Five secrets from the world’s best retailers: Lessons from Ahold, Benetton, Carrefour, Home Depot, IKEA and Wal‐Mart

Who are the world’s best retailers? How do you select them? And just what are the features of their business that make them so successful? For the purposes of this study the selection criteria are: sales volume, growth, number of stores, number of countries they are represented in, longevity, as well as ranking compared to others in their particular retail category. To ensure that the choice is not too limited, the sectors covered include food and non‐food categories.