International Business Research; Vol. 10, No. 12; 2017 ISSN 1913-9004 E-ISSN 1913-9012 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 239 Innovation in Tradition: Key Success Factors of New Entrepreneurs in the Retail Trade Beatrice Luceri 1 , Edoardo Sabbadin 1 , Cristina Zerbini 1 1 Department of Economics and Management, University of Parma, Parma, Italy Correspondence: Cristina Zerbini, Department of Economics and Management, University of Parma, Parma, Italy. Received: August 1, 2017 Accepted: September 26, 2017 Online Published: November 23, 2017 doi:10.5539/ibr.v10n12p239 URL: https://doi.org/10.5539/ibr.v10n12p239 Abstract Have the economic crisis, the digital revolution and the growth of mass retailing changed the success factors of small retailing companies? What impact have they had on the characteristics of the profiles of new entrepreneurs in the retail trade? On the basis of the data collected through a qualitative research by a semi-structured interview on a sample of retailers, the paper aims to provide answers to these questions. The results of the interviews, recorded, transcribed and analysed using the software T-Lab 8.1, highlight the new success factors and, in particular, the key role assumed by web marketing. Moreover, the fact that the retail sector has maintained a strong capacity to create employment is cause for reflection on the employment potential of the small companies in the more traditional sectors. The importance of this sector appears even more significant if we consider the context of economic instability and declining consumption in which these companies are operating. Keywords: retail trade, retailer micro enterprise, new entrepreneurs, qualitative research 1. Introduction For a long time now economic literature has considered the retail trade as a residual sector, not very competitive and innovative, and protected from international competition. All negative features, tolerated only due to the positive contribution that the sector has always guaranteed to the country in terms of employment. The two great poles of the retail trade, food and non-food, have shared the same fate, but at different times. In Italy, mass retailing made its entry into the food sector in the Sixties and experienced rapid development which appears today to have come to the end of its cycle. Self service points of sale with ever increasing dimensions, grouped in corporate and/or contractual forms, have facilitated the concentration of this sector. In Italy, 28,232 modern points of sale account for 59% of the market (according to AC Nielsen estimates, 2013). The modernisation of the non-food sector of the retail trade finally arrived – thirty years late. As of the Nineties, the points of sale started to get bigger and large specialised retailing outlets began to attract the demand, to the detriment of traditional retailers. Although high, the competitive pressure exerted by the modern component over the traditional one has generated lower levels of concentration in the non-food supply compared to the food supply. Non-food modern retailing concentrates 44% on sales, despite the fact that it has 2,064 more shops (thereby topping a total of 30,000 units), so the economic importance of Italian non-food Mass Retailing is 15 percentage points less than the analogous channel in the food sector (according to AC Nielsen estimates, 2013). So the data point to a framework featuring a distribution network in which specialised, small retailers demonstrate a tenacity that is unequalled in Europe. Although it lost sales units in the period 2011–2013 (from 526,791 to 513,201 stores; according to Federdistribuzione estimates), the traditional stores still play an important economic role in Italy, mediating 41% of the sales of non-food products (against 42% in 2011). Signals of revitalisation are observable also in the food sector where the number of points of sale has increased by 1,965 businesses in 2013 compared to the previous year, amounting to a total of 513,201 sales units. Thus, notwithstanding the undisputed leadership of modern retailing, in the food trade traditional retailing maintains a sizeable market share of approx 18% (according to AC Nielsen estimates, 2013). In Italian literature several studies focused on the retail trade following a sectorial logic, on the contrary, a limited number focused on small retail businesses from an economic/managerial perspective. The main reason is the fragmentation of the supply which impedes a structured activity of managerial research, only accessible from