ABSTRACT
Retailing in Europe has undergone major structural change over the last thirty years. The processes generating structural readjustment are driven by changing market demands, changing technologies, and changing management strategies. Manifestations of the new retail structures include the increasing market shares of rapidly growing large retail businesses operating multiple units, and the polarization of unit size. In the United Kingdom for instance, in February 1987, 52 per cent of grocery sales were accounted for by the largest five businesses, and over 30 per cent of carpet retailing was in the hands of five businesses. As far as store size is concerned, at one extreme over 25 per cent of grocery sales were accounted for by 450 superstores and 165 carpet superstores accounted for an estimated 9 per cent of carpet sales. Large mass merchandising units have become important in both the food and non-food sectors. In contrast, the growth of small units is illustrated by the growth of numbers of units, and the redesign of units to serve focused markets. The number of convenience stores in the United Kingdom, for example, had risen to over 2,000 by early 1987, from only a few dozen in 1980. The impact of redesign is exemplified in the 1985–86 two-year sales and profit performance of the NEXT company. Sales increased from 146 million to 190 million (profit 20.1 million to 27.7 million) through the reorganization of the store network from 435 (593,000 sq.ft) units to 468 (713,000 sq.ft) as it developed twelve distinct small-store formats each targeted at a particular niche market. The two changes, of large firm dominance (Baden Fuller 1986), and polarization in store size, are visible indicators of the new structure, but there are numerous other descriptors of change. The range of changes has been considered elsewhere (Dawson 1982; Dawson and Sparks 1985). These studies suggest that at a corporate level the interrelationships between the financing of the retail sector and its managerial philosophy have driven the changes. At both corporate and establishment level the changing nature of retail competition has been shown to be a major motivator of a wide spectrum of operational changes.
