Overview Of The Forms Of Retailing

Retailing is to sell goods in the state where they are purchased to customers. There are several forms of retailing.

First, there is home delivery, it’s when you buy a good online and it’s delivered to your home. Many consumers aren’t at their house everytime; they are busy especially with their job. You must earn an income to buy a product. So having a job is essential and it can be incompatible with home delivery. Moreover, the relation between the consumer and the retailer deteriorates since the consumer only picks up the good at home. So the consumer doesn’t buy on impulse like when he goes to a store and it‘s a problem for merchants whose business relies on sales.

Then there is click and collect, it’s when shoppers order online and they pick up the goods they bought in a withdrawal place. Customers can pick up the product when they shop; it can be more convenient than home delivery for the customer. Even if the click and collect system strenghtens the relation between the consumer and the retailer (the consumer can buy on impulse) it requires a lot of means. The retailers must create additional spaces to store to provide to people the ability of picking up their goods. If the number of purchases by click and collect increases, the retailers have to expand the spaces that they created. Moreover, they need employees to bring the products to the stores. They need also means of transport. So the retailers must be prepared to increase their expenses. In addition, the stores can be congested because of the delivery men. Additional accounting operations can be necessary for the retailer since the shoppers can return the items they bought to the store. The accounts can become harder to understand.

Finally there is bricks and clicks, a company which sells its goods in a physical store decides to sell them online. So the customer can either buy the products in the store or order online and pick up the goods in a store nearby. This system requires a large organization to manage their means of sales and the merchant can have additional costs because of the versatility of his firm. Moreover, you have to study how your customers buy the goods in order to decide how you sell the products. For instance if the customers prefer to go to the store to shop, the retailer has to use his means more for the store than for the website.

In a nutshell, we can say that there isn’t a perfect solution for retailing. For the retailers there are limitations with the three forms. The consumers can’t all prefer a system to another; it depends on their behaviours. Do they shop a lot? Do they stay often at home? The mission of the retailer is to find one system that pleases the majority of them while accepting the limitations of this system.