Retailing and retailing research in the age of big data analytics

Abstract

As a research domain, the retail sector has always had many appealing features, such as its size, its multi-faceted and dynamic nature, the possibility for researchers to exploit their own domain knowledge, and an extensive coverage by business analysts. In addition, the above-average availability of good-quality data has historically been an additional selling point to empirical researchers. The paper considers to what extent the latter still holds, and explores a number of additional opportunities and challenges that emerge from the ongoing big data revolution. This is done from five perspectives: retail managers, retailing researchers, public-policy makers, investors, and retailing educators.