and received no compensation would soon come to oppose British rule.

The fur trade and land speculation were two driving forces in the westward spread of merchant interests, but the promise of such riches would remain unfulfilled. Regulation of the trade would prove an enormous expense for the British; thus, to avoid the financial burden as well as to remove ill-treatment of the Native Americans as a cause for conflict, the Proclamation of 1763 prohibited settlement west of the mountains. The resulting dissatisfaction among the traders and speculators cost the British the support of colonial merchants. This book is an informative account of the interaction of economic, political, and social concerns on the western frontier.

Supermarkets, in all their everyday mundanity, embody something of the enormous complexity of living and consuming in late twentieth century western societies. Shelf Life, first published in 1998, explores the supermarket as a retail space and as an arena of everyday consumption in Australia. It historically situates and critically discusses the everyday food products we buy, the retail environments in which we do so, the attitudes of the retailers who construct such environments, and the diverse ways in which all of us undertake and think about supermarket shopping. Yet this book is more than narrative history. It engages with broader issues of the nature of Australian modernity, the globalisation of retail forms, the connection between consumption and self-autonomy, and the highly gendered nature of retailing and shopping. It interrogates also the work of cultural critics, and questions recent attempts to grasp what it means to consume and to be a 'consumer'.

Supermarkets, in all their everyday mundanity, embody something of the enormous complexity of living and consuming in late twentieth century western societies. Shelf Life, first published in 1998, explores the supermarket as a retail space and as an arena of everyday consumption in Australia. It historically situates and critically discusses the everyday food products we buy, the retail environments in which we do so, the attitudes of the retailers who construct such environments, and the diverse ways in which all of us undertake and think about supermarket shopping. Yet this book is more than narrative history. It engages with broader issues of the nature of Australian modernity, the globalisation of retail forms, the connection between consumption and self-autonomy, and the highly gendered nature of retailing and shopping. It interrogates also the work of cultural critics, and questions recent attempts to grasp what it means to consume and to be a 'consumer'.

This study of the brandy trade explores the origins, production and marketing of brandy from the Cognac region in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Professor Cullen shows that the brandy trade was based on a sophisticated regional economy, which, by 1720, had become a key component of French involvement in the modern international trading system. Notwithstanding competition from a surplus in other cereals and from foreign markets, regional specialization in the Charente was an indispensable element in ensuring the quality of stable output, and was recognized in the region's success in attracting foreign houses, such as Martell and Hennessy.

This text investigates the racial dynamics that exist between Korean merchants, the African American community, and white society in general. Focusing on hostility toward Korean merchants in New York and Los Angeles, the book shows how the "middle-man" economic role which Koreans often occupy, between low-income, minority customers on the one hand and large corporate suppliers on the other, leads to conflict with other groups. Further, the book shows how ethnic conflicts strengthen ties within Korean communities as Koreans organize to protect themselves and their businesses. The book scrutinizes the targeting of Korean businesses during the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the 1990 African American boycotts of Korean stores in Brooklyn. it explores Korean merchants' relationships with each other as well as with Latin American employees, Jewish suppliers and landlords, and government agencies. In each case, the book's analysis reveals how Korean communities respond to general scapegoating through collective action, political mobilization and other strategies.

The last decade has witnessed a clear and steady rise of interest in consumer culture. Many commentators now argue that consumption rather than production is the axis of personal identity and meaningful social action - a standpoint that reverses the traditional view that consumption is an incidental, trivial feature in contemporary culture.

This shrewd and probing book seeks to theorize shopping as an autonomous realm. It avoids the reductionist characteristics of economics and marketing. At the same time it avoids the moralizing tone of many contemporary discussions of shopping and consumption. The book uses an interdisciplinary resource base and comparative data to build-up a convincing analysis of the meaning of shopping

The last decade has witnessed a clear and steady rise of interest in consumer culture. Many commentators now argue that consumption rather than production is the axis of personal identity and meaningful social action - a standpoint that reverses the traditional view that consumption is an incidental, trivial feature in contemporary culture.

This shrewd and probing book seeks to theorize shopping as an autonomous realm. It avoids the reductionist characteristics of economics and marketing. At the same time it avoids the moralizing tone of many contemporary discussions of shopping and consumption. The book uses an interdisciplinary resource base and comparative data to build-up a convincing analysis of the meaning of shopping

CAO is one of the most misunderstood and underutilized weapons available to retailers today. International consultant Barbara Anderson makes clear that in only a limited sense does CAO replace manual ordering. In its full sense it is much more--the optimization of manufacturer, supplier, and retailer distribution to the retail store-- based on consumer and store data and corporate policy. Anderson thus provides a framework and checklist for implementing CAO, and understanding of key terminology, solutions to likely problems, and ways to make CAO implementation successful, and in doing so she covers the full spectrum of retailing. A readable, easily grasped, comprehensive, unique book for retailing management and for their colleagues teaching it in colleges and universities.

Anderson points out that CAO is not an off-the-shelf system but an ongoing project, each phase with its own unique set of benefits and cost justification. Retail systems must support a vision where a product may bypass the store on the way to the consumer, or even the distribution center on the way to the stores. Consumers have a wide range of choices, not only of where to shop, but how to shop, and this demands ever greater levels of service. CAO systems help assure that the correct product is available at the store, that it can be located throughout the supply chain, and that it can be moved easily from any location. In CAO, all levels of operation work with real-time information, using decision-making tools that react and learn from new information. Her book thus shows there is no one right system, product, or approach for successful CAO. It's too big a leap to make in one step but consists of modules and functions that can grow in sophistication over time, and that not all retailers nor all categories within one retailer will use the same methods for forecasting and ordering. She also shows that the distinct separation of replenishment product from planning product is artifically imposed and that the separation of head-quarters from stores is also artificial. Indeed, integration does not mean the integration of separate systems; rather, of business functions themselves. Readers will thus get not only a knowledgeable discussion of what CAO should be, what it is and how it works, but an immediately useful understanding of how to make it work in their own companies.

"A long-needed comparative analysis of...the officer class of the Hudson's Bay and North West companies before and after their merger in 1821...Essential reading for all serious scholars of the fur trade."-Ethnohistory "The book makes a significant contribution to our understanding not only of the fur trade but also to anthropology and Indian-white relations." -Pacific Historical Review For two centuries (1670-1870), English, Scottish, and Canadian fur traders voyaged the myriad waterways of Rupert's Land, the vast territory charted to the Hudson's Bay Company and later splintered among five Canadian provinces and four American states. The knowledge and support of northern Native peoples were critical to the newcomer's survival and success. With acquaintance and alliance came intermarriage, and the unions of European traders and Native women generated thousands of descendants. Jennifer Brown's Strangers in Blood is the first work to look systematically at these parents and their children. Brown focuses on Hudson's Bay Company officers and North West Company wintering partners and clerks-those whose relationships are best known from post journals, correspondence, accounts, and wills. The durability of such families varied greatly. Settlers, missionaries, European women, and sometimes the courts challenged fur trade marriages. Some officers' Scottish and Canadian relatives dismissed Native wives and "Indian" progeny as illegitimate. Traders who took these ties seriously were obliged to defend them, to leave wills recognizing their wives and children, and to secure their legal and social status-to prove that they were kin, not "strangers in blood." Brown illustrates that the lives and identities of these children were shaped by factors far more complex than "blood." Sons and daughters diverged along paths affected by gender. Some descendants became Metis and espoused Metis nationhood under Louis Riel. Others rejected or were never offered that course-they passed into white or Indian communities or, in some instances, identified themselves (without prejudice) as "half breeds." The fur trade did not coalesce into a single society. Rather, like Rupert's Land, it splintered, and the historical consequences have been with us ever since. Jennifer S.H. Brown is a Professor of History at the University of Winnipeg. She is coauthor of The Orders of the Dreamed: George Nelson on Cree and Northern Ojibwa Religion and Myth, 1823, and coeditor of The New Peoples: Being and Becoming Metis in North America.

In today's world of galloping change, adjustment and anticipation have become ever more vital for retail operations. Many retailers have successfully anticipated change, while others have simply become relics of retailing history. Facing intense environmental competition, different types of retail institutions, whether a mass merchandiser or a hotel, find themselves confronting different types of challenges. The stories of a spectrum of retailers highlight the variables necessary for duplicating success and avoiding failure. This timely work provides a starting point for understanding the complexities and interrelationships in retail management.

Since 1925, import substitution programs have diverted South Africa's mineral revenues away from efficient investments and into the creation of an uncompetitive manufacturing sector. Protection has recently been augmented by a General Export Incentive Scheme that was designed to increase manufacturing exports. A multisector general equilibrium analysis shows the export scheme is highly complex with unusual and undesirable structural effects, seeming little more than a continuation of social engineering of the past. This work provides a definitive analysis of past and present South African trade policy, using a methodology of interest to other trade and development researchers operating in similarly spare informational environments.

Since 1985, the process of European unification has accelerated. Physical, technical, and fiscal barriers that separate the 12 countries are being removed, creating the largest mass market in the world. However, the market is not a homogeneous one. Cultural differences still exist; language barriers remain. If there is a Euro-retailer it will be a Euro-retailer that communicates in many languages, anticipates the unique tastes of countless cultures, and maximizes the economies of scale in production to offer the most attractive and unique merchandise at competitive price points.

Distribution logistics within each country are presented along with case studies of major retailers. Internationalization strategies and strategic alliances of retail companies are analyzed. The return of German retailers to the former GDR and distribution opportunities within Eastern Europe are highlighted. Extensive use of on-line financial reports produced by major security offices provide the most current information about this dynamic industry.