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Digital platforms, such as Google, Amazon, or Instagram, provide a promising spatial fix to urban-economic problems by leveraging technology and data while connecting stakeholders and overcoming spatial barriers to make urban life, consumption, sales, and production more efficient. This article contributes to the debate on digital platforms in economic geography by advancing the emerging lens of the platform fix, adopting a critical standpoint concerning the solutionist viewpoint that presents platforms as a fix for various challenges. The article develops its perspective against the background of 57 semi-structured interviews, 200 conducted standardized questionnaires, and long-term on/offline observations. We aim to provide a platform fix perspective revealing how digital platforms redefine spatial interactions, addressing economic challenges through spatial fixes while becoming established as indispensable infrastructures; however, platform fixes often fail to address underlying issues, leading to platform dependencies and the instrumentalization of actors. Therefore, we suggest a cautious application of urban platforms as solutions and critically evaluate the formation of public–private platform partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international expansion of the German discounters Aldi and Lidl in recent years has been a large success in grocery retailing. In China, the world’s largest grocery retail market, however, grocery discounters have not (yet) established a physical store presence. In 2017 Aldi Süd and Lidl for the first time entered a new market without the help of a physical store, implementing an online shop in China. As to the format’s future, significant disagreement amongst retail experts exists. This paper, which is based on qualitative interviews with high-ranking senior executives of international retailers, argues for three major reasons as to why the discount format has not hitherto gained a foothold in the Chinese market. Firstly, due to the characteristics and challenges of China’s market, such as high fragmentation as well as the need for strong localisation, a high standardisation of the format is not possible. Secondly, the extremely low-margin operation of discounters faces a price level in China that is already very low, limiting one of the discounter’s major competitive advantages. Thirdly, the discount format is facing a lack of consumer acceptance, toughening the establishment of private brands, which represents one of the major characteristics of the discount format.

European grocery retailers, once the most internationalized players in the global economy, have increasingly disposed of their Chinese subsidiaries since 2010. This paper examines the dynamics of European grocery retail divestment in China between 2010 and 2020. Based on secondary data of company documentation and news reports, we analyse the processes and drivers of these divestments within a holistic framework of foreign divestment in the retail sector. Our findings identify both retail format specific and common factors for European grocery retailers' divestments. Financial pressure in the home market or other overseas markets, competition from indigenous retailers in physical stores, online retailing and the 'New Retail', changing consumer dynamics and growing operational costs are the major drivers of divestment activities. This paper identifies the divestment from China by European grocery retailers as a step in their ongoing de-internationalization process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the COVID-19 crisis and its implications on regional resilience is still in its infancy. To understand resilience on its aggregate level it is important to identify (non)resilient actions of individual actors who comprise regions. As the retail sector among others represents an important factor in an urban regions recovery, we focus on the resilience of (textile) retailers within the city of Würzburg in Germany to the COVID-19 pandemic. To address the identified research gap, this paper applies the concept of resilience. Firstly, conducting expert interviews, the individual (textile) retailers' level and their strategies in coping with the crisis is considered. Secondly, conducting a contextual analysis of the German city of Würzburg, we wish to contribute to the discussion of how the resilience of a region is influenced inter alia by actors. Our study finds three main strategies on the individual level, with retailers: (1) intending to "bounce back" to a pre-crisis state, (2) reorganising existing practices, as well as (3) closing stores and winding up business. As at the time of research, no conclusions regarding long-term impacts and resilience are possible, the results are limited. Nevertheless, detailed analysis of retailers' strategies contributes to a better understanding of regional resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]