Retail Management
Chandra Mohan Singh Anuraag Agarwal
Management Department
Kruti Institute of Technology and Engineering
CSVTU
EWS 333 Vaishali Nagar, Bhilai, Durg, C.G. India
ch75and@rediffmail.com
Abstract— Retailing is not as simple a process of delivering the
products and services under one roof but designing a system to
fulfill their customized demand vis-a-vis gaining competitive
advantage for future sustainability. Increasing customer foot
falls, pushing them to buy, and above all retaining them are the
key factors of well equipped Retail Management. The present
paper focuses on how to deploy the available resources and
technologies to attract the customer not only to merchandise the
offerings but also to create a value for them by providing cost
effective solution by a single door. The paper also throws a light
on artefact that retailing and its management is widely divided
considering two factors i.e. maintaining continuous flow of
demand and supply and secondly managing customer by
practicing CRM. The retail is the manifestation of promoting the
varieties of brand in a single roof to various group of people and
educating them for assortment of benefits thereby creating
customer desired value. This group of people has various
psychological bifurcations to be influenced in purchasing
decision. The contemporary retail practice must be
supplemented with thorough articulation of physiological as well
as anthropological understanding and implementing the ethical
strategies for ultimate customer satisfaction.
Keywords: Customized Demand, Foot Falls, Single Door, CRM
I. INTRODUCTION
The India Retail Industry is the largest among all the
industries, accounting for over 10 per cent of the country’s
GDP and around 8 per cent of the employment. The Retail
Industry in India has come forth as one of the most dynamic
and fast paced industries with several players entering the
market. But all of them have not yet tasted success because of
the heavy initial investments that are required to break even
with other companies and compete with them. The India
Retail Industry is gradually inching its way towards becoming
the next boom industry.
The total concept and idea of shopping has undergone an
attention drawing change in terms of format and consumer
buying behaviour, ushering in a revolution in shopping in
India. Modern retailing has entered into the Retail market in
India as is observed in the form of bustling shopping centres,
multi-storied malls and the huge complexes that offer
shopping, entertainment and food all under one roof.
Retail means: to break the bulk or to break into pieces.
Hence retailing is the process of how to make available
the offerings through channels of distribution by maintaining
Management Department
Kruti Institute of Technology and Engineering
CSVTU
EWS 333 Vaishali Nagar, Bhilai, Durg, C.G. India
anuraag17agarwal@gamil.com
the margin of channel members so that product and services
reaches to consumer/customer at affordable price.
Retailing involves all activities incidental to selling to
ultimate consumer for their personnel family and household
use. It does this by organizing their availability on a relatively
large scale and supplying them to customers on a relatively
small scale. Retailer is any person/organization instrumental
in reaching the goods or merchandise or services to the end
users. Retailer is a must and cannot be eliminated.
The Indian retailing industry is becoming intensely
competitive, as more and more payers are targeting for the
same set of customers. The major retail players are Pantaloon
Retail, Shoppers Stop, Reliance, etc. Retailing is one of the
biggest sectors and it is witnessing revolution in India. The
new entrant in retailing in India signifies the beginning of
retail revolution. India's retail market is expected to grow
tremendously in next few years. According to AT Kearney,
The Windows of Opportunity shows that Retailing in India
was at opening stage in 1995 and now it is in growth stage in
2008. India's retail market is expected to grow tremendously
in next few years. Retail market is expected to grow 10% a
year, with modern retailing just beginning. This window of
opportunity is useful for executives who plan their market-
specific strategies; the four stages or the lifecycle of this
industry are as follows:
The term retail organization refers to the basic format or
structure of a retail business designed to cater to the needs of
the end customer. Retailing is the process of merchandising
the products and services to consumer in particular geographic
segments to take the advantage of vivid benefits from varieties
of available brands. Hence retailing is the last stage of
distribution process where the offerings are made available for
fulfilment of needs and wants. the retail organization must
provide harmonious environment to create the retail
experience in such a way that sales increases and a fair profit
can be generated. The consumer being a diversified set of
entity varies considerably in terms of their psychological and
anthropological dimension which affects their purchasing
decision .the retail organization must practice to deliver
offerings which will be free from non communal biasness and
must be planned in way to generate a customer satisfaction
and customer desired value. the CDV can be generated
through devising the transaction system and maintaining
customer records. the retail market which is highly
unorganised needs to be organised. it is expected that the
contribution by organised retail sector by 2010-11 will be $17
billion. The reason for this growth will be A) Rising incomes
and improvements in infrastructure are enlarging consumer
markets and accelerating the convergence of consumer taste
B) Shift in consumer demand to foreign brands . Consumer
preference for shopping in new environs C) The Internet
revolution is making the Indian consumer more accessible to
the growing influences of domestic and foreign retail chains.
Reach of satellite T.V. channels is helping in creating
awareness about global products for local markets .lastly the
extent of technology will continue to diffuse in a rapid fashion
which will bring customer more closer to market offerings and
access time will be minimum.
II. ISSUES AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A. Location
With expansion of city area and development of cities
alongwith the expansion of the retail outlets the consideration
point is the proper location. The retail outlets are for both-
window shopping and purchasing. The main aim of retail
outlet is finally to generate business. The location should be
nearby of the population. If it will be far from the locality then
the benefit will not be such. The challenge in retail
management is to decide about the retail outlet much
beforehand. The retail management should find out the city
future plan and go for that area which initially might be away
from city but in mean time the city will be around it.
B. Parking Space
If the retail outlet is planned in any Mall then one must
see the parking space as it also play an important role in
bringing the foot fall. If any company wants and needs to
build its exclusive building then also the parking space should
be of great concern. Unless there is proper parking
arrangement and management there will be less attraction for
the second timer. Nobody likes to travel a long distance after
parking the two or four wheelers somewhere else. Moreover,
carrying the luggage till parking point also affects the
purchase or visit decisions. So it must be given due weightage.
C. Permanent Staff
Still in present scenario the retail management is not
thinking about the permanent staff members and thus not
designing such plan or policy which can retain the staff. The
thought is orthodox. The retail industry is not looking much
organized as compared to other industry. Good and smart
people are still least interested in entering into this field due to
less stability of career and growth. Treating retail sector as an
standard industry the retail management must try to
standardize its HR policies so that a new trend can be set. This
will help the customer also. This will help in customer relation
management. Customer relationship management (CRM) is a
widely-implemented strategy for managing a company’s
interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It
involves using technology to organize, automate, and
synchronize business processes—principally sales activities,
but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical
support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new
clients, nurture and retain those the company already has,
entice former clients back into the fold, and reduce the costs
of marketing and client service.[1] Customer relationship
management describes a company-wide business strategy
including customer-interface departments as well as other
departments. The customer and the staff will be able to know
each other. The staff will be acquainted of the customer liking
and tastes while the customer will feel comfortable with those
staff.
D. Standardized Salary Structure
The staff is not getting the salary package as compared to the
other sector or industry. For the staff of this sector proper
salary structure should be designed and communicated to he
existing and potential staff members. They should be attracted
for joining this sector and be convinced for a permanent
career. This approach will make this sector rich in human
resource which is key to anything. A person can shift from
one particular company to another but at least they will stay in
this industry only. So overall benefit to this sector.
E. Programme
Now retail management is taught in many colleges and
institutes and is part of university course. The formal course is
gaining more recognition. Still more effort is required. More
proper syllabus designing is required. The academician and
industry people should meet and find out the most appropriate
content. As the subject more of practical orientation so the
stress should be on practical training mainly and less theory.
Just for the sake of classroom teaching, theory portion should
not be included. Practical exposure should be the main air of
this formal study. This will create a pool of human resource
interested and ready for this sector and quality practise in
retail management can be enhanced. The big retail
management can establish and run their own teaching cum
training programme and issuing certificates to the students.
This will lead to attract those who are already completed their
formal graduation or post-graduation.
F. Foreign Players
The government and other agency now must formulate a
sensitive plan and ordnance to deal with the future entry to the
foreign players in this sector. The government should design
the regulatory plans in connection to dealing with the foreign
companies. The Indian culture, sentiments, etc must be taken
care of while planning for the rules and regulations for the
foreign investors. Present scenario with so much corruption in
every field it is more important that a fair thought be given
while planning for the rules and regulation. Previous cases and
future implications out of the regulation must be formulated
very carefully. Its the duty of the government to take care of
the fair competition among the companies in retail sectors.

III. METHODOLOGY
The topic has been studied keeping in mind especially the
scenario in Chhattisgarh. The author has presented the point
blending his own observation individually and the as a
combined effort. Further, discussions were conducted with the
staff working in this sector and various aspects were analysed.
The existing salary structure, other benefits were known. The
comparison has been made between retail sector and other
sectors and what is existing and what can be done has been
discussed. Although the list of retail outlets visited is not
enough to draw any substantial conclusion but still a pictures
has been drawn.

IV. CONCLUSIONS
The above content suggests that the present scenario in
retail sector needs great attention. The location, parking space,
permanent staff, structure salary package, creation of human
resource as per the future requirement are the key issues to
deal with. Good centrally location with enough parking space
increases the chances of increased footfalls. The permanent
staff approach makes both the staff and customer comfortable.
Standardized salary package attracts the quality human
resource in this sector and thus overall quality is achieved in
performance. The retail management should think keeping in
mind the quality to be brought in this sector. It must also
compare itself with other industries, their salary structure,
other benefits, their future plan, relation of this sector with
them. This holistic approach is very much required to bring
quality in the retail sector and also to allow the staff in this
sector to live a better life.
.

REFERENCES

[1] First Steps in Retail Management, Mark Wrice, Macmillan publishers

Austrillia Pvt Ltd.
[2] Managing customer relationships: a strategic framework, Don
Peppers, Martha Rogers, John Wiley & Sons,Inc.
[3] Retail Management: A strategic approach, Barry Merman and Joel R
Evans, Pearson Prentice Hall.
[4] Contemporary Retail Management, S.Sakthivel,
R.E.K.Sathiyaramanan, S.Sreenath,S.P.Thangavel, L.anandakumar
& O.P.Lakshmanan, Department of Fashion Technology, Angel
College of Engineering and Technology, Tirupur.