THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE RETAILING INDUSTRY

The focus of this special issue of the International Journal of Commerce and Management is the globalization of the retailing industry. This is a topic which has received relatively little attention by most retailers and researchers until recently (Akehurst & Alexander, 1996). Instead, based on the belief that the heterogeneity of consumers across regions and nations was too great a hurdle to overcome, retailing has been traditionally viewed as primarily local or national in scope. Events in the retailing industry over the past several decades, however, has proven this belief to be incorrect. In fact, retailers have been among the forefront of the globalization process presently occurring in the business environment.