Identification of robust retailing location patterns with complex network approaches

The problem of location is the cornerstone of strategic decisions in retail management. This decision is usually complex and multidimensional. One of the most relevant success factors is an adequate balanced tenancy, i.e., a complementary ecosystem of retail stores in the surroundings, both in planned and unplanned areas. In this paper, we use network theory to analyze the commercial spatial interactions in all the cities of Castile and Leon (an autonomous community in north-western Spain), Madrid, and Barcelona. Our approach encompasses different proposals both for the definition of the interaction networks and for their subsequent analyses. These methodologies can be used as pre-processing tools to capture features that formalize the relational dimension for location recommendation systems. Our results unveil the retail structure of different urban areas and enable a meaningful comparison between cities and methodologies. In addition, by means of consensus techniques, we identify a robust core of commercial relationships, independent of the particularities of each city, and thus help to distinguish transferable knowledge between cities. The results also suggest greater specialization of commercial space with city size.

The German variety of grocery retailing: A historical institutionalist analysis of a non-core industry

This article undertakes a historical institutionalist analysis of the German grocery retail industry. It shows that the institutions that shape this non-core industry are not just modifications of those that shape German export-oriented manufacturing core industries. Retail institutions are fundamentally different, and many of them do not promote coordinated relationships of firms. This challenges the assumption of comparative capitalisms research that all-encompassing national institutions characterize Germany as a coordinated market economy. Further, retail institutions have developed their specific characteristics not just over the last decades, as theories of dualization might suggest. Rather, they are frequently rooted in a German petite bourgeoisie or Mittelstand tradition reaching back to the 19th century. A second critical period was the 1960s and early 1970s, when political struggles that resulted from the retail revolution further transformed retail institutions. Based on the literature from various academic disciplines and on original empirical research, the article reconstructs the historical development of the whole set of institutions that has shaped a specific German grocery retail structure dominated by retailers’ cooperatives and hard discount chains. The analysis of an important non-core industry also intends to contribute to a fuller understanding of the institutions that frame the German economy as a whole, including conceivable complementarities between core and non-core sector institutions.

An Ecological Interpretation of the Return of Mom-and-Pop Stores in South Korea: A Sustainable Commercial Format-Enhancing Urban Diversity or Just a Temporary Trend?

After globalization, South Korea’s retail landscape has been saturated with large-scale, corporate type retails. However, recently new commercial districts composed of small retail units are returning and bringing about a change. This study sought to take note of this phenomenon and identify its features and meanings from the perspective of urban ecology. A density-distribution analysis was conducted to investigate how they were forms, and an analysis of traces on the Internet and an analysis on the types of businesses were done to identify sociocultural characteristics. Results showed that they had similar type of locations and growth patterns, that they harmoniously congregated in a form of smaller-individual stores, and that their use of similar names for their stores had an impact of branding their entire districts. It was also noted that a shared culture through social networking services served as a growth boost for their unfavorable location. The spontaneous formation of such commercial districts can be an outcome of an urban ecological process geared toward blank niches burgeoning in the current retail structure of Korea. The causes and conditions found in the cases reveal meaningful policy implications for cities facing the same urban crisis diversity.

Food Retail Liberalization, Food Retail Structure and Food Prices: The Italian Case

In the last two decades the Italian food retail industry has changed considerably also thanks to the liberalization process started with the 1998 retail regulation reform. In this study, we investigate the impact of such reform on the food and beverage consumer price index, controlling for the endogenous nature of the policy adoption across regions, and addressing what changes in food retail structure may have driven those effects. We find that the policy had a mitigating effect on food prices, which can be explained by the change in the number and composition of food stores operating in the Italian market, rather than by the changes in store size and in-store services. We find the policy effects not to be statistically different across regions characterized by different levels of liberalization.