Conference Agenda

This paper discusses innovation strategies of small rural grocery stores in northern Sweden – a sparsely populated area characterized by ongoing population decline and the widespread loss of services from smaller villages. After several decades of persistent village store closures, the number of rural shops has stabilised in recent years, with new shops emerging in often unexpected locations. We conducted a qualitative study with 25 village stores, which included interviews with shopkeepers, ethnographic observations, discussions with customers and village residents, as well as public documents and social media analysis. The aim was to understand their ownership/management structures, business motivations, and their resulting survival or innovation strategies when it comes to product diversification, target markets, customer engagement, and the use of new technological solutions. Our findings suggest the presence of shop innovations across four inter-related dimensions: digitalization, mobilization, co-location and translocalism. Digitalization included the use of unstaffed self-service models, online ordering and social media marketplaces. Mobilization included non-stationary services visiting villages on a temporary basis (delivery services, pop-up shops). Co-location involved the presence of multiple services within shared facilities, notably community venues and tourism attractions. Translocalism involved the mix of local and external networks (with producers, distribution partners and markets) to allow for business and market differentiation. While private entrepreneurs were often prioritising translocal market solutions to access more profitable external market niches, community-run shops were more focused on solutions around digitalization and co-location to retain important social community spaces, whilst seeking to overcome economic and staffing challenges. Mobile service solutions were less common and mostly disappeared after the pandemic (with the exception of government-funded delivery services for the elderly). Digital solutions, such as self-scanning or unstaffed/hybrid shops, are gaining interest among both shopkeepers and village residents. However, such models are perceived to reduce local social interactions and service quality, and sometimes marginalize older, vulnerable and non-resident populations. Co-location with social meeting and hospitality venues, as well as mentoring and digital training for marginal consumer groups, could reduce issues of social exclusion to some extent. Overall, village shop survival in northern Sweden continues to rely on government support funding, while major innovations in the digital transition have so far been limited to participants in public pilot projects. To survive, shopkeepers have to combine multiple service offerings and income streams beyond retail, whilst facing ongoing challenges to balance economic profitability with social community and personal lifestyle priorities.

The role of physical stores in omnichannel retailing is changing, potentially becoming more central compared to multichannel retailing. While online shopping is growing, the role of physical stores needs further research given the increasingly blurred lines between offline and online.

The aim of this study is to explore what kind of roles physical stores have. Previous studies cover traditional retailing, while retailers themselves require more flexible arrangements for their physical stores. Pop up phenomena is one example of these requirements. Still, an emerging research topic of phygital stores lacks empirical evidence. A phygital store means that the physical retail environment is seamlessly connected to digital one. Moreover, results of this study are described from the retailers' perspective, revealing their experiences and potential barriers operating in omnichannel context.

The case study conducted at Helsinki Outlet discovers the potential of an omnichannel retail approach in creating a seamless retail environment that leverages both physical and digital touchpoints. Helsinki Outlet's adoption of a platform, provided by the real estate owner, which facilitates trade from both physical stores and online, serves as an example of how digital interventions can bridge the gap between traditional and contemporary retail.

Employing a case study methodology, semi-structured interviews are conducted with omnichannel retailers operating in Helsinki Outlet. The findings underscore the strategic benefits that arise from such a real estate owner-led omnichannel model aimed at delivering a seamless shopping experience. From retailers’ perspective, the digital solutions in addition to their physical location in Helsinki Outlet enable to implement omnichannel strategies recognized from literature such as the buy online pick-up in store (BOPS) strategy. The omnichannel approach mitigated the disadvantages of physical stores, such as limited geographic reach and time-bound operations like store opening hours, by ensuring that customers could engage with the brand at their convenience, regardless of location or time constraints.

In conclusion, the Helsinki Outlet case study provides results on the premise that digital solutions, when integrated into a traditional retail environment, can strengthen the competitive position of physical stores against online counterparts. The role of the physical store is thus evolving into a phygital one.

My proposal for a paper concerns the recycling of shopping areas. This is an issue that is at the heart of retailing, ecological transition and territory planning in many European countries, due to a number of structural factors such as the transformation and adaptation of forms of retailing to new modes of consumption, and cyclical factors such as the effects of social and economic contexts on consumption.
Recycling is now part of our daily lives, whether we do it or not, by choice or obligation. In our towns and cities, the most visible form of recycling is the collection of sorted waste, some of which will be reintroduced into the recycling stream. For several years now, local authorities (municipalities, conurbations, etc.) have also been involved in recycling in other ways, in particular by setting up or supporting ‘recycling centres’, which are part of the circular economy model, a model that aims for local development that is more sustainable than the current one.
Having now entered the era of questioning consumption and, more specifically, what is taken to be hyper-consumption, recycling has become the banner of the fight against it, and the term now extends to any action to recover, transform and reuse, in its original or modified form, objects, but also the places of consumption that structure our societies.
It is these that this paper will report on: places devoted to retailing, i.e. shopping areas in all their diversity. Are they too recycled? Rehabilitated? Reinvented?
In the first part, the notion of recycling and its application to shopping areas will be discussed: while the literature to this point has mainly dealt with ‘rehabilitation’ for buildings, and more often in residential areas or sites described as heritage sites (Verschambre, 2005; Gonzalez-Lafaysse, 2018), this notion will be put into perspective of that of recycling regarding shopping areas. The second part of the paper is concerned with the link made by the public authorities between sustainability and shopping areas: the environmental issue has entered the retailing debate through the subject of the last mile (Schorung, Escarfail, 2023) or through the subject of soil sealing (Lebrun, 2024) and now questions the limits of our modes of consumption (Lemarchand, 2021). We will conclude this paper with a discussion of the recycling of shopping areas at the risk of their disappearance, linked to their questioning as a symbol of hyper-consumption.