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

Gilles Paché () and Hervé Fenneteau ()
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Gilles Paché: Faculté des Sciences Economiques et de Gestion, Universite de la Mediterranee
Hervé Fenneteau: Institut de l'Enterprise et du Management, Universite Montpellier

Ege Academic Review, 2008, vol. 8, issue 2, 401-417

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.

JEL-codes: M1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ege:journl:v:8:y:2008:i:2:p:401-417

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