Have Discount Retailers gone upmarket in the UK?

Have Discount Retailers gone upmarket in the UK? Preliminary Information Working Title of Dissertation: Have Discount Retailers gone upmarket in the UK? If so, how and why? Research Question and aim: To investigate location of Aldi and Lidl stores in relation to income/social class of catchment area(compare 1991, 2001 and 2011 census data) to understand store strategy. Why would more affluent household shop at hard discounters? Understand hard discounters non-locational strategy. Introduction The review aims to look at theoretical explanations of retailers change such as the Wheel of Retailing and the Conflict Theory. It then focuses on research studies which try to understand consumers store choice decision and factors influencing it. Finally, it will briefly look at methods which are used to understand retailers store decisions. All the sources are either books or peer-reviewed journal articles. Understanding the current literature available is important as it would help support my research findings and improve my research methods based on other academics research. The most widely used model in explaining retail growth is the Wheel of Retailing created by McNair in 1958. The details of his work are mostly described in Hollander (1960) work. The model describes most retailer start as a low margin or focuses on low prices such as the discount grocery retailers. Investment in facilities and services increases, therefore, leads to increasing cost and price with its emphasis on service which allows a higher profit margin. This leaves a gap for lower margin retailers to enter the market which will make traditional retailers vulnerable to competition.ÂÂ   Hollander also identified the factors causing the changes which are Management Deterioration, price competition and excess capacity in factories. The Retail life cycle is a similar theory propose by Davidson et al (1976) cited in Levy et al (2005). It describes 4 stages of a retailer: Introduction, Growth, Maturity and decline. The focus is the profit level and the market share whereas the Wheel of Retailing focuses on the price-quality continuum. Sparks (1990) case study on Kwik Save provides an excellent case study on how it has progressed through the cycle with the name discount removed from their store in 1986 suggesting a move to the maturing stage. These cyclical theories are simple to understand and supportive examples can be found, however, Roth and Klein (1993) found that it is very difficult to test it with limited expense data and Brown (1991) criticise that it only considers price and quality and ignores other factors such as assortments and store size. Also, it assumes that there is only one path to retail growth, therefore alternative theories such as the Big Middle (Levy et al, 2005) was developed. It considers another path of development through innovation targeting at a higher income market which then moves into the Big Middle to benefit from economies of scale and where there is the highest demand focusing on services. There are also non- cyclical theories. The conflict theory suggests competition is the main reason for changes in retailing. Stores can be classified as thesis which has higher margins and antithesis which have a lower margin (such as discounters). Over time, a merger could occur which will lead to synthesis to reduce competition or increased price competition through introduction of value private labels (Burt and Sparks, 1994). Changes in the environment also encourage retail changes. Levy et al (2005) mentioned Dresseman s(1968) work which uses Darwins natural selection theory as an analogy for retail changes where only the fittest store will survive. Roth and Klein (1993) also identifies environmental factors such as demographics, regulation and demand encourage retailers to adapt otherwise they would be outcompeted. Overall, the theories suggest that retailer change due to a changing environment and try to avoid competition, especially price which is the focus of retailers who just joined the market. Consumers store choice Understanding consumers shopping behaviour is important as it allows retailers to strategically plan their store location, format and the assortments. Therefore, this is an area which is widely researched. Fox and Sethuraman (2010) and Leszczyc et al (2004) provides a summary of consumers store choice and segmentation. There are three types of consumers: price, service seekers and cheery-pickers. Price seekers are usually from lower income households who are more price conscious (Katsaras et al., 2001) and would travel to an everyday low pricing (EDLP) stores which are usually cheaper, larger stores to do their main shopping. This includes the deep-discounters. For service seekers who usually are single household who have a higher income and time-deprived due to work commitments, they therefore value convenience store more which provides better services such as Tesco Express Shops. They are known as High/Low Price Store (Hilo) who offers discount by promotion. When doing a Multi-Purp ose Trips, both groups will visit stores near shopping centres and would visit both types of stores. The final type of shopper is the cherry-pickers who go to different stores to look for the best deals, hence they would visit both types of stores and have a lot of time to do shopping but also has the lowest loyalty to a brand or store. Apart from price and convenience, assortment is another factor affecting store choice. Briesch et al (2009) found that it is the 3rd most important factor and it is measured in Store Keeping Units (SKU). Generally, store size is used as a proxy for assortments hence EDLP stores usually has higher SKUs and are more attractive to customers who want choice. However, Broniarczyk et al (1998) study found that retailers could make significant reduction in SKUs and customers perception will remain the same. Briesch et al (2009) also concluded that only the number of brands and availability of favourite brands would affect store choice suggesting assortment could be less important than brands in consumers store choice decision. Brands can be separated into private labels and National brand. The UK is a unique market that the private labels are stronger than in continental Europe. For example, Tesco own private label has three grades: Value, Finest, Normal (Krafft and Mantrala, 2010) which is different from other countries where private labels are seen as low cost and quality(Burt, 2000) hence able to directly compete with National Brand. In the same paper, he mentioned previous studies in the USA by Myers, 1967 found that there is no socio-economic difference in choosing National or private brands but Liversey and Lennin (1978) found that more affluent and young people are more likely to take risks to buy new national brands than lower income people. Hence there is no clear consensus whether private and national brands are targeting different groups. During economic recession, people become more price orientated hence Hard-Discounters would be popular during the period as their price are 15-40% cheaper than traditional retailer (Lamey, 2014). According to Colla (1994) study, he found that 1/3 of people in the sample thinks that the quality in discounters is high due to the basic display hence shop from them. This means traditional retailer are not only competing with hard discounter on price but also on its quality which means after recession, these customers are very likely to be retained. Also, this shows different customer has different view on factors such as quality, therefore different literature provides a different view and there is no consensus on the most important factor. It is now becoming common for retailers to use models to help decide where stores should be located. The three methods that will be discussed are Regression, GIS and Spatial Interaction Model. Regression can be used to accurately predict how one factor affects another with known values. This allows understanding of the relative importance of each factor. Leszczyc and Timmermans (1997) work used regression to analyse variables such as income with repeated trips, store loyalty etc. using data collected from consumer. GIS can be used to help to understand store location decision by doing simple catchment area analysis. This involves drawing a buffer of a certain travel time or distance on the program to show how far people would travel to a store (Benoit and Clarke, 1997). Neighbourhood data could also be incorporated which will help to identify potential new site and analyse current store strategy of a retailer. However, this paper and Birkin et al (2002) raises issues of using the method. How should the buffer be defined and when the buffers overlap, how can we allocate the number of consumers or revenue to each store? The second problem could be solved by using a spatial interaction model which according to Brown (1993), it considers the Trade-off between distance and attractiveness of alternative of shopping area. Hence revenue can be allocated according to the attractiveness (e.g. Floorspace) and its accessibility relative to another. This will improve the accuracy of the analysis. The literature review showed that a wide range of theories have been constructed to understand changes in retail and through research has been done on consumers behaviour and how they are analysed. However, more research is still needed in understanding customers perception of different store types as results still vary a lot. The review of the methods helped me to consider other methods to analyse the relationship between discount retailers and income and the store choice review would help me with the questionnaire design to understand consumer behaviour for discount retailers. Finally, the theory review would help explain the findings in GIS analysis. References Benoit, D. and Clarke, G.P. 1997. Assessing GIS for retail location planning. Journal of retailing and consumer services. 4(4), pp.239-258. Birkin, M., Clarke, G.P. and Clarke, M. 2002. Retail Geography and intelligent network planning. Chichester: Wiley. Briesch, R.A., Chintagunta, P.K. and Fox, E.J. 2009. How does assortment affect grocery store choice? Journal of Marketing Research. 46(2), pp.176-189. Broniarczyk, S.M., Hoyer, W.D. and McAlister, L. 1998. Consumers perceptions of the assortment offered in a grocery category: The impact of item reduction. Journal of Marketing Research. pp.166-176. Brown, S. 1991. Variations on a marketing enigma: The wheel of retailing theory. Journal of Marketing Management. 7(2), pp.131-155. Brown, S. 1993. Retail location theory: evolution and evaluation. International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research. 3(2), pp.185-229. Burt, S. 2000. The strategic role of retail brands in British grocery retailing. European Journal of Marketing. 34(8), pp.875-890. Burt, S. and Sparks, L. 1994. Structural change in grocery retailing in Great Britain: a discount reorientation? The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research. 4(2), pp.195-217. Colla, E. 1994. Discount development in france: The introduction of the format and the competitive response. Journal of Marketing Management. 10(7), pp.645-654. Fox, E.J. and Sethuraman, R. 2010. Retail Competition. In: Krafft, M. and Mantrala, M.K. eds. Retailing in the 21st century, current and future trends. [Online].London: Springer, pp.239-255. [Accessed 19 March 2017]. Available from: https://www.dawsonera.com/readonline/9783540720034 Hollander, S.C. 1960. The Wheel of Retailing. Journal of Marketing. 25(1), pp.37-42. Katsaras, N., Wolfson, P., Kinsey, J. and Senauer, B. 2001. Data mining: A segmentation analysis of US grocery shoppers. St. Paul, MN: The University of Minnesota, The Retail Food Industry Center, Working Paper. p01. Krafft, M. and Mantrala, M.K. 2010. Retailing in the 21st century: current and future trends. Berlin: Springer Verlag. Lamey, L. 2014. Hard economic times: a dream for discounters. European Journal of Marketing. 48(3/4), pp.641-656. Leszczyc, P.T.P., Sinha, A. and Sahgal, A. 2004. The effect of multi-purpose shopping on pricing and location strategy for grocery stores. Journal of Retailing. 80(2), pp.85-99. Leszczyc, P.T.P. and Timmermans, H. 1997. Store-switching behavior. Marketing Letters. 8(2), pp.193-204. Levy, M., Grewal, D., Peterson, R.A. and Connolly, B. 2005. The concept of the Big Middle. Journal of Retailing. 81(2), pp.83-88. Roth, V.J. and Klein, S. 1993. A theory of retail change. The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research. 3(2), pp.167-183. Sparks, L. 1990. Spatial-Structural Relationships in Retail Corporate Growth: A Case-Study of Kwik Save Group P.L.C. The Service Industries Journal. 10(1), pp.25-84.

Negotiations and Decision-making Essay -- Negotiating

A multitude of data can be found online when searching for material on decision-making. Likewise, the same can be stated regarding the search for information pertaining to negotiations and decision-making. For example, a Google search of the key words â€Å"negotiations/decision-making† garnered over ten million results! Reviewing a tenth of that information would take a great deal of time and energy, so this paper will narrow the scope and focus on four negotiation/decision-making types: zero-sum game, win-win, satisficing solutions and fixed pie. In addition, a brief discussion on how each of the types has been applied will ensue. Prior to this class I had never heard of the zero-sum negotiation type. When researching the ideology, I came across a website created by Robert Korn (Korn, 2010) called Truth Pizza, and I found his take on the subject quite interesting. He explained the zero-sum games negotiations type as one party pursuing an action that satisfies their needs while a comparable party equally misses an opportunity. Korn offered several examples to explain the method in a way that was easy to understand and relatable. To convey a couple of scenarios Korn disclosed, he wrote about the zero-sum game as it relates to insurance companies. Each month people pay premiums to provide protection from what may come. People buy flood insurance to protect from rising water, auto insurance to protect from accidents and theft, life insurance to pay out in an untimely demise, and so forth. Society-at-large pays monthly, semi-annual or annual premiums in hopes that they will never need the services they are paying for. â€Å"For the most part, the money we get back from insurance is considerably less than what we pay in† (Korn, 20... ... negotiation feeling as though their issues were addressed and important to the compromise. This fosters better relations and improved camaraderie for those involved. Works Cited Business Dictionary. (2010). Satisficing. Retrieved November 15, 2010, from Business Dictionary: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/satisficing.html Korn, R. (2010, April 25). Zero-sum Games. Retrieved November 15, 2010, from TruthPizza.org: http://www.truthpizza.org/logic/zerosum.htm Menard, R. (2009, November 17). What Does Win-Win Negotiation Mean? Retrieved November 15, 2010, from Ezine Articles: http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Does-Win-Win- Negotiation-Mean?&id=3281520 Spangler, B. (2003, October). Positive-Sum, Zero-Sum, and Negative-Sum Situations. Retrieved November 17, 2010, from Beyond Intractability: http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/sum/

Meaning of Education Essay

Recently, a university professor wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper. He commented that people shouldn’t put too much weight on the recently released trends in SRA scores of the state’s high school students. The professor went on to describe some of the unanswered questions about the nature and value of assessment. He mentioned that one of the problems with assessment was the ongoing disagreement on the very purpose of education. A few days later, a scathing response was printed from a community member who questioned whether the University really wanted someone on their staff who didn’t even know the purpose of education. Clearly, this person assumed that his definition of education was shared by all. What is the meaning of education? Webster defines education as the process of educating or teaching (now that’s really useful, isn’t it? ) Educate is further defined as â€Å"to develop the knowledge, skill, or character of†¦ † Thus, from these definitions, we might assume that the purpose of education is to develop the knowledge, skill, or character of students. Unfortunately, this definition offers little unless we further define words such as develop, knowledge, and character. What is meant by knowledge? Is it a body of information that exists â€Å"out there†Ã¢â‚¬â€apart from the human thought processes that developed it? If we look at the standards and benchmarks that have been developed by many states—or at E. D. Hirsch’s list of information needed for Cultural Literacy (1), we might assume this to be the definition of knowledge. However, there is considerable research leading others to believe that knowledge arises in the mind of an individual when that person interacts with an idea or experience. This is hardly a new argument. In ancient Greece, Socrates argued that education was about drawing out what was already within the student. (As many of you know, the word education comes from the Latin e-ducere meaning â€Å"to lead out. â€Å") At the same time, the Sophists, a group of itinerant teachers, promised to give students the necessary knowledge and skills to gain positions with the city-state. There is a dangerous tendency to assume that when people use the same words, they perceive a situation in the same way. This is rarely the case. Once one gets beyond a dictionary definition—a meaning that is often of little practical value—the meaning we assign to a word is a belief, not an absolute fact. Here are a couple of examples. â€Å"The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together. † ~Eric Hoffer â€Å"No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure. † ~Emma Goldman â€Å"The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life-by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. The training he needs is theoretical, i. e. , conceptual. He has to be taught to think, to understand, to integrate, to prove. He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past-and he has to be equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own effort. † ~Ayn Rand â€Å"The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think—rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men. † ~Bill Beattie â€Å"The one real object of education is to leave a man in the condition of continually asking questions. † ~Bishop Creighton â€Å"The central job of schools is to maximize the capacity of each student. † ~Carol Ann Tomlinson These quotations demonstrate the diversity of beliefs about the purpose of education. How would you complete the statement, â€Å"The purpose of education is†¦ â€Å"? If you ask five of your fellow teachers to complete that sentence, it is likely that you’ll have five different statements. Some will place the focus on knowledge, some on the teacher, and others on the student. Yet people’s beliefs in the purpose of education lie at the heart of their teaching behaviors. Despite what the letter writer might have wished, there is no definition of education that is agreed upon by all, or even most, educators. The meanings they attach to the word are complex beliefs arising from their own values and experiences. To the extent that those beliefs differ, the experience of students in today’s classrooms can never be the same. Worse, many educators have never been asked to state their beliefs—or even to reflect on what they believe. At the very least, teachers owe it to their students to bring their definitions into consciousness and examine them for validity. Purposes and Functions. To make matters more complicated, theorists have made a distinction between the purpose of education and the functions of education. (2) A purpose is the fundamental goal of the process—an end to be achieved. Functions are other outcomes that may occur as a natural result of the process— byproducts or consequences of schooling. For example, some teachers believe that the transmission of knowledge is the primary purpose of education, while the transfer of knowledge from school to the real world is something that happens naturally as a consequence of possessing that knowledge—a function of education. Because a purpose is an expressed goal, more effort is put into attaining it. Functions are assumed to occur without directed effort. For this reason it’s valuable to figure out which outcomes you consider a fundamental purpose of education. Which of the following do you actually include in your planning? Acquisition of information about the past and present: includes traditional disciplines such as literature, history, science, mathematics Formation of healthy social and/or formal relationships among and between students, teachers, others Capacity/ability to evaluate information and to predict future outcomes (decision-making) Capacity/ability to seek out alternative solutions and evaluate them (problem solving) Development of mental and physical skills: motor, thinking, communication, social, aesthetic Knowledge of moral practices and ethical standards acceptable by society/culture Capacity/ability to recognize and evaluate different points of view Respect: giving and receiving recognition as human beings Indoctrination into the culture Capacity/ability to live a fulfilling life Capacity/ability to earn a living: career education Sense of well-being: mental and physical health. Capacity/ability to be a good citizen Capacity/ability to think creatively Cultural appreciation: art, music, humanities Understanding of human relations and motivations Acquisition/clarification of values related to the physical environment Acquisition/clarification of personal values Self-realization/self-reflection: awareness of one’s abilities and goals Self-esteem/self-efficacy As Tom Peters reminds us, â€Å"What gets measured, gets done. † Regardless of the high sounding rhetoric about the development of the total child, it is the content of assessments that largely drives education. How is the capacity/ability to think creatively assessed in today’s schools? To what extent is the typical student recognized and given respect? How often are students given the opportunity to recognize and evaluate different points of view when multiple choice tests require a single ‘correct’ answer? Teachers who hold a more humanistic view of the purpose of education often experience stress because the meaning they assign to education differs greatly from the meaning assigned by society or their institution. It is clear in listening to the language of education that its primary focus is on knowledge and teaching rather than on the learner. Students are expected to conform to schools rather than schools serving the needs of students. Stopping to identify and agree upon a fundamental purpose or purposes of education is rare. One sees nebulous statements in school mission statements, but they are often of the â€Å"Mom, baseball, and apple pie† variety that offer little substance on which to build a school culture. Creating meaningful and lasting change in education is unlikely without revisiting this basic definition. At the very least, educators must be challenged to identify and reexamine their beliefs in the light of present knowledge. It is time for the focus of education to shift from what’s â€Å"out there—the curriculum, assessments, classroom arrangement, books, computers—to the fundamental assumptions about and definitions of education held by educators and policymakers. NASA did not send men to the moon by building on the chassis of a model T. In the same way, education cannot hope to move beyond its present state on the chassis of 18th century education.

How Does Biological Sex Affect Society - 899 Words

In American society, we have assigned certain characteristics, clothing, and behaviors to two, generally accepted genders, male and female. In most families, you are expected to follow the normal behavior of the gender that also aligns with you biological sex. This idea that biological sex should determine your gender expression immediately ignores and excludes people who are born into intersex identities. Furthermore, this ideal disagrees with the idea that people have the choice to define themselves and their gender outside of societal norm. This idea also limits the everyday behaviors of the average person without much coercing. To keep others from deviating from gender norms, people have setup many ways of policing others actions so that they follow along and be a part of their prescribed gender. Speaking from my experience, I believe that there are three big influences that try to keep people in a cis-gendered box. 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