Despite the huge presence of the unorganized sector, the Indian retail industry is attractive for international players (Read: Unorganized Retail in India). It is favored over China’s among the developing countries due to a slew of laws in the communist country at various levels. Though the market hasn’t seen big time players of the developed nations yet, the fact that Indian per capita retail space is among the lowest, is expected to provoke people to look at retail as a potential business arena. The growth of integrated shopping malls, retail chains and multi-brand outlets is evidence of consumer behavior being favorable to the growing organized segment of the business. Space, ambience and convenience are beginning to play an important role in drawing customers. With the Indian per capita income on the rise and the distribution of consumption expenditure expected to remain fairly stable, the current segments of food and apparel Continue reading
Retail Management
Trading Area Potential in Retail Site Evaluation
Most of the retail site evaluation procedures use the concepts of “trading area adequacy” and the “trading area potential” to predict the total trading area business and the share of business a particular retailer can expect. Read More: Trading Area Adequacy Trading area potential, it is something, which is predicted ability of a trading area to provide acceptable support levels for a retailer in future. The two important concepts in trading area potential are residential support levels and non-residential support levels. Residential Support Levels A retailer is to concentrate on the most important source of business, namely the area’s residents, after sufficiently identifying the gross trading area. To measure a trading area’s potential consumers, the retailer is expected to analyse population or demographic and household or residential variables. Population or Demographic Analysis. A trading areas total capacity to consume is partly a function of the total number of population and Continue reading
Concepts of Merchandising and Merchandise Planning in Retail
Retail Merchandising Merchandising is a process involving developing, securing and managing the merchandise mix to meet the firm’s marketing objectives. The merchandise mix stands for the retailer’s total offering, be it goods or services or both. The merchandising process is a three tier structural set of activities. The following configuration gives the idea of merchandising process. The first stage or tier is to do with developing the merchandise-mix which is composed of two elements namely product and service-mix. The second stage or tier is securing the merchandise-mix which involves two highly skillful and specialized activities namely the buying process and the procurement process. Here, the retailer determines “from where”, “when” and “how” to get products into the stores. The third and the final stage or tier in the merchandising process is managing the merchandising-mix which is to do with planning and controlling the merchandise to ensure efficient, profitable operations. Retail Continue reading
How Internet of Things (IoT) Transforms the Retail Industry?
Competition is at the center of the victory or disappointment of firms. Competition decides the suitability of a firm’s exercises that can contribute to its execution, such as advancements, a cohesive culture, or great execution. Competitive Advantage is the seek for a favorable competitive position in an industry, the elemental field in which competition happens. Competitive advantage points to set up a beneficial and economical position against the powers that decide industry competition. A firm’s competition is expected to incorporate not as it were all of its current competitors, but moreover, potential competitors balanced to enter an industry at a future date. Hence, a firm that appreciates a competitive advantage or a supported competitive advantage is executing a technique, not at the same time being executed by any of its current or potential competitors. Forward-thinking retailers have embraced e-commerce and mobile innovations to address the competitive advantage. Retailers and innovation Continue reading
Site Selection Criteria in Retail
There is no such thing, such as a “Perfect site” in retailing. Retailers must decide which attributes are the most important to their business. Let’s summarize the key criteria critical to the site selection decision in retailing. Sales potential for the site. The demographic, economic, and competition factors and strategies by which management hopes to create a competitive advantage determine the estimate of sales for a site. Growth potential should be a basic consideration in the evaluation of the sales potential. Accessibility to the site. Automobile and public transportation access to the site and adequate parking may well be defining criteria. There may be a number of barriers to the target market seeing the site as accessible. The barriers may be geographical, such as mountains or rivers. They may be psychological, such as the perceived quality of the neighbor hoods that customers must travel through. Barriers are often man made, Continue reading
Margin Turnover Model of Retail
Successful retail operations depend largely on two main dimensions: margin and turnover. How far a retail enterprise can reach in margin and turnover depends essentially on the type of business (product lines) and the style and scale of the operations. In addition the turnover ,also depends upon the professional competence of the enterprise. In a given business two retail companies may choose two different margin levels, and yet both may be successful, provided the strategy and style of management are appropriate. Margin Turnover Model Ronald R. Gist “Suggested a conceptual frame work, using margin and turnover, for understanding the retail structure and evolving a retail strategy.” Margin is defined as the percentage mark tip at which the inventory in the store is sold and turnover is the number of times the average inventory is sold in a year. Margin Turnover Model is a diagrammatic representation of the frame work and Continue reading