Consumers benefit from retail as retailers performing marketing functions that allow customers to have access to a wide variety of products and services. Retail also helps create place, time, and utilities of possession. A retailer’s service also helps to improve the image of a product. Retail trade has a huge impact on the economy. This implies high annual sales and employment. Learn the importance of the retail industry in this article.
Retail is the selling of goods to customers. While meeting customer needs, here are some of the functions performed by a retailer:
1. Customer convenience:
Perhaps the most important role in bringing ready-to-eat products to the consumer’s doorstep is played by the retail community. Consumers benefit from retail as retailers performing marketing functions that allow customers to have access to a wide variety of products and services. Retail also helps create place, time, and utilities of possession. A retailer’s service also helps to improve the image of a product. Retailers store goods and ensure that products and services are available when the customer needs them. Convenience stores operate extended hours throughout the week and offer customers greater flexibility and choice.
2. Accessibility to products and services:
Products and services have no value to consumers until they are acquired and used by customers. Retailers acquire products and services from different locations and. Match them at a single point according to consumer needs and thus facilitate customer access.
3. Convenience of size:
Retailers distribute and serve products in the quantities and sizes desired by the customer. For example, shampoo is available in small sachets. The retailer helps consumers by providing them with appropriate products, services and advice in the packaging and quantities they want.
4. Provision of related services:
A vibrant retail sector benefits consumers by offering a range of efficient products and services. Retailing can be done in fixed locations or online. Retail trade includes subordinate services, such as delivery. The term “retailer” also applies when a service provider serves the needs of a large number of individuals, such as a utility, such as electricity. Retail also helps to increase the standard of living and enables consumers to own various goods, services and utilities.
5. Supply chain:
Retailers are part of an integrated system called the supply chain. A retailer purchases goods or products in large quantities from manufacturers or directly through a wholesaler and then sells smaller quantities to the consumer at a profit. Retailers assist in the sorting process by collecting an assortment of goods and services from a wide variety of suppliers and offering them for sale. The breadth and depth of the assortment depends on each retailer’s strategy. Retailers are a vital link between producers and end consumers.
6. Value chain:
When consumers buy goods, retailers have to order more goods to replenish their stock. In turn, the factories must manufacture the goods for the retailers. Factories then buy more raw materials to use to make more goods. This is how consumer spending can stimulate a large part of the economy.
7. Research and information:
The retailer provides useful information throughout the supply chain. It informs and educates customers about product features and benefits. They provide information to consumers through advertising, displays, signs and sales personnel. Marketing research support is given to other channels, members. Retailing is, in a way, the last stage of the marketing channels for consumer products. It also provides information on consumer requirements to manufacturers and wholesalers, which helps them plan production and supply.
8. Mobilization of financing:
The retail industry mobilizes people’s investment and savings because a small store can be established with minimal investment. They store the goods, mark the prices on them, place the items on the sales floor and otherwise handle the products; typically, they pay vendors for items before selling them to end customers. They transact using convenient locations and times, credit policies, and other services, such as delivery. They influence the lifestyle of consumers and help people build their identity in a social setting.
9. Economic development:
Retail trade has a great impact on the economic development of a nation. Retail has become an integral part of our daily lives. Consumer spending on retail goods drives much of the global economy, and the retail sector employs a large number of people. Nations that have experienced the greatest economic and social progress have vibrant retail sectors. Retail is one of the most important industries in the world and plays a predominant role in the economic development of the country. Healthy growth of the retail sector and acceleration of economic development.
10. Job generation:
A large number of people and businesses are involved in the production, distribution and retailing of goods. Globally, retail is the second largest income generator and job provider after agriculture. It provides opportunities for the poorest and unskilled as well as the educated and skilled. As a major source of employment, retail offers a wide range of career opportunities including; store management, merchandising and retail business ownership.
11. Social responsibility:
Successful retailers also recognize that people want to see improvements in the general level of consumption and social cohesion over time. Retailers need to improve their perceived value to the community by acting as a focal point and through effective public relations and promotional campaigns, including sponsorships. This encourages corporate social responsibility behavior where public welfare programs are funded by a certain percentage of the purchase prices of the company’s products.
(Today’s retailers can no longer be accurately characterized as middlemen who buy from suppliers and sell to customers. Today, they serve as ecosystems in which value is created and delivered to customers and, appropriate manner, by the retailer and its business partners.)
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