Competitive strategies in Southern Europe: the case of Spanish retailers

This paper analyses the global evolution experienced by the retail food sector in Spain, taken as a model of a Southern European country. A detailed study is made of the main characteristics of the strategic behaviour patterns observed among the main firms operating in this sector during the period 1989‐1993. The tool employed to that end is strategic group analysis, developed within a dynamic perspective which allows us to test the structural stability of the identified strategic groups. Throughout the length of the study it is shown how the evolution experienced in the sector is concentrated in changes to the relative participation of previously existing trading formulas rather than in the appearance of completely new alternative strategies. In particular, attention is drawn to the decline in traditional establishments, the marked expansion of hypermarkets and the continuous strategic repositioning of large supermarkets.