MAIL ORDER RETAILING IN BRITAIN by Richard Coopey, Sean O'Connell, Dilwyn Porter ( 9780198296508 )

Item Details

Title:

MAIL ORDER RETAILING IN BRITAIN
A BUSINESS AND SOCIAL HISTORY

By:

Richard Coopey, Sean O'Connell, Dilwyn Porter

Format:

Hardback

List price:	£130.00
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ISBN 10:

0198296509

ISBN 13:

9780198296508

Publisher:

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Pub. date:

27 January, 2005

Pages:

258

Description:

This book represents an important development in the history of retailing. The authors have combined a business and social perspective in order to trace the growth of this important retail sector. Looking both inside and outside the firm, the book traces the rise of major firms including Kay and Co., Grattan, Empire Stores and Littlewoods. It highlights the ways in which these firms created and exploited social networks through the agency system and credit provisionamong the British working class. The book also traces the origins of internet-based home shopping in the UK - its links to, and divergence from, traditional mail order.

Synopsis:

Since its inception in the late 19th century, Britain's mail order industry both exploited and generated social networks in building its businesses. The common foundation of the sector was the agency system; Sales were made through catalogues held by agents, ordinary people in families, neighbourhoods, pubs, clubs and workplaces. Through this agency system mail order firms in Britain were able to tap social networks both to build a customer base, but also to obtain vital information on creditworthiness. In this, the first comprehensive history of the British mail order industry, the authors combine business and social history to fully explain the features and workings of this industry. They show how British general mail order industry firms such as Kay and Co., Empire Stores, Littlewoods, and Grattan grew from a range of businesses as diverse as watch sales or football pools. A range of business innovations and strategies were developed throughout the twentieth century, including technological development and labour process rationalisation. Indeed, the sector was in the vanguard of many aspects of change from supply chain logistics to computerization.The social and gender profile of the home shopper also changed markedly as the industry developed. These changes are charted, from the male-dominated origins of the industry to the growing influence of women both within the firm and, more importantly, as the centre of the mail order market. The book also draws parallels and contrasts with the much more widely studied mail order industry of the United States. The final section of the book examines the rise of internet shopping and the new challenges and opportunities it provided for the mail order industry. Here the story is one of continuity and fracture as the established mail order companies struggle to adjust to a business environment which they had partly created, but which also rested on a new range of core competencies and technological and demographic change.

Illustrations:

4 halftones and 6 tables

Publication:

Imprint:

Oxford University Press

Returns:

Non-returnable

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