Courses

MBA Retailing
MBA Entrepreneurship project
BA Marketing

Expertise

Retailing.
E-commerce.
Technology and marketing.
Retail development & planning.
Retail innovation.
CRM and customer loyalty.

Overview

Jonathan Reynolds is Academic Director of the Oxford Institute of Retail Management and a Fellow in Retail Marketing at Green Templeton College. He first joined Oxford to work with UK food retailer Tesco on the application of new forms of ICT and e-commerce, following time spent at the University of Edinburgh, with Coca-Cola, and at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He has spent time as Visiting Professor at the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College.

A geographer, urban planner and retailer by turn, he now teaches and researches in the areas of retailing and technology, retail and services marketing, retail innovation and retail planning and development. He has published and spoken widely on all these subjects. He is a member of the editorial boards of the International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research and the International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. He is Editor of the Journal of Targeting, Measurement & Analysis for Marketing.

He regularly features on television and radio news and consumer affairs programmes. As Academic Director of the Oxford Institute of Retail Management, established in 1985, he is actively involved with Oxford's commercial clients in the retail, financial and leisure services sectors and, as a faculty member of SBS, teaches marketing and retailing on Oxford's undergraduate, MBA and executive education programmes.

Research interests

Retailing.
E-commerce.
Technology and marketing.
Retail development &planning.
Retail innovation.
CRM and customer loyalty.

Reynolds is Associate Director of the ESRC Retail Industry Business Engagement Cluster (RIBEN), a £1.4mn collaboration between Oxford, Southampton, Leeds and Surrey Universities. Up to fifteen 3-year doctoral scholarships, eight 2-year Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and ten 3-month industry placements are being partly or fully funded by the Research Council, with any balance coming from the hosting organization. Placements and partnerships are hosted by retail- or retail-related organizations.  

He is PI of the Institute’s research on scenarios for retail innovation, growth and development, which originally formed part of the UK Government’s work on technology foresight during the late 1990s and again in 2005. Similarly, work for NESTA/BERR on innovation in retailing in 2007-08 as part of the Government’s Innovation in Services initiative sought new conceptualisations, measurement approaches and analyses of the nature of innovation within the sector. In addition, work was completed a study for the British Council of Shopping Centres on the Future of Retail Business Formats which has significantly affected property firm investment strategies. He is presently partnering BI-School of Management, Oslo and the University of Berkeley in a NOK20mn (£2mn) international collaborative project addressing value-driven service innovation, funded by the Research Council of Norway and Accenture. Practitioner networks are at the heart of this research. 

Reynolds leads the Institute’s work on retail productivity and skills, originally funded by the Department of Trade & Industry’s Retail Practitioner Group in 2003-04. This challenges preconceptions about the nature of, and reasons, for apparent productivity gaps between retailing in the UK, the US and France and contributed to a better understanding of the basis of international competitiveness.. The work has been extended at the request of governments and commentators in France and Spain in 2007-8 and Reynolds is an active member of the ESRC/CNRS seminar programme in productivity and globalisation, with the Universities of Rennes and Stirling. The research has just been updated to reflect the impact of the recession, of the Internet and of international retailing on productivity and skills within the sector, funded by the UK retail sector skills council, Skillsmart Retail. He leads the Institute’s work on e-commerce, which has been widely published and cited.

Oxford's examination of trends in ‘teleshopping’ in the late 1980s and early 1990s, funded by Coopers & Lybrand and the establishment of a ‘practitioner consortium’ (which included Tesco and Argos), predated contemporary concern over e-commerce by some ten years. His work continues in evaluating the multichannel strategies of retail firms and in getting beyond the rhetoric of social media in retailing. OUP has recently published Reynolds’ book on E-Business: a Management Perspective. 

Oxford Institute of Retail Management (OXIRM) research

OXIRM, under the directorship of Jonathan Reynolds and Richard Cuthbertson, undertakes a range of both commissioned and public domain research with direct relevance to practitioners but which is nevertheless grounded within rigorous academic thought. The main themes of OXIRM's research relate primarily to:

- Innovation and Entrepereneurship in Retailing
- Planning, Location and Development for Retailing
- Analysis of International Retail Performance
- Retailing, Marketing and Technology
- Retail Supply Chain Management; and
- Retail Marketing and the Changing Consumer.

The Institute is selective in the projects for which it bids; choosing projects with the most significant potential for improving retail knowledge and policy formulation. Our track record in producing influential conceptual, policy-relevant as well as empirical research over this period is well-established.

For further information, click here

Books and journal special issues:

Reynolds, J., E-Business: A Management Perspective, Oxford University Press, (2010).

Reynolds, J. & Lowe, M., Commemorating the life & work of Professor Ross Davies, 1940-2005, Special issue of the International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Volume 35 Number 8, 2007.

Reynolds, J., & Cuthbertson, C., Retail Strategy: The View from the Bridge, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2003.

Reynolds, J., ‘eCommerce: a critical review’ a special issue of the International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 28(10), pp. 415-444, 2001. [In the Top Ten most downloaded online articles at MCB’s Emerald database.]

Reynolds, J., The Internet: Its Potential and use by European Retailers, KPMG, 1996.

Book chapters:

Reynolds, J., ‘MDD en Reino Unido: evolución y situatión actual’, in Puelles Pérez, J.A. et al (eds), Marcas de distribuidor. Concepto, evolución y adaptación a los ciclos económicos. Pirámide (2011).

Reynolds, J. & Ezrachi, A., ‘Advertising, Promotional Campaigns and Private Labels’, in Ezrachi, A. (ed), Own Labels, Branded goods and Competition Policy: The changing landscape of retail competition, Oxford University Press, (2009)

Reynolds, J.,, ‘Règlementation et productivité du commerce européen’, Chapter 1 in Colla, E., (ed), Règlementation et commerce en Europe, Vuibert, (2008).

Reynolds, J., ‘Barrow Boys, Big Business and New Technology: the Retailing Sector’ in, Dopson, S. & Earl, M.E., Mapping the Management Journey: Practice,Theory and Context, Oxford University Press, (2007).

Reynolds, J. & M. Wilson-Jeanselme, ‘Competing for the online grocery customer: the UK experience’, in, Kornum, N. & M. Bjerre, (eds), Grocery E-Commerce. Consumer Behaviour and Business Strategies, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 2005.

Laine, A. & J. Reynolds, ‘L’orientamento al micromarketing dei best in class del Regno Unito’, in, Lugli, G. & C. Ziliani, (eds), Micromarketing: Creare valore con le informazioni di cliente, Torino, UTET, 2004.

Reynolds, J., 'An Introduction to Retail Strategy', in: Reynolds, J. (Ed.), Retail Strategy: The View from the Bridge, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2003.

Reynolds, J., 'E-Commerce and the future of retail delivery', in: Freathy, P. (Ed.), 'Retailing: Principles and Applications', Pearson Education, 2003.

Reynolds, J., 'Prospects for Electronic Commerce', in: Reynolds, J. (Ed.), Retail Strategy: The View from the Bridge, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2003.

Reynolds, J., 'E-Commerce and the future of retail delivery', in: Freathy. P. (Ed.), Retailing Principles and Practice, Pearson Education, 2002.

Reynolds, J., 'E-Tailing', in: McGoldrick, P. J. (Ed.), 'Retail Marketing', McGraw-Hill, 2002.

Reynolds, J., 'Intermediaries', in: Blois, K. (Ed.), The Oxford Textbook of Marketing, Oxford University Press, 2000.

Reynolds, J., 'The Changing Nature of Intermediation', in: Willcocks, L. & Sauer, C. (Ed.), Moving to eBusiness, Random House, 2000.

Reynolds, J., 'International Perspectives', ESOMAR Handbook on Market Research, 1998.

Reynolds, J., 'The Internet as a Strategic Resource: Evidence from the European Retail Sector', in: Willcocks, L., D. Feeny & G. Islei (Ed.), Managing IT as a Strategic Resource, McGraw-Hill, 1997.

Reynolds, J., 'Retail Employment Research: Scarce Evidence in an Environment of Change', in: Akehurst, G & N. Alexander (Ed.), Retail Structure, Frank Cass, 1995.

Selected journal articles:

Reynolds, J., & S.M. Wood, ‘The Intra-Firm Context of Retail Expansion Planning’, Environment & Planning (A) (forthcoming). 

Reynolds, J., & S.M. Wood, ‘Managing communities and managing knowledge: strategic decision making and store network investment within retail multinationals’, Journal of Economic Geography (forthcoming).

Reynolds, J., & E. Millan, ‘Independent and Interdependent Self-Views in an Emerging Market’, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 39(3), pp.162 – 182, (2011).

Reynolds, J. & S.M. Wood, ‘Location Decision-Making in Retail Firms: Evolution and Challenge’, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 38 (11/12), pp. 828-845 (2010).

Reynolds, J. & Xun, J., ‘Applying netnography to market research: the case of the online forum’ Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, 18(1), pp. 17–31, (2010).

Reynolds, J. & L. Hristov, ‘Are there barriers to innovation in retailing?’, International Review of Retail, Distribution & Consumer Research, 19(4), September, pp. 317-330 (2009). (Based on Best Paper at the European Association of Research into Commercial Distribution Annual Conference, 2009)

Reynolds, J., Howard, E.B., Hristov, L. & Cuthbertson, C., ‘Perspectives on retail format innovation: relating theory and practice’, International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, 35(8), pp. 647-660 (2007).

Wilson-Jeanselme, M. & J Reynolds, ‘The advantages of preference-based segmentation: an investigation of online grocery retailing’, Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, 14(4), pp. 297-308, Palgrave Macmillan (2006).

Wilson-Jeanselme, M. & J Reynolds, ‘Understanding Shoppers’ Expectations of Online Grocery Retailing’, International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, 34(7), pp. 529-540, Emerald (2006).

Reynolds, J., 'Retail Location Analysis: An Annotated Bibliography', Journal of Targeting, Measurement & Analysis for Marketing, 13(3), (2005).

Reynolds, J., E. Howard, D. Dragun, B. Rosewell & P. Ormerod, 'Assessing the Productivity of the UK Retail Sector’, International Review of Retail Distribution & Consumer Research, 15(3), (2005).

Reynolds, J. & M. Wilson-Jeanselme, ‘Growth without Profit: Explaining the Internet Transaction Profitability Paradox’, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 12 pp. 165-177, (2004).

Reynolds, J., 'Charting the multi-channel future: retail choices and constraints', International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, Vol.30:11, pp.530-53 (2002).

Reynolds, J., 'Challenges and Opportunities for UK Retailing', International Economic Development Journal, (2000).

Reynolds, J., 'Understanding the effects of eCommerce on retail property and location', International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol.28:1, pp.46-47 (2000).

Reynolds, J., 'Who will dominate European eCommerce? Threats and Opportunities for European retailers', International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol.28:1, pp.9-16 (2000).

Reynolds, J., 'Globalisierung dürch die Hintertür', Retail Technology Journal, Vol.August, pp.24-27 (1999).

Reynolds, J., 'Methodological Problems of Intercultural Comparisons of Retail Environments', Geojournal, Vol.45, pp.245-254 (1998).

Shields, G. & Reynolds, J., 'Direct Marketing in UK Retailing: Rhetoric and Reality', Journal of Direct Marketing, Vol.10:1, pp.59-70 (1996).

Useful links:

Oxford Institute of Retail Management website

The Oxford Institute of Retail Management blog

Undergraduate marketing course blog