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Retailing and Consumer Services
Retailing deals with a large variety of offerings - ranging from physical
products such as packaged goods, to intangible products such as financial services
or travel. Traditionally, this sector comprised mostly small businesses who
typically invest very little in research. However, these days the retail sector
is a driver of technological and management change and includes some of the
largest companies world-wide.
Retail research at Monash has grown substantially in the last few years, with
an increased number of quality publications, successful competitive grant applications,
and increasing number of PhD students choosing retail issues as topics, and
the establishment of two new research units in the Faculty: The Consumers and
Retail Research Unit (CRRU) and the Australian Supply Chain Management Unit
(ASCMU). These units closely cooperate with the Australian
Centre for Retail Studies (ACRS), which is a separate, commercially based
centre within the Department that has operated as a centre of retail expertise
for over 30 years. There is also a stream of research on distribution issues
in the automotive industry, funded by the Interntional Car Distribution Program
Australia.
Research activities focus on the following themes:
- Consumer shopping behaviour
- Assortment management
- Store location and agglomeration effects
- Retail branding
- Store atmosphere and the retail experience
- The role of personal selling
- Consumer channel choice
- Loyalty programs in retail
- Distribution issues in the automotive sector
- Franchising in retail
- Corporate social responsibility in retail
- Consumers perceptions of international retailers
- Customer satisfaction
- Customer loyalty
- Online services and online customer value analysis
Staff
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