Citation
Brun, A. (2013), "Guest editorial", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 41 No. 11/12. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJRDM-08-2013-0151
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Guest editorial
Article Type: Guest editorial From: International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Volume 41, Issue 11/12
This issue is part of a double-special issue including results from research and practice in retail, operations, supply chain management of the luxury business. This second issue includes contributions mainly focusing on the upstream part of the supply chain, starting from product and supply chain innovation, and moving to the execution, assessed in terms of supply chain strategies and practices, including the ever-more-relevant issue of corporate social responsibility, with one study focusing not only on the “official supply chain but also on all the illegal supply chains that so often are coexisting with the official one.
The issue opens with a paper by Riot, Chamaret and Rigaud, focused on the so-called “commodity trap and a case study explaining how to avoid it. As some areas of the luxury market have been industrializing because of their expanding scale and scope, the value of the brand may be hampered as its image fades. Too many products might flood the market. The paper describes and interprets one type of successful reaction to this problem: the exclusive partnership made by Louis Vuitton with artist Takashi Murakami. The strategy behind this partnership and its step-by-step implementation along the value chain are presented and discussed.
The second paper, by Caniato, Caridi and Moretto, introduces a new conceptual framework to identify the main features of supply chain innovation and to analyse the role of dynamic capabilities in implementing such innovations in the context of the fashion-luxury industry. The theoretical framework, developed through the literature review, is applied to an Italian fashion-luxury company, thus exploring its applicability in a real context and obtaining evidence in the area of supply chain innovation.
Advocating that corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a central part of the sourcing and supply activity in the textile industry, the paper by Towers, Perry and Chen studies the role of supply chain management in implementing CSR. In particular, the paper investigates how the luxury sector is addressing these demands through a single in-depth case study of a Scottish based luxury own-brand and branded cashmere garment manufacturer.
The aim of the fourth contribution by Faust is to explore and validate hypothesis such as young American experiencers perceive cashmere as the most luxurious animal fibre based on their knowledge about the product, what it provides, and its attributes. The paper shows that articulating the story behind luxury goods – as the cashmere fibres employed in the production of a beautiful pullover – can enhance the shopping experience, increase sales, and build customer loyalty, thus building a sustainable competitive advantage for retailers.
The fifth paper, by DAmato and Papadimitriou, provides a supply chain view of counterfeiting and illegitimate trade phenomena, in a supply chain risk management perspective, to define and illuminate the interaction of the legitimate and the illegitimate supply chains. The authors argue that the interrelations between legitimate and illegitimate supply chains are crucial to approach counterfeiting issues and define which illegitimate trade paths are more harmful to companies and customers.
The final contribution, by Ponticelli, Mininno, Dulmin and Aloini, investigates the applicability of strategic supply chain management (SCM) models in one-off luxury contexts such as yacht industry, where durable products are manufactured with a project configuration. The findings of a multiple case-studies analysis suggest the implementation of various strategic SCM strategies in order to fit the requirements of the market (e.g. protect critical resources, implement a customized leagile production strategy, enhance SC flexibility).
Alessandro Brun
Guest Editor