Principles of Marketing : Chapter 13 : Retailers and Wholesaler

This chapter is all about retailing and wholesaling. A retailer is an entity which provides goods and services to the end consumer for the consumption. In the service industry, there are three types of it.

Self-service is the one where the customer doesn't interact with any person and self-serviced himself. Like the vending machines and Kiosk. Limited service where it is limited interaction between companies employee and the customer like in fast-food industry. Lastly, full service is where there is ample amount of interaction between both of them like in Restaurants.
The second part is the product line, where the first one is specialty stores (a store selling specific things like office supplies or clothes). Departmental stores, where you can get a variety of things under one umbrella. Like D. Watson or Shaheen. Convenience store, where you can get things on the basis of convenience, a store near you. Superstore, a store bigger than departmental store and have more product varieties in them. Like Hyperstar or Al-Fateh. Lastly, Category killer where you give massive discounts from the other competitor like Wal-mart.

Corporate chain, are big outlets which are commonly owned and is controlled by one company. Like in the UK, Marks & Spenser they own retail stores as well as food outlets. Voluntary Chain is where you operate in bulk buying and operate in different parts of the world like Western Autos. The franchise is subletting your outlets to someone on the common Standard operating procedures.

Wholesaling is an entity involves in selling goods and services to those entities who further sells the products to someone else who can sell the product to the consumers. They can also act as a promoter of a product and help the manufactures to sell their product to the consumer. Categorizing product and items so that they can reduce the hassle for the customers. Their major role is the EOS (Economies of scale) where wholesaler buys products in larger quantity through which per unit cost is reduced. They also have different warehouses to hold and stock inventory. They also transport the end products to the market for the consumption. Since wholesalers are big entities they can give products to the retailers in credits as well.

There are three types of wholesalers 1) Merchandiser ( they provide all the above-mentioned service to the market). 2)  Broker and agents are intermediary which assist the relationship between buyers and sellers and they take commission from both of them. Manufacturers and retailers buy products for themselves for further production and developing the end product for the customers.