Retail Marketing Strategies and Competitive Advantage Report

This report offers a comprehensive overview of retail marketing strategies, encompassing the retail communication mix, marketing principles, and competitive advantages, with a special focus on physical facilities. It delves into the marketing mix of the retail market, exploring product, price, place, and promotion strategies. The report also examines advertising strategies and provides an analysis of both the national and international retail markets, including a PEST analysis. Furthermore, it offers recommendations and concludes with insights into the dynamic landscape of retail marketing. The report covers a wide range of topics, from the core principles of customer relationship management to the intricacies of location strategy, and includes a detailed executive summary and references for further study. The report uses real-world examples to illustrate key concepts and provides a well-rounded understanding of the retail market.

Contents
Contents.......................................................................................................................................................1
Executive Summary.....................................................................................................................................2
Introduction of Retail marketing..................................................................................................................3
Retail Communication Mix.........................................................................................................................4
Marketing Principles...................................................................................................................................5
Competitive advantage with special reference to physical facilities............................................................7
Marketing Mix of the Retail Market............................................................................................................8
Advertising strategies..................................................................................................................................9
Analysis of the national and international Retail market.............................................................................9
PEST analysis of Retail Marketing............................................................................................................10
Pricing Strategies in Retail Market............................................................................................................12
Recommendations.....................................................................................................................................13
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................14
References.................................................................................................................................................15
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Executive Summary
This report talks about the strategies used by the retail sector and what kinds of retail marketing
strategies are used by the companies. In this report, along with the important strategies, there will
be mentioned all the advertising and marketing mix of the national as well as the international
retail market, competitors which are considered threats for the company. An organization is an
established mechanism and has an organizational structure for achieving its purposes. Effective
organizations have strategies to mark and maintain a viable and feasible market for their products
and services. For fulfilling its aims which generally include profit maximization, an integration
strategy is a must and is of various types and forms. For most organizations, the dynamic process
of adapting to market changes and uncertainty of the market environment, organizational
reorganization and integration is an important tool in effectively maintaining and efficient
alignment with the ever changing environment. The main features of an organization in terms of
their business and environment are that the organization work after evaluating the factors to an
extent to which a certain market may be influenced by government. So, the government policies
followed in the export countries need to be assessed to introduce the product and to be compared
with the government policies followed to enhance the compatibility. For instance, the imposition
of new taxes or duties may change the entire structure of revenue generation. The other factors
are also taken into account like trade tariffs, taxation policies, fiscal policies etc. and, its impact
on the business environment are to be evaluated. Moreover, Retail marketing is growing day by
day and it improves the customer’s living standards. The customer satisfaction is the main focus
of the retail market.
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Introduction of Retail marketing
Retail marketing is defined as the process of transportation of the goods to its final consumers.
The word Retail is made up two French prefixes where re is the word and tailor is a verb and the
meaning of this is to cut again. Accordingly the retail market is the one that cut down the smaller
portions from the larger lumps of goods. In simple words, the retail marketing stands for selling
of the goods directly to the consumers for their uses.
A retailer performs many tasks like selling, buying, risk taking, analyzing the needs of
consumers to sell the products in the market directly for non business purposes. When the
products sell to the industry then it will be called as wholesaling not retailing. Many wholesalers
also do the retailing when they directly sell their products to the ultimate customers for personal
uses. A retailer is a merchant, an agent or any business enterprise that engages in direct selling.
Retailing took place in all marketing channels for consumer products (Pondiuni, 2012). A retailer
is one who acts as a middle man between the wholesaler and the customer. A retailer can act as
the marketer and customer. Sometimes many manufactures sell their products through their own
stores. For example- Bata is the company that manufacturing shoes for men and women and it
involves in direct selling through its own store established in every location across the world.
Before selling any product, it is very important to analyze the need of the people as these needs
and tastes of people are changing on a regular basis.
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Retail Communication Mix
Retail marketing plays a vital role in today’s modern world. The retailer acts as an intermediary
in the marketing channel because he is the only one who has good connection between the
consumer and producer and it is an important connecting link in a complex mechanism of
marketing. Most of the manufacturers depend on the retailers to avoid the problems. Because for
consumers, it is very inconvenient, expensive and time consuming tasks. So the manufacturers or
producer prefer to contact the retailers who can perform all the marketing activities and reduce
their burden. The retailer is always rewarded with incentives to do these types of marketing
strategies.
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 Sales promotion- The sales promotion is to advertise the product to increase the sales
 Direct marketing- When wholesalers directly sell their product to the customers
 Personal selling- Personal selling also similar to the direct marketing but it involves in
promoting the products by going personally to the customers like door to door marketing.
 Advertising- Conducting campaigns, publish posters, transferring product knowledge
through digital media like internet, etc. are the parts of the advertisement.
 Public Relations- promoting public relations are the best thing that needs to be done to
achieve the objectives and goals.
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Marketing Principles
For retail marketing, there are five main principles that need to be focused and followed by the
retailers and these principles are explained below:-
The customer is the most important person in your business: Customer Relationship
principle refers to those strategies, methodologies and technologies used by a company in order
to know more about the needs of a customer (Antony, 2011). This takes into account the analysis
of the customer interactions so that the business relations can be improved and there is an
increase in the sales. The information is compiled using all the channels used to interact by the
company with the customer like the telephone calls, e-mails, live chats, the company’s website
or other social media. This also fulfills another task of creating a customer’s profile that includes
his/her personal information, preferences, purchase history, etc. It is very important to
understand the needs of the customer because customer is the king of the market (Miller, 2012).
Retail is detail: This principle is famous because challenge lies in how do you become more
detailed and what detail you need to focus on? According to this principle, every retailer is
required to focus on the detail and collect the detail at the right time. This principles talk about
how you can learn from your mistakes (Welfare, 2016).
Understand the four P’s: This principle is very old but still exists because it will help in
understanding the overall concept of retail business. The four Ps are the success master of retail
marketing and the 4P’s stands for: -
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 Product
 Price
 Place
 Promotion (Schmitz, 2012).
Go the extra mile for your customer: Understanding the needs of customers is just a one step
of the journey, but providing more than just customer service is also a key to success. To become
a very successful, one should need to go extra miles and deliver the world class customer
services. This makes the customer more loyal and long term relation with the clients (Rollins,
2013).
Location, location, location: This is the final retail principle and one of the essential factors to
increase in the sales of the products by selecting the best location. The best location of store
attracts more people and leads to the profitability. For example, any supermarket located in a
high fashion area and provides car parking facilities attracts more right customers for the store
(Fernie, Fernie, & Moore, 2013).
Competitive advantage with special reference to physical facilities
The competitive advantage with regard to the physical facilities represents the distribution
elements and the four aspects of physical facilities are explained below:-
Location: As I already discussed in the principles of marketing of retail that the key to success
for retail marketing is location. The first decision taken by the organization is the store site. It is
very important to consider the many factors like surrounding population, traffic, and cost etc.
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Size: The size refers to the total square of the physical store rather than assuming magnitude of
the firm operating the store. It may be possible that the outlets may be small in size, but large
with regard to total sales.
Design: The design of the outlet is also important to attract the people and this factor includes
the interior and exterior designs as compared to the competitor.
Layout: The layout factor includes space division for product lines, floor plan and placing of
tables and racks etc. The consumers will visit the outlets only if it has a good design layout and
located at best place.
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Marketing Mix of the Retail Market
Product: - The approach adopted is to identify company’s exposure exchange risk includes
evaluation of sales of the company in the domestic market compared to foreign market,
competitors in the domestic and foreign market, sensitivity of demand to price, production of the
company, from where the company’s input coming, pricing of the company’s output and input.
Price: - The main pricing strategy is to reduce uncertainty regarding cash flow in the future and
the enhancement of interaction of various strategies regarding production, finance, purchasing
and marketing (Kotler, 2002).
Place: - The Company must have a USP to distinguish itself from the other competitors in the
market. Product quality should be the main aim. Eventually, the firm could target the product to
consumers belonging to high sections of society and who believe in quality than in quantity and
are less price sensitive customers (Burnett, 2008).
Promotion: - It is to be noted that managing the promotional techniques is not an easy job and
the factors attributable to the management of promotional techniques are determination of the
structure of the market in which the firm positions itself, determination of the ability of the firm
as to how it mitigates the effect of exchange rate changes by adjusting its product mix, market
and sourcing. As per study, the overall competitive position of the firm is a crucial aspect in
managing the operating exposure (Ehmke, Fulton, & Lusk, 2005).
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Advertising strategies
It is a distinguished service platform because of its superior service. As losing of money or other
precious belongings causes an unpleasant moment, the bank provides quick and 100 guaranteed
solutions. Its work is quick and effective. All employees are trained well from top to bottom. The
bank is an international bank; notes of satisfaction are obtained from all around the world. Its
customer feedback is excellent. As mentioned by the author, strategic advertisements should be
used as it helps to attract the customers and even retain the old customers. It is very important to
advertise the products and services in today’s world as awareness is important. There is a need
for all the banks to create USPs and attract customers by providing distinguished services. We all
know that customers are ready to pay, provided they are getting qualitative services. It is
important for the authorities focus on quality and not on quantity. The decision of customers can
be quickly impacted by the exhibiting the products and services through advertisements (Khan,
2011). Every coin has two sides. Hence, there are banks, which show fake services in
advertisements which are not actually provided which make the customers lose faith in
advertisements as well as banks. The author focuses on one thing that while advertising the
products or services, non exaggeration should be done and what exact services the customers
will be provided with should be shown. This way the customer will only get what they expect.
Advertisements can cost a lot, so money on it should be spent wisely and keeping in mind all the
things which are associated with it. Electronic media is an important source of information for
people these days, so a few precautionary steps should be taken before choosing one.
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Analysis of the national and international Retail market
It includes the factors such as demographics, cultural trends, analysis of population etc. As there
is a huge amount of populations who are users of many products and more than half of the
people are shopping through online sites, so a proper media should be used to make the product
reach the people of other countries.
PEST analysis of Retail Marketing
Political factors: - These factors evaluate the extent to which a certain market may be influenced
by government. So, the government policies followed in the UK need to be assessed to introduce
the product and to be compared with the government policies followed in other countries to
enhance the compatibility for instance, the imposition of new taxes or duties which may change
the entire structure of revenue generation. Political factors include trade tariffs, taxation policies,
fiscal policies etc. and its impact on the business environment are to be evaluated.
Economic factors: - These factors are very important to be analyzed as they affect the market in
the long term. For instance a rise in the inflation rate of the economy may affect the manner in
which the company sets the prices of its products. So the economic trends in the UK must be
evaluated so as to save the company from losses (Koumparoulis, 2013). Changes in economic
trends may have an adverse impact on the purchasing power of the people of the nation.
Economic factors cover in its ambit the interest rates, growth patterns of economy, foreign
exchange rates etc.
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Social factors: - It includes the scrutiny of social environment and includes factors such as
demographics, cultural trends, analysis of population etc. For the people of the UK, what matters
to them most is not the cost of the service but the quality of the services. As there are million
citizens in the country and more than half of the people want comfort so the company believes in
giving qualitative service to its customers.
Technological factors: - It provides for innovations that impacts the industry and a right use of
technology can make the industry reach the heights. It is to be scrutinized as to which technology
favors the company and which doesn’t. In order to reach the consumers of the UK, use of high
technology is a must. The digital campaigning can be launched to influence the people of the
UK. To maximize the exposure of the brand, people can be informed through educational
campaigning method via all the digital media system. People need to be educated regarding the
brand and other important things related to it. With the bursting of e-commerce in UK market, it
is important to reach the customers through this medium and discounts and prices should be
visible on the first page of the website at a first glance (Team, 2013).
Legal factors: - The next most important thing to be assessed is the legal factors. It covers both
aspects including external as well as external. The laws of the country in which the company is
going to launch its product should be comprehensively studied to avoid any kind of
misconceptions later on. The compatibility of laws of the UK and other countries must be
evaluated and then the strategies should be made out in the light of such laws.
Environmental factors: - It covers all the surrounding factors of the environment that have an
impact on the industry. These factors include geographical set up, weather, changes in climate,
offsets of environment etc. all these factors must be studied carefully to step in the new market.
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