Retailing is the final step of an economic activity and the essence of retailing comprises of selling goods and merchandise from a permanent location (such as a boutique, a kiosk or a departmental store) in small or individual batches to the consumer for direct consumption. Modern retailing does not end there. An array of supplementary services is now provided to the customers along with the shopping experience as value addition. The customers may be individuals or business houses. In commerce, the key aspects of retail lies in the act of procuring goods in large quantities from the manufacturer directly or the wholesaler or any agent of the producer and selling in small or individual lots to the consumer. Traditionally retail shops were present only on residential streets and shopping streets with few or no houses. Nowadays with the advent of shopping malls, one can find an array of retail shops under one roof. The act of shopping usually refers to the act of buying products like necessary items (e.g. food and clothing) to luxury items like jewelry, house décor etc. Nowadays shopping is also taken as a recreational activity. People often go for window shopping (just looking, not buying). A good retailer is one who can convert these window shoppers to impulsive buyers.

Keeping this ever changing customer demand and dynamic environment in mind, for the beginner as well as for the retail professional a hand book of retail management seems to be mandatory which may guide them to understand the activities, principles, practices, operations as well as strategies associated with this booming sectors. In this context this manuscript has been designed to bridge gap between the demand of the students engaged in this course as well as the professionals trying to strengthen their career in this sector and the availability of books or materials available in the market.

CHAPTER WISE SYNOPSIS

CHAPTER-1 OVERVIEW OF RETAILING

The emergence of retail as a form of trade dates back to the origin of trade itself. In the earliest time only barter was the known form of trade. As civilization progressed and money as a common unit of currency developed people began to sell their produce and merchandise in local bazaars. This concept is prevalent till date. Much later emerged the local retailers who started stocking up the produce in small shops. Then, as cities and towns developed the concept of high street markets came into existence which later on became the heart of retail activities in every city of the world. Retailing is the final step of an economic activity and the essence of retailing comprises of selling goods and merchandise from a permanent location (such as a boutique, a kiosk or a departmental store) in small or individual batches to the consumer for direct consumption. This chapter highlights the variety of traditional and modern retail formats. The characteristics of the retailer as well as the functions and services provided by him are also presented with detail. E-tailing has taken the world by storm. An extensive discussion is also presented on the concept and acceptability of e-tailing over traditional retailing

CHAPTER-2 RETAIL MARKETING STRATEGIES

One of the essential tasks for a retailer is the identification of unfulfilled needs and wants of society. Research and analysis of consumer behavior coupled with scanning of the business environment are vital tools for a retailer to formulate the perfect market strategy. At the crux of every retail plan, we have the 7Ps of service marketing as well as the 4Cs which have been discussed in detail. Basically one needs to confirm five basic principles in retail whether online or brick-and-mortar stores. There are abundant theories that explain the progression of retail over time period. Some of them are the wheel of retailing, dialectic process, retail accordion theory, and natural selection theory. Concepts of some emerging retail formats are presented along with the idea of retail restructuring. Finally, the steps of the process of retailisation and an idea about different career options in retailing are presented in detail.

CHAPTER-3 ANALYSIS OF INDIAN RETAIL SECTOR

The past few years, especially the last decade or two have seen an enormous amount of change happening in the retail sector in terms of emerging innovative formats and changing consumer buying behavior. In this changing world of retail scenario, the Indian retail industry has risen as one of the most aggressive and fast-paced markets in terms of growth due to the huge number of players entering the segment. The Indian retail market currently provides employment to around 8% of the country’s population and accounts for over 10% of the country’s total GDP. India currently holds the first position in terms of the Global Retail Development Index. India is the world’s fifth-largest global destination in the retail space. Organized retail however comprises of only 9% of the total retail industry but it is expected to grow over the coming years owing to the entry of FDI in multi-brand retail. The major segments that came into prominence are food and grocery retail, apparel retail, gems and jewelry retail, pharma-retail, consumer durables, etc. However, there is a general tendency of big-scale retailers to treat the rural market as a dumping ground for low-end products designed originally for the urban public. But gradually the scenario is changing and the rural consumer is getting the attention they deserve. Hence, it is imperative now to figure out the buying behavior of the rural consumer by understanding the 4 P’s as well as 4A’s of rural retailing. Moreover, India has already been an outsourcing destination for global retailers, and the sector opening up to FDI has been replete with political challenges. This chapter gives an account of the reforms in Indian retail along with its social impact and controversies.

CHAPTER-4 RETAIL BUYING

SUMMARY: This chapter begins with the concept of retail buying and its objectives. It also deals with the retail buying behaviour and retail organizational buying processes. Here different buying situations and characteristics of organizational buyers have been discussed in detail as well as major factors that influence buying decisions have been explained. This chapter also points out the advantages that centralised retail buying organizations enjoy along with the participants in the retail buying process. This chapter elucidates the buying organization roles along with additional buying decision makers. Lastly, the function of buying for different types of organization has been elaborated.

CHAPTER-5 RETAIL ORGANIZATION

The structure of a retail organization plays a crucial role in ascertaining the way an organization functions as well as the way in which employees are expected to behave in the organization. After it has been decided to start a retail venture, the prime decision to take is to design the organizational structure in a way that it maximizes efficiency and profitability. All forms of retail classification include certain traditional organizational structure. The structure of a department store is not the same as that of a chain organization, as are small retail organizations distinctly dissimilar to their giant counterparts. Each company attunes itself to a structure that best suits its organizational needs. Often, companies have to go through certain structural changes to adapt to the changing market scenario or to address any new direction that the company might take. This chapter is focused on understanding the Mazur Plan and has precisely illustrated the structures ofonlinee and off-line stores. This chapter also includes a detailed description about the current trends in retail organization structures. While merchants are at a liberty to take their decisions on whether to choose a store or non-store based format, retail organizations can also choose to structure themselves in different ways. Primarily, corporate & voluntary chains, retailer & consumer cooperatives, retail franchise and retail conglomerate are considered as the foremost retail organizations in this regard.

CHAPTER-6 HR IN RETAIL

SUMMARY: Staffs are a major resource in any business. This is predominant in retail industry that consist a large amount of employees providing a chain of services to its customers. The Retail Human Resource Environment (RHRE) has its unique features: a large number of highly visible-fresh-blood working for long hours that may extend to 24 x 7. These special features also create obscurities to retailers. Further, the number of functions and activities areas also may vary from organization to organization according to nature and size of the business as well as it’s merchandise offering. Generally functions in any retail organization comprises of recruitment, placement, evaluation, compensation and development of the employees of an organization. Additionally, the retail industry poses exacting HR challenges they are the boundary spanners who dealt their customers directly. One must consider both short-term and long-term HR objectives when addressing these challenges.

CHAPTER-7 RETAIL MERCHANDISING

SUMMARY: Merchandising has always been part of the retail industry ever since the first trade stall was set up. Initially, when the retailers used to operate one or two stores the function of buying and pricing merchandising was much simpler. Merchandise management can be termed as the analysis, planning, acquisition, handling and control of the merchandise investments in the retail operation. Retail Merchandising develops, secures, sets pricing, supports, and communicates the retailer’s merchandise offering. It means offering the right product at the right time at the right price with the right appeal. Merchandise Plans are a forecast of specific merchandise purchased and its value, typically for a period of six months or a year. The process of merchandise sourcing commences after identifying supply-sources. The first decision which has to be taken is whether the merchandise can be sourced from domestic or regional markets or from international markets. This is largely related to the type of retail organization, the product being offered, and the target consumers. By managing the vendors, rather than the other way around, retailers may save time and energy in growing their business.

CHAPTER-8 ASSORTMENT PLANNING

SUMMARY: A retailer’s assortment is defined by the set of products carried in each store at each point in time. The main objective of assortment planning is to indicate an assortment that optimize sales or gross margin with respect to number of constraints, such as a limited budget for retail buying , inadequate shelf space for merchandise display, and a range of miscellaneous constrictions such as a desire to have more vendors for a single type of merchandise. Evidently the retail assortment has a massive impact on sales and gross margin, and that’s the reason retail assortment planning is gaining its importance not only for the retailers but the software providers and consultants as well. Though, no foremost solution for assortment planning has yet emerged, it represents a magnificent prospect for academia to contribute in the same.

Chapter -9 RETAIL ATMOSPHERICS

SUMMARY: The retail store atmospherics may be termed as an array of tangible and intangible temperament that touches lifestyle of consumers in economic, social, cultural, psychological and religious aspects. In this concept there’s a high concordance with current fad, fashion, and trends of retailing. Retail atmospheric notions may engender set and subsets of the human traits, their psychological aspects, self-actualization, pleasure-displeasure stimuli, attraction-distraction factors, high-low confidence level and the utmost as well as indispensable human desires. The retail atmospherics comprises the rudiments such as attractive window dressing & layouts, classical/familiar music, bright/dim lighting, apposite temperature, magnificent architectural design, freshness & fragrance. These facets create a cozy & comfortable environment with soothing & trendy color, eye-catching logo, and gentle crowding that impinge on the existing and prospective behavior of the retail consumers. In this regard Visual Merchandising is another significant element of retail atmospherics; it’s the art of displaying merchandise in a manner to appeal the visual effect of the customers. By setting the merchandise in an aesthetically pleasing fashion to present them in such a manner that it would transform the window shoppers into a prospective and ultimate customer A window display may also use as a visiting card for a retail store as windows are the most significant factor as through it a store may communicate its style, content, as well as the price to pull the traffic. The store layout is another important division of atmospherics to attract customers to ensure enjoyment during their shopping. Store image may be recognized by how large retail stores frequently combine self-service and full-service whereas some upscale retail stores propose the magnificence of full-service.

CHAPTER-10 RETAIL LOCATION AND RETAIL SPACE MANAGEMENT

SUMMARY: As store location is the most important element in the Retail mix, it becomes a crucial decision for retailers because of numerous reasons; A bad location may cause a retailer to fail even with an excellent strategic mix, whereas a good location may be the cause of the success of the retailers having an ordinary strategic mix. As a retailer, one of your greatest assets is ‘space’. However, in many situations, the amount of space you have is a finite resource so the asset has to be sweated – in other words made to work harder for you! It needs to be well managed. It goes without saying that space needs to be used effectively. This means providing a logical, sensible, convenient, and inspirational customer offering and making sure that the right products are available at the right time. Space management needs to be viewed as a management activity in its own right with rules of good practice and correct processes to follow. It should not be a random ‘ad hoc’ activity! First, you need to measure the total amount of space available and divide this available space into selling areas, and non-selling areas.

CHAPTER-11 RETAIL PROMOTION, BRAND AND AUDIT

SUMMARY: Retail promotion tactics aim to stimulate customer interest in a product. It was a common perception that the market knowledge of the retailers with a blend of their gut feeling and experience work as a driving force to determine the nature and extent of retail promotional activity. Conversely, because of the stiff market competition, retail promotions necessitates to be entirely innovative and uniquely designed so that it may bear prolific outcome. Most analysts opine that there’s a cut-throat competition between national brands and retailers’ store brand; on the ground of long term trust and retailer’s credibility, the market shares national brands diminish astonishingly and store brands emerged in an accelerating rate as modern sophisticated retailers have focused on developing and selling the same. A retail audit facilitates the retailer to look into what their stores are doing well and where there is room for improvement, looking at management procedures behind-the-scenes and seeing what could be done more efficiently.

CHAPTER-12 RETAIL INVENTORY, LOGISTICS & SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

An inventory management system lets the retailers know what they have, what they need, and when they need it. The main intention of retail logistics are aimed at to ensure that the retail racks and shelves are never vacant and to be packed with the ‘right products at the right time and at the right place’. Apart from maintaining an efficient supply chain, which keeps the stores filled with the correct products, it is also important that retail logistics increases operational efficiencies to allow retailers to run a viable retail operation. Managing supply chains requires retailers to perform a delicate balancing act that simultaneously meets multiple needs. While delivering high service levels as they manage global supply chains, retailers must keep costs low in order to remain competitive. Other pressures come from more demanding consumers as well as from the increasingly global nature of the industry, which has retailers both sourcing and selling products in more places around the world.

CHAPTER-13 RETAIL CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SERVICE QUALITY MEASUREMENT

SUMMARY: In retail, it is inevitable that there will be the occasional disgruntled customer. In this business though the retailer is offering quality product coupled with quality service delivered by committed people , problems may still occur. Whether the establishment represents a major retailer with hundreds of employees or an independent shop with a handful of sales associates, customer service can always be improved. Businesses with a solid reputation for quality customer service thrive by retaining and attracting customers avidly seeking a rich shopping experience. Service Evaluation is a way of finding out which services are most and least valued by your customers and the satisfaction level for each of them. The information will give you vital information to allocate your resources and improve the service offering to match your customers’ needs and expectations. The service-profit chain links profitability of the retailer and employee satisfaction- loyalty- productivity aspects with customer loyalty factor.

CHAPTER-14 RETAIL OPERATION

SUMMARY: Retail store is the place where the customers take a decision on the purchase of the Merchandise offered by the retailer. The perception of the customers form in their mind about the store, the products, services and staff are also influenced by the store’s outlook. From the Management’s point of view, to operate a store one of the major element is cost. The store itself becomes an important asset of the retail business and it is imperative that the operations should be well managed to achieve and sustain customer satisfaction and be cost effective. Management of operational function of a store for a retail business of any size or complexity from the neighborhood grocer to the national retail chain is a challenging task. It requires integration among various functions within the store. For smooth operation of the store all the functions are integrated. It is necessary that the management should define processes and guide the people and the resources to implement them, for the smooth operation at the store level. In store operations manual the list of which tasks are to be performed and the processes are usually described. The tasks which need to be carried out at the store level , the responsibility and the time limitation in which these tasks need to be performed are mentioned in this document lists. For efficient store operations, a well‐prepared operations manual or blueprint is of utmost importance. In the case of small retailers two of the major challenges are generally faced by them: their owner of the land and their budget. But going green doesn’t necessarily have to be costly. Here are some easy steps mentioned to make your retail operation green and which you can take to reduce your carbon footprint and cut waste.