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IJRDM and retailing 1990-2010: Reflections on key developments and challenges for the future
Edited by John Fernie
Introduction
In the late 1990s, [60] Sparks (1998) wrote that there had been a "logistical transformation" of British retailing in the previous decade. At the same time [20] Fernie (1997) provided a review of these logistical changes, commenting that the key challenges for the future were those in relation to political, environmental and technological change. The British Government had imposed a brake on out-of-town shopping developments, and along with environmental groups was seeking to improve recycling of waste and reduce "food miles" in the supply chain. Concurrently, the dot.com boom was producing forecasts of home shopping sales in Europe to account for up to 25 per cent of overall sales ([45] Mandeville, 2000). [20] Fernie (1997) noted that logistics managers faced new challenges in the Millennium although the pace of change would be difficult to predict. Together, [25], [26], [27] Fernie and Sparks (1998, 2004, 2009) have produced three editions of Logistics and Retail Management since the late 1990s; each edition has involved a considerable re-write to accommodate changes in the retail supply chain.
The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the "logistical transformation" of British retailing during the last three decades. The paper discusses the key logistics concepts and their application to the retail supply chain, prior to dealing more specifically with changes both in the grocery supply chain and fashion logistics. A section is then devoted to the development of e-tail logistics before finally, a discussion of likely challenges that logistics managers will face in the future is provided.
Retail logistics and supply chain transformation
Retailers were once the passive recipients of products, allocated to stores by manufacturers in anticipation of demand. Recently, retailers are the controllers of product supply in reaction to known customer demand. They control, organise and manage the supply chain from production to consumption. This is the essence of the retail logistics and supply chain transformation that has taken place during the last 20-30 years.
In 1996, McKinnon reviewed and summarised the key components required for this retail logistics transformation. He identified six closely related and mutually reinforcing trends:
Increased control over secondary distribution . Retailers have increased...