This business book is great for leaders, middle managers and entrepreneurs interested in the following categories:

• Small Business
• Entrepreneurship
• Marketing
• Strategy
• Branding
• Customer Experience

Make it easy for customers to choose you; whatever your business, product or service.

With customers now subconsciously weighing up their massively expanded options in terms of purchase friction (how easy it is to spend) and shopping reward (the extras inherent to the buying experience); your job is to make it easy for them to choose you

When is high friction bad? Friction includes frustrations like putting a coin in a supermarket trolley lock, too many clicks, and hidden frictions from awkward presentation, process and offer. Reward includes quality of business support, amazing retail environments, even emotional issues such as trust and belonging.

When is high friction good? What value do different customers place on friction and reward across different buying scenarios? How can I benchmark against competitors? And, where are the big opportunities and where should we focus effort and resource? How do I market improved experiences to win customers?

Friction Reward teaches you how to understand, measure and improve every single possible customer interaction by applying techniques outlined in the book to your customer experiences and organisations.

Readers will:

• Create easier, faster and improved customer experiences by reducing friction and increasing reward.
• Discover how reducing friction attracts new customers, increases spend from existing ones and gives you a competitive advantage.
• Understand how the world's leading retailers, B2B sellers and public service providers are winning using these insights.
• Learn how to apply practical tools and technologies to their own customer and user scenarios both online and in the physical world.

The increasing popularity of online shopping makes Internet retailing a megatrend that cannot be ignored. The collaboration of two co-authors bringing academic rigor and broad consulting experience into the mix, Internet Retail Operations: Integrating Theory and Practice for Managers offers enduring insights on operational issues and principles for the management of internet supply chains. Covering a range of emerging issues supported by a variety of case studies, the book details the evolution of information technology's role in retail supply chain networks, its impact on supply chain networks, and how this has changed service operations. It addresses information technology in relation to service and retail industries, then explores how supply chain dynamics impact traditional service and retail delivery, the costs involved, and customer satisfaction and loyalty. It includes tables, vignettes, and graphs that make the content practical and relevant. As you will learn, many attempts at internet retail do not succeed, some because they fail to appreciate the fundamentals, others may have simply been ahead of their time. Many years of experimentation and growth lie ahead. Drawing equally on theory, research results, and real-world experience, the book provides strategies for overcoming the challenges of building operations capability in the evolving world of Internet retailing.

There has been a great deal of recent interest in masculine clothing, examining both its production and consumption, and the ways in which it was used to create individual identities and to build businesses, from 1850 onwards. Drawing upon a wide range of sources this book studies the interaction between producers and consumers at a key period in the development of the ready-made clothing industry. It also shows that many innovations in advertising clothing, usually considered to have been developed in America, had earlier British precedents. To counter the lack of documentary evidence that has hitherto hampered research into the dress practices of non-elite groups, this book utilises thousands of unpublished visual documents. These include hundreds of manufacturers' designs, which underline an unexpected degree of investment by manufacturers in boys' clothing, and which was matched by heavy investment in advertising, with thousands of images of boys' clothing for shop catalogues in the Stationers' Hall copyright archive. Another key source is the archives of Dr Barnardo's Homes. This extraordinary collection contains over 15,000 documented photographs of boys entering between 1875 and 1900, allowing us to look beyond official polarization of 'raggedness' and 'respectability' used by charities and social reformers of all stripes and to establish the clothing that was actually worn by a large sample of boys. A close analysis of 1,800 images reveals that even when families were impoverished, they strove to present their boys in ways that reflected their position in the family group and in society. By drawing on these visual sources, and linking the design and retailing of boys' clothing with social, cultural and economic issues, this book shows that an understanding of the production and consumption of the boys clothing is central to debates on the growth of the consumer society, the development of mass-market fashion, and concepts of childhood and masculinity.

A not-so-quiet revolution seems to be occurring in wealthy capitalist societies - supermarkets selling 'guilt free' Fairtrade products; lifestyle TV gurus exhorting us to eat less, buy local and go green; neighbourhood action groups bent on 'swopping not shopping'. And this is happening not at the margins of society but at its heart, in the shopping centres and homes of ordinary people. Today we are seeing a mainstreaming of ethical concerns around consumption that reflects an increasing anxiety with - and accompanying sense of responsibility for - the risks and excesses of contemporary lifestyles in the 'global north'.

This collection of essays provides a range of critical tools for understanding the turn towards responsible or conscience consumption and, in the process, interrogates the notion that we can shop our way to a more ethical, sustainable future. Written by leading international scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds - and drawing upon examples from across the globe - Ethical Consumption makes a major contribution to the still fledgling field of ethical consumption studies. This collection is a must-read for anyone interested in the relationship between consumer culture and contemporary social life.

This book evaluates Country of Origin (COO) research from new critical perspectives, providing insights on how COO shapes both consumer behaviour and business trends, and how marketers can overcome or take advantage of COO in their strategies. The contributors explore a variety of strategies for utilising Country of Origin, including how country image can influence market entry positioning strategies, and how brand heritage can be utilised as a communication tool. There is also a study of what percentage of online products require COO identification, and whether this percentage correlates to customer satisfaction. Several contributors look at consumers' preference for food in relation to COO and authenticity, and further chapters explore the impact of consumer identification with a nation on how they evaluate brands. As Country of Origin is increasingly evaluated by consumers and used by marketers to safeguard locally-owned products, this book will be of interest to those studying the relationship between country-authentic brands and their promotion in the global marketplace. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Promotion Management.

Whilst there has been much recent scholarly work on retailing during the early modern period, less is known about how people at the time perceived retailing, both as onlookers, artists and commentators, and as participants. Centred on the general theme of perceptions, the authors address this gap in our knowledge by looking at a different aspect of consumption. They focus on two ancillary themes: the first is location and how contemporaries perceived the settlements in which there were shops; the other is distance. Pictures, prints, novels, diaries and promotional literature of the tradespeople themselves provide much of the evidence. Many of these sources are not new to historians, but they have not been scrutinized and analysed with the questions in mind that are posed here. The methodology to be employed has been developed by Nancy Cox over the last decade, and is used successfully in her book The Complete Tradesman and in the compilation of the forthcoming Dictionary of Traded Goods and Commodities 1550-1800. This book will find a ready market with scholars concerned with British social and economic history in the early modern period. Although it is first and foremost a book written by historians for historians, it nevertheless borrows concepts and approaches from various disciplines concerned with theories of consumption, material culture and representational art.

An important contribution to our understanding of the distribution of retail activities, particularly within cities, this book provides a critical review of the literature on the subject. It points out the major general propositions concerning retailing from the geographical point of view, and identifies key research problems, which need to be examined in order to push forward the frontiers of this sub field of economic geography. It presents a major critique of the central-place model, which has came to hold an important place in the methodology of economic geography, and clearly and decisively shows the model to be static, deterministic, retrospective and of little value for predictive purposes.

Scott also shows with regard to the question of the hierarchy of shopping centers (a major facet of central-place thought) that the methodology employed to identify these hierarchies rests on restricted theory, imperfect data, incomplete measures, and arbitrary decisions. Although he recognizes the value of some of the work associated with the central-place syndrome, the author presents the first effective antithesis to its beguiling and simplistic appeal. He argues that the geography of retailing cannot be understood without reference to the organization of retailing as an economic and social activity and complex patterns of consumer and entrepreneurial behavior, none of which are dealt with in central-place studies.

Distinguished by clarity of presentation objectivity of analysis and breadth of inter-disciplinary interest, this is the only book that covers the geography of retailing substantively and methodologically. This book is jargon and mathematics free, and contains the most complete bibliography on the geography of retailing available in a single volume the book. It will be of value to all social scientists concerned with retailing as a major activity, particularly in modern societies. It may be used as a basic or supplementary text for courses in economic geography, marketing and retailing.

"Peter Scott" is a recognized expert in the geography of retailing and the economic geography of cities. He is engaged in continuing research in these areas and has worked in South Africa, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

Fashion buying and merchandising has changed dramatically over the last 20 years. Aspects such as the advent of new technologies and the changing nature of the industry into one that is faster paced than ever before, as well as the shift towards more ethical and sustainable practices have resulted in a dramatic change of the roles. As a result, contemporary fast fashion retailers do not follow the traditional buying cycle processes step by step, critical paths are wildly different, and there has been a huge increase in 'in-season buying' as a response to heightened consumer demand. This textbook is a comprehensive guide to 21st-century fashion buying and merchandising, considering fast fashion, sustainability, ethical issues, omnichannel retailing, and computer-aided design. It presents an up-to-date buying cycle that reflects key aspects of fashion buying and merchandising, as well as in-depth explanations of fashion product development, trend translation, and sourcing. It applies theoretical and strategic business models to buying and merchandising that have traditionally been used in marketing and management. This book is ideal for all fashion buying and merchandising students, specifically second- and final-year undergraduate as well as MA/MSc fashion students. It will also be useful to academics and practitioners who wish to gain a greater understanding of the industry today.

This book provides a uniform and coherent approach to the analysis of distribution systems in general and retail systems in particular. It develops the fundamentals of retail demand and supply, and demonstrates how the provision of distribution services is a principal determinant of economic outcomes in retail exchanges for both retailers and their customers, as well as for other agents such as suppliers and franchisors. The author integrates the existing literature with new applications to provide novel insights into the multi-product nature of retailing, the service aspects of packaging, and the evolution of retail formats such as supermarkets, non-store retailers (including the Internet) and shopping centers. He illustrates how the complementarity that underlies retail activities leads to lower average prices for customers. This integrative process also brings out the role of distribution services as mechanisms to exercise economic power. This is evident not only in channels of distribution but in the evolution of Wal-Mart and the development of franchise contracts. The author also identifies the crucial differences between the retailing of goods and the retailing of services. This impressive volume skilfully integrates conceptual, theoretical and empirical research to analyse critical issues in the economics of retailing and distribution. It will be required reading for academics and professional economists interested in industrial organization, marketing, applied microeconomics and business.

In this work John Bone provides a lively and engaging insight into the social world of direct selling organizations. He investigates these under-researched organizations via a detailed ethnography of two home improvement companies selling products such as fitted kitchens, double glazing and conservatories, as well as developing wider sociological debates on trust and interaction. These organizations tend to be loosely ordered and internally competitive collectives whose sole aim is to maximize short term profits through sales strategies that routinely employ the calculative exploitation of consumer norms and expectations. John Bone uses his findings to argue that amid the wave of increasing deregulation and liberalization that has supplanted the planned and regulated form of capitalism that predominated until the 1970s, such conditions are now becoming prevalent in mainstream contemporary organizations, threatening to unleash a latent disorder that underlies the rationality of 'modern' business.

In the context of widespread precarity and ongoing crises, it is no surprise ruins have captured much attention in recent years. This book is about a new kind of space, one that is deeply troubling for consumer society: the retail ruin. Jacob C. Miller bridges human geography, archaeology and critical urban studies to offer a starting point for conceptualizing retail ruins. Drawing on fieldnotes and photographs, Miller crafts a hauntological approach informed by the theories of Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida to more recent thinking on assemblage, spectacle and the politics of urban space.

How has the activity of shopping changed over the centuries? And what does it tell us about the lives and interests of people living within different cultures? In a work that spans 2,500 years, these questions are addressed by 55 experts, each contributing an overview of a theme applied to a period in history. With the help of a broad range of case material they illustrate broad trends and nuances of the culture of shopping from antiquity to the present. Individual volume editors ensure the cohesion of the whole and, to make it as easy as possible to use, chapter titles are the same across each of the volumes. This gives the choice of reading about a specific period in one of the volumes, or following a theme across history history by reading the relevant chapter in each of the six. The six volumes cover: 1 - Antiquity (500 BCE to 500 CE); 2 - Middle Ages (500 to 1450); 3 - Early Modern Age (1450 to 1650); 4 - Age of Enlightenment (1650 to 1820); 5 - Age of Revolution and Empire (1820 to 1920); 6 - Modern Age (1920 to 2000+). Themes and chapter titles are: Practices and Processes; Spaces and Places; Shoppers and Identities; Luxury and Everyday; Home and Family; Visual and Literary Representations; Reputation, Trust and Credit; and Governance, Regulation and the State. The page extent for the pack is approximately 1,700 pp. Each volume opens with Notes on Contributors and an Introduction by the Volume Editor and concludes with Notes, Bibliography and an Index. The Cultural Histories Series A Cultural History of Shopping is part of the Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available both as printed hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a one-off purchase and tangible reference for their shelves, or as part of a fully searchable digital library available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access (see www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com).

* A perfect guide for marketing and sustainable procurement and supply chain professionals in large companies, local authorities and governments and NGOs globally. * Can be used as a supplementary text on postgraduate and advanced undergraduate courses aimed at responsible marketing and procurement. * The book can be used internationally - ethical buying and selling behaviours are proliferating in almost all countries of the world. * Written by a leading authority on ethical consumption.

This work investigates the current state of selling, whether groceries, politicians, information or motorcars. Like no other phenomenon, "retailization" reflects the complexity and ubiquity of information flows, processes and convergence of media in the wired world. The authors explore the all-pervasive nature of the retail experience in the physical world, the virtual world - and in the peripheral spaces between the two. Companies interviewed include Asda, MOMA, The Tate Modern, Walmart, Sony, Habitat, Manchester United and Volkswagen; individuals include Naomi Klein, Tom Dixon, Benjamin Barber, Professor Bill Mitchell (Dean of Architecture at MIT), architects Jon Jerde, Rem Koolhas and Ben Van Berkel, and David Peek, psychologist behind the Bluewater shopping mall.

The book is made distinctive by the presentation of practitioner insight allied with academic underpinning to create a powerful new framework of unusual breadth and depth. The book communicates contemporary retail thought from the perspectives of both senior international retailers and expert observers. It is structured around four sections: * Section I: retailing in an international context * Section II: chapters from faculty at Templeton College in Oxford outlining the key issues with review questions, discussion topics, assignments and further reading. * Section III: A unique series of in depth interviews with senior executives in the world's major retailers conducted by the Oxford Institute of Retail Management. Each case is backed up by company and sector information to demonstrate the changing retail and global environment. * Section IV: A summary and overview with further exercises assignments and recommended reading.The book is an innovative and highly effective new text for both students and executives needing to understand the complexities of the latest global developments and thinking. * Dual focus, with firm conceptual context supplied in the introductory essays and practitioner insight provided by the case studies. * Includes a range of learning features to help you test your knowledge and develop your thinking. * Talented contributor team offer rigorous and far-reaching analysis of the issues and case histories. Combining practitioner insight with academic background, this book offers a useful framework on retail strategy with unusual breadth and depth. It communicates contemporary retail thought from the perspectives of both senior international retailers and expert observers.

European retailers have successfully internationalised their activities in Europe but have been less successful in North America. American retailers have been successful in their home market but less so in Europe. The major European and American retailers are now entering Asia and competing directly with each other in a substantive way fort he first time. These Western retailers, using modern managerial methods, are entering markets typified by more traditional managerial approaches. Western managerial cultures and values are interfacing with Asian ones. The results of these moves are new stresses for Asian retail structures that bring a new dynamism to Asian retailing. The contributions in this book explore the conflicts and benefits that arise as retailing in Asia becomes internationalised. The contributions are provided by experts in retail research from across Asia and for the first time in depth analyses are provided of the ways that Western retailers are provoking change in Asia. The book results form a seminar held at the University of Marketing and Distribution Sciences, Kobe, in November 2001 under the auspices of Society for Asian Research in Distribution. Scholars from across the region presented research results of their analyses of the New Commerce now appearing in Asia.

For courses in Retail Management. A contemporary text that helps students thrive in today's retailing industry Retail Management: A Strategic Approach is built on the fundamental principle that retailers have to plan for and adapt to a complex, changing environment. Without a pre-defined and well-integrated strategy, retailers may flounder and be unable to cope with the environment that surrounds them. This text helps readers become good retail planners and decision makers. The 13th Edition incorporates updated data that reflects the current world economic climate, extensive coverage of omnichannel retailing, and many new vignettes, questions, and cases, so that students can thrive in today's retailing industry.

Marketing Channel Strategy: An Omni-Channel Approach is the first book on the market to offer a completely unique, updated approach to channel marketing. Palmatier and Sivadas have adapted this classic text for the modern marketing reality by building a model that shows students how to engage customers across multiple marketing channels simultaneously and seamlessly. The omni-channel is different from the multi-channel. It recognizes not only that customers access goods and services in multiple ways, but also that they are likely doing this at the same time; comparing prices on multiple websites, and seamlessly switching between mobile and desktop devices. With the strong theoretical foundation that users have come to expect, the book also offers lots of practical exercises and applications to help students understand how to design and implement omni-channel strategies in reality. Advanced undergraduate and graduate students in marketing channels, distribution channels, B2B marketing, and retailing classes will enjoy acquiring the most cutting-edge marketing skills from this book. A full set of PowerPoint slides accompany this new edition, to support instructors.

As retailing becomes an increasingly important part of economics worldwide, the similarities and differences of retailing from country to country are now more evident. Retailing in the European Union is a unique and timely study of the difference retail structures across Europe, offering an insightful overview of the internationalisation of retailing and asking important questions about the effectiveness of different retailing sectors.

The advent of the era of "e-Service," the provision of services over electronic networks like the internet, is one of the dominant business themes of the new millennium. It reflects the fundamental shift in the economy from goods to services and the explosive expansion of information technology. This book provides a collection of different perspectives on e-Service and a unified framework to understand it, even as the business community grapples with the concept. It features contributions from key researchers and practitioners from both the private and public sectors, as well leading scholars from the fields of marketing, information systems, and computer science. They focus on three key areas: the customer-technology interface; e-Service business opportunities and strategies; and public sector e-Service opportunities. The insights they offer will be equally useful to students, scholars, and practitioners.

The advent of the era of "e-Service," the provision of services over electronic networks like the internet, is one of the dominant business themes of the new millennium. It reflects the fundamental shift in the economy from goods to services and the explosive expansion of information technology. This book provides a collection of different perspectives on e-Service and a unified framework to understand it, even as the business community grapples with the concept. It features contributions from key researchers and practitioners from both the private and public sectors, as well leading scholars from the fields of marketing, information systems, and computer science. They focus on three key areas: the customer-technology interface; e-Service business opportunities and strategies; and public sector e-Service opportunities. The insights they offer will be equally useful to students, scholars, and practitioners.

'Business Development in Licensed Retailing: a unit manager's guide' details the indispensable skills and techniques needed to manage units within licensed retail organisations in a flexible and entrepreneurial manner.
This book:
-Forms the basis of a complete course for a unit manager's development.
-Provides an overview of the range of skills needed for effective unit management.
-Supports the development of techniques with examples from existing best practice and case examples from companies such as JD Wetherspoon's, TGI Fridays and McDonald's amongst others.
Business Development in Licensed Retailing considers the functional management techniques required at unit management level, covering recruitment, human resource management, operations, service quality and customer relations, financial measurement and analysis, promotions and strategic planning. The analysis systematically provides all the practical know-how you need to produce of a comprehensive business plan for your unit.
Ending with a comprehensive case study that demonstrates all the aspects of business development working in a real-life scenario, the text is ideally suited for lecturers and management development personnel to use as a learning resource through which readers can apply the principles and techniques outlined.
A practical guide to managing units in licensed retail
Case studies from Wetherspoons, Scottish and Newcastle, Whitbread and Yates', amongst others, put the theory into practice

Contents:
1. Consumption, Identity and Locality: a Theoretical Perspective on Charity Shops I
2. Retailing: a Theoretical Perspective on Charity Shops II
3. Customers and Demand: Thrift, Lifestyle, Convenience and Coming out of the Cold
4. Materialising Profit: from Donation to Distribution
5. Staffing the Charity Shop: Voluntary, Not-So-Voluntary and Paid Staff
6. Pricing and Competition: Hitting the Mark
7. 'It's all in the Mix': Profits, Lifecycles, Lifestyles, and the Future of Charity Shops

Reading Retail captures contemporary debates on the geography of retailing and consumption spaces. It is constructed around a series of 'readings' from key works, and is designed to encourage readers to develop a sense of engagement with the rapidly evolving debates in this field. More than 60 edited readings are integrated into the text, providing a guided route map through the literature and into the study of the geographies of retailing and consumption. The volume also introduces readers to the exciting and interdisciplinary developments unfolding in the 'new retail geography', drawing on up-to-the-minute research material from areas ranging from anthropology to business studies, and tackling issues as diverse as retail internationalization and e-commerce. Reading Retail is unique in bringing together a huge range of perspectives on retailing and consumption spaces and will provide a key source text for students in this field.