Applying evolutionary models to the retail sector

Abstract

Retail change has been an area which has interested academics for a number of years and numerous theories have been produced to model and predict change. Drawing upon current notions of evolutionary development, this paper proposes that there is an overall ‘design space’, which encompasses the ‘possible’ forms of retailing and which can be open to upheaval or catastrophic change when, for example, there is a major change in retail technology. This larger design space is moderated by local variation, based on social, cultural dimensions, etc. Mechanisms for describing change and competition within these spaces are proposed and discussed.