SOCIO ECONOMIC INFLUENCES

Social responsibility concept has crept into marketing literature as an alternative to the marketing concept. There are innumerable number of pressure group in the society like politicians, government, consuming public, social workers, mass media etc who impose restrictions on the marketing process. EXAMPLE: Recently with a drop in interest rates the banking industry in finding it hard to mobilize small savings and stock markets are fast emerging as better investment option to investors.

ECONOMIC FACTORS AFFECTS THE RETAILERS

GDP
Higher growth rate of GDP implies that consumers have more income. Resulting in higher sales and more profits for retailers.

Increase in inflation leads to a decrease in the purchasing power.

RATE OF INFLATION
The economic environment encompasses such as productivity, income, wealth, inflation, balance of payment, pricing, poverty, interest rate, credit, transportation, and employment. The current forecast is estimated at 15-20 percent

PURCHASING POWER

Educational attainment is the single most reliable indicator of a persons income potential, attitudes, and spending habits.
More alert to price, quality, and advertised claims.

INTEREST RATES
Education levels for the population, in aggregate, are expected to continue to rise, retailers can expect consumers to become increasingly sophisticated, discriminating, and independent in their search for consumer products.

TAX LEVELS
Where an organization is seeking to do business in a country which is quite different from its own.
The desire of a sub-cultural in one country, to imitate the values of those in another culture has, also contributed to cultural convergence.

There are some core-cultural values, which are found in our society deep rooted and stable and hence change very little. There are different degrees with which people adopt them Religion is also an important element of culture, which has implication on marketing.

Technology is one of the most important drivers of change in the retail industry.

Markets and companies have grown due to the links between innovation and technology.

Technology has freed up time as capital goods replace labour in the home.

Retailers are also using technology to improve the shopping environment and to provides a pleasant shopping experience to the customer

Retail chains are using intranets to automate and streamline human resource operations.

The pace of technological change has become increasingly rapid and retailers need to understand how technological developments might affects business areas.

The benefits of all the technology employed cannot be gauged.

EXAMPLE: RFID is gaining importance which makes it easy for the companies to track their SKU and reduce manpower.

Sources of technology like company sources, external sources and foreign sources, cost of technology acquisition, collaboration in, and transfer of technology.

Communication and infrastructural technology, for example, electronic marketing, voicemail, video conferencing affecting travel industry, e-mail affecting postal industry.

Technological development stages of development, change and rate of change of technology and research by electronic typewriters, which were further replaced by computers.

Impact of technology on human beings, the non-machine system, and the environment effects of technology

Example: invention of microwave, kitchen appliances and frozen foods have given housewife's more free time to carry on other activities.