Editorial

Citation

Broadbridge, A. (2004), "Editorial", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 32 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijrdm.2004.08932caa.001

Editorial

Welcome to the first issue of Retail Insights for 2004. This issue is themed around the issue of emerging technologies and the impact they have on the retail environment. The first contribution in this issue is from Jai Ganesh, a research associate with Infosys SETLabs, Bangalore, India. He has an MBA in marketing from Nagpur University and a PhD in information systems from IIM, Bangalore. His paper considers the impact of Web services on multi-channel integration, the customer decision-making process and the implications of effectively managing the dynamics of customer behaviour for competitive advantage. He argues that, as the number of channels for a retailer increase, so managing the dynamics of customer behaviour becomes complex, and that relationship management must be able to accommodate the various channels. He closes his article by outlining three customer purchase scenarios, depicting product returns, product availability, and loyalty schemes, which all make use of multi-channel facilities.

Barry Berman also discusses multi-channel retail environments in his paper. His argument is that retailers must adopt a well integrated multi-channel strategy, so that the potential for customer frustration and confusion is minimised and customer satisfaction is maximised. His paper presents a guide to managing a multi-channel retailing strategy, which is designed to increase retailers' revenues and enhances customers' experiences. He outlines the approaches for identifying the unique advantages of each marketing channel, the cross-promotional activities available to multi-channel retailers and guidelines for assessing an organisation's readiness to implement a multi-channel retail strategy. He examines the current practices of some successful multi-channel retails and highlights the pitfalls of a multi-channel strategy.

In their paper, Barlow et al. from Glasgow Caledonian University also offer a perspective on multi-channel retailing. They provide an overview of some of the developments in information and communications technologies, which they suggest will make online shopping more attractive in future. These online channels include the Internet, mobile phones, interactive TV and ATMs. They argue that the developments in ICT will allow multi-sensory person-to-person engagements (as well as between people and products) in online shopping experiences. They outline some implications of these developments for traditional store-based retailers and how these retailers are currently trialling or might utilise such technologies in future to enable a multi-channel retail offering.

In the final article of this issue, Jones et al. discuss the very topical issue of radio frequency identification (RFID). They outline the UK retailers to have experimented with it, including Asda, Marks & Spencer and Tesco. They point to the range of benefits for adopting RFID. Amongst these are better control and management of the supply chain, better inventory management and reduction and shrinkage, reduced labour costs and improved customer service. Their article then addresses the associated challenges and problems. One is the strategic and operational issues, if RFID technology is to be fully realised, while the other is the range of civil liberties issues.

We end this issue with a press release for a recent report by Trade Partners UK. This report entitled "Opportunities for UK retail service companies in Japan" was carried out in March 2003 by Eric Doherty (Retail Planning Innovation) and Professor Leigh Sparks (Institute for Retail Studies, University of Stirling). The press release contains the Web site address of how to access the report.

Adelina BroadbridgeUniversity of Stirling