• A region develops
• Downtown retailers and "Main street towns"
• Selling in hub and hinterland
• The "chain store question" and the independent retailer
• The depression and local spending
• Hard times and good times at home.

Between The Two World Wars, the retail world experienced tremendous changes. New forms of competition, expanded networks of communication and transportation, and the proliferation of manufactured goods posed challenges to department store and small shopkeeper alike. In western New York, and in Buffalo and Rochester in particular, retailers were a crucial part of urban life, acting as cultural brokers and civic leaders. They were also cultivators of area pride. Even as they adopted the latest merchandising techniques or stocked the newest items, merchants emphasized their local roots and their ability to put a local spin on national trends and innovations. Regional identity became a powerful selling tool not only during the prosperity of the 1920s but also through the economic crisis of the Great Depression. Sales and Celebrations explains how local traditions and institutions affected the evolution of American consumer culture. It expands our understanding of American consumerism, demonstrating that local particularities and loyalties could often coexist with, and occasionally challenge, the spread of mass consumption. In her award-winning study, Professor Sarah Elvins provides new insight into the relationship between America's largest metropolises and its smaller centers. Retailers in Buffalo and Rochester did not simply imitate the practices of their counterparts in Manhattan and Chicago; they highlighted their unique ability to serve the wants and needs of their particular markets. By drawing attention to this persistent power of the local, Sales and Celebrations illuminates a neglected aspect of the story of American culture in the interwar period.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• "The Information Industry" Converting "Change" into a "Chance"-- The Birth of "Item by Item" Management and the Information System-- Secrets of 7-Eleven Japan's Excellent Ability in New Product Development-- The Innovative Distribution System of 7-Eleven Japan-- Analyzing the Robustness of 7-Eleven Japan According to Personality and Organization-- The Fifth Integrated Information System Connecting Chain Stores Utilizing Satellite Communications-- The Convenience Store Industry Changing with the Times-- Progress in the Unification of the Retail and Banking Sectors.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

When analyzing 7-Eleven Japan's advanced and innovative management style, the authors of this study highlight the existence of the "integrated information system". This is because of the key role it plays not only in forming this firm's corporate strategy but also in developing its functional strategies for logistic support, merchandising and store operations. The authors explore the integrated information system, a symbol of the competitiveness of 7-Eleven Japan.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Russia's retail landscape, 1860s-1890s
• Palaces of retailing and consumption
• For God, tsar, and consumerism
• Visions of modernity: gender and the retail marketplace, 1905-1914
• Consuming the city: the culture of the retail marketplace
• War and revolution in the marketplace, 1914-1921
• Retailing the revolution
• The customer is always wrong: consumer complaint in late NEP-era Russia.

Marjorie L. Hilton presents a captivating history of consumer culture in Russia from the 1880s to the early 1930s. She highlights the critical role of consumerism as a vehicle for shaping class and gender identities, modernity, urbanism, and as a mechanism of state power in the transition from tsarist autocracy to Soviet socialism. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, Russia witnessed a rise in mass production, consumer goods, advertising, and new retail venues such as arcades and department stores. These mirrored similar developments in other European countries and reflected a growing quest for leisure activities, luxuries, and a modern lifestyle. As Hilton reveals, retail commerce played a major role in developing Russian public culture--it affected celebrations of religious holidays, engaged diverse groups of individuals, defined behaviors and rituals of city life, inspired new interpretations of masculinity and femininity, and became a visible symbol of state influence and provision. Through monarchies, revolution, civil war, and monumental changes in the political sphere, Russia's distinctive culture of consumption was contested and recreated. Leaders of all stripes continued to look to the "commerce of exchange" as a key element in appealing to the masses, garnering political support, and promoting a modern nation. Hilton follows the evolution of retailing and retailers alike, from crude outdoor stalls to elite establishments; through the competition of private versus state-run stores during the NEP; and finally to a system of total state control, indifferent workers, rationing, and shortages under a consolidating Stalinist state.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

This handsome volume celebrates over forty years of the playful and trendsetting English fashion brand and retailer Paul Smith. Always in fashion, Paul Smith is not only a preeminent fashion designer but also an international retail trendsetter who perfected a classic style that exudes a sense of English tradition combined with humor, playfulness, and mischief. This marriage of sophistication and the unexpected has given birth to a style and identity that--forty years and many collections later--remains charming, personable, and effortlessly hip. Published in association with the Design Museum, London, which is hosting a major exhibition on Paul Smith in the fall of 2013, this volume celebrates not only the line's fashion history, collections, and collaborations but also the inspirations and obsessions that have helped to transform a small bedroom-sized shop into an innovative global forum for culture and style. Paul Smith is a full-on bright and rich visual experience, illustrated throughout with documentation of its diverse creative community and design inspirations, including Martin Parr, David Bowie, and Henry Moore, to name a few. Using hand-drawn designs, archival photographs, gorgeous original photography, and engaging essays, this colorful catalog weaves together a compelling visual tale of Paul Smith's prestigious projects and creative processes--from behind-the-scenes to on the streets--that built this multifaceted empire of cool.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• The British at home
• Material good: morality and the well-to-do
• Cathedrals to commerce: shoppers and entrepreneurs
• Art at home: how the house became artistic
• In possession: men, women, and decoration
• Home as a stage: personality and possessions
• Designs on the past: antiques as a faith
• Modern living: the triumph of safety first
• Your neighbour's house.

At what point did the British develop their mania for interiors, wallpaper, furniture, and decoration? Why have the middle classes developed so passionate an attachment to the contents of their homes? This absorbing book offers surprising answers to these questions, uncovering the roots of today's consumer society and investigating the forces that shape consumer desires. Richly illustrated, "Household Gods" chronicles a hundred years of British interiors, focusing on class, choice, shopping and possessions. Exploring a wealth of unusual records and archives, Deborah Cohen locates the source of modern consumerism and materialism in early nineteenth-century religious fervour. Over the course of the Victorian era, consumerism shed the taint of sin to become the pre-eminent means of expressing individuality. The book ranges from musty antique shops to luxurious emporia, from suburban semi-detached houses to elegant city villas, from husbands fretting about mantelpieces to women appropriating home decoration as a feminist cause. It uncovers a society of consumers whose identities have become entwined with the things they put in their houses.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)