Paper Type: General ReviewPurpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the logistical transformation of British retailing over the last three decades and to discuss likely challenges that face logistics managers in the future Design/Approach: Reviews the key works on retail logistics, including the research undertaken by the authors over the last 20 years. Findings:Illustrates how retailers have control of the supply chain in the UK drawing upon examples from both the grocery and fashion sectors. Challenges for the future include macro-environment issues such as climate change and recession in addition to improvements in existing in operations with regard to e-fulfilment and implementation of technologies such as RFID. IntroductionIn the late 1990s, Leigh Sparks wrote that there had been a 'logistical transformation' of British retailing in the previous decade (Sparks, 1998). At the same time John Fernie 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 (Fernie, 1997). 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% of overall sales (Mandeville, 2000). Fernie (1997) noted that logistics managers faced new challenges in the Millennium although the pace of change would be difficult to predict. Together John Fernie and Leigh Sparks have produced 3 editions of Logistics & Retail Management since the late 1990s; each edition has involved a considerable re-write to accommodate changes in the retail supply chain , 2009).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 etail logistics before 4 finally, a discussion of likely challenges that logistics managers will face in the future is provided. Retail Logistics and Supply Chain TransformationRetailers were once the passive recipients of products, allocated to stores by manufacturers in anticipation of demand. Today, 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 to 30 years. Major British retailers have been faster to adopt these technologies than 6

With complex buyer-driven global production networks and a labour-intensive manufacturing process, the fashion industry has become a focal point for debates on the social responsibility of business. Utilising an interview methodology with influential actors from seven export garment manufacturers in Sri Lanka, we explore the situated knowledge at one nodal point of the production network. We conceptualise factory management perspectives on the implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in terms of the strategic balancing of ethical considerations against the commercial pressures of cost and lead time. Factory managers framed CSR in terms of compliance, rather than going above and beyond regulatory requirements; seeing it as a strategic competitive imperative and less a developmental mechanism. Sri Lankan manufacturers maintain that they have benefitted from a unique combination of factors, including strict national labour laws, an educated workforce, the characteristics of the garments produced, industrial upgrading, and long-term non-adversarial buyer-supplier relationships, which they argue has supported the establishment and maintenance of CSR practices. The paper thus provides managerial implications that relate CSR activities to CSR outcomes which include both reputational and production benefits. Such insights will be of strategic relevance for lead retail buyers as well as apparel producers keen to invest in CSR to partly mitigate against increasing price-based competition.

Addresses an area which has been neglected in the international retailing literature; the internationalisation of the fashion designer’s brand. Initial exploratory research revealed that there were 114 international fashion design houses competing for a global market of around £24 billion. Further research by postal questionnaire to entrants into the UK market, in addition to semi‐structured interviews with European and US designers, confirmed that this market was buoyant, fuelled by the development of diffusion lines for the mass market. Identifies four stages of market development: wholesale channels to department stores; the creation of ready‐to‐wear flagships; large diffusion flagships; the opening of stores in provincial cities. In order to acquire capital to enable this expansion, over 60 per cent of all fashion designers are now public limited companies. Even then franchising of stages 3 and 4, diffusion line development, is often franchised to third parties with the designer maintaining control over the product and its brand image. Between 20‐30 per cent of gross margin is spent on advertising support to create global campaigns to enhance brand image in foreign markets. However, there is increasing tension between the desire to be exclusive yet becoming involved in product line extensions and widespread distribution which could ultimately dilute the brand’s value.

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY FRESNO For Authors:If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service. Information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comWith over forty years' experience, Emerald Group Publishing is a leading independent publisher of global research with impact in business, society, public policy and education. In total, Emerald publishes over 275 journals and more than 130 book series, as well as an extensive range of online products and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 3 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -Many traditional retailers use the internet as a complementary business channel while "pure player" retailers only sell products via the internet. The question of who is better at offering electronic physical distribution service quality (e-PDSQ) is open to debate. But, despite e-PDSQ's importance there are few empirical studies and most have focused on general service quality of internet shopping or web site design. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and empirically test a conceptual framework for e-PDSQ from the consumer's perspective. Design/methodology/approach -This paper follows a two-stage paradigm for scale and construct development, which is presented in a framework based on the concept of order fulfilment as a key driver in e-PDSQ. Consumer postal surveys were conducted in Edinburgh, UK. Findings -The consumer survey confirmed the appropriateness of the adopted e-PDSQ framework. The finding that price is the most important online purchasing criteria is in accordance with Verdict which suggests that price is the principle motivator in the home delivery market as the retailing market is getting more price-transparent and consumers are becoming more price-sensitive. Originality/value -Earlier work has provided insight into how e-PDSQ, represented by availability, timeliness and reliability. This paper extends this work and empirically tests and confirms an e-PDSQ framework to investigate differences between multi-channel and pure player retailers, and provides a parsimonious set of e-PDSQ variables and constructs for retailers to use to design and operate their online offerings.

The globalization of fashion brands has occurred as major fashion designer houses have expanded their product ranges and diversified into middle‐market diffusion lines. Central London has been the target for some of this development activity in the 1990s. Charts the growth of designer outlets in the UK capital with particular attention to foreign companies and their market‐entry strategies.

A simple algorithm is given for estimating the uncertainty in the period of a variable star as determined from a given set of observations by either the Lafler-Kinman technique or Deeming's Discrete Fourier Transform method or later improvements of these methods. This algorithm is the one developed by Kwee and van Woerden for estimating the uncertainty in the time of minimum of an eclipsing binary as determined by what was originally Hertzsprung's method.

The transformations in (V-R), (V-I), and (R -I) between the photometric systems of Johnson and Kron-Cousins are investigated using the new Johnson URVRI standards now appearing in The Astronomical Almanac. Transformations for very red stars are determined separately from other data.

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