Retail Management: Definition, Processes, Best Practices

Retail Management is the process which helps the customers to procure the desired merchandise form the retail stores for their personal use. It includes all the steps required to bring the customers into the store and fulfill their buying needs. Such management saves time and ensures the customers easily locate their desired merchandise and

5 Comments

Reasons for Studying Retailing

To appreciate the role of retailing and the range of retailing activities, let’s view it from three perspectives: Suppose we manage a manufacturing firm that makes cosmetics. How should we sell these items? We could distribute via big chains such as Sephora or small neighborhood stores, have our own sales force visit people in

2 Comments

The Special Characteristics of Retailing

Three factors that most differentiate retailing from other types of business are noted in Figure 1-8 and discussed here. Each factor imposes unique requirements on retail firms. The average amount of a sales transaction for retailers is much less than for manufacturers. The average sales per customer transaction in retailing is low. The average

4 Comments

The Home Depot Corporation: Successfully Navigating the Omnichannel Landscape

1. COMPANY BACKGROUND Home Depot is the world’s largest home improvement retail chain and the ninth largest retailer globally in terms of revenues. It was established in 1978 by Bernie Marcus (a pharmacist by training), Arthur Blank (educated as an accountant), Ken Langone (an investment banker), and Pat Farrah (who had a merchandising background).

1 Comments

The Retailing Concept

As just described, Home Depot has a sincere long-term desire to please customers. It uses a customer-centered, chainwide approach to strategy development and implementation, is value- driven, and has clear goals. Together, these four principles form the retailing concept (depicted in Figure 1-9), which should be understood and applied by all retailers: Customer orientation.

1 Comments

Value and the Value Chain

A channel of distribution involves multiple parties: manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer, and cus­tomer. These parties are most apt to be satisfied with their interactions when they have similar beliefs about the value provided and received, and they agree on the appropriate payment for that level of value. From the perspective of the manufacturer, wholesaler, and

2 Comments

Retailer Relationships

In Chapter 1, we introduced the concept of relationship retailing, whereby retailers seek to form and maintain long-term bonds with customers, rather than act as if each sales transaction is a new encounter with them. For relationship retailing to work, enduring value-driven relationships are needed with other channel members, as well as with customers.

1 Comments

The Differences in Relationship Building Between Goods and Service Retailers

Consumer interest in services makes it crucial to understand the differences in relationship building between retailers that market services and those that market goods. This applies to store-based and nonstore-based firms, those offering only goods or services, and those offering goods and services. Goods retailing focuses on the sale of tangible (physical) products. Service

1 Comments

Technology and Relationships in Retailing

Technology is beneficial to retailing relationships if it facilitates a better communication flow between retailers and their customers, as well as between retailers and their suppliers, and there are faster, more dependable transactions. These two points are key in studying technology and its impact on relationships in retailing: In each firm, the roles of

Ethical Performance and Relationships in Retailing

Ethical challenges fall into three interconnected categories: Ethics relates to the retailer’s moral principles and values. Social responsibility involves acts benefiting society. Consumerism entails protecting consumer rights. “Good” behavior depends not only on the retailer but also on the expectations of the community in which it does business. Throughout our book, “Ethics in Retailing”

2 Comments

Planning for the Unique Aspects of Service Retailing

We present this appendix because service retailing in the United States and around the world is growing steadily and represents a large portion of overall retailing. U.S consumers spend 60 percent of their after-tax income on such services as travel, recreation, personal care, education, medical care, and housing. Over 84 percent of the labor

1 Comments

Retailing Situation Analysis

Situation analysis is a candid evaluation of the opportunities and threats facing a prospective or existing retailer. It seeks to answer two general questions: What is the firm’s current status? In which direction should it be heading? Situation analysis means being guided by an organizational mission, evaluating ownership and management options, and outlining the

2 Comments

Retailing Objectives

After situation analysis, a retailer sets objectives, the long-run and short-run performance targets it hopes to attain. This helps in strategy and translates the organizational mission into action. A firm can pursue goals related to one or more of these areas: sales, profit, satisfaction of publics, and image. Some retailers strive to achieve all

2 Comments

Identification of Consumer Characteristics and Needs

The customer group sought by a retailer is called the target market. In selecting its target market, a firm may use one of three techniques: mass marketing, selling goods and services to a broad spectrum of consumers; concentrated marketing, zeroing in on one specific group; or differ­entiated marketing, aiming at two or more distinct

1 Comments

Overall Retailing Strategy

Next, a retailer develops an in-depth overall strategy. This involves two components: the aspects of business the firm can directly affect and those to which the retailer must adapt. The former are called controllable variables, and the latter are called uncontrollable variables. See Figure 3-9. A strategy must be devised with both variables in

1 Comments

Specific Retailing Activities, Control and Feedback

1. SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES Short-run decisions are now made and enacted for each controllable part of the strategy in Figure 3-9. These actions are known as tactics and encompass a retailer’s daily and short-term operations. They must be responsive to the uncontrollable environment. Here are some tactical moves a retailer may make: Store location. Trading-area

2 Comments

A Strategic Planning Template For Retail Management

A detailed, user-friendly strategic planning template, Computer-Assisted Strategic Retail Management Planning, appears at our Web site (www.pearsonhighered.com/bermanevans). This template, based on Figure 3-1, enables you to build a strategic plan. You may apply the template to one of the scenarios provided—or devise your own scenario. You have the option of printing each facet of

1 Comments

The Special Dimensions of Strategic Planning in a Global Retailing Environment

There are about 270 countries and dependent areas—with more than 7.3 billion people and a $115 trillion economy—in the world. The United States accounts for less than 5 percent of the world’s population and about 16 percent of the worldwide economy. Although the United States is a huge marketplace, there are also many other

1 Comments

Retailers MUST Be Future Oriented

When children’s organic food manufacturer Happy Family wanted to reimagine the retail aisle, the stakes were high. “We looked at how people shop this section,” says Riddhish Kan- kariya, Happy Family’s vice-president of strategy and insights. “Do they shop based on brand, on organic versus non-organic, on type of food, or on age?” To

1 Comments

Stores That Accommodate Those with Physical Limitations

Fifty million people, age 65 and older, represent one-seventh of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Community Living. “We account for all of the requested shoppers when design­ing a new space, which can vary depending on the retailer, loca­tion, and demographics,” states Christopher Studach, creative

1 Comments