ABSTRACT
The internationalization of Wal-Mart stores since November 1991 has raised awareness of the international activities of retailers. Over 1,000 stores outside the US were operated by Wal-Mart within a decade of their first international move. Similarly, the substantial development of Tesco, Zara and many other major European firms has occurred since the early 1990s and highlighted the opportunities and impacts of international retailing. Mintel (2003) identified 2,588 intraEuropean cross-border retailers operating 74,160 stores in 2002. Many of these had been initiated in the previous decade although a few have a longer history. These intra-European developments represent approximately two-thirds of all cross-border retail operations by European-based retailers.The international operations of large Asian retailers are even more recent with foreign sales being only a few per cent of total sales in the major Japanese firms even in 2004. There are a few exceptions with a longer history among the food and grocery-based retailers; Carrefour, Auchan, Ahold, Delhaize le Lion, Metro from Europe, and Dairy Farm and A. S.Watson in Asia, have a somewhat longer history but even with these firms the major expansion of international activity is relatively recent, dating from the mid-1990s. Specialized retailers, for example, Laura Ashley, Benetton, Body Shop, have operated internationally for longer but again it is since the early 1990s that retailers have expanded their international networks of stores and more specialist retailers have moved into operating internationally.
