West African societies were transformed by the slave trade, even in regions where few slaves were exported. While many books have been written on the import and export trade and on warrior predation, Dr Searing's concern is with the effects of the Atlantic slave trade on the societies of the Senegal river valley in the eighteenth century. He shows that the growth of the Atlantic trade stimulated the development of slavery within West Africa. Slaves worked as seamen in the river and coasting trades, produced surplus grain to feed slaves in transit, and sometimes came to hold pivotal positions in the political structure of the coastal kingdoms of Senegambia. This local slave system had far-reaching consequences, leading to religious protest and slave rebellions. The changes in agricultural production fostered an ecological crisis.

This is the first major biography of Alexander T. Stewart, known during his lifetime as The Merchant Prince for his success in retail, wholesale, and manufacturing in New York City. At the time of his death in 1876, Stewart was one of the three wealthiest men in America, along with William B. Astor and Cornelius Vanderbilt. But, because he died with no surviving children, his name has all but been forgotten. In this work, Stewart is revived, his remarkable success as the father of the department store examined, and his great contributions to retailing acknowledged and recounted. Not only a definitive account, this story of a major figure in America's Gilded Age, as told by Stephen Elias, is also an absorbing tale.

This work fills a gap in the literature on American history and the history of our retail trade. It will be of use to historians, students of merchandising, and those interested in New York's golden age.

Studies of the British Industrial Revolution and of the Victorian period of economic and social development have until very recently concentrated on British industries and industrial regions, while commerce and finance, and particularly that of London, have been substantially neglected. This has distorted our view of the process of change because financial services and much trade continued to be centred on the metropolis, and the south-east region never lost its position at the top of the national league of wealth. This is a pioneer survey of the mercantile sector of the economy from the end of the eighteenth century to World War I. It complements Dr. Chapman's The Rise of Merchant Banking (1984), concentrating on the various ways in which British merchants responded to the unprecedented opportunities of the Industrial Revolution and the growth of the British Empire. The main conclusion is that industrial entrepreneurs contributed only briefly to merchant ventures, and that with limited success. Rather did the established merchant community evolve its own new forms of enterprise to meet the changing opportunities: the 'new frontier' merchant networks of the Atlantic economy, the international houses in continental trade, the agency houses in the Far East, and the home trade houses dominating the domestic market. These resilient organisations enabled the British merchant enterprise to survive longer and in greater strength than in other Western economies.

This book, the result of a symposium co-sponsored by several academic and professional organizations, provides information and insights useful for anyone aspiring to succeed in marketing to consumers in the 1990s. The book is unique in that it blends thoughtful commentaries of distinguished academics with the reasoned perspectives of executives of such firms as J. C. Penney, Avon, and Mary Kay in arriving at an agenda of critical propositions and issues relating to the nature and structure of retailing by the year 2000. What types of retailers will exist in the next century? How many retailers will there be? What will be the relationship between retailing and society? Questions such as these are asked and answered in the book. By focusing on likely trends in traditional retailing, direct marketing, direct selling, and multi-channel distribution networks, and overlaying these trends with the impact of technology and changing consumption patterns, the book provides a set of guidelines for achieving retailing success.

The book identifies the single-most important key to success in the remainder of this century--relationship management. Only by managing relationships between the firm and its customers, between the firm and its employees, and between employees and customers will a firm be able to survive in the 1990s. As the book notes, retail leaders in the next millennium will have learned to respect the lifetime value of both their customers and employees. The book concludes by identifying 25 conditions that will face retailers in the 1990s. These conditions, which range from hypersaturated markets to demographic trends (income polarization, smaller households, educational decline, more working women, time poverty), database marketing, show biz shopping, and concerned customers, are likely to both inhibit and facilitate retailing in the remainder of the century. Hence, the book should be of interest to business academics, business practitioners engaged in, or wanting to be engaged in, marketing to consumers, and anyone interested in the future of retailing from a societal or public policy perspective.

Despite the rapid surge of new product introductions into the grocery product distribution system, relatively little is known about the process and acceptance criteria of trade buyers. In this work, Edward McLaughlin and Vithala Rao examine the crucial role played by trade buyers, and its place in the success of new product introduction. Their study integrates scholarly research and industry information as it explores the various processes used by manufacturers and trade intermediaries in developing and introducing new products.

The book begins with a background survey of the overall structure of U.S. grocery distribution, along with a discussion of the key participants in new product introduction and their standard operating procedures. A broad framework for analyzing new product introductions is presented, and various methodologies that are useful in the process are explained. This is followed by an account of the extensive research conducted by the authors, focusing on new product acceptance by trade buyers, and drawn from three sources: publicly available information, survey data of actual buyer decisions, and buyer decisions based on hypothetical descriptions of new products. The statistical results on the relative importance of decision criteria are used to develop several management tools, including an expert system. The work concludes with a discussion of the implications of these results for marketing managers, procurement executives, and public policy makers. This book will be an important reference tool for practitioners involved in product procurement, as well as for students of marketing and sales.

Whether used as predictors or indicators of stock prices, financial risk, merger candidates, or bond yields, financial ratios have been, and continue to be, a popular tool for analyzing a firm and its performance. Practitioners and academics who employ financial ratios often compare and contrast across several industries, but such evaluations assume that the ratios of one industry measure the same underlying concepts as the ratios of another. This book provides evidence on the comparability of financial ratios across several industries, assessing the similarity or dissimilarity of ratios among industry taxonomies, or groups of ratios.

Extending previous studies that focused primarily on manufacturing firms, this work surveys a wide variety of both manufacturing and retail corporations, and determines the classification patterns of their respective financial ratios. The taxonomies of thirty two ratios, in seven representative industries, are examined for the ten-year period from 1978 through 1987. Two introductory chapters detail the nature of the research, the data utilized, variables employed, and statistical methodologies, as well as providing a brief summary of the results. A third chapter furnishes results for the entire economy by factors of return, cash flow, cash position, inventory, sales, liquidity, and debt; while seven separate chapters describe the study's conclusions for each of the primary industries: automobile and aerospace; chemical, rubber, and oil; electronics; food; retail; steel; and textile. The work concludes with a summary of the study and its conclusions, and an examination of the limitations of this type of research and possibilities for its extension. This book will be a valuable practical resource for accounting and finance professionals, as well as an important reference for courses in finance, accounting, and management. Public, academic, and business libraries will also find it a useful addition to their collections.

The first study of its kind to be published in English, this volume offers a unique contemporary and historical analysis of postwar small-scale industrialization in central and northeastern Italy. Based on a 21-month field study undertaken by the author, "Made in Italy" covers a 100-year time period that encompasses the transformation of central Italy from a poor, agriculturally backward rural society into an important postwar industrial producer of export goods for the world market. Author Michael Blim challenges the widely discussed model for industrial revival proposed by Piore and Sabel in their 1984 study, arguing that forms of labor exploitation rather than technological innovation account for the central-northeastern Italian industrial success. He also challenges contemporary economic policy notions that argue that this kind of industrial success is longlasting and easily replicable in other late-developing regions, asserting instead that the petty entrepreneurial, familial character of the Italian small-scale industrial sector militates against its ultimate durability in a world dominated by transnational corporations.

Blim starts from the premise that the rapid postwar economic development in the towns of central and northeastern Italy was the culmination of a century-long process of radical social change. Taking the shoe industry as an example, Blim shows how postwar entrepreneurs, accustomed to an economic system based on family enterprises, created an innovative local production system utilizing the cooperation of highly specialized firms. Although the enterprises enjoyed remarkable success, Blim demonstrates that profits depended greatly upon the exploitation of secondary labor populations, and the use of undocumented labor, facts usually ignored in other treatments of central-northeastern Italian economic development. Organized into three sections, the study first analyzes social and economic life between the Unification of Italy and the end of World War II. Subsequent chapters discuss the rise of the new industrial order and its labor process, describe the social and political consequences of postwar development, and offer the author's conclusions. Students of economic development, anthropology, and sociology will find this an important counterweight to studies that fail to assess the sometimes deleterious effects of postwar industrialization.

Dependence upon grain deeply marked every aspect of life in eighteenth-century France. Steven Kaplan focuses upon this dependence at the point where it placed the greatest strain on the state, the society, and the individual-on the daily supply of grain and flour that furnished the staff of life. He reconstructs the history of provisioning in pre-industrial Paris and provides a comprehensive view of a culture shaped by the subsistence imperative. Who were the agents of the provisioning trade? What were their commercial practices? What sorts of relations did they maintain with each other? How did the authorities regulate their business? To answer these questions, Professor Kaplan combed the archives and libraries of France. He maps out the elementary structures of the trade and shows how they were transformed as a result of cultural and political as well as commercial and technological changes. In rich ethnographic detail he evokes the dayto-day life of merchants, millers, bakers, brokers, and market officials. He shows how flour superseded grain and how the millers overtook the merchants in the provisioning process. He explores the tension between the suppliers' need for freedom and the consumers' need for security. Even as he weaves the intricate patterns of life inside and outside the marketplace he never loses sight of the immense interests at stake: the stability and legitimacy of the government, the durability of the social structure, and the survival of the people.

The fashion and luxury industries have been well-established for centuries, but the new disruptive digital environment is causing these industries to rethink their business case and adapt their brand offerings for consumers and experiences both online and offline, mixing physical place and digital space: phygital. This exciting new text, the first on this timely subject, written by an expert author explores the current malaise and offers ways forward through a mixture of research and practice-led examples.

In this new text, Dhruv Grewal, a leading Professor of Marketing and Retailing, explores the complexities of the contemporary retail environment by drawing on what he refers to as the 5 Es of retailing: - Entrepreneurial, innovative and customer-centric mindset - Excitement - Education - Experience - Engagement These are illustrated using a wide range of examples such as Tesco, Kroger, Zara, Wholefoods, Groupon, and Amazon. Together, the framework and examples enable readers to navigate today's challenging retail environment made up of social media, retailing analytics and online and mobile shopping. Retail Marketing Management is essential reading for students of retailing and marketing, as well as practitioners working in retail today.

Emphasizing the apparel and beauty industries, Retailing in Emerging Markets, 2nd Edition provides an in-depth study of the retail landscape within Brazil, China, India, Russia, Turkey, Qatar, Thailand, South Korea and Mexico. Each chapter focuses on a single country, discussing the organization of its retail industry, analyzing consumer behavior, and presenting strategies for effectively entering its market. This new edition includes fully updated data, statistics and economic perspectives on each of the countries covered. Readers will emerge armed with a deeper understanding of the political, economic, and cultural factors driving each market-an understanding essential for building and maintaining a competitive edge in today's global retail environment. New to this Edition * Two new chapters on South Korea and Qatar investigate the current marketplace opportunities and challenges * Increased coverage of the legislative landscapes and long-term economic outlooks for each country * Updated and new chapter case studies analyze the expansion strategies of international retailers * New Chapter Summaries and Critical Thinking Questions offer additional learning tools * Includes 60% new photos and current maps to bring the chapters to life * Expanded contributor biographies highlight the expertise of each scholar

Department stores in Germany, like their predecessors in France, Britain, and the United States, generated great excitement when they appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. Their sumptuous displays, abundant products, architectural innovations, and prodigious scale inspired widespread fascination and even awe; at the same time, however, many Germans also greeted the rise of the department store with considerable unease. In The Consuming Temple, Paul Lerner explores the complex German reaction to department stores and the widespread belief that they posed hidden dangers both to the individuals, especially women, who frequented them and to the nation as a whole.Drawing on fiction, political propaganda, commercial archives, visual culture, and economic writings, Lerner provides multiple perspectives on the department store, placing it in architectural, gender-historical, commercial, and psychiatric contexts. Noting that Jewish entrepreneurs founded most German department stores, he argues that Jews and "Jewishness" stood at the center of the consumer culture debate from the 1880s, when the stores first appeared, through the latter 1930s, when they were "Aryanized" by the Nazis. German responses to consumer culture and the Jewish question were deeply interwoven, and the "Jewish department store," framed as an alternative and threatening secular temple, a shrine to commerce and greed, was held responsible for fundamental changes that transformed urban experience and challenged national traditions in Germany's turbulent twentieth century.

Chris Edwards has gone from running a stall in the Wakefield markets to masterminding a single-price shopping chain with more than 300 stores across the United Kingdom. The remarkable retail rise to fame of his Poundworld business was fascinatingly featured in 2015's highly-rated BBC1 series, Pound Shop Wars - and while Chris opened up about his astonishing success story to the cameras, it was his eighty-eight-year-old mum Alice who truly became a cult figure. 'I've always been driven by the fear of ending up skint!' says Chris, who admits he once risked losing not only his own home, but also the houses of both his brother and business partner Laurie and of his own mum and dad on a single risky deal. Now, his frank and inspiring autobiography reveals the rise and rise of the businessman from hard-working one-man band with just a single van to high street tycoon with a fleet of huge lorries and more than 6,000 employees. And somehow along the way the sixty-five-year-old Yorkshireman also built a thriving nightclub business with no fewer than nine venues. In 2015, Chris sold 75 per cent of Poundworld to American venture capitalists TPG for GBP150million, but he is still in control and determined to drive Poundworld to new heights. This is the truly inspiring story of one man's rise to the very top.

Electronic business is a major force shaping the digital world. Yet, despite of years of research and standardization efforts, many problems persist that prevent e-business from achieving its full potential. Problems arise from different data vocabularies, classification schemas, document names, structures, exchange formats and their varying roles in business processes. Non-standardized business terminology, lack of common acceptable and understandable processes (grammar), and lack of common dialog rules (protocols) create barriers to improving electronic business processes. Handbook of Research on E-Business Standards and Protocols: Documents, Data and Advanced Web Technologies contains an overview of new achievements in the field of e-business standards and protocols, offers in-depth analysis of and research on the development and deployment of cutting-edge applications, and provides insight into future trends. This book unites new research that promotes harmony and agreement in business processes and attempts to choreograph business protocols and orchestrate semantic alignment between their vocabularies and grammar. Additionally, this Handbook of Research discusses new approaches to improving standards and protocols, which include the use of intelligent agents and Semantic Web technology.

Grocery shopping is an often ignored part of the story of how food ultimately gets to our pantry shelves and tables. A Theory of Grocery Shopping explores the social organization of grocery shopping by linking the lived experience of grocery shoppers and retail managers in the US with information transmitted by nutritionists, government employees, financial advisors, journalists, health care providers and marketers, who influence the way we think about and perform the work of shopping for a household's food. The author provides insight into the contradictory messages that shape how consumers provision their households, and details how consumers respond to these messages. The book challenges the consumer choice model that places responsibility on the shopper for making the "right" choice at the grocery store, thereby ignoring the larger social forces at work, which determine what products are available and how they get to the shelves.

Marjorie L. Hilton presents a captivating history of consumer culture in Russia from the 1880s to the early 1930s. She highlights the critical role of consumerism as a vehicle for shaping class and gender identities, modernity, urbanism, and as a mechanism of state power in the transition from tsarist autocracy to Soviet socialism.
Beginning in the late nineteenth century, Russia witnessed a rise in mass production, consumer goods, advertising, and new retail venues such as arcades and department stores. These mirrored similar developments in other European countries and reflected a growing quest for leisure activities, luxuries, and a modern lifestyle. As Hilton reveals, retail commerce played a major role in developing Russian public culture--it affected celebrations of religious holidays, engaged diverse groups of individuals, defined behaviors and rituals of city life, inspired new interpretations of masculinity and femininity, and became a visible symbol of state influence and provision.
Through monarchies, revolution, civil war, and monumental changes in the political sphere, Russia's distinctive culture of consumption was contested and recreated. Leaders of all stripes continued to look to the "commerce of exchange" as a key element in appealing to the masses, garnering political support, and promoting a modern nation.
Hilton follows the evolution of retailing and retailers alike, from crude outdoor stalls to elite establishments; through the competition of private versus state-run stores during the NEP; and finally to a system of total state control, indifferent workers, rationing, and shortages under a consolidating Stalinist state.

The huge expansion of new marketplaces and new retailers over the last fifty years has created a retail revolution.These large and globally sophisticated retailers have harnessed the new technologies in communications and logistics to build consumer markets around the world and to create suppliers, new types of manufacturers, that provide consumers with whatever goods they want to buy. These global retailers are at the hub of the new global economy. They are the new Market Makers, and they have changed the way the global economy works.
Despite the fact that this retail revolution unfolded right before our eyes, this book is the first to describe the market-making capabilities of these retailers. In eleven chapters by leading scholars, The Market Makers provides a detailed and highly readable analysis of how retailers have become the leading drivers of the new global economy.

In recent times, there has been debate over the entry of large corporate houses into the retail sector in India. This study finds that both traditional and organized retail can not only coexist but also achieve rapid and sustained growth in the coming years. The findings of this study are based on the largest ever survey of various stakeholders and an extensive review of international experience, particularly emerging countries of relevance to India. There has been competitive response from traditional retailers through improved business practices and technology up gradation. Consumers and farmers gain considerably from the entry of organized retail. The organized retail sector is capable of taking care of itself, but public policy needs to help create a level playing field for traditional retailers. Based on the results of the surveys, the authors have made a number of specific policy recommendations for regulating the interaction of large retailers with small suppliers and for strengthening the competitive response of the traditional retailers.

This text is designed for use in a buying course with a heavy math emphasis. The book first presents merchandising concepts in a simple, understandable way and shows students how they can use computerized spreadsheets to perform related merchandising math operations. Activities then ask the student to apply what they've learned by solving merchandising problems using spreadsheets that are included on the enclosed CD-Rom. Students will learn how the computer can help minimize the time it takes to perform repetitive calculations. By constructing and using spreadsheets for each mathematical operation, they will develop a better understanding of the merchandising concepts they're studying. This manual is designed to accompany the text Retail Buying, also by Richard Clodfelter.New to this Edition -- New and revised mathematical assignments -- Blank assignment forms included on the CD-Rom -- Increased coordination with companion text Retail Buying: From Basics to FashionCD-ROM Features-- Microsoft Excel(r) spreadsheets containing formulas -- PC and Mac compatible -- Instructor's Guide includes teaching suggestions, goals, & lecture outlines

What happened to Montgomery Ward, L.S. Ayers, Gimbels, Wanamaker's, and Marshall Fields? And what happened to the Paul Harris Stores? They were all casualties of the retail store battles in which the life expectancy is twenty years or less. Wal-Mart is going strong now but will it have to merge with a rival later like Sears did with K-Mart to survive. Time will tell. Paul Harris Stores brought fashion, comfort, style, and functionality to millions of women in the Midwest. Instead of flying to New York City, Midwest women could drive to their local malls in Ohio and Indiana to get the latest style. Gerald Paul, the brains behind Paul Harris Stores, understood what women wanted to wear and was able to deliver during the chain's fifty year run. Paul's life is about American culture, retail history, and a brand of entrepreneurship that appears to be making a comeback. The business cycle of Paul Harris Stores provides a first-hand glimpse into the inner workings of specialty retail. More than a guide, however, My Business Life Cycle is the story of dreams and individual accomplishments. The journey of Gerald Paul is the Horatio Alger story, the great American story of success, success that ultimately ended.

Going Up, Going Down! is the second title in the new series AUP Studies in Cultural and Social History edited by Caroline Daley and Deborah Montgomerie, a series of richly illustrated medium-length books, reflecting New Zealand's distinctive and sometimes quirky history. This lively account of the New Zealand department store with its stunning photographs will revive many memories of the delights of department store shopping, raise some smiles and remind us of the role of a cultural icon which was also a dominant player in the urban economy. This book revisits the variety, excitement and colourful stories of some of New Zealand's large department stores, most of which have now disappeared, although many of their buildings remain as unidentified inner city landmarks. Its chapter format echoes the rise and subsequent descent of many of those department stores, in a lift attendant's announcements of the passing floors. Helen Laurenson's extensive research has uncovered many fascinating facts about individual stores like Kirkaldie and Stains, Ballantynes and George Courts, and she also includes much of interest about the layout of the stores, the people who worked there, and the goods they sold. She charts the historical pattern from the stores - beginnings to their heyday in the 1950s to their decline and more modest presence in the contemporary city.

The Consumer Trap blows the lid off the trillion-dollar-a-year business marketing industry, explaining how it continues to soak up economic and environmental resources and dominate the personal lives of citizens. Flouting conventional mainstream and radical thinking about consumer culture, Michael Dawson reveals how corporate marketing embodies and extends into personal life the scientific management principles famously enunciated by Frederick Winslow Taylor, whose earliest disciples predicted the big business marketing revolution. After revealing why corporate capitalism fuels an ever-increasing marketing race, Dawson provides a step-by-step account of how this behemoth works and expands. Using firsthand evidence, he explains in detail how big business marketing campaigns penetrate and profoundly affect the lives of ordinary Americans. Dawson argues that if people are to escape the costly consumer trap set by the overclass, they will need to renew class struggle from below, inventing new institutions for democratically governing and implementing major economic decisions. A blueprint for reinventing the study and debate of the sociocultural effects of corporate marketing practices, The Consumer Trap makes big business marketing a target of direct historical and sociological scrutiny.

The author shows how the societies of West Africa were transformed by the slave trade. The growth of the Atlantic trade stimulated the development of slavery within the region, with slaves working in the river and coasting trades or producing surplus grain to feed slaves in transit. A few held pivotal positions in the political structure of the coastal kingdoms of Senegambia. This local slave system had far-reaching consequences, leading to religious protest and slave rebellions. The changes in agricultural production fostered an ecological crisis.