IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ege/journl/v8y2008i2p401-417.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Logistical Performance in The French Food Retailing Industry: Towards a New Trade-Off between Cost and Service Quality?

Author

Listed:
  • Gilles PACHÉ

    (Faculté des Sciences Economiques et de Gestion, Universite de la Mediterranee)

  • Hervé FENNETEAU

    (Institut de l'Enterprise et du Management, Universite Montpellier)

Abstract

The article examines developments in the French large food retailers’ logistical systems and questions the validity of the conventional pattern where the maturation of logistical systems leads firms to grant priority to service quality, by continuously improving their performances in this area. The authors show that the French large food retailers have for some years developed a low price strategy together with a deliberate degradation of customer logistical services. There exist several analyses to explain this apparent paradox. First, it seems that service improvement is compatible with cost control in specific circumstances only, which prevailed in the 1990s and disappeared later on. Looking at competition also shows that the pressure from hard discounters played an important part. Finally, the use of McNair’s (1957) wheel of retailing theory and its adaptation to the logistical field enable the authors to apply general rules to the phenomena today observed in France.

Suggested Citation

  • Gilles PACHÉ & Hervé FENNETEAU, 2008. "Logistical Performance in The French Food Retailing Industry: Towards a New Trade-Off between Cost and Service Quality?," Ege Academic Review, Ege University Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, vol. 8(2), pages 401-417.
    • Handle: RePEc:ege:journl:v:8:y:2008:i:2:p:401-417
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.onlinedergi.com/MakaleDosyalari/51/PDF2008_2_1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.onlinedergi.com/eab/arsiv/arsivDetay.aspx?yil=2008&peryot=2
    File Function: Website of the journal issue
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • M1 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ege:journl:v:8:y:2008:i:2:p:401-417. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Baris Gök (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iiegetr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.