Mass Retail Research Articles

The Elimination of the Unworthy: Credit Men and Small Retailers in Progressive Era Capitalism

The largest organization of capitalists during the Progressive Era was one that most American historians have never heard of. Motivated primarily by overproduction and ruthless competition, many of the nation's largest manufacturers, distributors, and commercial banks formed the National Association of Credit Men (NACM) in 1896 to reduce the supply of credit available to retailers and consumers. The story of the Credit Men confirms many standard assumptions regarding the rise of corporate America to economic power and cultural legitimacy while challenging others. Advances in technology and salaried organization made possible their mobilization, yet more important was the significant lag in the development of mass retail institutions and consequently mass consumerism behind mass production and distribution. The NACM deployed standardized methods and hungered for administrative efficiency but used these modern tools to instill order and ethical discipline in the nation's business, not to secularize the economy and culture of the new century. America's corporate capitalists seized power by promising moral regulation for unbridled individualism.

Market Orientation in a Small Scale Enterprise Environment: Importance of Product-Related Factors

This study uses the results of an evaluation programme to examine the value of a market orientation for small scale manufacturer in the mass retail market. Results show that an evaluator's assessment of a product's readiness for the marketplace and his/her recommendation for the type of market it should enter were better at predicting short-term and long-term performance than market orientation alone.

Cooperatives’ Tax Regimes, Political Orientation of Governments and Rent Seeking

The paper focuses on the strict relation between the continuous changes of the diversified tax regimes of the various types of cooperatives and the political composition of the governments succeeding each other in Italy from the after war period to the present. It emerged that the different types of cooperatives prevailing in the leftwing League of Cooperatives or in the Confederation of Italian Cooperatives (CCI) of catholic orientation or in both organization had a different possibility of exerting successful rent seeking with the various Governments with different political orientation. Consumption cooperatives operating in the mass retail which obtained generous tax treatments by Governments leaning to the left, lost most of them by centre right Governments. The cooperatives of agriculture and food processing, those of small fishing and those of production and labor, important both in the League and in CCI, were able to obtain from different Governments special privileges in the postwar period and kept most of them also under the centre right Governments of the last period. Social cooperatives object of a special legislation in 1992 under a Government of Giulio Andreotti, a leader close to the catholic organizations, kept their preferential tax regime with all the subsequent governments. They are important both in CCI and in the League and have a peculiar electoral power because of their capillary activities.

The Federal Retail Sales Tax that Wasn’t: An Actual History and an Alternate History

The federal income tax did not become a mass tax until World War II. Although some form of mass federal taxation was imperative for the financing of the war, a mass income tax was not inevitable. But for the determined opposition of the Roosevelt administration, Congress would almost certainly have enacted a federal retail sales tax during the war - perhaps in addition to the conversion of the income tax to a mass tax, but perhaps as the only form of mass taxation aimed at paying for the war. This article describes the wartime debates among proponents of different methods of federal mass taxation - conversion of the income tax to a mass tax, enactment of a federal retail sales tax, or both. Following that description, the article considers the continuing impact of the wartime choice of the income tax as the only instrument of mass taxation. The article concludes that the use of the mass income tax - rather than the combination of an elite income tax and a mass retail sales tax (or value-added tax) - has made a significant difference in several areas, including: the distribution of the benefits of postwar tax cuts and the burdens of postwar tax increases; public perceptions of the nature of the relationship between taxpayers and the federal government; the proliferation of tax subsidies targeted at particular categories of nonbusiness expenditures, ranging from long-term care to hybrid cars; income support for low-wage workers with dependent children; and federal policy toward homeownership.

Removing Costs From The Health Care Supply Chain: Lessons From Mass Retail

Improved supply-chain management and high-volume purchasing have benefited other industries. This same approach could also reduce health care costs. Streamlining layers in the supply chain and using purchasing volume to reduce prices can save money and may improve care. Providing access to in-store health clinics and low-cost generic drugs are examples of how this approach is being tested by mass retailers. We examine lessons learned from these and similar initiatives and identify opportunities to cut the costs of generic and name-brand drugs, medical supplies, over-the-counter remedies, and vision care.

Market orientation for small manufacturing suppliers: the importance of product‐related factors

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of market orientation for small manufacturers vying to be suppliers in the mass retail marketplace. It examines the mediating effect of product‐related factors (market readiness and market level) on the market orientation‐performance relationship. The paper also assesses the performance of these manufacturers using measures such as buyer review and actual product acceptance.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses the results of a program, designed to evaluate and develop small manufacturers for the mass retail marketplace, to test the effect of a market orientation philosophy and product‐related factors on small firm performance.FindingsIt is found that while a market orientation is critical for the success of these manufacturers, product‐related factors have an even greater value in assessing their performance. Specifically, an evaluator's assessment of a product's readiness for the marketplace and his/her recommendation for the type of market it should enter were much better at predicting product performance for the small manufacturers taking part in the program.Practical implicationsThe paper shows that small firms wanting to supply the mass‐merchandising marketplace should not rely solely on market orientation when trying to compete at this level. Market orientation may improve your market readiness, but it does not predict success for small manufacturers. Instead, low market orientation levels and poor product‐related factors strongly predict failure.Originality/valueTo the authors' knowledge no other articles examine market orientation's effect on small manufacturing performance using specific product‐related measures as a mediating variable.

A Sociology of Market-Things: On Tending the Garden of Choices in Mass Retailing

A Sociology of Market-Things: On Tending the Garden of Choices in Mass Retailing

Northern Rock: Solutions and Problems

September brought the United Kingdom its first mass market bank run. Although there had been bank runs in the nineteenth century, with the last in 1866, very few people then had bank accounts so the runs were not in any sense comparable with what happened to Northern Rock, which showed a failure of mass retail banking.

Negotiating Paternalism: Women and Canada's Largest Department Stores, 1890-1960

This article explores Canada's largest department stores' relationships with female shoppers and employees between 1890 and 1960. Showing that these giant retailers made paternalism central to their operations, it explains how they enforced broader hierarchies of gender, race, ethnicity, and class. This article contributes to historical understandings of women's relationships with mass retail by illuminating not only Canadian department stores' treatment of women, but also women's responses to such treatment. It also offers new perspectives on contemporary antiretailing movements by revealing areas of division and solidarity among shoppers and wage earners.

The emergence of modern business enterprise in France, 1800-1930

Prologue Assessing French Economic Development Some Preliminary Considerations Plan of the Book Introduction: Laying the Foundations for Modern Capitalism in France, 1500-1800 Creating France The Rise of Merchant Capitalism The Beginning of Industrial Capitalism Banking and Finance The French Revolution Aftermath of Revolution I. FROM MERCHANT CAPITALISM TO FINANCE CAPITALISM 1. Continuity and Change in Merchant Capitalism, 1800-1840s Retrenchment and Renewal in Provincial France Paris and the Remaking of French Merchant Capitalism 2. The Revolution in Banking and Transportation, 1840-1870s The Banking Revolution The Transportation Revolution 3. The New World of Financial and Commercial Capitalism, 1870s-1900s The Maturation of Banking and Finance Transforming and Transcending the Wholesale Trade The Beginnings of Mass Retailing II. THE FLOWERING OF INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM, 1800-1900 4. Textile Capitalism Cotton Linen and Jute Woolens Silk 5. The Capitalism of Coal The Birth and Maturation of an Industry, 1700s-1860 The Coal Companies in the Their Prime, 1860-1914 6. The Capitalism of Iron and Steel From the Old to the New Metallurgy, 1800-1860 The Age of Steel Begins, 1860-1880 7. Hardware, Machinery, and Construction The Hardware Industry Transformed The New Metallurgical Manufacturing 8. The Capitalism of Chemicals Heavy Chemicals The New Chemicals 9. The Capitalism of Glass, Paper, and Print Glass Paper and Print 10. Industrial Capitalism and Consumer Goods Flour and Breadstuffs Sugar and Confectionery Soap and Vegetable Oil Clothing and Home Furnishings 11. The New World of Industrial Capitalism Financing Industrial Enterprise Managing Labor Managing the Business Environment III. The Second Industrial Revolution and the Beginnings of Managerial Capitalism, 1880s-1930s 12. Big Steel The Remaking of French Iron and Steel, 1870s-1914 World War I and Its Aftermath 13. The Electrical Industry The Early Years, 1890s-1914 Growth, Maturation, and the Rise of Big Business, 1914-1930 14. The Automobile and Its Allies The Automobile Industry Tire and Rubber Aircraft and Aircraft Engines Petroleum 15. Industrial Chemicals and Materials The Survival and Transformation of Two Established Powers Electrochemicals and Electrometals Industrial Gases Pharmaceuticals and Artificial Fibers Big Cement 16. The New World of Managerial Capitalism Managing the Railroads Managing the Large Industrial Enterprise Conclusion: France on the Verge Notes Index Tables 1. The twenty largest French coal companies, 1865-1869 and 1890-1894 2. France's fifty largest manufacturing firms, 1936 3. The twenty-five largest French iron and steel firms in 1913 4. The twenty-five largest French iron and steel firms in 1930 5. France's largest electrical enterprises in 1929-1930 6. Assets and workforces of the largest American, German, and French electrical manufacturing companies in 1929-1930 7. The thirty largest French industrial firms in 1990

Can fast fashion save the US apparel industry?

The US apparel industry employed over 1 million workers as late as 1980, but today it employs only about one-third of that number. The common explanation for this collapse is the delocalization of production to low wage countries, but this neglects advantages of speed, flexibility and proximity to centres of fashion and design that have helped some suppliers in high wage countries, such as Italy, to defend niche markets for fashionable products. This paper examines the question of why the US apparel industry has failed to tap these advantages. Based upon the analysis of both national data and original field research in the New York garment industry, it argues that the US industry has relied too long on an industry model based on ‘mass fashion’ products, the scale and scope economies of large-scale suppliers and mass retailers, and innovations in information technologies as sources of competitiveness, while ignoring the importance of niche product innovation, small-scale supply chains and flexible retailing, and ‘collaboration economies’ in design and production networks. Even in New York City, where small firms and fashion markets are important, the dominance of the large-scale mass-fashion model has inhibited contractors from developing highly productive and entrepreneurial supply networks that combine design with manufacturing and take full advantage of their potential for speed, flexibility and quality production.

Supervision and Regulation of Network Banks (originally published in August 1997)

Public computer networks, in particular the Internet, have the potential to transform the financial services sector by providing a fast, cheap way to sell financial services. Low setup costs and the transnationality of the Internet could remove significant barriers to entry in the financial services industry. Cross-border provision of services and the high mobility of network banks could challenge the ability of national and international authorities to establish and enforce banking regulations. This paper considers the supervision and regulation of banks providing financial services on public computer networks for the mass retail market, i.e., deposit taking and lending of money on retail and small- and medium-size company markets.

Peripheral Vision

How to address empirically the calculative character of markets without dissolving it? In our paper, we propose a theoretical framework that helps to deal with markets without suspending their calculative properties. In the first section, we construct a broad definition of calculation, grounded on the anthropology of science and techniques. In the next sections, we apply this definition to three constitutive elements of markets: economic goods, economic agents and economic exchanges. First, we examine the question of the calculability of goods: in order to be calculated, goods must be calculable. In the following section, we introduce the notion of calculative distributed agencies to understand how these calculable goods are actually calculated. Thirdly, we consider the rules and material devices that organize the encounter between (and aggregation of) individual supplies and demands, i.e. the specific organizations that allow for a calculated exchange and a market output. Those three elements define concrete markets as collective organized devices that calculate compromises on the values of goods. In each, we encounter different versions of our broad definition of calculation, which we illustrate with examples, mainly taken from the fields of financial markets and mass retail.

Small Retailers' Road to Success

The small retailer has a difficult time competing with large mass merchandisers, category killers, and retail chains. Price discounting is not an option, because the small retailer can never beat the price of large retail operations. Therefore, small retailers must look to other means of differentiation. This paper proposes a customer value concept that is based on the premise that customers are of varying value to a retail operation. Dividing a retailer's customer base into four buckets, marketing strategies are suggested for each group that will optimize a small retailer's marketing investment. The success of this type of marketing approach is based on an understanding of brand value, repeat purchase behavior of customers, and customer relationship management (CRM) technology.

Selecting and developing suppliers for mass merchandisers

This paper intends to examine various product and management characteristics of small manufacturing enterprises (SME) to determine critical factors that award qualified suppliers of mass merchandising companies. About 1700 small manufacturers participated in a program that determined their readiness to enter the mass merchandising market. The assessment instrument collected 34 questions for a firm assessment rating (FAR) of their management practices, 41 items for product evaluation rating (PER), and two items for the overall quality of the firm and its product. The model was very successful in predicting if the product would be recommended to the mass retailers. It was also able to identify nine critical factors that determine the selection of the SME's product and help to develop desirable suppliers for mass merchandisers.

Superstores and the Politics of Retail Development

This article investigates retail development as a social problem, a political phenomenon, and an increasingly important form of urban development. I focus on mass retail, as exemplified by superstores. The data come from six case studies, carried out onsite, of local controversies over the siting of Wal‐Mart superstores. I analyze retail development and the conflicts that it may provoke in terms of six key categories: economic context, actors, dynamic, interests, ideology, and consumption. Throughout the analysis I critically engage the growth machine perspective and suggest how it may be modified to better account for the peculiarities of retail development. I argue that retail development does not necessarily lead to growth and that mass retail is driven by the pursuit of market share and profit, not growth. I also introduce several new concepts: the global development machine, which has taken over certain functions of the growth machine; the shoppers, a local group that appears to value shopping over broader community interests; and the ideology of shopping, which serves to promote retail development.

Retailing the Revolution: The State Department Store (GUM) and Soviet Society in the 1920s

This article examines the role of mass marketing and retailing in the recreation of Soviet society in the NEP period (1921--28). In 1921, the state established the State Department Store (GUM), a model retail enterprise that operated stores throughout Russia and targeted consumers across class, gender, and ethnic lines. GUM's stores served as instruments of the Bolsheviks' goals of conquering private enterprise and rebuilding it along socialist lines and of democratizing consumption for workers and peasants nationwide. GUM also served as an agent of publicity. Its advertising and promotional campaigns communicated to the population the goals of the regime and attempted to inculcate new attitudes and behaviors. In its efforts to create a socialist consumer culture, GUM recast the functions and meanings associated with the everyday activities of buying and selling, turning them into politically charged acts that could either contribute to or delay the transformation of the economy and society. Ultimately, however, GUM's efforts to build communism through consumerism were unsuccessful and only succeeded in alienating consumers from state stores and instituting a culture of complaint and entitlement.

Keeping Up with the Joneses: Envy in American Consumer Society, 1890-1930. By Susan J. Matt. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. 223 pp. $35.00, isbn 0-8122-3686-6.)

In this lively short book, Susan J. Matt surveys the legitimization of consumer desire that paralleled the demise of Victorian culture and the rise of modern culture from 1890 to 1930. Drawing primarily on published narratives, Matt argues that these forty years witnessed an expansion of consumer society that was made possible by a distinctive shift in emotional style among a majority of Americans. In these years, Matt asserts, a greater number of people came to understand the desire for possessions, not as a reprehensible sin, but as a positive good. This shift occurred in tandem with the heyday of American industrialization, mass retailing, and popular culture. All of these factors combined to enable the democratization of consumption and to usher in an era of envy that is still with us today. Over five brief chapters, Matt examines the world views and consuming experiences of five groups: urban middle-class women, white-collar men, rural women, farm men, and middle-class children. She considers how these groups overcame the negative outlook toward consumption that had long dominated mainstream American culture, with its strong Protestant roots, to develop an appreciation for goods and pleasure. Prior to 1910, the elites who monitored behavior and taste—clergy, editors, journalists, and reformers—had discouraged Americans from aping their betters through the accumulation of possessions. By the 1910s, a new generation of taste makers picked up the gauntlet for increased consumption, arguing in magazine articles, in advertisements, and on movie screens that the desire f or nice things was par t and parcel of every American's birthright. In these years, the term “keeping up with the Joneses” came into currency.

Trends in Natural Food Sales and Consumer Food Choices

The expansion of thinking from treating disease to increased concern with disease prevention and health maintenance is reflected in the growing market for natural foods and dietary supplements. These new products make the already complex task of food shopping even more confusing. Inexperienced consumers will require help to evaluate these new choices, creating challenges for health care providers and the food industry. This article helps readers make sense of these new products by providing a general overview of the natural foods category. Discussed are the complexities consumers face when shopping for food and related products, definitions relevant to natural foods, trends in natural foods consumption, and future trends in this area, including the impact of genetically modified foods. The natural foods industry has been one of the shining stars of food manufacturing and retailing over the past decade as an ever-growing segment of the U.S. population seeks out organic and natural foods and nutraceuticals. The consumer motivations fueling this industry are varied and range from securing the practical benefits of a healthy diet to the psychological benefits of leading a particular lifestyle. To support the diffusion throughout the U.S. population of this more holistic approach to health, the industry and health care professionals must help consumers make sense of the confusing array of product offerings. The newest consumers entering these markets will be less involved and committed than the pioneering consumers were, and they will have different motivations. These late adopters will look to the industry, regulators, and their health care providers to make sense of these often complex and contradictory product offerings. Consider, for example, a consumer trying to understand the differences between a natural food and a genetically modified nutraceutical, both promoting health benefits. As discussed earlier, the food shopping process is already very noisy, and the winners in natural foods will be the ones that help consumers solve their food purchasing problems. This problem will be complicated as mass retailers offer more organic and natural foods and nutraceuticals, along with their conventional products, confronting a broader cross-section of consumers further. Perhaps the greatest challenge facing the stakeholders in this arena is the evolution of genetically modified foods. By definition, these foods are certainly not organic and probably not natural, yet may offer health benefits. To date, the introduction of genetically modified foods has been difficult because consumers have not been properly educated about these new technologies. The industry must pay more attention to conducting reliable studies of these products and then communicating the results.

Representativeness and Authenticity in African Craft Exports

African countries face opportunities for the export of cultural products. Demand for these products has increased in recent years and has found distribution outlets via American and European mass retailers. The potential for African countries to exploit demand for locally produced crafts and cultural products depends critically on their ability to anticipate and respond to the market. This paper compares and contrasts craft production in Kenya and in Ghana in order to analyze the impact of culture on the countries' ability to exploit export opportunities. Key distinctions are raised in the areas of internally focused versus externally focused production and between products that are subject to local control in their production versus those that are not. Issues of authenticity versus representativeness are also raised relative to demand for craft products.