Foster Business Library


Retail Industry



Foster Business Library research guides are aimed at University of Washington students, faculty, and staff, highlighting resources available to them; users not currently affiliated with the university may be unable to access some of these resources.
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Foster Business Library Databases:

The Foster Business Library offers an extensive collection of over fifty databases on its homepage; see under Databases. For a complete list of Foster databases, see the List of All Business Databases. Access to these databases from off campus requires that you first go to the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. These resources may not be accessed from off campus except by those with a valid UW Net ID and password. For more information on Foster business databases, click Databases, A-Z. For information on which Foster business databases to use, see the Database Index. For information on accessing Foster databases from off campus, see Database Access. For guidelines on responsible database usage, see Database Usage.

  • EBSCO Business Source Complete:   On the Foster Business Library homepage, listed under Databases. Full text of over 8,800 magazines, newspapers and journals, including more than 1,100 peer-reviewed journals. Also includes some market research reports, SWOT analyses, and country reports.

    A search for Retailing produced over 140 industry profiles, for various types of retailing, in various countries.

  • EconLit:   Produced by the American Economic Association, EconLit is the fundamental research tool in economics. The database provides bibliographic citations, with selected abstracts, to the international literature on economics since 1969. Econ Lit corresponds to the Journal of Economic Literature and the Index of Economic Articles, covering journal articles, books, and dissertations, as well as articles in collective works, such as conference proceedings and collected essay volumes.

    A search in this database for Retailing produced more than 400 references.

  • EIU Online:   One of the world's top sources for country intelligence, the EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit) employs 500 analysts who research almost 200 nations. The Foster Business Library provides access to their Country Profiles, Country Reports, Country Commerce, and Country Finance in print editions and this database provides online access to these publications, often in both HTML and PDF formats.

    A search in Viewswires for Retailing produced over 1,800 articles.

  • Gale Virtual Reference Library:   On the Foster Business Library homepage, listed under List of All Business Databases.   The Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research; go to Business for three major business sources:   the Encyclopedia of American Industries (4th ed., 2005), the Encyclopedia of Business and Finance (2001), and the Encyclopedia of Small Business (2nd ed., 2002).

    See the Retailing Industry, in the 2003 Dictionary of American History; Retailing, in the 2005 Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion; SIC 5999: Miscellaneous Retail Stores, in the 2005 Encyclopedia of American Industries; Retailers, in the 2001 Encyclopedia of Business and Finance.

  • Gartner Research:   Under Business Databases on the Foster Business Library homepage. The Gartner Research database provides in-depth analysis and market intelligence for the information technology industry. It covers the full range of products and technologies associated with computer hardware, software, communications products, financial services, electronic business, and healthcare application software worldwide. Ten industries are covered in depth:   banking, education, energy, government, healthcare providers, insurance, investment services, manufacturing, media, and retail. Access to this database, on campus or off, requires a valid UW Net ID.

  • Hoovers Online:   Hoovers Online offers information about 14,000 public and private companies worldwide, with links to company homepages and annual reports, charts, company capsule, competitors, divisions, earnings, financials, Fortune and Forbes rankings, history, industry information, insider trading, mission statements, news links, press releases, officers, patents, products, SEC filings, splits, subsidiaries, etc.

    See the Hoovers Online factsheet for the Retail industry.

  • Investext:   Investext contains indexing and the full text of company and industry research reports prepared by leading Wall Street firms, as well as regional and international brokerage and financial firms. All reports are in PDF format.

    An industry search for Retailing produced a list of over 29,000 reports, with the most recent reports listed at the top. This database also includes all public companies in the retail industry.

  • JSTOR:   This database may be found under Electronic Journals, which may be found by going to Reference Tools in the left menu, under Find It. JSTOR is a subject searchable index of 360 journals, with full-text backfiles of scholarly journals, some of which date back to the 1800's. Among the collections of scholarly journals on this site are ones for Business and for Economics, encompassing 72 journals.

    Searching in business journals for Retailing produced more than 200 articles, searching for this term in full text; searching for this term in abstracts cut the list to 36 articles.

  • Lexis-Nexis Statistical:   Statistical Universe is an index to statistical data in commercial, international and U.S. government publications. Try the Power Tables for quick access to tables of data in GIF format.

    A search in this database for Retail retrieved over 1,000 Tables, as did a search for Retail Trade. A search for Department Stores produced over 300 tables.

  • MarketResearch.com Academic:   This database contains comprehensive full-text market research reports covering a broad range of markets, industries, and companies from reputable market intelligence sources such as Packaged Facts, Icon Group, and many others, for U.S. and global markets, covering over 2,000 industries and products.

    As an example, a search for the term Retail produced over 7,000 reports.

  • Mergent Online:   On the Foster Business Library homepage, listed under Business Databases; click on Company and Industry.   Online access to the print edition of the Mergent Manuals, with extensive information on 11,000 U.S. and 17,000 international companies, including financials, stock, properties, joint ventures, annual reports, subsidiaries, S.E.C. filings, etc. For search tips, see About Mergent Online.

    An advanced search for companies in one of the many SIC codes for retail, code 5942 (for retail book stores), produced a list of 16 public companies, in the United States, Germany, Japan, Canada, Malaysia, Brazil, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

  • PsycINFO:   This database contains citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books, dissertations and technical reports in the field of psychology and on the psychological aspects of many disciplines including business. Over 1,300 periodicals are surveyed by this database, dating from 1987 for English language material. This database is produced by the American Psychological Association which adds 55,000 references annually.

    A search for Retailing produced a list of almost 700 citations.

  • Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS):   This database, to be found under List of All Business Databases, indexes articles from over 1,400 journals along with thousands of government documents, statistical directories, reports, pamphlets, conference proceedings and books in the broad field of public and social policy issues, dating back to 1980.

    A search in this database for Retailing produced over 250 references.

  • ReferenceUSA:   Directory information for 12 million companies in the U.S.  Companies can be searched for by name, business activity, size and location. With this database, it is possible to identify businesses by geographic area and type of business, as well as by number of employees and gross annual sales.

    There are numerous SIC codes for Retail as there are NAICS codes for Retail Trade. With this database, however, you can identify all of the firms in, for instance, SIC code 5921-03, Wines—Retail, in the city of Seattle:   23 companies.

  • Social Sciences Citation Index:   This database "is a multidisciplinary index, with searchable author abstracts, covering the journal literature of the social sciences. It indexes more than 1,725 journals spanning 50 disciplines, as well as covering individually selected, relevant items from over 3,300 of the world's leading scientific and technical journals. It "provides access to current information and retrospective data from 1956 forward."

    A search in this database for Consumer Behavior produced more than 1,000 references.

    Web resources:

    Unlike library databases, Web resources are available wherever you have web access; they do not require that you access them via the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. When using web resources, be sure to evaluate the credibility of these resources. For a subject index to web resources, see Business Resources on the Web on the Foster Business Library homepage.

  • David F. Miller Center for Retailing Education and Research:   This University of Florida center offers a wealth of information on retailing. See their Retail Report Archives, Retailing Management Newsletter, publications for Educators, and other Center Publications.

  • Center for Retailing Studies:   This Texas A&M University site has published a Retailing Issues Newsletter since 1987, with full content available online since 1995 (in PDF format).

  • Industries At A Glance:   This U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics site is a good source for information and data about U.S. industries. See the Occupational Outlook Handbook general information on the retail industry, under Trade. See also their Trends and Statistics.

  • Industry Profiles (Wetfeet.Com):   This job hunting site from Wetfeet.Com offers profiles of 31 industries, with an industry overview, trends, industry organization, job prospects, what's great and what's to hate in the industry, from the viewpoint of a jobseeker, major companies in the industry, and example job descriptions and tips on how to get hired in the industry. See their profile of the Retail Industry.

  • National Retail Federation:   This organization is the world's largest retail trade association, with over 100 chapters in many states and countries; their chapter in Washington state is the Washington Retail Association. See their publication Stores are available at this site, from 1998, along with Top 100 Retailers, Hot 100 Retailers (both in PDF format), and Top 250 Global Retailers (flash file), and Retail Executives Opinion Surveys. Some of the information at this site is available to members only.

  • Retail Industry Leaders Association:   Formerly the International Mass Retail Association, this association "represents 102 retail companies with combined annual sales of more than $600 billion. With more than 72,000 stores, these companies have a workforce of more than four million employees around the world." See their retail industry News.

  • Wikipedia:   This free online user-created and maintained encyclopedia can be a good starting point for an orientation to a topic. See their informative entry for Retailing

    Foster Business Library Reference Collection:

    The Foster Business Library Reference Collection consists of business handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other quick reference tools. It is located behind the Reference Desk in Foster, arranged by call number. Reference materials cannot be checked out; they may only be used in the library.

  • International marketing data and statistics.
    Demographic trends and forecasts, economic indicators, labor force, trade, energy, environment, consumer expenditures and market size, and retailing information for the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania; companion volume to European marketing data and statistics.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HA42 .I56 2003.

    See section eleven on Retail Distribution, starting on page 423, as well as subsequent chapters on consumer market sizes, consumer prices, household characteristics, etc.

  • Statistical abstract of the United States
    Information about many industries as well as demographic and marketing information; check index for references to tables. The sources for each table are often a valuable source of additional information. See index page 954 for Consumer Expenditure tables.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HA202 .U56 (Annual)

    See section 22 on Retail Trade.

  • European marketing data and statistics.
    Demographic trends and forecasts, economic indicators, labor force, trade, energy, environment, consumer expenditures and market size, and retailing information for European countries.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HA1107 .E87 2003.

    See section eleven on Retail Distribution, starting on page 273, as well as subsequent chapters on consumer market sizes, consumer prices, household characteristics, etc.

  • Standard & Poor's industry surveys.
    This three-volume set provides 30-page profiles on 52 industries with a focus on the current economic environment, trends, regulation and outlook for each industry. Major companies in each industry are profiled, with references to sources of additional industry information.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HC106.6 .S74 (Quarterly)

    See the industry surveys, in volume three, for Retailing--General and Retailing—-Specialty. There are separate industry surveys for industries such as Autos and Auto Parts and Supermarkets and Drugstores.

  • Business: the ultimate resource.
    This 2,200-page single volume is "designed to offer a wide range of insights, information, and practical guidance on every aspect of management" via 2.5 million words of text from 200 contributors, with 700 illustrations and 150 maps, in seven major sections including best practice, a management library, business thinkers and management giants, a business dictionary, a world business almanac, and a guide to business sources.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD38.15 .B878 2002.

    See Retailing on pages 1882 to 1884, and Managing Retailer Marketing Programs, on pages 740 to 741.

  • The business plans handbook.
    This multi-volume set is a compilation of over 200 actual business plans developed by entrepreneurs seeking small business funding.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD62.7 B865.

    See the cumulative index in the latest volume to locate business plans by type of business.

  • Encyclopedia of global industries.
    Twelve-page descriptions of 125 global industries, with background and development information, current conditions, industry leaders and further reading.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD2324 .E53 2003.

    See the chapters on Retail and Wholesale Trade, starting on page 904, with chapters on automobile dealers, catalog and mail-order services, grocery stores, passenger car rental, restaurants, retail department stores, and wholesalers.

  • Demographics USA: county edition.
    This large paperback provides in-depth demographics, for people, races, households, and businesses, for U.S. states, cities, and counties, with consumer and buying power data. Also included is retail sales and employment data.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF3007 .S96 (Annual)
    (See also Demographics USA: zip edition, call number HF5415.3 .D463)

    See section nine for Retail Sales by Store Group, and section 12 for Consumer Buying Power.

  • Market share reporter.
    Annual two-volume compilation of market share data on companies, products and services, arranged by SIC code and with indexes by product, company and topic.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5410 .M35 (Annual)

    See Retailing for market share information on various types of retailing.

  • The IEBM encyclopedia of marketing.
    This volume includes twelve-page essays on about five dozen topics, under such headings as marketing management, the marketing mix, marketing in practice, and special topics.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5412 .I32 1999.

    See Retailing on pages 444 to 461.

  • The lifestyle market analyst.
    Market analysis information including demographic, geographic and lifestyle information to identify who customers are, where they live, how they spend their time and money and how to reach them.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5415.33 .U6 .L54 (Annual)

  • Research alert yearbook.
    This volume collects marketing research data from over 1,000 market research reports on a very wide variety of topics, including advertising and marketing, age groups, demographics, apparel, spending, entertainment, food and beverages, health, internet, sports, etc.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5415.33 .U6 .R47 2006.

  • Perfect phrases for customer service.
    This small paperback is subtitled "hundreds of tools, techniques, and scripts for handling any situation," covering the basics of customer service and how to deal with sixty specific customer situations.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5415.5 .B23 2005.

  • Plunkett's retail industry almanac.
    This almanac offers information about major industry trends, industry statistics, industry information, major companies in the industry, with indexes by state, country, region, etc. The major part of each almanac provides one-page profiles of companies in the industry, with directory information, growth plans and special features, contacts, brief financials, brief salary and benefits data, and women officer-director and advancement information.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5428 .P558 2003.

    See Major Trends Affecting the Retail Industry on pages 7 to 16 and Retail Industry Statistics on pages 18 to 32.

  • Washington state retail survey.
    Comprehensive survey of retail sales activity in each county and city in the state, with historical sales trends in over 300 individual market areas, based on activity in 65,000 retail outlets.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5429.4 .W2 .W37 2007.

  • Encyclopedia of major marketing campaigns.
    This massive two-volume illustrated reference work profiles nearly 1,000 notable advertising and marketing campaigns of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, covering television and print campaigns. Arrangement is by company name and, if the company name is that of a person, by their first name. For each campaign, there is an overview, historical content, target market, competition, market strategy and outcome, as well as suggestions for further reading.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5837 .E53 2000-2007.

    This set includes campaigns for many companies in the Retail Industry.

  • Business rankings annual.
    This annual volume provides 5,000 rankings of companies, products, services and business activities, with data culled from thousands of sources.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HG4050 .B88 2004.

    See Retail Industry on pages 616 to 625.

  • Mergent industry review.
    Statistical data on 3,000 companies in 137 industries, with rankings, key financial information, operating data and ratios, etc.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HG4961 .M68.

    See Retail—Department Stores, Retail—Discount & Variety Stores, Retail—Drug Stores, and Retail—Specialty.

    Foster Business Library Books:

    The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of over 70,000 books on all business topics. To search for materials on all three campuses of the University of Washington, go to the UW Libraries Catalog, in the upper left corner of the Foster Business Library homepage. Search by keyword, title, author, series, etc.

    To limit the results of your search just to materials in the Foster Business Library collection, use the Modify or Limit options at the top of the search results and change the library location to Foster Business Library. Availablity is indicated on the right of each online catalog record. First, note in which collection, within Foster, your materials are in, since the library has ten different Collections, each in a different location and often with differing arrangements. "Available" indicates that the book should be on the shelves under that call number and available for you to check out. "Due" and a date indicates that the book is already checked out to someone and is due back on the date indicated; you can have the "Request/Place Hold" feature to recall the book for your use.

    If the material you want is not in the collections of the University of Washington, you can use the "Search Summit" feature to repeat your search in the combined holdings of over thirty cooperating libraries in Washington and Oregon. Use the "Request This Item" feature in Summit to have books in those library sent here to Foster for you to check out.

    The Foster general stacks collection is located south of the main part of the Foster Business Library, through the two pass-throughs into the basement of Balmer. The arrangement is by call number, from A (at the east end, near the Copy Center) to Z (at the far west end).

    A keyword search for the term Retailing retrieved over 360 records in the UW Libraries, including more than 100 records in the Foster Business Library.

    Relevant subjects suggested by these searches include (with results limited to the Foster Business Library's collections):

    Examples of Foster Business Library titles from the searches above include:

    Foster Business Library Corporate Annual Reports:

    The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of several thousand annual reports for hundreds of U.S. and foreign companies. These reports are filed in lateral filing cabinets near the Foster Reference desk under the sign Corporate Annual Reports. Annual reports for companies in an industry can be a valuable source of information about the industry itself. For a list of all the companies in the collection, see the library's Corporate Annual Reports Collection. For an index to corporate annual reports in the collection by industry sector, see the Annual Reports Industry Sector Index. For an index to companies in the collection with headquarters outside the U.S., see Corporate Annual Reports Headquarters Index.

    The collection includes annual reports for many companies in the Retail Industry.

    Foster Business Library Periodicals:

    Foster Business Library Articles:

    Articles in academic journals, magazines, trade periodicals, and newspapers are one of the best sources for any kind of research. While the Foster Business Library offers a large periodicals print collection, comprising over 800 titles, articles are most easily accessed online, 24/7, in such fulltext article databases as EBSCO Business Source Premier, Factiva, LexisNexis Academic, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest Databases. These article databases are available in the library or from off-campus, and provide access to over 10,000 periodicals and millions of articles.

    Library access to most ProQuest databases will terminate at the end of spring quarter 2008, except for ProQuest NewsStand, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, Historical New York Times, and the Historical Wall Street Journal. For more about this change, see UW Libraries Providing New Databases. After this change, comprehensive article searches should be performed in EBSCO Business Source Premier, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest NewsStand. Also, after this change, links to the articles below will be broken.

    ProQuest Databases:

    This database--actually, a family of over two dozen databases--offers full text articles for over 10,000 publications, including scholarly journals, magazines, trade and industry periodicals, newspapers, and reports on a very wide range of topics. To find articles on specific topics, search by word or phrase by keying your search phrase into the search box--or search for your topic in the Topic Guide.

    Your search terms will be highlighted in red in each article.

    A basic search for Retailing produced a list of more than 189,000 articles, including over 6,000 articles in scholarly journals, over 7,800 articles in magazines, over 68,000 articles in industry and trade publications, and over 85,000 newspaper articles.

    A subject search for SUB(Retailing) produced a list of over 56,000 articles, with links to over 150 associated narrowing terms. Examples include:

    • SUB(Retailing) and SUB(Automobile Industry), over 100 articles;
    • SUB(Retailing) and SUB(Case Studies), over 1,900 articles;
    • SUB(Retailing) and SUB(Comparative Analysis), over 80 articles;
    • SUB(Retailing) and SUB(Efficiency, over 90 articles;
    • SUB(Retailing) and SUB(Market Research), over 570 articles;
    • SUB(Retailing) and SUB(Point of Sale Systems), over 300 articles;
    • SUB(Retailing) and SUB(Statistical Data), over 1,700 articles;
    • SUB(Retailing) and SUB(Studies), over 3,000 articles;
    • SUB(Retailing) and SUB(Success), over 260 articles; and
    • SUB(Retailing) and SUB(Trends), over 2,600 articles.

    A subject search for SUB(Retailing Industry) produced over 83,000 articles; for SUB(Retailing Industry) and SUB(Trends), over 3,500 articles; for SUB(Retailing Industry) and SUB(Regulation), over 690 articles.

    Examples of articles from these searches include:

    Help:


    25 March 2004; updated 17 April 2008.   Peter Stevens, Business Librarian, stevens@u.washington.edu