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Unit 3: Types of Retailer

“There has to be a clear connection between the information collected, how it’s used and what Notes
value the customer receives from it,” said Bagel. “Understand your brand strategy and what
level of intimacy is appropriate. Depending on your clientele, privacy might not be as important
— digital natives tend to be far less concerned with privacy than Baby Boomers, for example. But
everyone wants to know that they will receive a benefit from giving you information.”
Be committed. Multi-channel retailing requires an investment in time and money. There needs
to be a clear strategy across all teams, and cooperation is critical to success.

“In order to have totally seamless solution, all stakeholders need to be involved, giving their
insight and taking ownership and having support and understanding as to what is being done,
why and how,” said Bowers. “This is not a sometime commitment; this is a total marketing
strategy for the retailer to invest in the future of the customer acquisition, retention process and
loyalty programs.”

Note Strategy is not appropriate for every retailer. Not all retailers possess the
financial and managerial resources to do so or have the same potential synergies.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:

11. Multi-level marketing (MLM) or network marketing is a business model where the selling
of products depends on the people in the network.
12. The smallest advantage to buying an existing business or taking ownership of an already-
established retail store is time.
13. Multi-channel retailing requires an investment in time and money.
14. The primary driver for a retailer adopting any strategy is, of course, increasing profit,
most frequently by increasing sales.
15. Multi-channel retailing offers benefits for more than retailers.

3.13 Challenges of Effective Multi Channel Retailing

One of the things that it is important to realize is that the multichannel concept is not a clever
invention driven by retailers, but rather a reflection of the changes that are happening all
around us, driven by consumer behavior.

Access to the internet is becoming a commodity; home broadband connectivity comes free with
your mobile package, your TV subscription or landline agreement, and mobile internet access
is part of most mobile phone packages these days.
One of the effects of this increased ‘ease of access’ is a significant surge in popularity of everything
internet enabled, even people’s social lives. We have all seen stats that ‘we’ now spend more
time on social networks than on email or even TV. These are fundamental changes to how we
live our lives, but for some, especially older, generations still hard to fathom.

One of the things enabled by the internet is immediacy and the amount of data and services we
have access to - you don’t have to wait for feedback from someone anymore, any question can be
answered immediately via Google, and if you’re looking for a particular product or product
information, the internet will be able to tell you more than (unfortunately) most shop assistants
can.

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