What do you mean by retail environment? A retail marketing environment consists of the external actors and forces that affect the retailers ability to develop and maintain successful transactions and relationships with its target customers. We can distinguish between the retailers’ micro environment and macro environment. The micro environment consists of the actors in the retailer’s immediate achievement that affect its ability to serve its markets: Suppliers, intermediaries, customers, competitors and publics. Retail Micro Environment Factors Every retailers’ primary goal is to profitably serve and satisfy specific needs of chosen target markets. To carry out this task, the retailer links himself with a set of suppliers and a set of intermediaries to reach its target customers. The suppliers / intermediaries / customers chain comprise the core marketing system of the retailer. We will now look at the forces which after the retailers micro environment. Suppliers: Suppliers are business firms and Continue reading
Retail Management Concepts
Factors Affecting Retail Location Decisions – Macro and Micro Factors
Even though non store retailing is growing, most of the retailers are still selling from retail store space. Some of these retailers are very small single-store operators, and some are huge superstore discounters. Each location selected resulted from an effort to satisfy the needs of the particular market each was designed to serve. Whether it was the customer’s need for convenience, their desire to do comparison shopping, the extent of the purchasing power in a market area, of the transportation facilities available, many factors together led to the development of different kinds of retail locations. There is an old saying that the value of real estate is determined by three things: location, location, and location. A wall street journal study looked at the largest store as measured by gross sales of the twenty largest brands. Not surprisingly, in nearly every case, a unique location was a major factor. Retail stores Continue reading
Out-shopper Analysis in Retail Management
It is very clear that not all the consumers who are within the trading area shop exclusively from that area. A group of consumers known as “out-shoppers” frequently and regularly shop outside their local trading area. These consumers spend a considerable amount of time, money and effort making inter-trading area shopping trips. Some out-shoppers look for economic gains arising from lover prices in larger trading centers where assortments are better and the level of competition is more intense. Some shoppers simply seek the diversity of unfamiliar or more stimulating surroundings. Demographically out-shoppers are younger and are relatively well educated and their relative income is high; psychologically, out-shoppers are active and are on the “go”, urban-oriented who are neither time conscious nor store loyal shoppers. They tend to manifest a distaste for local shopping and, hence, a strong preference for out of town shopping areas. To obtain an accurate estimate of Continue reading
Characteristics of Retailing
Retailing can be distinguished in various ways from other businesses such as manufacturing. Retailing differs from manufacturing in the following ways: There is direct end-user interaction in retailing. In is the only point in the value chain to provide a platform for promotions. Sales at the retail level are generally in smaller unit sizes. Location is a critical factor in retail business. In most retail businesses services are as important as core products. There are a larger number of retail units compared to other members of the value chain. This occurs primarily to meet the requirements of geographical coverage and population density. Direct Interaction with Customers Retail businesses have a direct interaction with end-users of goods or services in the value chain. They act as intermediaries between end-users and suppliers such as wholesalers or manufacturers. Therefore, they are in a position to effectively communicate the response and changing preferences of Continue reading
Usage and Privacy Concerns of Ubiquitous Connections in Retail Industry
It has become essential for organizations across the world to deploy the latest technology and information systems to understand customers and answer real business problems whilst delivering the best service to their customers. As economies are moving towards a more digitalized ecosystem, the value of data has grown exponentially. Businesses acquire data from a number of sources such as social media sites, online polls, cookies, etc., to assess online activities, find new ways to target customers and monetize the data. Such data often includes personal and sensitive personal information, which if compromised or misused can cause immense harm and thereby a threat to privacy. Though privacy has not been clearly defined because of its many forms and versions, it can be said that it is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. Privacy as a concept remains important Continue reading
Functions of Retailing
Retailers play a significant role as a conduit between manufacturers, wholesalers, suppliers and consumers. In this context, they perform various functions like sorting, breaking bulk, holding stock, as a channel of communication, storage, advertising and certain additional services. Sorting Manufacturers usually make one or a variety of products and would like to sell their entire inventory to a few buyers to reduce costs. Final consumers, in contrast, prefer a large variety of goods and services to choose from and usually buy them in small quantities. Retailers are able to balance the demands of both sides, by collection an assortment of goods from different sources, buying them in sufficiently large quantities and selling them to consumers in small units. The above process is referred to as the sorting process. Through this process, retailers undertake activities and perform functions that add to the value of the products and services sold to the Continue reading