BARBARA E. KAHN’S NEW BOOK, THE SHOPPING REVOLUTION, REVEALS A FRAMEWORK THAT ANY COMPANY CAN USE TO CREATE A POWERFUL RETAIL STRATEGY
PHILADELPHIA, PA, MAY 3, 2018—A quick look at the headlines reveals the challenges facing retailers… Retail defaults are at a historic high, with Toys R Us, Claire’s, and other retailers filing bankruptcy. The decline of malls continues, while other major retailers continue to struggle, including Sears and Kmart. And yet retail stocks are on an upswing.
We are just witnessing the start of the radical changes in retail that will revolutionize shopping in every way. As Amazon and other disruptors continue to offer ever-greater value, customers’ expectations will continue to ratchet up, making winning (and keeping) those customers all the more challenging. For some retailers, the changes will push customers permanently out of their reach—and their companies out of business.
In THE SHOPPING REVOLUTION: How Successful Retailers Win Customers in an Era of Endless Disruption (June 12, 2018; Wharton Digital Press), Barbara E. Kahn, a foremost retail expert and professor at The Wharton School, examines the companies that have been most successful during this wave of change, and offers fresh insights into what we can learn from their ascendance.
- How did Amazon become the retailer of choice for a large portion of the US population, and how can other companies work with them or compete with them?
- How did Walmart beat out other grocers in the late 1990s to become the leader in food retailing, and how must they pivot to hold their leadership position today?
- How did Warby Parker make a dent in the once-untouchable Luxottica’s lucrative eyewear business, and what can that tell start-ups about how to unseat a Goliath?
- How will Gen Z forever change shopping, and how can retailers exceed their expectations?
Building on these insights, Kahn offers a framework that any company can use to create a competitive strategy to survive and thrive in today’s—and tomorrow’s—retail environment.
THE SHOPPING REVOLUTION is a must-read for those in the retailing business who want to develop an effective strategy, entrepreneurs looking at starting their own business, and anyone interested in understanding the changing landscape in which they are shopping.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barbara E. Kahn is the Patty and Jay J. Baker Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She served two terms as the Director of the Jay H. Baker Retailing Center. Prior to rejoining Wharton, she served as the Dean and Schein Family Chair Professor of Marketing at the School of Business Administration, University of Miami, Miami, Florida. Before becoming Dean at UM, she spent 17 years at Wharton as Silberberg Professor of Marketing. She was also Vice Dean of the Wharton Undergraduate program.
Barbara is an internationally recognized scholar on retailing, variety seeking, brand loyalty, product assortment and design, and consumer and patient decision-making. She has published more than 75 articles in leading academic journals. She is the author of the forthcoming book The Shopping Revolution: How Successful Retailers Win Customers in an Era of Endless Disruption. She also authored Global Brand Power: Leveraging Branding for Long-Term Growth and co-authored Grocery Revolution: The New Focus on the Consumer
Barbara has been elected president of Association for Consumer Research, elected president of Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) Policy Board and selected as a Marketing Science Institute Trustee. She was also an Associate Editor at JCR, Journal of Marketing, and Marketing Science. She has recently been elected as a Fellow for both the Association of Consumer Research and the Society of Consumer Psychology. Barbara received her PhD, MBA and MPhil from Columbia University, and a BA from University of Rochester.
ABOUT WHARTON DIGITAL PRESS
Wharton Digital Press was established to inspire bold, insightful thinking within the global business community. In the tradition of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and its online business journal, Knowledge@Wharton, Wharton Digital Press uses innovative digital technologies to help managers meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
As an entrepreneurial publisher, Wharton Digital Press delivers relevant, accessible, conceptually sound, and empirically based business knowledge to readers wherever and whenever they need it. Its format ranges from ebooks to print books available through print-on-demand technology. Directed to a general business audience, the Press’s areas of interest include management and strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship, finance and investment, leadership, marketing, operations, human resources, social responsibility, and business–government relations.
ABOUT THE WHARTON SCHOOL
Founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. With a broad global community and one of the most published business school faculties, Wharton creates economic and social value around the world. The Wharton School has 5,000 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 9,000 participants in executive education programs annually and a powerful alumni network of 96,000 graduates.
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THE SHOPPING REVOLUTION
How Successful Retailers Win Customers in an Era of Endless Disruption
By BARBARA E. KAHN
On Sale: June 12, 2018
Wharton Digital Press
Format: Paperback, $17.99 | ISBN: 978-1-61363-086-0
Format: Ebook, $14.99 | ISBN: 978-1-61363-087-7
