Abstract
British retailing has experienced a dramatic restructuring since the 1960s. The 1980s is referred to as 'the golden age' of large retailers, since the central government planned the deregulation of large store locations. Large retailers aggressively located superstores in suburban areas. As a result, the top three retailers, Tesco, Sainsbury and Safeway, achieved over 50% of market share in the British grocery market. In addition, large retailers have actively introduced their 'own brand commodities' to sell high quality commodities. In this way, huge retailers have altered not only urban retailing but also the distribution system in Britain.
The present study aims to present and summarize British geographical studies on these issues which are widely applicable in Japanese geographical studies. Wrigley and Lowe (1996) constructed a 'new retail Geography' to analyze recent trends in British retailing. This framework pays particular attention to changes in the corporate structure to understand structural change in British retailing. Other British geographers have followed and developed this framework. Thus, the present study reviews mainly British geographical studies to obtain a new framework for analyzing retail change.
Some economic geographers have paid attention to the retailer's cost structure to understand how they change their location strategies. A few geographers, for example, Clark and Wrigley (1996, 1997) and Guy (1996), paid attention to 'sunk costs' that big retailers have operated unwillingly in the 1990s. Big retailer's properties such as their buildings and land have declined in the 1990s, because their aggressive store development in the 1980s resulted in the oversupply of superstores. Thus, they suggested that large retailer's property operations should be analyzed to understand the change of store location strategies.
Some geographers, such as Sparks (1986) and Smith and Sparks (1993), noted the low-cost delivery operations by big retailers and analyzed their spatial structure. Big retailers constructed their own delivery systems to reduce delivery costs and their store inventory. Big retailers located some distribution centers near highway interchanges to serve their own stores. As a result, big retailers delivered over 80% of commodities via their own delivery system.
Some geographers analyzed the spatial change in the British distribution system of large retailers. Large retailers not only constructed their own delivery systems but also participated in their own brand commodity production and advertising. Some geographers have suggested that decision-making points have changed from the producer's offices or factories to large retail head offices. In this way, large retailers have altered the spatial structure of distribution systems in Britain.
Above all, there are several studies in British geography that have analyzed the spatial structure of large retailers. They focus attention on their cost structure to understand the future direction of British retailing. In Japan, big retailers have gradually become the main players supplying grocery commodities. Thus, Japanese geographers would do well to refer to British geographical studies for the analysis of spatial change in the retailing system of Japan.
