Introduction to Retail The word retail has its origin in French word retaillier and means to cut a piece

e or to break bulk. Retailing is the sale of goods and services to the ultimate consumer for personal, family or household use. According to Kotler: Retailing includes all the activities involved in selling goods or services to the final consumers for personal, non business use Retailing may be understood as the final step in the distribution of merchandise for consumption by the end consumers. Retailing is responsible for matching final consumer demand with supplies of different marketers. Retailing is high intensity competition industry, The reasons for its popularity lie in its ability to provide easier access to variety of products, freedom of choice and many services to consumers. The Indian retail is dotted by traditionally market place called bazaars or haats comprises of numerous small and large shops, selling different or similar merchandise Wheel of Retailing A better known theory of retailing wheel of retailing proposed by Maclcomb McNair says, 1. New retailers often enter the market place with low prices, margins, and status. The low prices are usually the result of some innovative cost-cutting procedures and soon attract competitors. 2. With the passage of time, these businesses strive to broaden their customer base and increase sales. Their operations and facilities increase and become more expensive. 3. They may move to better up market locations, start carrying higher quality products or add services and ultimately emerge as a high cost price service retailer. 4. By this time newer competitors as low price, low margin, low status emerge and these competitors too follow the same evolutionary process.

5. The wheel keeps on turning and department stories, supermarkets, and mass merchandise went through this cycles. Major type of retail stores There is no universally accepted method of classifying retailer. Various schemes have been proposed to categories retailers based on Number of outlets

Margin vs. turnover Location Size.

Because of overlap of classification criteria, some stores may qualify as under two different categories. 1. General merchandise retailer: general merchandise retailer carry a variety of product lines, with considerable depth. Some major types of these stores include supermarkets and hypermarkets , discount stores and department stores. o Super market: A supermarket is a large self service retail store that carries a wide variety of consumer products under one roof , such as complete line of food products , laundry requirement, household maintenance items. In India cooperative have managed some supermarkets for quite sometime like super bazaar in Delhi, apna bazaar shakari bhandar etc. Discount store: these stores are self service, standard general merchandise retailers regularly offering brand name and private brand items at low price, earn lower margins and push for high sales turnover. The characteristics of true discount stores include Selling products at discounted price Carry standard international , national, or store brand toi build image Self service stores to minimize operational costs Preferred store location are low rent areas.

Like best known discount store is Wal-Mart. In India almost all retail stores offer discounts, subhiksha o Department store: a department store is larger retail store organized into several departments, offering a broad verity and depth of product lines. The product mix may include food products, appliances, clothing, furnishing and other household goods. Like Pantaloons, shoppers stop, department store only for kids is Kids Kemp. Fashion related department stores in India are Ebony, Globus, pantaloons, lifestyles.

2. Specialty Stores: specialty stores carry a narrow product mix with depth of assortment within the line. The emphasis is on a limited number of complimentary products and high level of customer service

Specialty store often sell shopping goods such as Jewelry, apparel, computers, music systems, sporting goods. Like; Tanishq, Titan watches, Van Heusen, Raymond's.

3. Shopping Malls: shopping malls typically deal with several bases and product categories and provide a large variety of merchandise abs service. There are 96 operational malls in India and expected to grow 158 by this current year. Ansal plaza (Delhi), Garuda mall (Bangalore) Sahara plaza Gurgaon Spenser Plaza Chennai

4. Retail chains: a retail chain operates multiple retail outlets under common ownership in different cities and towns. To some extent the purchasing function and decision making are coordinated or centralized. Like Westside, Globus, Food world, McDonald's retail petrol outlets. Etc.

The Marketing Retail Equation

Structure of the Retail Industry In India

The retail industry continued in India in the form of Kiranas till 1980. Soon, following the modernisation of the retail sector in India, many companies started pouring in the retail industry in India like Bombay Dyeing, Grasim etc. As has been mentioned earlier the retail sector in India can be widely split into the organised and the unorganized sector. The unorganized sector is predominant. We may discuss in detail the different divisions of the retail sector in India.
Unorganized Retail Sector The unorganized retail sector basically includes the local kiranas, hand cart, the vendors on the pavement etc. This sector constitutes about 98% of the total retail trade. But Foreign Direct Investment in the retail sector is expected to shrink the employment in the unorganized sector and expand that in the organized one.

Organised Retail Sector In the organised sector trading is undertaken by the licensed retailers who have registered themselves to sales as well as income tax. The organised retail sector have in their ambit, corporate backed hypermarkets and retail chains. The private large business enterprises are also included under the organised retail category. The organised retail sector can be further subdivided into: Instore Retailers This type of retail format is also known as the brick and mortar format. These retail stores are in the form of fixed point sale outlets. They are specially designed to lure the customers. There are different types of stores through which the instore retailers operate. Branded Stores appear in the form of exquisite showrooms. Here the total range of a particular brand is available and the quality of the product is certified by the government. There are also multi brand specialty stores that sell a series of brands so that the consumer can choose from the wide array of brands. Department stores have a large number of brands and products catering to all basic needs to luxurious items as well. Supermarkets are basically self service retail stores.Discount Stores offer commodities at reduced prices.In Hyper Marts customers have wide variety of products to choose from and they are also available at discounted rates. Convenient stores are located in prominent places within the reach of majority of the customers and do not operate in stringent work hours. Shopping Malls are a storehouse of a large variety of retail shops situated close to each other.

Retail Formats in India The retail formats in India can be categorised into the traditional and the modern forms. The traditional format includes Kiranas, street markets, kiosks and multiple brand stores. The modern format, on the other hand includes supermarkets, hypermarkets, department stores and specialty chains. In discussing about the structure of the retail sector in India we cannot forgo forecourt retailing and trade parks. Trade parks

Trade parks are basically business complexes that promote international trade. The global players here have access to the top Indian exporters. To the buyers this would prove to be a boon since they do not have travel to far off towns to enter into business deals with the exporters, especially in places where infrastructure is very poor. By this the exporters not only enhance their visibility but they also enjoy a host of other advantages. They can design libraries, studio etc, in order to attract potential customers. Forecourt Retailing This type of retailing is done by the oil companies in order to increase their revenue. They not only deliver fuel but also offer other services to its customers