retailer

• Retailer characteristics


  • Type of merchandise sold and/or services offered
  • Variety and assortment of merchandise
  • Level of customer service
  • Price of merchandise
• Variety (breadth of merchandise)


  The number of merchandise categories
• Assortment (depth of merchandise)


  The number of items in a category
• SKU (stock keeping unit)


  Identification of different items of merchandise
• Types of retailers


  • Food retailer
  • General merchandise retailers
  • Nonstore retailers
• Conventional supermarket


  • Self-service food store, emphasizing food and non-food sections
  • Fresh merchandise
  • Health/Organic Merchandise
  • Ethnic Merchandise
  • Private-Label Merchandise
• Supercenters


  • Provides one-stop shopping experience, broader assortments of food and general merchandise at attractive prices
  • Large stores that combine a supermarket with a full-line discount store
• Warehouse clubs


  • Offer a limited and irregular assortment of food and general merchandise with little service at low prices for ultimate consumers and small businesses
• Convenience store


  • Enable consumers to make purchases quickly
• Department stores


  • Carry a broad variety and deep assortment, offer customer service and organize stores in distinctly separate departments
• Specialty stores


  • Concentrate on limited number of complementary merchandise categories
• Category specialist


  • Big box discount stores that offer a narrow but deep assortment of merchandise, predominantly use a self-service approach, but offer assistance to customers in some areas
• Off-price retailers


  • Also known as closeout retailers, offer an inconsistent assortment of brand name merchandise at low prices
• Outlet stores


  • Off-price retailers owned by manufacturers or retailers, those owned by manufacturers are also referred to as factory outlets
• Drug stores


  • Specialty stores that concentrate on health and personal grooming merchandise
• Home improvement center


  • Category specialist that offering equipment and materials used by do-it-yourself and contractors to make home improvement
• Direct selling


  • Interactive form of retailing which is conveyed through face-to-face discussions with salespeople
• Television home shopping


  • Television program demonstrates merchandise and place orders via telephone
• Vending machine retailing


  • Merchandise or services are stored in a machine
• Service retailing


  • Firms that primarily sell services rather than merchandise, are a large and growing part of the retail industry
• Intangibility


  Services are intangible
• Simultaneous production and consumption


  Services are produced and consumed at the same time
• Perishability


  Services cannot be stored
• Inconsistency


  Services cannot be standardized as they depend on human entities involved
• Major classifications of retail ownership

  • Independent, single-store establishments
  • Corporate retail chains
  • Franchisees
• Independent, single-store establishments


  • Start-ups are owner-managed, has direct contact with customers, very flexible, react quickly to customers' needs and market changes
• Corporate retail chain


  • Operates multiple retail units under common ownership, centralized decision making for defining and implementing strategies
• Franchising


  • Contractual agreement between franchiser and a franchisee that allows franchisee operate a retail outlet using a name and a format developed and supported by the franchiser
• Retail sectors


  • Food
  • Clothing & Textile
  • Consumer Durables
  • Footwear
  • Jewelry
  • Books-music-gift articles
  • Fuel
• Multi-channel retailers


  • Retailers that sell merchandise or services through more than one channel
• Retail channels


  The way a retailer sells and delivers merchandise and services to its customers
• Internet channel


  • Internet retailing, also called online retailing, electronic retailing, and e-tailing, is a retail channel in which the offering of products and services for sale is communicated to customers over the Internet
• Catalog channel


  • A non-store retail channel in which the retail offering is communicated to customers through a catalog mailed to customers
• Direct selling


  • A retail channel in which salespeople interact with customers face-to-face in a convenient location, either at the customer's home or at work
• Party plan


  • A special type of direct selling
• Multilevel systems


  • A special type of direct selling
• Pyramid scheme


  Multilevel direct selling firms that are illegal, designed to sell merchandise and services to other distributors rather than to end users
• Television home shopping


  • A retail channel in which customers watch a television program that demonstrates merchandise and then place orders for that merchandise, usually by telephone, via the Internet, or via the TV remote
• Automated retailing


  • A retail channel in which merchandise or services are stored in a machine and dispensed to customers when they deposit cash or use a credit card, also known as vending machines
• Customers want to interact in different ways, each channel offers a unique set of benefits for customers