ABSTRACT
One of the most active arenas for retail intemationalisation in the last five years has been the US-Canada border. Canada has seen a dramatic influx of US retailers - prompting initiatives to assess the competitive effects and to formulate appropriate planning policy. Part of the problem for policymakers has been that the process of cross-border activity has become intertwined with innovative retail formats. Of late, trends in the retail geography of Canada and Britain have thrown up remarkable similarities because those new formats are at last also appearing in Britain. This paper seeks to add some detail to the advance of COSTCO in both countries and reactions to it [see also Tigert, 1992]. Additionally, it is clear that the recent entry of Wal-Mart into Canada cannot be ignored. Even as the work is written up, the process is moving on and the Sunday Times of 13 November 1994, noted the possibility that Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, was looking to move into Britain. Our aim is not to write specifically about intemationalisation [see Pellegrini's recent work, 1994] nor to achieve an expression of the current market situation for discount retailers, but to try to contextualise some of the regulatory aspects of the process. Our notion of regulation covers not just planning but other aspects of market organisation.
This, incidentally, adds to existing work that shows how Britain and Canada can act as mutual role-models [for example, Hallsworth and Jones, 1991; Hallsworth 1991, 1992a].
