Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, as opposed to wholesale, which is the sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer buys products in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and then sells them in smaller quantities to consumers for profit. Retailers are the last link in the supply chain from producers to consumers. A retail sale occurs when a company sells a product or service to an individual consumer for their own use.
This transaction can be carried out through several different sales channels, such as online, in a physical store, through direct sales or by direct mail. The aspect of the sale that qualifies it as a retail transaction is that the end user is the buyer. Softline retailers sell products that are consumed after a single use or that have a limited shelf life (typically less than three years), since they are normally consumed. In addition to the main categories of retailers, there are also categories for the types of retail stores.
Retail service providers include retail banking, tourism, insurance, private healthcare, private education, private security firms, law firms, publishers, public transportation, and others. While a larger percentage of retailers only have an offline presence today, the future of retail is a combination of offline and online. In the United States alone, there are nearly 4 million stores and retail outlets. Under this concept, retail companies value and seek to improve customer relationships, since customer relationships lead to maintaining stability in today's competitive retail market and are also the future of retail companies.
Understanding what can be considered a “retail store” depends first of all on understanding what the definition of “retail” actually is. Several academics have advocated expanded marketing, combined with the inclusion of two new P's - staff and presentation - as they contribute to the customer's unique retail experience and are the primary basis for retail differentiation. At its most basic level, a retail format is a simple marketplace - that is, a place where goods and services are exchanged. Nowadays, there are multiple channels for distributing retail which is why there are currently so many types of retail stores.
At the end of the retail analysis, retailers must have a clear idea of which customer groups are going to be the target of marketing activities. Between retailers and retail chains, there has been a great consolidation over the past two decades. Retailers can choose a format as each offers a different mix of retailers to their customers depending on the demographics, lifestyle and buying behavior of their customers. The retail mix is loosely based on the marketing combination but it has been expanded and modified according to the unique needs of the retail context.
With more than 40 million employees, these retailers are the largest private sector employer in the entire country. To maximize the number of sales opportunities, retailers generally want customers to spend more time in a retail store.
