Chapter 15 - Marketing Channels

1. Retailing includes all the activities involved in selling goods or services directly to final consumers for personal, non-business use. Retailers can be understood in terms of store retailing, non-store retailing, and retail organizations. 

2. Like products, retail-store types pass through stages of growth and decline. As existing stores offer more services to remain competitive, costs and prices go up, which opens the door to new retail forms that offer a mix of merchandise and services at lower prices. The major types of retail stores are specialty stores, department stores, supermarkets, convenience stores, discount stores, extreme value or hard-discount store, off-price retailers, superstores, and catalog showrooms. 

3. Although most goods and services are sold through stores, non-store retailing has been growing. The major types of non-store retailing are direct selling (one-to-one selling, one-to-many party selling, and multilevel network marketing), direct marketing (which includes eCommerce and Internet retailing), automatic vending, and buying services. 

4.  Although many retail stores are independently owned, an increasing number are falling under some form of corporate retailing. Retail organizations achieve many economies of scale, greater purchasing power, wider brand recognition, and better-trained employees. The major types of corporate retailing are corporate chain stores, voluntary chains, retailer cooperatives,consumer cooperatives, franchise organizations, and merchandising conglomerates. 

5.  The retail environment has changed considerably in recent years; as new retail forms have emerged, inter-type and store-based versus non-store-based competition has increased, the rise of giant retailers has been matched by the decline of middle-market retailers, investment in technology and global expansion has grown, and shopper marketing inside stores has become a priority. 

6. Like all marketers, retailers must prepare marketing plans that include decisions on target markets, channels, product assortment and procurement, prices, services, store atmosphere, store activities and experiences, communications, and location. 

7. Wholesaling includes all the activities in selling goods or services to those who buy for resale or business use. Wholesalers can perform functions better and more cost-effectively than the manufacturer can. These functions include selling and promoting, buying and assortment building, bulk breaking, warehousing, transportation, financing, risk bearing, dissemination of market information, and provision of management services and consulting.