Shopping is an activity in which a customer browses the available goods or services presented by one or more retailers with the potential intent to purchase a suitable selection of them. A typology of shopper types has been developed by scholars which identifies one group of shoppers as recreational shoppers, that is, those who enjoy shopping and view it as a leisure activity.
Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and then sells in smaller quantities to consumers for a profit. Retailers are the final link in the supply chain from producers to consumers.
Sales promotion is one of the elements of the promotional mix. The primary elements in the promotional mix are advertising, personal selling, direct marketing and publicity/public relations. Sales promotion uses both media and non-media marketing communications for a pre-determined, limited time to increase consumer demand, stimulate market demand or improve product availability. Examples include contests, coupons, freebies, loss leaders, point of purchase displays, premiums, prizes, product samples, and rebates.
Merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to displaying products that are for sale in a creative way that entices customers to purchase more items or products.
Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser or a mobile app. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the retailer directly or by searching among alternative vendors using a shopping search engine, which displays the same product's availability and pricing at different e-retailers. As of 2020, customers can shop online using a range of different computers and devices, including desktop computers, laptops, tablet computers and smartphones.
A pre-order is an order placed for an item that has not yet been released. The idea for pre-orders came because people found it hard to get popular items in stores because of their popularity. Companies then had the idea to allow customers to reserve their own personal copy before its release, which has been a huge success.
Scan-based trading (SBT) is the process where suppliers maintain ownership of inventory within retailers' warehouses or stores until items are scanned at the point of sale. Suppliers, such as manufacturers or farmers, own the product until it is purchased by the customer, with the store or venue then buying the product from the supplier and reselling it to the customer. Analysts in the grocery sector estimate scan-based trading accounted for $21 billion dollars in consumer goods purchased in the grocery industry alone in 2020, or nearly 3% of overall sales.
Once the strategic plan is in place, retail managers turn to the more managerial aspects of planning. A retail mix is devised for the purpose of coordinating day-to-day tactical decisions. The retail marketing mix typically consists of six broad decision layers including product decisions, place decisions, promotion, price, personnel and presentation. The retail mix is loosely based on the marketing mix, but has been expanded and modified in line with the unique needs of the retail context. A number of scholars have argued for an expanded marketing, mix with the inclusion of two new Ps, namely, Personnel and Presentation since these contribute to the customer's unique retail experience and are the principal basis for retail differentiation. Yet other scholars argue that the Retail Format should be included. The modified retail marketing mix that is most commonly cited in textbooks is often called the 6 Ps of retailing.
Fast fashion is the business model of replicating recent catwalk trends and high-fashion designs, mass-producing them at a low cost, and bringing them to retail quickly while demand is at its highest. The term fast fashion is also used generically to describe the products of this business model. Retailers who employ the fast fashion strategy include Primark, H&M, Shein, and Zara, all of which have become large multinationals by driving high turnover of inexpensive seasonal and trendy clothing that appeals to fashion-conscious consumers.
Visual merchandising is the practice in the retail industry of optimizing the presentation of products and services to better highlight their features and benefits. The purpose of such visual merchandising is to attract, engage, and motivate the customer towards making a purchase.
A stockout, or out-of-stock (OOS) event is an event that causes inventory to be exhausted. While out-of-stocks can occur along the entire supply chain, the most visible kind are retail out-of-stocks in the fast-moving consumer goods industry. Stockouts are the opposite of overstocks, where too much inventory is retained.
A marketing channel consists of the people, organizations, and activities necessary to transfer the ownership of goods from the point of production to the point of consumption. It is the way products get to the end-user, the consumer; and is also known as a distribution channel. A marketing channel is a useful tool for management, and is crucial to creating an effective and well-planned marketing strategy.
Customer analytics is a process by which data from customer behavior is used to help make key business decisions via market segmentation and predictive analytics. This information is used by businesses for direct marketing, site selection, and customer relationship management. Marketing provides services in order to satisfy customers. With that in mind, the productive system is considered from its beginning at the production level, to the end of the cycle at the consumer. Customer analytics plays an important role in the prediction of customer behavior.
Trade marketing is a discipline of marketing that relates to increasing the demand at the wholesaler, retailer, or distributor level rather than at the consumer level. However, there is a need to continue with Brand Management strategies to sustain the need at the consumer end. A shopper, who may or may not be the consumer themself, is the one who identifies and purchases a product from a retailer even though they might not purchase the goods at the end of the day. To ensure that a retailer promotes a company's product against competitors', that company must market its product to the retailers as well by offering steep discounts versus competitors. Trade marketing might also include offering various tangible/intangible benefits to retailers such as commissions made for sales.
In the retail industry, a buyer is an individual who selects what items are stocked and their key responsibility is dealing with all the products that come into the store. Buyers usually work closely with designers and their designated sales representatives and attend trade fairs, wholesale showrooms and fashion shows to observe trends. They are employed by large department stores, chain stores or smaller boutiques. For smaller independent stores, a buyer may participate in sales as well as promotion, whereas in a major fashion store there may be different levels of seniority such as trainee buyers, assistant buyers, senior buyers and buying managers, and buying directors. Decisions about what to stock can greatly affect fashion businesses.
'Shopper marketing' is "a discipline that focuses on the customer experience and the customer journey."It focuses on the consumer's path to purchasing a product, from first being aware of the product, to consideration and through to the purchase of it. It separates itself from retail marketing which focuses on engaging the customer in-store only.
Behavioral clustering is a statistical analysis method used in retailing to identify consumer purchase trends and group stores based on consumer buying behaviors.
In business and marketing, “trade” refers to the relationship between manufacturers and retailers. Trade Promotion refers to marketing activities that are executed in retail between these two partners. Trade Promotion is a marketing technique aimed at increasing demand for products in retail stores based on special pricing, display fixtures, demonstrations, value-added bonuses, no-obligation gifts, and more.
Fashion forecasting began in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It started as a way of communicating about fashion and slowly transformed into a way to become ahead of the times in the fashion industry. Fashion forecasting predicts the moods of society and consumers, along with their behavior and buying habits and bases what they may release in the coming future off of the forecast. Fashion trends tend to repeat themselves every 20 years, and fashion forecasting predicts what other trends might begin with the rotation of fashion as well. Fashion forecasting can be used for many different reasons, the main reason being staying on top of current trends and knowing what your consumer is going to want in the future. This method helps fashion brands know what to expect and what to begin producing ahead of time. Top name brands and high end companies such as Vogue and Gucci even use this method to help their designers become even more informed on what is to come in the fashion industry.
The retail format influences the consumer's store choice and addresses the consumer's expectations. At its most basic level, a retail format is a simple marketplace, that is; a location where goods and services are exchanged. In some parts of the world, the retail sector is still dominated by small family-run stores, but large retail chains are increasingly dominating the sector, because they can exert considerable buying power and pass on the savings in the form of lower prices. Many of these large retail chains also produce their own private labels which compete alongside manufacturer brands. Considerable consolidation of retail stores has changed the retail landscape, transferring power away from wholesalers and into the hands of the large retail chains.
