Employee Management and Customer Service in the Retail Industry, by Gary Heil and Chris Thomas, attempts to combine the psychology of dealing with employees and customers with the practical realities of managing a retail business. Organized into ten chapters, this book loosely follows a retail manager's natural progression from interviewing prospective employees, to hiring the right ones, paying them fairly, and keeping them happy on the job.

What's next? The question of whether future retail design will be analogue, digital or hybrid has long since been answered. It is now interesting to ask what synergy effects result from this and how these can contribute to the resilience of our built environment. Especially the mature inner cities are facing enormous innovation pressure. Smart alliances are being formed and daring retail concepts are being tried out that add value in the urban space. The new yearbook shows solutions that accompany us worldwide into the "new normal". Text in English and German.

The book is a fully annotated translation of al-Shayzari's Nihayat al-Rutba fi Talab al-Hisba (The Utmost Degree in the Pursuit of Hisba), a manual written in the 12th century AD for the practical use of the Islamic inspector of markets. It is the earliest extant book of its kind to appear in the Islamic East. Dr Buckley's introduction deals with the historical development of the Islamic market inspector, the author of the manual and the text itself. A useful Appendix contains translations of official diplomas of investiture, along with an abbreviated translation of al-Ghazali's treatise of isba. Within the main text, individual chapters deal with such as confectioners, perfumers, money-changers, slave traders and physicians. The book therefore provides a thorough examination of the market inspector and his role, and an unparalleled insight into the inhabitants of a medieval Muslim market.

Written by marketing experts, this authoritative and comprehensive full-colour textbook made up of both accessible research and theory, real-world examples and case studies including Prada, Gucci and Burberry, provides students with an overview of the global fashion industry and fashion marketing, strategy, branding, communications, retailing and distribution, as well as the psychological factors involved in consuming fashion and luxury. The role of social media, celebrities and influencers such as Kim Kardashian and Lil Miquela are discussed, as is the ever-increasing role of ethical fashion and sustainability. The authors also offer an expanded view of fashion and luxury by moving beyond just clothing and apparel to include other fashionable and luxurious products and services, including technology. Packed with attractive visuals from fashion and culture, and accompanied by chapter summaries, questions and exercises, this textbook is essential reading for students studying fashion, luxury, marketing, management, retailing, branding and communications. Also provided for educators are supporting PowerPoint slides and an instructor's manual to support use of the textbook with students. Suitable for Fashion Marketing/Fashion Consumer Behaviour modules as well as a general text for Fashion Marketing programmes. The text will also appeal to Luxury programmes (MBA etc) and Retail Marketing modules (UG).

The Psychology of Fashion offers an insightful introduction to the exciting and dynamic world of fashion in relation to human behaviour, from how clothing can affect our cognitive processes to the way retail environments manipulate consumer behaviour. The book explores how fashion design can impact healthy body image, how psychology can inform a more sustainable perspective on the production and disposal of clothing, and why we develop certain shopping behaviours. With fashion imagery ever present in the streets, press and media, The Psychology of Fashion shows how fashion and psychology can make a positive difference to our lives.

Over the past half-century, bookselling, like many retail industries, has evolved from an arena dominated by small independent shops to one in which chain stores have significant market share. And as other retail fields, this transformation has often been a less-than-smooth process. But this has been especially pronounced in bookselling, argues Laura J. Miller, because more than most other consumer goods, books are the focus of passionate debate about commercialism. What drives that debate? And why do so many people believe that bookselling should be immune to questions of profit?In "Reluctant Capitalists," Miller looks at a century of book retailing, demonstrating that the independent-chain dynamic is not entirely new. It began a hundred years ago when department stores began selling books, continued through the 1960s with the emergence of national chain stores, and exploded with the formation of "superstores" in the 1990s. The advent of the Internet has further spurred tremendous changes in how booksellers approach their business. All of these changes have met resistance from book professionals and readers who believe that the book business should not be captive to market forces, but should also embrace more noble priorities. Miller uses historical data and interviews with bookstore customers and members of the book industry to explain why books evoke such distinct and heated reactions. She reveals why customers seek out certain bookstores and why book professionals identify so strongly with different types of books. In the process, she also teases out the meanings of retailing and consumption in American culture at large, underscoring her point that consumer behavior is inevitablypolitical, with consequences for communities as well as commercial institutions.

A great introduction for retail students, this book offers a user-friendly reference guide to all aspects of visual merchandising and covers both window dressing and in-store areas. Using examples from a range of shops, from fashion emporia to small outlets, the book offers practical advice on the subject, supported by hints and tips from established visual merchandisers. It reveals the secrets of their toolkit and information on the use of mannequins, the latest technology and how to construct and source props, and explains the psychology behind shopping and buyer behaviour. This new edition contains two new case studies, updated images and new material on digital and interactive visual merchandising. Visual Merchandising is presented through colour photographs, diagrams of floor layouts and store case studies, and includes invaluable information such as a glossary of terms used in the industry.

Say what you will about Wal-Mart and the retailing giants. According to authors Chris Thomas and Rick Segel, of Retailing in the 21st Century, there will always be room for a solid, well-run local store or regional chain with excellent service and or an interesting market niche. Thomas and Segel show students how to be that merchant.
This book will help students understand how to start a retail business from the ground up. The authors' focus throughout the book is on being organized and purposeful and knowing every step of the way where the business is going and why. The major goals include learning to strategize, expect the best but prepare for the worst, create a positive work environment, and keep yourself and your staff motivated to find the best merchandise and offer it enthusiastically to your customers at a fair price. After reading this book, students will be prepared to be a successful retailer in the 21st century.

Academic bookselling inhabits a landscape fundamentally impacted by legislative and political pressure, colonised by new textual forms and new publishing ventures, experiencing constant change. Capital Letters defines the academic bookshop, text, and market, examining change drivers in the UK, the USA and Asia. Drawing on current research, inclusive of commercial publishers and publishing interest groups, Capital Letters also includes quantitative and qualitative research data from academic booksellers. In evaluating the response of academic bookshops to the changing landscape, Capital Letters argues that academic booksellers can understand, shape, and lead a sustainable and equitable future for academic text within the marketplace.

"This book provides a significant contribution to the discursive analysis of service encounters. It demonstrates, in a very elegant way and based on a solid empirical investigation, how mediated discourse analysis may be enacted to describe and understand the social and cultural practices associated with space, time, ethnicity and identity construction. A must-read for researchers and practitioners interested in language use in professional contexts." -- Laurent Filliettaz, University of Geneva, Switzerland "This book contains one of the most thorough and productive applications of the theoretical and analytical apparatus of mediated discourse analysis I have come across, demonstrating how the moment-by-moment ways that people appropriate discourse to perform mundane daily activities such as shopping contribute to the broader maintenance of social identities and communities. The analysis is meticulously undertaken and communicated in clear, elegant prose. This book will be of interest to anyone working in the field of discourse studies." -- Rodney Jones, University of Reading, UK This book investigates the social practices of service encounters in the context of a typical Persian shop in Sydney. Although by nature goal-oriented speech events, the book posits that service encounters are not simply limited to achieving business transactions, but that they incorporate a range of social and discursive practices. Analysing ethnographic data using the frameworks of Mediated and Multimodal Discourse Analysis, the author explores how people use everyday activities to enact social and cultural identities, construct linguistic authenticity, and maintain strong economic ties to the community. It will be of interest to scholars and students of the sociolinguistics of ethnic/ minority sites and urban spaces. Dariush Izadi holds a PhD in Sociolinguistics and teaches Language and Linguistics Research Methods, Sociolinguistics, Discourse Analysis and TESOL Units at Western Sydney University, Australia. In his work, he applies mediated discourse and nexus analysis to investigate practices and methods through which participants accomplish their actions in social settings.

Managing Retail Consumption explores retailing primarily from the customer's viewpoint, as well as placing the subject in its wider social context. In this new book, Barry Davies and Philippa Ward give both the student and manager of retailing a unique perspective on consumption that balances marketing, management and the social sciences. Using this interdisciplinary approach, the authors consider the way retail spaces are both created and manipulated. They also explore the interplay between the retailer's provision and the consumer's ability to structure, manage and edit individual responses.

FEATURES

• Includes concise histories of retail development and the birth and growth of consumer culture.

• Investigates retailing through the metaphor of drama, using the Servuction model as a framework.

• Illustrates retail practice with examples from many well-known international organizations, e.g. Aldi, Marks & Spencer, Mitsukoshi, Nordstrom and Wal-Mart.

Retail Geography and Intelligent Network Planning demonstrates the importance of geographical thinking in a wide variety of situations. The book exemplifies the importance of sophisticated and intelligent spatial analysis techniques in dealing with the range of location, distribution and channel management issues which now face retail and service businesses. This technology is especially crucial in an age when traditional channels of physical distribution such as bank branches and shops are increasingly complemented by electronic and virtual channels.

Building on the success of Intelligent GIS (1996), which set out the principles and applications of GIS and spatial modelling for strategic planning, this new title concentrates on the concept of retail intelligence applied to retail planning by presenting examples relating to a wide range of business problems.

Retail Geography and Intelligent Network Planning is an innovative book in several ways:

• Explores some of the key retail trends impacting on retail location and store location studies by drawing on research undertaken in grocery and supermarket retailing, financial services, travel and leisure in Europe, North America and Australasia

• Examines the role of e-commerce and its growth, and argues that geography will still be crucial to its success in the retail sector

• Presents readers with various spatial analysis methods and their usefulness for addressing retail growth strategies such as branch optimization.

• Draws examples from the authors' own expertise over the past fifteen years in retail consultancy

"Small Store Survival should challenge retailers' views of small store retailing by questioning key areas of business. What is the vision for the store in 10 years? How have the customers changed over the past few years? How current are the managers about what customers genuinely like and dislike? What is being done to attract, educate, and motivate the best retail talent in the area? How effective is the merchandising strategy? What plans exist for succession?

"The real lesson of this study is that the best retailers never stop learning. They never stop growing. They never lose their enthusiasm for the customers and the business. And they never cease to revel in change and the chance to deal with it." —from the Executive Summary of Small Store Survival

Small Store Survival

Over the past decade, thousands of small retail stores have fallen victim to overwhelming competition from huge discount chains determined to take in every retail dollar in sight. But not everyone succumbs to the megastore invasion; many small retailers grow and prosper in spite of this cutthroat competition. How do they do it? Even more important, how can you do it?

Small Store Survival is the how-to book that belongs behind the counter of every independent retail store. It analyzes small-store operation in detail and lays out optimal survival strategies and tactics for seven key areas of business practice that are critical to success: customer service, marketing, merchandising, store operations, management, human resources, and finance. Its clear and logical organization enables you to evaluate your business practices function by function, identify strengths and weaknesses, and develop action plans to improve operations in each of these crucial functions.

Written by a team of experts from Arthur Andersen LLP, this guide presents detailed solutions and best practices culled from retailer surveys, site visits, and industry research. Its recommendations are applicable to a broad variety of retail formats, including stores that specialize in apparel; appliances; books; drugs, health, and beauty care products; electronics; hardware; home and garden supplies; pets and pet supplies; as well as other specialty stores. Numerous case studies illustrate the problems that plague many retailers and demonstrate ways you can overcome these obstacles and improve your business. You'll learn how to:

• Identify customer expectations and meet or exceed them at every turn
• Identify, pursue, and capture a distinct customer market
• Establish a vision and culture for your store, plan where the company needs to go, and take steps to get there
• Compete for quality employees and, once you hire them, keep them
• Establish budgetary controls and contain costs
• Negotiate effectively for favorable terms from vendors and suppliers

The most successful retailers never stop learning, growing, and adapting to changing circumstances. The hundreds of sound ideas presented in this study were developed and implemented by the most successful small store operators in the industry. Here is your chance to learn and grow with them by adapting these solutions to your own business needs.

Shopping centers and other forms of retail properties continue to be among the soundest real estate investments in North America. But retail property is a highly specialized field of real estate development with a unique and complex set of legal, financial, development, management, and marketing variables about which investors and developers must possess a sound working knowledge. Now this book arms with you with that knowledge, and much more.

The most comprehensive, authoritative, up-to-date resource of its kind, Shopping Centers and Other Retail Properties covers every vital aspect of negotiating, buying, selling, developing, managing, and marketing shopping centers and other retail properties. Editors John R. White and Kevin D. Gray, of the leading real estate consulting firm Landauer Associates, and an all-star team of experts in the field of shopping center and retail property development, share everything they know about:

• All important legal issues
• Investment and feasibility analysis
• Valuation requirements and performance measures
• Planning, designing, and renovating retail properties
• Developing and investing in local and community shopping centers, highway retail centers, and regionals and super regionals
• Operating and managing retail centers
• Mortgage financing and financing through public and private equity issues
• Space marketing and lease terms
• Macro and micro market analysis
• And much more

Shopping Centers and Other Retail Properties is an indispensable working resource for both new and experienced retail property investors and developers as well as those who work with them, including attorneys, accountants, analysts, appraisers, planners, managers, brokers, and consultants.

"Timely insights into an industry undergoing tremendous change." —

For both newcomers and seasoned professionals in retail property investment, this book provides a wealth of vital information on every aspect of developing and managing shopping centers and retail properties. Written by an all-star team of specialists in the field, Shopping Centers and Other Retail Properties:

• Provides expert guidance on financing, developing, operating, and managing shopping centers and other retail properties
• Covers analysis of retail market demand, investment and feasibility analysis, appraisal, mortgage financing, financing by equity, new planning formats, and much more
• Serves as an indispensable working resource for investors, developers, attorneys, accountants, analysts, appraisers, planners, managers, brokers, and consultants

"An authoritative work that will be immensely useful to anyone interested in retail real estate." —

"Retail developments have become the key investments now targeted in real estate. No two people have commanded more respect for expertise than this book's editors. There are many, many books attempting to guide readers in this field. In my experienced view, none compares to the excellence and usefulness of this text." —

In the decades after World War II, evangelical Christianity nourished America's devotion to free markets, free trade, and free enterprise. The history of Wal-Mart uncovers a complex network that united Sun Belt entrepreneurs, evangelical employees, Christian business students, overseas missionaries, and free-market activists. Through the stories of people linked by the world's largest corporation, Bethany Moreton shows how a Christian service ethos powered capitalism at home and abroad. While industrial America was built by and for the urban North, rural Southerners comprised much of the labor, management, and consumers in the postwar service sector that raised the Sun Belt to national influence. These newcomers to the economic stage put down the plough to take up the bar-code scanner without ever passing through the assembly line. Industrial culture had been urban, modernist, sometimes radical, often Catholic and Jewish, and self-consciously international. Post-industrial culture, in contrast, spoke of Jesus with a drawl and of unions with a sneer, sang about Momma and the flag, and preached salvation in this world and the next. This extraordinary biography of Wal-Mart's world shows how a Christian pro-business movement grew from the bottom up as well as the top down, bolstering an economic vision that sanctifies corporate globalization. The author has assigned her royalties and subsidiary earnings to Interfaith Worker Justice (www.iwj.org) and its local affiliate in Athens, GA, the Economic Justice Coalition (www.econjustice.org).

The retail market in the UK is worth more than GBP400 billion annually and employs over 3 million workers, while in the US 29 million people create over USD $4 trillion of revenue through the industry. Despite the challenge to establish stores and big-box retailers, there's a rapid increase in the number of retail start-ups and consistent growth in the independent sector. From beard shops and barbers, through cafes and coffee shops, to 'retailment' concept stores and boutique consumer-focused experiences, the specialist retail sector is booming. The Retail Start-Up Book provides clear guidance and advice on how to develop a winning retail strategy that seamlessly merges online and offline tactics. Introducing the science of shopping and how to understand customer behaviours and needs, it explores the essential steps of developing a business plan, marketing and promoting a business and advising on buying and visual merchandising. Building on years of retail experience nationally and internationally, in large groups and with independent retailers, The Retail Start-Up Book meticulously provide invaluable practical insights to help new retailers hit the floor running, or more established organizations grow their business and nurture their profits.

The availability of big data, low-cost commodity hardware, and new information management and analytic software have produced a unique moment in the history of data analysis. The convergence of these trends means that we have the capabilities required to analyze astonishing data sets quickly and cost-effectively for the first time in history. They represent a genuine leap forward and a clear opportunity to realize enormous gains in terms of efficiency, productivity, revenue, and profitability especially in digital marketing. Data plays a huge role in understanding valuable insights about target demographics and customer preferences. From every interaction with technology, regardless of whether it is active or passive, we are creating new data that can describe us. If analyzed correctly, these data points can explain a lot about our behavior, personalities, and life events. Companies can leverage these insights for product improvements, business strategy, and marketing campaigns to cater to the target customers. Big Data Analytics for Improved Accuracy, Efficiency, and Decision Making in Digital Marketing aids understanding of big data in terms of digital marketing for meaningful analysis of information that can improve marketing efforts and strategies using the latest digital techniques. The chapters cover a wide array of essential marketing topics and techniques, including search engine marketing, consumer behavior, social media marketing, online advertising, and how they interact with big data. This book is essential for professionals and researchers working in the field of analytics, data, and digital marketing, along with marketers, advertisers, brand managers, social media specialists, managers, sales professionals, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students looking for the latest information on how big data is being used in digital marketing strategies.

Written by marketing experts, this authoritative and comprehensive full-colour textbook made up of both accessible research and theory, real-world examples and case studies including Prada, Gucci and Burberry, provides students with an overview of the global fashion industry and fashion marketing, strategy, branding, communications, retailing and distribution, as well as the psychological factors involved in consuming fashion and luxury. The role of social media, celebrities and influencers such as Kim Kardashian and Lil Miquela are discussed, as is the ever-increasing role of ethical fashion and sustainability. The authors also offer an expanded view of fashion and luxury by moving beyond just clothing and apparel to include other fashionable and luxurious products and services, including technology. Packed with attractive visuals from fashion and culture, and accompanied by chapter summaries, questions and exercises, this textbook is essential reading for students studying fashion, luxury, marketing, management, retailing, branding and communications. Also provided for educators are supporting PowerPoint slides and an instructor's manual to support use of the textbook with students. Suitable for Fashion Marketing/Fashion Consumer Behaviour modules as well as a general text for Fashion Marketing programmes. The text will also appeal to Luxury programmes (MBA etc) and Retail Marketing modules (UG).

This comprehensive text focuses on the fashion segment of the retail industry. It begins with a broad overview of fashion retailing, then focuses on on-site and off-site environments, management and control functions, merchandising fashion products, and ends with communicating with and servicing the clientele. In this new edition, the authors focus on the globalization of the retail industry with emphasis on US retail expansion into foreign markets as well as global brands' proposed expansion into the US market. This edition has been extensively updated to include current trends including sustainable fashion, the growth of the multi-cultural market, and the impact of new technology and e-commerce. With many engaging photographs and examples to illustrate the concepts, Fashion Retailing is ideal for learning the fundamentals of global fashion retailing and the basic business concepts involved. New to this Edition: ~All new Chapter 17 on Communicating to Customers Through Electronic Media ~New Happening Now feature in each chapter covers the latest retailing methods with such items as The Growth of Mobile Commerce, Gap's overseas explosion in Latin American Countries, and J. Crew's global push, among many others ~Full color insert featuring the entire photo program in vibrant color Teaching Resources ~Instructor's Guide \provides suggestions for planning the course and using the text in the classroom, supplemental assignments, and lecture notes. ~A new Test Bank includes more than 350 questions featuring true/false, multiple choice, short answer or essay questions and midterm and final exam questions. ~PowerPoint (R) presentations include images from the book and provide a framework for lecture and discussion

Valued at $25 billion following its IPO in 2014, JD.com (Jingdong) is China's second largest e-commerce company (behind its rival Alibaba) and leads the way in sales of consumer electronics and books. Through unprecedented access to the inner-workings of JD.com and its founder, Richard Liu, and other main players, this book offers the most detailed examination of the success behind one of China's most successful companies of recent times. Founded in 1998 as an online magneto-optical store, the company evolved into selling books, CDs, videos and consumer electronics online on an enormous scale. In 2014, Asia's largest Internet company, Tencent, acquired a 20% stake in JD.com, which made the company the No.2 online retailer in China, and thus triggering a fierce battle with Alibaba for dominance in the China market. The story of JD.com's growth, and the strategies and philosophy of its charismatic founder, is featured in this fascinating book.