Retail Industry Analysis: Trends, Skills, and Career Evaluation Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the retail industry, focusing on current trends such as technological advancements (personalization, voice technology, AI, mobile POS, IoT, and electronic rack edge tags) and the impact of globalization. It identifies essential skills for retail graduates, in...Read More

Retail Industry

Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................1
2. Analysis .......................................................................................................................................1
2.1 An Analysis of General trend in Retail industry...................................................................1
2.2 Skills and knowledge required for Retail graduates.............................................................2
3. Evaluation....................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1
APPENDIX......................................................................................................................................2

1. INTRODUCTION
For this report, I will choose retail industry which sell finished goods to consumers in the
exchange for a money such as grocery, convenient store, beauty salons etc. the report main aim
is to understand the knowledge, skills and experience required by a recent graduate to enter in
retail industry. Therefore, through this report, I also develop variety of opportunities that will
help me in my future career planning decisions. In order to gain an opportunity in this industry,
this report will define the employability for graduates seeking employment and collect
information from labour market to develop an opportunity.
2. Analysis
This section generally describe the general trends which will creates the impact upon the
retail industry in which it describe the current technological trends in retail industry and how has
the globalisation will affect the trend. Further this section also describe 5 personal skills required
for a graduate and 2 areas of knowledge or expertise required for a person in retail industry.
2.1 An Analysis of General trend in Retail industry
Retail industry is that industry that contributes the biggest part in the economy of the
country because of having variety of products and services at cheap and reasonable rates. It is
also analysed that recently the industry take a sharp move that force people to purchase the
products (Lopes, de Lamônica Freire and Lopes, 2019). It is also analysed that the retail industry
always keep determining the needs of their customers and then produce the products to meet the
market needs.
 Current technology trends: Retail industry recently introduce high degree of
personalization in their store, further they also introduce voice technology such as
Amazon Alexa, Google Home etc (Recent trend in Retail Industry, 2018). Moreover, the
industry also introduce artificial intelligence facilities in order to save the time and
provide the best facility to their customers. In addition to this, another current technology
trend which is used by retail industry is mobile in which the physical retailers are
basically trying to leverage this trend by providing the mPos i.e. mobile point of sale that
allow for quick check-out.
 Globalisation affect the trends: Globalization also affect the business in both positive
and negative way such that by introducing the technology into the working area, the
company's growth will also raise. Such that the internet has equipped smaller, domestic
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business with an ability in order to promote the products at worldwide. On the other side,
the recent trend of the retail industry is such that online purchasing in which the
globalisation also affect the industry in positive way. It is so because these online
purchasing are done at global level not in a particular area, therefore, the business is also
reached at next level of success (Kolassa, 2019). In this way the globalisation also affect
the business of retail industry.
 Other trends: apart from the above, the retail industry also have another major trend
such as internet of things in which the people are connected through internet and can
easily enjoy their seamless shopping experience. There are about 85% of the retails are
expected in order to adopt the IoT technology in which video analytical Is common . In
this, retailer will be build shopper profiles from that time when they come into a store,
these facility help them to provide highly individualized experience. Another is electronic
Rack Edge tags, where retailers needs to update the prices in the products being sold in
the store which have printed labels. By using this system, the retailer only have to update
the price through internet and it automatically update the entire products price. This trend
helps to keep attracting large customers (Mathur, 2019).
 These recent jobs will help graduates to seek their future in this field because it has been
analysed that adopting new and advance technology into the working area will help to
save time and maximizes profit. Therefore, for graduates, they will learn new techniques
and also implement them into their working area so that it will enhance their current
knowledge and also leads to grab some more opportunities for their future.
2.2 Skills and knowledge required for Retail graduates
From the above, it has been cleared that retail industry has a wide scope and a person
may have a better future in this industry. But it also required some personal skills and area of
knowledge or expertise for a retail industry, which are a mentioned below:
5 Personal Skills for graduate in retail industry:
 Attention to detail: the graduate should posses this skill in which an eye for detail is a
critical skill that help when trying to attract customers for a product. Further, in a restail
industry, they should have proper attention in inventory, organization. Stock checking
and time management skills.
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 Business awareness: It means to have a proper understanding that how a company
operates and how to work in the retail industry. These type of business skills make strong
retail employees such that they should be aware of the latest trend and operations (de
Regt and Barnes, 2019).
 Communication: the graduate should have soft communication skill and they need to be
able to speak with customers and other employees so that they deliver the clear message
to them.
 Customer service: This is one of the most important skill such that the person needs to
be positive, friendly and helpful with their customers so that they help them in purchasing
and dealing with any issues (Rodriguez and et.al., 2017). Further this should also
includes the skills of customers first midset, customer relation and listening to and
solving customers complaints etc.
 Information Technology: To comply with advance techniques, the graduates in retail
industry must posses information technology skills which consist of analysing data, help
customer with online orders, computer skills, Point of sales system etc.
2 areas of knowledge or expertise is required for a graduate in retail industry
 The graduate should posses the knowledge of sales because sales is the basis of all
business success. It has been analysed that in retail industry, if a person have a
knowledge of sales then they will easily lead a business at further level of success.
 Next, the graduates should have the knowledge of transferable skills, it is the ability
which helps a person to see the past experience in new light (Gregory, 2015).
 Knowledge: a person should posses the knowledge of IT field, sales and marketing,
leadership, management, better customers services so that they will easily deal with
some complex situation and lead a business at further level of success.
3. Evaluation
The vacant position in retail industry is Retail Manager.
 I choose this position because it has been analysed by me that retail manager is
responsible for day to day running of stores and they also lead a business at further level
of success through their effective skills. As their main work is to monitoring all the
employees performance and resolve all the issues in order to lead the business at further
level of success. Apart from this, this position is also related to my potential choice
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because I also have good communication and management skills which a retail manager
should also posses.
 I choose this job opportunity as compared to other because retail manager is the head of
all the employees and they should also have some vision power which helps to reach
towards a success. Apart from this, other options in the retail industry are not suitable
because they did not play a significant role in retail industry which a retail manager plays.
In addition to this there are lot of job profile available for the industry such as purchase
manager, sales and marketing manager, HR etc. but among all, I prefer retail manager
because the work is not as simple as others and apart from this, the role helps to
understand new roles and responsibilities which a person will play during the position.
 No, this is not an emerging role but I evaluate that retail manager is one of the most
common role and one can set their career in this option because through this role a person
will come to learn new things and enhance their current knowledge and this is not
possible through other option. Beside this, having a career in retail manager will be more
creative because through this post, a person will be creative and generate their own ideas
to reach their business towards a success. That is why it is future proofed.
CONCLUSION
By summing up above report it has been concluded that retail industry plays an effective
role in the growth of the economy and it is one of the most emerging sector that keep comply
with all the new trends in the world. From the report it has been concluded that retail industry's
general trend basically includes high degree of personalized things, voice technology, internet of
things, online shopping etc. further report also concluded some skills and areas of expertise that
should be posses in a graduate for a retail industry. Apart from this, report concluded that the job
advertisement for role of retail manager in retail industry.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
de Regt, A. and Barnes, S. J., 2019. V-Commerce in Retail: Nature and Potential Impact.
In Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality (pp. 17-25). Springer, Cham.
Gregory, J., 2015. The Internet of Things: revolutionizing the retail industry. Accenture
Strategy.
Kolassa, S., 2019. Forecasting the Future of Retail Forecasting. Foresight: The International
Journal of Applied Forecasting, (52), pp.11-19.
Lopes, E. L., de Lamônica Freire, O. B. and Lopes, E. H., 2019. Competing scales for measuring
perceived quality in the electronic retail industry: A comparison between ES-Qual and E-
TailQ. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications.34. p.100824.
Mathur, P., 2019. Key Technological Advancements in Retail. In Machine Learning
Applications Using Python (pp. 159-181). Apress, Berkeley, CA.
Rodriguez, S. A. B. and et.al., 2017. Smart Shelves For Retail Industry. U.S. Patent Application
15/040,252.
Online
Recent trend in Retail Industry. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.vendhq.com/blog/retail-technology-trends/>

APPENDIX – Job Advertisement
Job advertisement of Retail manager