Your Smart Retail Market Strategy Book

By Ho Eng Wah

The objectives of this book are:
To share what are the excitements and challenges facing in the retailing industry.
To create different strategies by using the right retail format strategy to meet the specific target market segment.
How retailers able to create a competitive advantage edge over competitors in order to achieve sustainable growth in revenue and profit in the longer term for the organization.
Successful SMART Retailing = How to define your SPECIFIC target market segment to MEET your customers needs and wants in order to create a competitive ADVANTAGE edge to achieve sustainable financial performance RESULTS by utilizing the current TECHNOLOGICAL advancement and implementing of ENTREPRENEURSHIP mindset.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Jan 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781482881806

Ho Eng Wah

Ho Eng Wah is a graduate of Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Bolton, United Kingdom. With 35 years of experience in retail industry specializing in supermarket, hypermarket, departmental store, specialty store and convenience store. He also gained overseas exposure in merchandising and purchasing from other countries such as China, Hong Kong, Thailand and Indonesia. He was employed as a Merchandising Manager, Director of Operations and General Manager of several leading and public listed retail organizations in Malaysia and Brunei prior to his retirement.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Ho Eng Wah.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4828-8179-0

                eBook           978-1-4828-8180-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

YOUR SMART

RETAIL MARKET

STRATEGY BOOK

A-Z strategies

A must ‘’READ’’ for all retailers whether you are

An entrepreneur, CEO, General Manager, Operating Manager,

Human Resources Manager, Store Manager, Marketing Manager,

Merchandising Manager, or Buyer.

Ho Eng Wah

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CONTENTS OVERVIEW:

1.  SCANNING YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGY

2.  MARKET CHANGING STRATEGY

3.  CUSTOMER BUYING BEHAVIOR STRATEGY

4.  RETAIL MARKET FORMAT STRATEGY

5.  RETAIL STRATEGY

6.  MARKETING STRATEGY

7.  MERCHANDISING STRATEGY

8.  HUMAN RESOURCES STRATEGY

9.  STORE OPERATIONS STRATEGY

10.  CUSTOMER SERVICE STRATEGY

11.  FINANCIAL STRATEGY

12.  INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY

13.  E- COMMERCE STRATEGY

14.  INTERNET STRATEGY

15.  ENTREPRENEURSHIP STRATEGY

Contents

1   SCANNING YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGY

1.1.   What Is Retailing?

1.2.   Why Is Retailing So Important In A Country?

1.3.   What Is Retailing Concept?

1.4.   What Need To Know About Retailing?

1.5.   Summary

2   MARKET CHANGING STRATEGY

2.1.   How The Customers Changing Trends Will Affect The Retailing Industry?

2.2.   What The Demographics Changing Trends Will Affect The Retailing Industry?

2.3.   How The Technological Changing Trends Will Affect The Retailing Industry?

2.4.   How The Labor Pool Changing Trends Will Affect The Retailing Industry?

2.5.   How Retailers Can Go Globally?

2.6.   Summary

3   CUSTOMER BUYING BEHAVIOR STRATEGY

3.1.   How Customers Make Their Buying Decisions?

3.2.   What Is The Buying Process?

3.3.   How Retailers To Limit The Customers’ Information Search Through Using The Right Retailing Mix?

3.4.   How Retailers Able To Encourage Their Customers To Shop To Their Stores More Than Their Competitors?

3.5.   How Retailers Able To Influence The Customers To Select A Store Based On The Information Provided?

3.6.   What Are The Factors That Influence The Customers’ Decision-Making Process?

3.7.   What Is Market Segmentation?

3.8.   What Are The Criteria To Evaluate A Retail Segment?

3.9.   What Are The Approaches To Segment A Specific Target Retail Market?

3.10.   Summary

4   RETAIL MARKET FORMAT STRATEGY

4.1.   What Are The Different Types Of Retail Format In Retailing?

4.2.   What Are The Different Types Of Retailers?

4.3.   Summary

5   RETAILING STRATEGY

5.1.   What Is Retailing Strategy?

5.2.   How Can Retailers To Satisfy The Needs Of Customers In Their Specific Target Market?

5.3.   What Is A Retail Market?

5.4.   How Can Retailers Develop A Sustainable Competitive Advantage Over Their Competitors?

5.5.   What Are The Three Most Important Things In Retailing?

5.6.   Why Is Store Location So Important To Retailers?

5.7.   How Retailers Select And Make Their Store Location Decisions Effectively?

5.8.   How To Evaluate And What Are The Issues That Need To Be Considered When Selecting A Store Site?

5.9.   What Are The Factors That Need To Be Considered When Evaluate The Attractiveness Of A Region Or Market Or Trade Area?

5.10.   How To Choose A Suitable Location Based On The Type Of Retail Store Format To A Specific Target Market?

5.11.   What Is The Strategic Retail Planning Process?

5.12.   Summary

6   MARKETING STRATEGY

6.1.   What Is Marketing Strategy?

6.2.   What Are The Criteria To Develop A Good Marketing Strategy?

6.3.   What Is Marketing Plan?

6.4.   How Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, And Threats(Swot) Analysis Will Affect Your Marketing Strategy?

6.5.   What Need To Focus On When Preparing The Marketing Strategies?

6.6.   What Types Of Marketing Strategies That Can Be Used By Retailers?

6.7.   What Are The Objectives Of Marketing Strategies?

6.8.   How Can Retailers To Build Their Brand Successfully?

6.9.   What Is Brand Positioning?

6.10.   What Is A Positioning Statement?

6.11.   What Are The Different Approaches Of Product Positioning?

6.12.   How Can Retailers To Identify And Develop The Consumer Emotional Relationship?

6.13.   What Need To Prepare When Setting Your Positioning Strategy?

6.14.   What Is Marketing Communication?

6.15.   How Can Retailers To Develop Their Communication Goals?

6.16.   What Are The Criteria For Developing An Effective Marketing Plan?

6.17.   What Is Considering As A Good Business Review?

6.18.   What Are The Criteria For Preparing A Good Business Review?

6.19.   How You Develop Your Sales Objectives?

6.20.   How To Identify Specific Target Market Segments Effectively?

6.21.   What Are The Target Segmentation Approaches?

6.22.   How To Make Your Target Segments Decision?

6.23.   What Is Demand Analysis?

6.24.   What Are The Different Types Of Products?

6.25.   What Are The Key Factors That Need To Be Considered For Product Buying Decisions?

6.26.   Summary

7   MERCHANDISING STRATEGY

7.1.   How To Plan Merchandise Assortments And Organizing Buying Process?

7.2.   What Types Of Retailer Do You Want To Be?

7.3.   How Do Retailers Make The Stock Balance Decision?

7.4.   What Are The Planning Tools To Develop A Merchandise Plan?

7.5.   How To Develop Your Sales Forecast Plan?

7.6.   What Are The Other Factors Beside Stock Balance That The Buyers Need To Be Considered When Developing Their Sales Forecast Plan?

7.7.   What Is Inventory Turnover?

7.8.   What Is Average Inventory?

7.9.   What Is Merchandise Budget Plan?

7.10.   How Buyers To Evaluate Their Merchandise Budget Plan?

7.11.   What Is Open-To Buy?

7.12.   What Is The Open-To-Buyer Ledger?

7.13.   How Buyers To Use The Quarterly Open-To-Buy Control Form?

7.14.   What Are Sku-Based Inventory Management Systems?

7.15.   What Is Reordering Systems?

7.16.   How Much Should The Buyer Order When The Quantity Is Less Than The Order Point?

7.17.   How Buyers Allocate Their Merchandise To The Stores?

7.18.   What Are The Different Vendors Or Brands That Need To Be Considered When Retailers Doing Their Buying?

7.19.   What Types Of Market That The Retailers Can Visit For Their Buying?

7.20.   What Are The Different Types Of Vendor-Buyer Relationships?

7.21.   What Are The Characteristics Of Successful Vendor-Buyer Relationships?

7.22.   How Can The Vendors Gain Trust From The Buyers?

7.23.   What Are The Different Stages In Developing A Strong Vendor-Buyer Relationship?

7.24.   What Are The General Guidelines That The Retailers Need To Know When Negotiate With The Vendors?

7.25.   What Are The Guidelines For Face-To-Face Negotiations?

7.26.   What Are The Different Types Of Pricing Strategies In The Retail Market?

7.27.   Which Strategy Is Best To Use Between A High/Low Strategy And Everyday Low Pricing Strategy?

7.28.   What Are The Different Methods Of Setting The Retail Prices?

7.29.   What Are The Ways To Reduce The Amount Of Markdowns Of Merchandise?

7.30.   What Is Break-Even Analysis?

7.31.   How Retailers Convert The Break-Even Quantity To Break-Even Sales Dollars?

7.32.   How Retailers To Determine Their Initial Retail Price By Using The Demand-Oriented Pricing Method?

7.33.   What Are The Factors That Need To Be Considered When Come To Determine Customers’ Sensitivity To Price?

7.34.   What Are The Different Pricing Strategies Uses By Retailers?

7.35.   What Are The Legal Issues That Need To Be Considered When Making The Retail Pricing Decisions?

7.36.   What Are The Different Methods Of Retail Promotions Mixes?

7.37.   What Are The Different Communication Methods?

7.38.   What Are The Different Types Of Communication Programs Between The Retailer And Manufacturer?

7.39.   What Are The Steps Involved In Developing A Promotion Program?

7.40.   How Retailers To Use Positioning Objective To Create A Long-Term Competitive Advantage Edge?

7.41.   How Retailers To Achieve Their Long And Short Term Overall Sales And Profits Objectives?

7.42.   How To Determine The Most Effective Communication Methods In The Decision Making Process?

7.43.   What Tasks Need To Carry Out For Clearing The Slow & Old Moving Merchandise In The Store?

7.44.   How Can Retailers To Increase The Awareness Of The Store?

7.45.   How Can Retailers To Create A Greater Preference For Their Store In The Target Market?

7.46.   How Retailers Allocate Their Promotion Budget?

7.47.   What Are The Most Commonly Used Of Sales Promotion Activities By Retailers?

7.48.   How To Implement The Retail Advertising Programs Effectively?

7.49.   How To Develop The Advertising Messages Effectively?

7.50.   Where Can Retailers To Get Their Promotional Funds?

7.51.   What Types Of Media To Use?

7.52.   What Are The Factors That Need To Be Considered When Selecting Of Media To Use?

7.53.   How To Evaluate Advertising Programs Effectively?

7.54.   What Are The Objectives Of Publicity?

7.55.   Summary

8   HUMAN RESOURCES STRATEGY

8.1.   What Is The Most Important Objective In The Human Resource Management?

8.2.   How Human Resources Strategies, Such As The Design Of Organization Structure And Motivation Programs Will Affect The Employee Productivity?

8.3.   What Kind Of Retail Organization Structure Is Suitable For A Retailer?

8.4.   What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Centralized And Decentralized Organization Structure?

8.5.   How Human Resource Management Can Play A Part To Have A Better Coordination Between Store Buying And Selling Activities?

8.6.   How Human Resource Management Through Organizational Change Can Improve The Financial Performance Of The Store?

8.7.   How Human Resource Management Can Play The Roles In Motivating And Coordinating Employees Activities In The Store?

8.8.   How Human Resource Management Through A Strong Organizational Culture Can Motivate Employees In The Store?

8.9.   How Human Resource Management Through A Strong Corporate Working Culture Can Improve The Employees’ Communication And Coordination In The Store?

8.10.   What Is The Impact Of A Strong Corporate Working Culture?

8.11.   What Types Of Incentive To Use To Motivate Employees Effectively?

8.12.   How A Set Of Written Policies Will Help To Improve The Coordination Among The Employees?

8.13.   What Are The Legal Issues That Human Resource Management Needs To Cover?

8.14.   How Retailers To Manage Their Diversity?

8.15.   Summary

9   STORE OPERATIONS STRATEGY

9.1.   Why Is Store Operations So Important To Retailers?

9.2.   What Are The Responsibilities Of Store Managers?

9.3.   What Is The Process Of Recruiting And Selecting Of Store Employees That Need To Be Undertaken By The Store Managers?

9.4.   Why Is Training So Important To The Store Employees?

9.5.   Why People Worked?

9.6.   How The Store Managers Can Instill A Working Environment Where Individual Will Want To Motivate Themselves?

9.7.   What Are The Different Stages Of Career Orientation?

9.8.   What Are The Different Types Of Training Programs?

9.9.   How To Design And Develop A Training Program Effectively Based On Employees’ Specific Needs?

9.10.   What Are The Strategies That The Store Managers Can Implement In Order To Create A Winning Retail Store Operations Team?

9.11.   What Are The Effective Criteria To Build A Retail Store Operations Team?

9.12.   How To Reward Store Employees?

9.13.   What Are The Objectives Of Compensation Programs?

9.14.   What Are The Factors That Retailers Need To Consider When Implementing The Compensating Programs?

9.15.   What Are The Store Security Issues?

9.16.   What Are The Shoplifting Techniques Used By The Shoplifters?

9.17.   What Are The Effective Tools To Use In Order To Overcome The Shoplifting And Protecting Stock From Pilferage?

9.18.   What Are The Principles And Practices Of Apprehension And Arrest?

9.19.   What Are The Internal Loss Preventive Techniques?

9.20.   Why Are Store Layout, Design, And Visual Merchandising So Important In A Store?

9.21.   What Are The Factors That Influenced A Store Layout?

9.22.   What Are The Different Types Of Display Area?

9.23.   What Are The Different Types Of Fixture Use By Retailers?

9.24.   What Are The Important Elements Of Design?

9.25.   What Is Planogram?

9.26.   What Are The Visual Communication Strategies?

9.27.   How Visual Merchandising Can Help To Trigger Customers Buying Decisions?

9.28.   What Need To Know In A Personal Selling Process By The Salespersons?

9.29.   Why Is The Preapproach So Important In A Personal Selling Process To A Salesperson?

9.30.   What Are The Objectives Of Approaching The Customers In A Personal Selling Process?

9.31.   What Are The Customer’s Approaches In A Personal Selling Process That Can Be Used By A Salesperson?

9.32.   What Are The Effective Retail Selling Knowledge And Skills That Need To Know By The Salespersons In A Personal Selling Process?

9.33.   Why Is Evaluation Of Store Performance So Important To Retailers?

9.34.   How Retailers Evaluate And Control The Retail Operations?

9.35.   What Types Of Performance Measures Used By Retailers?

9.36.   What Are The Corporate-Level Performance Measures Used By Retailers?

9.37.   What Are The Merchandising-Level Performance Measures Used By Retailers?

9.38.   What Are The Store Operations-Level Performance Measures Used By Retailers?

9.39.   What Is Benchmarking?

9.40.   What Are The Merchandising Tools Of Evaluation?

9.41.   What Are The Store Operations Technique Tools Of Evaluation?

9.42.   How Retailers To Improve The Retail Store Space Productivity?

9.43.   How Retailers Use Direct Product Productivity Method To Measure The Retailing Performance?

9.44.   Why Is Direct Product Productivity (Dpp) Method So Widely Use By Retail Organization?

9.45.   Summary

10   CUSTOMER SERVICE STRATEGY

10.1.   What Is Customer Service?

10.2.   How Customers Evaluate Retail Service Quality?

10.3.   What Are The Gap Models For Improving Retail Service Quality?

10.4.   What Are The Approaches To Improve Customer Satisfaction?

10.5.   Why Is Customer Service Culture So Important To Retailers?

10.6.   How To Keep Up With The Evolving Needs Of Customers?

10.7.   Summary

11   FINANCIAL STRATEGY

11.1.   Why Are Financial Decisions So Important To Retailers?

11.2.   What Is Income Statement?

11.3.   What Is Operating Expenses?

11.4.   What Is Net Profit?

11.5.   What Is Balance Sheet?

11.6.   What Is The Strategic Profit Model?

11.7.   Summary

12   INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY

12.1.   Why Is Integrated Retail Distribution And Information System So Important In Retailing Business?

12.2.   What Is Distribution Center (Dc)?

12.3.   What Are The Strategic Advantages Of Distribution And Information System?

12.4.   What Are The Advantages Of Using Distribution Centers?

12.5.   What Are The Advantages Having Vendors Ship Directly To The Stores?

12.6.   What Types Of Retailer Are Suitable To Use A Distribution Center?

12.7.   What Is Pull Distribution Strategy?

12.8.   What Is Push Distribution Strategy?

12.9.   What Are The Problems Of Global Distribution Faced By The Retailers?

12.10.   Why Certain Retailers Prefer To Engage The Contract Distribution Companies To Perform Their Distribution Functions?

12.11.   What Is The Flow Of Information In A Retail Store?

12.12.   Why Is Electronic Data Interchange (Edi) With Vendors So Important To Retailers?

12.13.   What Pos Terminals System Can Do To Improve Customer Service Level?

12.14.   Why Is Sharing Of Sales Data Commitment From Retailers To Vendors So Important To Retailers?

12.5.   Summary

13   E-COMMERCE STRATEGY

13.1.   How Brick And Mortar Stores Businesses Are Affecting By The E-Commerce?

13.2.   How Can Retailers Gain Market Share Through E-Commerce?

13.3.   How Retailers Influence Customers’ Mindset On Cost Effectiveness Of Online Shopping?

13.4.   How Can Smartphone App Help To Increase Online Business?

13.5.   How Can Retailers To Increase Their Revenues With Mobile Payments?

13.6.   How Small And Medium Enterprises (Smes) To Remain Relevant In Today’s Business World?

13.7.   Why Is Internet Of Things (Iot) Business So Important In The Digital Revolution?

13.8.   How To Meet Consumer Needs With The Use Of Internet Of Things (Iot)?

13.9.   Summary

14   INTERNET STRATEGY

14.1.   How Digital Economy Will Affect The Way Of Doing Business And Customers Shopping Behavior?

14.2.   How To Improve Your Sales Success Rate With The Integration Of Social Media Channels, Interactive Technology And Digital Channels?

14.3.   Why Is Experiential Digital Strategy So Important To Retailers?

14.4.   What Are The Different Types Of Social Media Networking Channels?

14.5.   What Are The Alternatives To Attract And Retain More Shoppers?

14.6.   Why Is Social Media So Important To Retailers?

14.7.   What Are The Social Media Marketing Strategies?

14.8.   How You Use Facebook To Market Your Online Business?

14.9.   What Are The Steps To Follow When Using Facebook To Market Your Online Business?

14.10.   What Your Brand Should Be Doing On Social Media?

14.11.   What Are The Common Tools To Use For Lead Appointment?

14.12.   How Can You Use Internet Lead To Close Your Sales?

14.13.   How To Get More Sales By Closed Internet Leads?

14.14.   Summary

15   ENTREPRENEURSHIP STRATEGY

15.1.   What Is Entrepreneurship?

15.2.   What Are The Qualities Or Personal Characteristics That An Entrepreneur Should Possess?

15.3.   What Are The Common Start-Up Issues Face By The Entrepreneurs?

15.4.   What Are The Different Types Of Entrepreneurship?

15.5.   Why Is Entrepreneurship So Important To A Country?

15.6.   Why Creativity And Innovation Are So Important?

15.7.   What Are The Components Of Creativity?

15.8.   What Are The Approaches Of Promoting Creativity?

15.9.   What Are The Barriers To Creativity?

15.10.   What Is Innovation?

15.11.   How Innovation Can Be Created?

15.12.   What Are The Different Phases Of Innovation Process?

15.13.   What Make People Become Highly Creative?

15.14.   How To Identify, Analyze And Capitalize On Business Opportunities And Convert Them Into Marketable Product Or Service To Meet The Needs Of The Specific Target Market?

15.15.   How Should Entrepreneurs Use The Swot Analysis In Their Strategic Planning Process?

15.16.   What Are The Basic Strategic Planning Issues?

15.17.   Why Is Business Plan So Important To An Entrepreneur?

15.18.   How Should Entrepreneurs Organize Their Business Plan?

15.19.   Why Marketing Plan Is Of Prime Importance To Entrepreneurs’ New Businesses?

15.20.   What Are The Criteria Of Selecting A Good Store Location?

15.21.   How You Choose A Viable Community?

15.22.   How You Select The Right Trading Area?

15.23.   How You Evaluate The Specific Site?

15.24.   What Are The Issues That Need To Be Considered When Planning The Design And Layout Of A New Business?

15.25.   What Are The Factors That Influenced The Store Layout?

15.26.   How Entrepreneurs To Evaluate Their Layout In Terms Of Fixtures, Furnishings, And Equipments When They Either Plan The Design And Layout Of A New Building Or Remodel An Existing Building?

15.27.   What Are The Organization Planning Tools?

15.28.   What Is An Organization Chart?

15.29.   How You Organize Your Business Effectively?

15.30.   What Are The Common Types Of Finance For Smes?

15.31.   What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Equity Or Debt Finance?

15.32.   What Is Financial Planning?

15.33.   Why Is Financial Planning So Important To An Entrepreneur?

15.34.   What Are The Steps Of Developing A Financial Plan?

15.35.   What Need To Prepare A Loan Application Package?

15.36.   How Lenders Evaluate Loan Application Package?

15.37.   How You Plan Your Store Grand Opening?

15.38.   How You Enhance Your Grand Opening Response Through Visual Merchandising?

15.39.   What Is The Purpose Of Pre-Grand Opening?

15.40.   Summary

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to those aspiring entrepreneurs, captains in this retail industry, CEOs, and managers that I had been working with, learning from all of them their great cultures, core values, ethics, and business strategies on how to create a competitive advantage edge over competition to achieve sustainable financial performance results in this hyper-competitive industry.

Special thanks to Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Tang Yeam Soon, P.S.M.,S.S.A.P., D.S.N.S., Group Managing Director of The Store Corporation Berhad. I am extremely graceful to him to have the opportunity to work with him and learned from him of his great leadership coupled with his vast retail experience in term of his creative and innovative management, strategic planning and business strategies on how to create a competitive advantage edge over competition. The Store group was established in year 1968. The Malaysia Book of Records recognized it as the largest and oldest existing supermarket and departmental store chain in Malaysia since year 2001. The Store group at present has 75 outlets across Malaysia, with 49 The Store Supermarket & Departmental store, 9 Pacific Hypermarket & Departmental Store in Peninsular Malaysia, and 17 Milimewa Superstores in Sabah, East Malaysia.

It is impossible to make this book published and make it reality if without all of them valuable expertise and experience that I had learned so far.

To my family,

Dad, Mum, Brothers, and sister

Wife, son, daughters, and daughter in law

Thank you for their endless support, kind understanding, and patience by taking most of their leisure time while I worked tirelessly on this book.

Special thanks to Partridge publishing team for their great and professional effort that make my publication possible.

1   SCANNING YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGY

1.1. WHAT IS RETAILING?

Retailing is the set of business activities involving the buying of goods or merchandise from manufacturers or wholesalers or importers or distributors and the selling of goods or merchandise from a choosing specific location, such as a departmental store or supermarket, specialty store or convenience store, or by post, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the consumers. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. In commerce, a retailer buys goods or products in large quantities from manufacturers, importers, or distributors, and then selling in smaller quantities to the end-users. Retail establishments are often call shops or stores. A retailer is the final business in a distribution channel that links manufacturers, importers and distributors with consumers.

The ingredient of retailing is about buying something and selling something to end-consumers for a profit. What you sell, where you sell it, how you display the merchandise and how you price it, who you want to sell it, and why consumers buy the product or service are all factors that help make retailing an extremely interesting challenge. The old retail business expression Retail is detail is still relevant in today retailing business. Retailing is talking about creativity and need constant change to meet the fast changing environment market in order to create a competitive advantage edge to meet the different target markets needs to achieve sustainable growth in revenue and profit in the longer term for the organization. If you like change, you will love the retail business.

Retailing is the set of business activities that adds value to the products and services sold to consumers for their personal or family use that can summarize as follows:

1.  To offer a variety of assortments of product and service to meet the target group of consumer needs.

For example, supermarkets typically carry approximately 10,000 to 15,000 different items or stock-keeping units (SKUs) made by over 500 to 1000 vendors depending on the size of the supermarkets. All retailers offer assortments of products, but they specialize in the assortments they offer, for instant, supermarkets provide assortments of food, health, beauty and personal care products, and household and sundry products, while departmental store provides assortments of apparel, shoes, luggage, lingerie, cosmetics, skin care products, fragrances & perfumes, jewelry, accessories, shoes and home furnishing.

2.  To buy in bulk, keep inventory and sell in any quantities to meet individual consumers’ needs and wants.

One of the main functions of the retailers is to buy in bulk and to keep the inventory in order the products or merchandise will be available when consumers want to buy them at their convenience. In return, retailers offer the products in smaller quantities tailored to individual consumer consumption patterns to meet their needs.

3.  Offering value added services to consumers.

Retailers provide services like accepting credit card and debit card payment, sales people to service and answer questions and providing additional information about products feature and usage.

In summary, retailers offering assortments in smaller quantities, holding inventory and offering services and ultimately to increase the value of consumers receive from the products and services they are offering.

1.2. WHY IS RETAILING SO IMPORTANT IN A COUNTRY?

Retailing is not only important to the retailers on how to meet and satisfying consumers’ needs more effectively and efficiently than its competitors in order to create a competitive advantage edge to achieve sustainable financial performance results in the longer term, but it also play an important role for robust economic growth in any countries. We can see retailing business is growing at a rapidly rate in countries such as, China, India and South-East Asian countries that contributed to the country’s continuous economic growth.

Retailing is so important that it is helping to create employment opportunity, which is one of the nation’s largest industries in any countries. Retailers are offering many opportunities for people with different range of skills to work in the retailing industry as retailing involves with the set of business activities such as human resource functions, marketing functions, purchasing of goods or merchandising functions, accounting and information technology system, store operations and customer service, manage distribution and warehouse system.

Retailing also provides entrepreneurial opportunities for those who want to start their own businesses.

1.3. WHAT IS RETAILING CONCEPT?

The retailing concept is defined as on how to identifying and determining the specific target market needs, and how to satisfying those needs more effectively and efficiently than its competitors in order to create a competitive advantage edge to achieve sustainable financial performance results in the longer term.

Retailers are working hard by offering unique merchandise and services that are not easily copy by the competitors. However, to maintain long-term competitive advantage edge is not easy in retailing. Any retailers can buy the same products and sell to the consumers. No retailers can patent a unique store design, exclusive merchandise assortment, or service, for example, if one supermarket develops a successful ready to eat counter, its competitors can easily copy and operate a similar ready to eat counter within a short period.

1.4. WHAT NEED TO KNOW ABOUT RETAILING?

Retailers need to have a good understanding of their environment, in particular their customers and competition, in order to develop and implement effective strategies base on the types of retail format they are targeting.

The three important environment factors that will affect the retailing are:

1.  Competition,

2.  Consumers’ needs and wants,

3.  The consumer demographics and life styles

The second stage of retailers’ decision-making process is to formulate and implement a retail strategy. To implement a retail strategy, retailers need to develop a retail mix to satisfying its target market needs better than its competitors. The retail mix is the combination of factors retailers use to satisfy customers’ needs and influence their buying decisions. Elements in the retail mix are

1.  The types of merchandising and services offered,

2.  Merchandising pricing,

3.  Advertising and promotional programs,

4.  Store concept design,

5.  Merchandise display,

6.  Customer service provided by salespeople,

7.  Convenience of the store’s location

To determine the retail mix, managers in the buying division need to decide how much and what types of merchandise to buy, the retail prices to set, the vendors to use and buying terms, and how to advertise and promote merchandise effectively.

While the Store managers need to determine how to recruit, select, and motivate sales people, where and how merchandise to display, the nature of the services to provide to the customers and selling skills needed by sales people.

The final stage in the retailers’ decision-making process is to review and evaluate the effectiveness of the retail strategy and its implementation. The retailers collect and analyze information about sales and inventories to help the firm achieve its financial goals.

Thus, retailing can be summed-up as follows:

S - SPECIFIC your target market, to

(Scanning Your Environmental Strategy, Market Changing Strategy, Customer Buying Behavior Strategy, Retail Market Format Strategy, Retailing Strategy, Marketing Strategy)

M - MEET your customers’ needs and wants in order to create a competitive

(Merchandising Strategy)

A - ADVANTAGE edge to achieve sustainable financial performance

(Human Resources Strategy, Store Operations Strategy, Customer Service Strategy)

R - RESULTS by utilizing the current

(Financial Strategy)

T - TECHNOLOGICAL advancement & implementing of entrepreneurship mindset

(Information Technology Strategy, E- Commerce Strategy, Internet Strategy, Entrepreneurship Strategy)

1.5. SUMMARY

Retailing is the set of business activities about how to satisfying their specific target market needs by creating value added to the consumers. Retailing also providing working opportunities that are keen in this industry to build their careers as retailing is a rewarding and challenging industry. The key success factor in retailing is to offer the right product, at the right price, in the right place, at the right time to your specific target group of customers in order to create a competitive advantage edge to achieve sustainable financial performance results in the longer term. To achieve all this, retailers must understand what customers’ needs and wants and what competitors are offering now and in future.

2   MARKET CHANGING STRATEGY

2.1. HOW THE CUSTOMERS CHANGING TRENDS WILL AFFECT THE RETAILING INDUSTRY?

Customers are constantly changing and retailers must recognize these changes in order to compete successfully in the market. Retailers need to recognize these changes such as, demographics change that will affect the retailing. How retailers responding to these demographics changes trends?

2.2. WHAT THE DEMOGRAPHICS CHANGING TRENDS WILL AFFECT THE RETAILING INDUSTRY?

All retailers must recognize the growing important and special needs of certain ethnic groups in the markets. The demand of these customers will affect the retailers merchandise and services provided and the types of retail format to suit to this grouping target market.

The change in population age is one of the factors that affected the retailers demand for retail goods and services by the consumers and they must respond to changes in their customer base accordingly. With the growth of older population age category between 55 -65 years and above, some retailers actually already targeted to this elderly consumers base on their need. For example, the retailers to provide and target to this older consumers segment age group 50 and over called silver streamers’. The retailers must recognize the special needs of older consumers the types of merchandise they need and sell them accordingly. The retailers must recognize what kind of store design to suit this older consumers group. The retailers must train the store employees how to meet this target group of consumers’ needs. Some of the pointers that the retailers need to consider and decide when come to what kind of store designs and services needed by the older consumers are as follows:

1.  Providing chairs for them to sit and rest in different parts of the store.

2.  The restroom should be located nearer if not in front of the store and not at the corner of the store for convenience and security to the older people.

3.  To provide and installing good lighting for them to shop comfortably.

4.  To provide sales people to help older customers to find the merchandise they want to buy in the store.

5.  To train all employees who work in the store to understand what the older customers’ needs like how to explain to the older customers in regard of the products features and usage, sample for them to test.

6.  To provide post directories throughout the store to ease as point of reference.

7.  To display products in places at the convenience for the older people to take and do not display products on top or bottom of shelves where older people want to buy.

8.  To provide older customers with value for money for the products they buy as older people are often retired and have limited incomes.

9.  To provide and having special sales or discount for senior citizen in certain days of the month or year.

10.  To provide by encouraging older people to buy their merchandise through telephone or internet mail to ease their buying and do not have to travel far distances away from home to the store.

Another example is how Specialty retailers have realized the opportunities to sell goods to children and their baby boomer parents. One good example of such successful retailer to target this group is the supermarket for toys called Toys R Us. This kind of retailer realized that children buying potential is strong and they are the one who influence their parents spending and buying from toys to food items. The specialty retailers with this kind of target market format believe that children are also the future market for all goods and services.

A change in income distribution is becoming more polarization. Retailers have adapted their strategies base on the income groups to decide the types of retail store format to meet the consumers’ needs. The retail format can be classified into either targeting to the upscale customers or targeting to the mass middle and lower-income markets.

The upscale retailers who targeted to this group of segment have to meet the needs of the high-income customers’ coupled with their higher levels of education and increase in dual-income households by providing high quality of products and services rather than on pricing strategy. For example, premium supermarket by offering shoppers a unique grocery shopping experience by setting up culinary ‘grocerant’ a combination of grocery store and restaurant. The customers can pick up their choices of meats and seafood just off the shelf and brings over to the grocerant counter, and chefs will prepare the meal with condiments and sides to suit the customers’ palate all done within the store space. This is to differentiate from everyday low price format retailers to create a competitive advantage edge to increase their revenue and profit in the longer term.

While the mass middle and lower-income markets, the retailers are offering the products with quality products for value buying. The retailers who operated under this format typically carry a mix of moderately priced national brands that customers recognize, quality products with value buying, private-label merchandise with lower priced and promotes either sale merchandise or everyday low prices strategy.

The retailers recognize the changing and increasing of women working in the market have created significant opportunities for them. With more women coupled with their high disposable income compared to the earlier generations has resulting new ways of spending. Women are spending more money on themselves, for example, to buy fine gold jewelry and watches to be worn at work and entertainment, beauty and cosmetics products and skin care products, fashion wear and shoes to handbags to meet their need both at work or leisure times.

Today, with more both husband and wife working while still need to raise a family, time for shopping and leisure become limited. Thus, retailers may adopt some of the following strategies to meet this grouping of customers’ needs:

1.  To provide better customer service by refocusing to have more salespersons to serve those to reduce their shopping time.

2.  To improve customer service is to empower salespersons to make decisions instantly. Customers do not like to wait for authorization for instance, merchandise returns or exchanges, or other interactions with customers.

3.  To provide customers with fast, accurate information’s can help to reduce their shopping time. Proper informative signage and well coordinate merchandise can also help to speed up the shopping time. Some specialty stores offer personalized salespersons to help the customers to speed up the decision making process. Many specialty stores go to the extent to keep track of their customers’ sizes and preferences in order they can call them up when appropriate merchandise arrives to the stores.

4.  The retailers should consider opening longer hours in particular during the festival seasons such as New Year and Christmas and providing higher levels of service to accommodate time sensitive customers.

5.  To provide customers with other alternatives to shop that can help to save the time of the customers, for example, specialty catalogs, interactive electronic retailing and E-shopping.

6.  Retailers should offer opportunities for one-stop shopping for customers to make multiple buying in one location. For example, supermarkets by having other merchandise like optical centre, goldsmith, magazine and newspaper corner and other services like post office and bank auto-teller machines (ATMs) within their supermarket to facilitate timesaving shopping and boast customer convenience.

7.  To reduce customers long queues time by providing more checkout lines and packers to speed up the payment transactions.

With the changing of demographic and changes of other environment factors, the consumer values are also changing. Thus, retailers and employees play an important role in their communities. Retailers must not just purely to focus on how to make profit but to take into considering of other factors such as societal needs, for example, to organize charity work program to the poor needed homes or single mother family and by allocating certain percent of sales back to the community. There are some retailers organizing charity fair campaign or charity sale and donate certain amount from the sales generated to old folk, orphans, and single mother. Retailers can organize healthy road show campaign to their customers. Retailers with such social consciousness to improve the lives of the customers will create a mutually beneficial relationship between the retailers and consumers at large and ultimately will help to enhance the stores sales.

Environmental sensitivity is another area where retailers can be focused, for instance, by implementing the green marketing strategy to improve the revenue and profit margin. Climate change and global warming phenomena can no longer be viewed lightly as they have caused massive damage and loss of lives. With these serious natural disasters, the retailers and vendors can implementing and emphasizing on green technology development to not only improve and balanced the environment but socially. The retailers and vendors can supply the customers with environmentally friendly products, for example,

1.  The Body Shop sells natural cosmetics only. This retailer has taken a public stand all their products are produce on natural ingredients and no products are using of animals ingredients and against of burning the rain forests,

2.  Wal-Mart has promoted aggressively the products that are benefiting the environment through shelf labels and store signage is to inform the customers. They have extensively recycling program such as to have recycling bins in all its stores for newspaper, plastic bottles, glasses and aluminum cans.

3.  Sectors that retailers and vendors can consider and focusing on the green technology are energy, transport, buildings, waste and water in order to improve the quality life of this segment of environment consciousness consumers in particular as well as general