RETAILER AND CONSUMER SERVICES
Retailer
A retailer is a person or persons that involves in sale of goods or merchandise for personal or household consumption. Such retailer may function from a fixed location or may have a moving shop. A fixed location for a retailer may be a departmental store or kiosk while at times the retailer may have a moving shop like a mobile van or an article selling pick up van or even a moving fast food counter.
Function of a retailer
A retailer buys articles and goods from a wholesaler. Then the retailer sells these items with addition of a small profit to the purchase value to the consumers providing a consumer services. A retailer sells individual items in small quantities to customers for their consumption. The business supply chain has on one end the manufacturer and supplier and at the other end the retailer. That is why the marketers often see retailers as part of their overall distribution strategy.
Retailer shops
A retailer requires a shop whether a static one at a particular location or a moving one moving to different locations. This is the base point where a customer will contact the retailer for procurement of small quantity of consumer goods or house hold item. Shops can be found on a street side usually or in a shopping center. The modern trend for retailer shops is to place them in a compact complex so that the end user, the consumer, gets all his desired articles moving from one corner to another in the same complex saving him the trouble of moving from door to door. Shopping refers to buying things and at times may be a recreational activity. The retailer provides the items required and thus performs an essential consumer services.
Retailer types
Broadly, we can classify three types of retailer: -
1. Counter sells retailer, where consumer services is provided by the retailer on payment at the counter and delivery of desired articles. This is the oldest retailer and consumer services pattern.
2. Self-service retailer shops, where the customer collects his desired articles and finally pays the bill at the counter. This is now the most used system of retailer and consumer services.
3. On line retailer shops, where customers purchase articles online and the popularity of this type of retailer and consumer services is growing day by day.
Consumer services
Though every service related to providing consumer goods may be termed as consumer servicess, its real meaning is something different. Consumer services refers to formulation, de-formulation, testing etc relating to consumer goods. Such consumer goods may include anything from food and cosmetics to household goods and these actions performed on such goods is called the consumer services. A consumer services involves a number of fields that might be physical, engineering, biological or chemical or any other. A consumer services also includes forensic testing or water content testing etc.
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