Retail Marketing in India

Introduction

Meaning Five pillars of retail marketingNature of retail marketingObjective of retail marketingRetail marketing strategyRetailing in India-Trends & opportunitiesFuture of retail in IndiaConclusion

Meaning

Retail marketing is comprised of the activities related to selling products directly to consumers through channels such as stores, malls, kiosks, vending machines or other fixed locations, according to the Free Dictionary. In contrast, direct marketing to consumers attempts to complete a sale through phone, mail or website sales.

Five pillars of retail marketing

   Heoxard Berry describes five important actions for Retailers. These actions, demand pillars, sound simple but are often difficult to implement.Solve customer’s problems.Treat customers with respect.Connect with customer emotions.Set the fairest (not the lowest) price.Save customer’s time.

            Retailers should always keep these pillars in mind when conducting business. As the work force becomes more diverse and the retail environment continues to changes, consumer’s needs are rapidly changing.

Nature of retail marketingRetail marketing is therefore a philosophy and is all about satisfying the customers

What the customers regard as value and what they buy is decisive.

What the customers buy determines the nature of the retailer’s business.

Retailers must take the customers’ needs into consideration in retail operation.

In making retail marketing decisions, retailers must consider the needs of the customers.

Objective of retail marketing

The retail marketing objective is a performance parameter which has been explicitly stated.

It can be stated in quantifiable terms and time terms so that results can be measured against it.

Three types of retail objectives include:1.Basic objective – those which defines retailer’s

long-term purposes.2.Goals – those which the retailer must achieve to

be successful3.Targets – short-term goals that require

immediate achievement.

Retail marketing strategy

A retail marketing strategy refers to how a store and its products sell goods to its target customers

Each type of retail business has to make decisions about all the details of its marketing mix. A marketing mix consists of the product, price, place, promotion and packaging

All retail marketing strategy decisions should consider the target customer as well as the company's profit

Common retail marketing strategies involve how products and stores are positioned and differentiated. A differentiation retail marketing strategy focuses on products that can stand out from the others competing for the attention and dollars of the target market

Retailing in India-Trends & opportunities

            The Emergence of Retailing in India has more to do with the increasing purchasing power buyers, esplically post- liberalization increases in product variety and the increasing economies of scale with the aid of modern supply and distribution management solutions.

            The current retailing revolution has been provided an impetus from multiple sources. The “Revolutionaries” include many commotional stores upending themselves to modern Retailing, companies in competitive environment entering the market directly to ensure exclusive risibility for their products and professional chain stores coming up to meet the need of manufacturers. Attractiveness, accessibility and absorbability seen to be the key offering of the Retailing chain.

• Emerging Trends: The single most important evolution that took

place along with the Retailing evolution was the rise and fall of the dotcom companies, more importantly, the very nature of the customer segment being addressed was almost the same. The computer – Sway individual was also a scale- sector of the store.

  Internationally, the concept of net shopping is yet to be proven. Now ever, the size of the direct market industry is too limited to deter the Retailers, for all comenience that it offers, electronic retailing does not suit products where “look” and “see” attributes are of importance.

Future of retail in India

In future the more dual income families, the consumer’s ability to spend will increase, but at the same time it is predicted that the time available for shopping will go down, in such scenario, the retailers will have to take steps to develop shopping as an experience, though the more successful retailers will be those that will provide faster service.

Thereby to succeed in retailing, current and future retailers must be able to adopt a constantly changing environment, successfully retailers are able to anticipate and adapt to change.

Conclusion

It would be important to note, however that the retailing industry in India is still a “protected industry”. Given the current trend in liberalization, it will not the long before the Retailing sector also thrown open to international market. This will see a further segregation of international retailing brands.