From strategic location to locational strategies: the spatial dimension of credit and loyalty in the department stores and in the choices of city dwellers in Presidente Prudente (São Paulo State) and Londrina (Paraná State)

Author(s)

Flaviane Ramos dos Santos

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Presidente Prudente. 2019-11-04.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia. Presidente Prudente
• Defense date: 2019-10-16
• Advisor: Maria Encarnação Beltrão Sposito

Abstract

The technological advances in telecommunication and transportation systems which have been developed in the range of the economic globalization, making use of the computerization systems, resulted, on the one hand, in a constant redefinition of city roles in commerce, as well as in an increment of fluxes that move from them and to them, and which are established with near and far cities, and, on the other hand, gave rise to a potential of location strategies as a factor that makes the difference which grants the customer preference as well as a better economic performance for the retail dealings. As location strategies, we understand, in this thesis, not only the position a commercial establishment occupies, but also, its customers’ loyalty strategies, the increment of credit provision and the monitoring of customer’s behavior as well as the trends towards retailing deals for a given moment. The present work begins with the presentation of the history of stores and the transformations they went through because of the intensification of urbanization processes. After that, it will focus on the spatial strategies and economic logic some retailing stores deal with in the fashion store branch in Brazil, specifically in Presidente Prudente, a city of São Paulo State and Londrina in Paraná State. We also highlight their ability to redefine or reinforce the role cities perform in citizens’ inter-relational network. We analyzed the Londrina’s and Presidente Prudentes’ interviewees’ spatial choices in order to understand the relations between consumption, credit and daily life activities and, we concluded that customer loyalty is an articulator of the stores economic logic and it also promotes the transposition of commercial logic of installment to the logic of credit card, whether the conventional one, issued by banks, or the one the stores themselves issue. The spatial dimension of the processes of providing credit and of promoting customers’ loyalty are approached, works as a propeller to a redefinition of spatial choices, whilst it is also a result of this very relation. We support the thesis that there is a set of new factors that are influential, in a meaningful way, to the locational strategies the fashion store branch deals with, which sum up and articulate themselves to the locational factors previously studied by authors of classical theories about the theme. We conclude that the stores, somehow, stopped considering localization as a fixed point, concerned with the city and urban hierarchy, in order to consider localization under a point of view which takes into account the different geographical scales. At the same time, credit expansion promotes meaningful shifts in consuming habits, in spatial choices and in the practices of income management by the population, especially its low-income segment. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 17/17632-0 - The spatial dimension of credit and of loyalty in the strategies locacionais of the magazines and in the practices of the citizens in Presidente Prudente (SP) and Londrina (PR)
• Grantee: Flaviane Ramos dos Santos
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)