Editorial

Citation

Fernie, J. (2002), "Editorial", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 30 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijrdm.2002.08930haa.001

Editorial

Our first paper in this issue is co-authored by my former colleague Leigh Sparks, who also co-edits the International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research. His paper, with Anne Findlay, should stimulate lively debate on the direction in which retail research is going on both sides of the Atlantic. The authors use a bibliometric approach to investigate the development of published retail research in European retail journals in comparison with the Journal of Retailing in the USA. They suggest that there is an emerging core of study appearing within a broader marketing base. Of more interest to readers of this journal is their comments on the US/UK split in terms of research ethos and the approach to the discipline. This theme is followed up by Frasquet, Mollÿ, Gil and Vallet in their paper on research trends in retailing. Drawing upon a bibliographic review of academic retail research published between 1996 and 2000, they show that some areas receive considerably more research attention (consumer behaviour) than others (logistics and distribution channels). Also research in Europe in general and Spain in particular tends to be more holistic than in the USA, where research focuses upon fewer lines of enquiry.

Our next paper is also from a former colleague at Stirling University, Adelina Broadbridge and her co-author Eric Calderwood. Revisiting the classical research on local shops in the 1970s and 1980s, the authors investigate the grocery shopping habits of residents in rural communities in Western Stirlingshire. On the basis of two surveys in 1997 and 2000, they show that respondents feel positive towards their local shops but only a small proportion of shoppers spent much of their grocery expenditure locally. The authors make several recommendations on how this outshopping can be reduced to make local shops at least the secondary choice for-top up shopping trips.

Our final paper deals with logistics issues - perhaps to redress the imbalance in research output referred to earlier by our Spanish colleagues. The paper by de Koster, de Brito and van der Vendel investigates an area of increasing importance to retailers – how to organise "returns" through the supply chain. They have undertaken a detailed analysis of nine retailer warehouses of three food retailers, two department stores, a specialist retailer and three mail order companies. They conclude that retailers perform better when handling the forward flow of goods rather than reverse flows. They recommend that it is more efficient to collect returned material to the warehouse with the same truck that delivers the product. When returned it is more efficient to unload and sort returns in a separate area of the warehouse and that automation of the handling process may simplify operations.

John Fernie