With the advent of new retail formats in India such as planned shopping centers and malls, emergence of free-standing department stores, hypermarkets, etc., and further development of traditional business districts and other unplanned shopping locations, a retailer is presented with a wider choice of locations. Consideration of all the options keeping in view the product mix, customer profile and overall business model presents an enormous challenge. A retailer has to consider the following factors while selecting a site: Kind of products sold Cost factor Competitor’s location Ease of traffic flow and accessibility Parking and major thoroughfares Market trends Visibility 1. Kind of Products Sold For stores dealing in convenience goods, the quantity of traffic is most important. The corner of an intersection, which offers two distinct traffic streams and a large window display area, is usually a better site than the middle of a block. Convenience goods are often purchased Continue reading
Retail Management Concepts
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Indian Retail
Introduction to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Indian Retail The recent clamor about opening up the retail sector to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) becomes a very sensitive issue, the most important factor against FDI driven “modern retailing” is that it is labour displacing to the extent that it can only expand by destroying the traditional retail sector. This is because the primary task of government in India is still to provide livelihoods and not create so called efficiencies of scale by creating redundancies. As per present regulations, no FDI is permitted in retail trade in India. Allowing 49% or 26% FDI (which have been the proposed figures till date) will have immediate and direct consequences. Entry of foreign players now will most definitely disrupt the current balance of the economy; will render millions of small retailers jobless by closing the small slit of opportunity available to them. Retailing is not Continue reading
Principles of Retail Site Evaluation
Selection of a retail site is based on certain principles that act as guidelines for selecting a site. Several consumer oriented location principles guide the retailers in evaluating the retail site alternatives. It should be noted that there is no straight jacket or standard criteria for retail site evaluation. The main principles of retail site evaluation are : 1. The Principle of Interception The principle of Interception covers a site’s potential qualities that determine its ability to incept consumers as they travel from one place to another. ‘Interception’ has two distinct elements namely, “source of region” and “terminal regions.” “Source of region” is one from which the consumers are drawn and “terminal region” is one that speaks of consumer destination, a region to which consumers are drawn. The examples of terminal regions are residential areas, office complexes, industrial plants, business districts and shopping centers. Any point between- source and Continue reading
Sales Planning in Retail Merchandising
Majority of retailers use a form that summarizes the basic budgetary information for a given merchandise grouping during a specified period normally for a period of six months. The retailer must select the control unit for which projections will be made, before making sales estimates. The “control unit” is the merchandising grouping that serves as the basic reporting unit for various types of information namely, past, present and future. The retailer has the choice to estimate future sales for an entire store, for a merchandise division or department, or for an individual product-line or item. The most three acceptable control units can be merchandise groups, merchandise classes and merchandise categories of all these three, experts recommend merchandise categories as the basic control unit as it is generally much easier to aggregate the information than it is to disaggregate information, i.e., breaking down merchandise groups into classes and categories. This attempt Continue reading
Retail Selling Process – Personal Selling Process
Retail selling as the name suggests involves personal contacts. Advertising, on the other hand, involves no personal contact. Sales promotion is different from both these techniques. Now let us briefly explain about the Retail selling, its definition, qualities of retail seller and objectives . Salesmanship and Retail Selling The success of a marketing firm really depends on its effectiveness in creating a demand for its products and how effectively it satisfies its customers. To create a demand for the product, usually three techniques are employed by the marketing firms, namely, Personal Selling, Advertising and Sales Promotion. Of them personal selling has assumed an ever increasing importance than other techniques. The number of people employed in advertising is in thousands whereas in personal selling (retail selling) the number is in millions. Personal selling occurs where an individual salesperson sells a product, service or solution to a client. Salespeople match the benefits Continue reading
Retail Trading Area Dimensions
A critical element in determining a retailer’s success is the ability to assess and acquire a good location. To achieve this objective, the retailer is expected to identify, evaluate and select trading areas to segment his consumer markets further. After identifying and evaluating local markets, the retailer must then segment them into trading areas. A “retail trading area” is the area from which a store attracts its customers or obtains its business. After this, the terminal point in location decision is that of selection of proper site. Before the trading area identification process, it is essential to know the dimensions to describe a retail trading area. These trading areas dimensions are – area size, area shape and area structure. The Trading Area Size Trading areas range in size from a few square meters to’ a radius of many kilometers. The size of the trading area is a function of the Continue reading