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Home Shopping
As per guided instructions we were supposed to establish a new small-medium sized
retail store, so we planned to open a medium sized Departmental store with high variety
and medium assortment it would have a high variety of products arranged and displayed
in departments within the store dealing with all type of products with medium level of
service and normal prices and target market would be the people of the concerned town
thats Johar town, well open the store in the middle of town that connects whole town
and people can conveniently come and buy things that they want to.
The complete structure of store its strategies, functions, buying behavior and retail mix
are described below in detail:

1) Functions performed by the retailer:

Every type of retailer provides four basic functions to add value to the products or
services it offers, all four of them are given below in detail.

Providing Assortment: assortment is the depth of a product that a retailer keeps for
its customers, retailers specialize in one category and provide alternative products
and brands of that product to the customers, being a departmental store our variety
would be high but assortment would be medium so the customers can choose in
between different type of products and brands, we would also be keeping multiple
stock keeping units (SKUs) so the customers can have the quantity they desire and
we wont be out of stock as well.
Breaking Bulk: breaking the bulk describes the importance of retailers
manufacturers and wholesalers cant provide products to customers in low quantity
they deal in larger quantities but retailers take from wholesalers and provide
customers the quantity of product they want, being a departmental store we would be
buying in bulk but selling in smaller quantity and providing them with products they
want to suit their needs
Holding inventory: we would be holding enough inventory to serve all customers
when the demand of a specific product arises and would be keeping inventory in no
consumption time, manufacturers would also be funded by keeping their products in
store
Providing Services: just like providing customers with products services carry equal
importance with products we would give them some value adding services to choose
our store and become loyal like giving products on credit to customers but not to
everyone, giving them a trial of possible products so they can choose weather to buy
it or not, displaying all products where they can be seen so the customers can choose
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easily, they can touch and feel the products before buying, if they dont like it or are
not satisfied with its usage they can return it (not every product) sales people would
be arranged to answer their questions about the product, and delivering them
products at their homes.

2) Type of Retail store weve planned and why?

We have planned to open a departmental store In Johar town because it carries broad
variety of products and medium to high assortment as well with good customer
service, we have planned to make different departments for grocery, crockery, home
improvements equipment and others with normal prices and with high number of
SKUs and all the products would be displayed in different departments where they
can try them, touch and feel them for the ease of shopping and saving time to attract
customers from the entire town and well also be providing services like credit and
free home delivery to add value to our offerings, the pattern of the store is given
below as well
Type
Departmenta
l

Variety
Broad

Assortment
Medium

Prices
Normal

Services
Medium

Location
Medium

Well be following the pattern of a departmental store to meet the customers needs
that they can come to one place and buy whatever they need to or the products can
even be delivered to their homes without any extra charges

Budget: heres our complete budget plan and sales required to reach break
even, we have analyzed the market it has got potential and for a departmental
store and we can reach break even with in 2 years of our startup and then
profits will start generating, given below are the complete details.

Expenses
Building rent
Salaries
Utilities
Total

Amount in millions
0.1
0.2
0.1
0.4

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Given below are one time acquiring and starting up costs.
Activities
Building acquiring cost
Wiring and electricity works
Utilities and office equipment
Racks
Computers and sales software
Training employees and hiring
Total

Costs in millions
1.2
0.25
0.25
0.1
0.25
0.1
2.15

We have analyzed our monthly expenses are around 0.3 million rupees and we would
take around 2 years to reach break even our invested amount thats 4.4 million so we
would have to make sales of 3800 rupees every day.
The finance sources are given as under.
Sources
Owners
Loan
Outside sources

Percentage
50
25
25

Business Plan: we have planned where we see our business within 10 years
all these plan are given below
Short-term plan: after startup we have a plan to get the
customer feedback and keep up the good work with customers
help and as customers as we can with in the first year.
Medium term plan: with 1-5 years of our business we have
planned to open more departments in our store and extend it in
size by keeping just one store in focus
Long term plan: within 5-10 years of our business we plan to
move out of Johar town and reach other towns as well and
increase the number of our stores in city Lahore.

3) Customer Buying Behavior:

Customer might behave differently in every situation depending upon the type of
product and decision to be made; well be following the steps to be first in the
consideration set of our customers firstly well provide them with products they want
to by having full depth of popular products
And it starts from the step of need recognition to purchase a product:
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Need recognition
Information search
Evaluation
Selection
Purchase
Repeat purchase and become loyal

A customer can act in three ways while choosing a product:

Extended problem solving - while evaluating between too many alternatives
Limited problem solving decision to be made in between few alternatives
Habitual decision making repeats the same purchase because of store or brand
We will have to come into the consideration set of our customers by attracting them
towards us so they become loyal to our store and purchase their products from us every
time they think of making a purchase.
We can help customers in reducing information search by giving them all the necessary
information about the product they are about to purchase its alternatives and other brands
as well to win their confidence.
The table below explains the multi attributes of store that help customers in purchase
Attributes
Price
Delivery cost
Travelling time
Check out time
Product information
SKUs

Home Shopping
Normal
Zero
Almost 5-10 mins. For Johar town
5 mins.
Normal
Around 100

According o the multi attribute model of store performance to rate the store it would be
having the following points:

Attributes of Home Shopping

Economy

Score on the scale of 10

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Convenience
Assortment
Information search

8
7
7

Using this model we can understand where we are into the consideration set of our
customers as compared to our competitors and who will be more attracted to our stores in
our case families who want convenience and economy will be more loyal to our store.

4) Strategic Planning process, Retail Market Strategy, Target Market

and sustainable marketing advantage?
The following points mentioned below give details about the whole plan, target
market and sustainable marketing advantage.
Retail Market Strategy: is the set of ways through which a retail store plans its
activates to identify its target market and building sustainable advantage over
competitors by using retail mix, we have discussed the retail format above as well
and our strategy would be to compete with our competitors to gain more
customers and make them loyal.
Target Market: We have planned a medium sized retail store so our primary
target market is going to be the household from Johar Town and then houses
which are 5 kilometers away from the town that can conveniently come to us
because of our services.
Sustainable Market Advantage: the unique thing about the store that
differentiate it form other retailers and our advantage would be our value adding
services, deep assortment and broad variety of products that would attract more
people and would keep us in the market for a longer period of time over our
competitors

Well be following this retail format to keep our self ahead of our competitors

Attributes
Assortment
Number of outlets
Price

Home shopping
Medium-high
Single
Medium
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Breadth
Ambiance
CRM
Location
Positioning

High
Medium-High
High
Medium
Departmental store

5) Strategic Retail Planning Process: its a continuous process of 7 steps to

differentiate your business and identify opportunities to establish and allocate
resources and attract customers to gain growth in market.

Define Business Mission: our business mission would be attracting a majority of

the town and maximizing our profits by bringing in more and more loyal
customers and providing them better products and value added services.
Conducting Situational Audit: this process has got 3 steps in it firstly analyzing
the market attractiveness that what are the chances of your growth in our case
there is a need of a departmental store for the convenience of people of the town a
large number of people would join us, secondly the competitor analysis that how
strong is your competitor what type of services and products its offering here our
direct competitor is GNM a departmental store thats around 5 kilometers away
from our location and all convenience stores re also our competitors and weve
got a advantage because of our variety and deep assortment as compared to them
and services are more attractive as compared to them, and in the last we would
analyze our own store that how well we can do what are our chances of success
and how can we add more value to get maximum customers of this town and we
see a positive sign of success because of our plan, location and services.
Identify Strategic Opportunities: being a new store in we analyzed our
competitors and none of them was providing satisfactory services to its customers
so its an opportunity that we identified to capture unsatisfied customers by
providing them services like return policy and free home delivery and trials of
products
Evaluating Alternatives: well see what are the other options for us how can we
add value to our business and how can we expand in this area and will the
customers be attracted
Establishing Specific Objectives: it involves our objectives of getting most
customers and reaching the break even to start earning profits in the first year of
commencement and developing a strong brand name of the store and allocating
the resources where needed and maximizing the output of resources used.
Develop Retail Mix: retail mix includes the nature of products and services,
promotion and communication, in our store the products would arranged in
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departments and we would be using cost based pricing and would promote our
store in the whole town by holdings within the town and by distributing brochures
house to house, our merchandise would be displayed in a highly arranged manner
in store for convenience of customers and location is the center of town where
every household from town and outsiders near it can approach within 10 minutes
or even lesser than that.
Evaluation of Performance: once the business starts running on its own with
most of the customers from the town coming to us we would be able to evaluate
our products and services how are we performing and where is some gap for
improvement and by overseeing that necessary improvements can be managed by
the team supervising the store in terms of quality and services.

6) Retail Store site selection and Location: The selection of a retail store is the
most important task it defines the success of business, if location is not considered or
analyzed it may lead to cannibalization but we have just one branch so there wont
be any such case but we analyzed the location well and followed a path to select the
location

Demography: our store is in Johar town a town with high population thats
increasing favorably and most of the people here belong to a same social class
with income and are willing to pay for good products and services.
Competition: we will face high intensity of competition here but the services
provided by our competitors are below the expectations of their customers so
well manage to survive and thrive as well
Business Climate: the business climate of this town would be in our favor people
here are with high income and willing to pay for products and market in this area
is facing its growth now so we have high possibility of success.
Accessibility: we are located in middle of the town our suppliers can reach us
easily in time and customers also would feel convenient to come.
Macro Analysis pattern of road is quite simple we are located at the end of a
main road and the road conditions are good there wont be any problem in
reaching the store, there are no such natural barriers to our store as well.
Micro Analysis: we are located on the left side of the store so its easy for
customers to stop by while going back to home, our store is on main road and is
visible to people passing by, as we are a medium sized store we have parking
facility of around 25 cars and 30 bikes at the same time that would more than 100
customers in the store at the same time and we analyzed it would be enough for
our start.
Trade Area: our 60-65 percent of customers form primary are from Johar town
and 20-25 percent of people from secondary area are from Gulberg and other
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towns near by and the rest of people form tertiary area are from the entire city that
are just visiting us once or twice by chance.

7) Retail Mix: its the set of tools and activities that a retailer uses to attract it
customers and satisfy them by providing them required products and services, some
of the important tools are mentioned and discussed below that wed be following in
order to achieve our targets.

Merchandise: merchandise includes the tangible products or intangible services

that you are offering your customers, being a departmental store we are offering
our customers tangible products only with value adding services, weve got a
broader variety of products with medium to high level of assortment so our
customers can choose between different alternatives and brands or may have the
product they want to with a lot information provided by the store
Services: with our tangible products we are also offering value adding services
like home delivery and free trials or return policy if they are not satisfied by the
offerings of the provided product
Store design and visual merchandise: our store is designed as a departmental
store, it has got three main departments and all of them are quite differentiated,
people wont get confused and all products are well arranged in departments and
our staff is well trained as well to guide them to their desired product, most of the
products are arranged and managed with products that are familiar or are by the
same manufacturer for ease of customers.
Location: location is the prime concern for the success of a retail store its the
first thing to attract customers and maintain the inflow, our location is preferably
convenient to all residents of Johar town and of people residing near it.
Pricing: as we already have a lot of competitors in Johar town all departmental
and small retail stores, so wed be using cost plus pricing which is calculating the
base price including all costs and taxes and then adding a minimal amount of
profits for the survival of business to be at first in the consideration set of all the
customer.
Customer Services: for the survival and continuous development of business
wed be providing them services like free home delivery at just a phone call and
giving them free trials of the products that they havent tried and they can even
return products under our return policy if they are not satisfied by the
performance of he offerings of the product.

8) Handling HR issues in retailing, special HR Issues?

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Your Human resource makes you stronger and gives you edge over competitors few
of the possible special issues that can occur in retailing are given below with the
solution how well handle them:
Part time employees: they are not trained though they cost less but they can
cost you double when not train with a adequate information of business
Expense control: paying employees high for better performance is a plus
point but it can reduce profits and increase the expenses.
Employee Demographics: seeing the type of store should be the employee
you cant use employee with age of more than 60 for a job that requires mind
and body effort the type and age of employees should be according to the job
International Issues: if your employees are from different countries and
cultures there can be a difference in their values and thats a hard thing to
make them understand and requires time, there could be different labor laws
in every country and they might need to learn your laws and hence training
and time would be required again.

Solution For HR issues in Retailing: human resource leads to the sustainable

competitive advantage over other competitors that cant be copied by others the
steps that wed be taking to resolve our issues are as following:
Giving employees proper training of the work environment
Trying to keep trained and permanent employees or using part time employees
just as labor
Trying to reduce employee turnover rate in order to increase performance
Specialization of tasks to reduce monotony in work and increase job
satisfaction

9) Objectives of HR, Designing Organizational Structure.

The objectives of human resource management are considered well before taking
start and designing the organizational structure is also one of the most important
tasks in starting a new business and both of them in our case are discussed below:

Objectives of HR: all objectives that we took under consideration re given below

Gaining competitive advantage

Trying to sustain the advantage for a longer period of time
Having well trained and performance maximizing employees
Decreasing the cost of labor and maximizing their output
Differentiating the store from others by designing such activities of
employees that others do not

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Managing the employees as its the most sustainable advantage that

cant be copied by competitors
Lowering the employee turnover rate
Increasing profit per employee

Designing organizational structure: the process of designing the organizational

structure comprises of the following four points of steps explained below:
Strategic Management: we are a single store retailer our tasks would be
Developing overall retail strategy
Identifying the target market
Determining the retail format
Designing the structure
Developing the catalog
Merchandise Management: here following three basic tasks are performed
Buying inventory
Controlling or storing
Adjusting the price
Store Management: it involves the following tasks
Hiring and training personnel
Planning labor schedules
Evaluating performances of labor
Maintaining store facilities
Repair and alter merchandise
Administrative Management: it involves the following major tasks:
Marketing
Managing human resource
Managing supply chain
Financial performances
Information system
Structure for a single retail store: we are currently not a chain of retail stores we have
opened with just one store and our store structure has been designed accordingly.

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Owner

Merchandi
se
manager

Financial
Controll

Store
manager

Supervisor

Sales
Personnels

Issues in Organizational structure: following issues could be faced while

designing or even after starting the business
Centralization vs. decentralization
Coordination between merchandising and store management

Solution for these issues: Taking following steps can solve all those

issues

discussed above
Having centralized system of control
Making coordination between departments
Involving store management in purchase
Assigning buying-selling roles

10) CRM implementation in retailing: Customer relationship management is

a strategy to build a profitable relationship with business customers and satisfy them
in return, the CRM process cycle comprises of four phases or steps given below

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Collecting
customer
data

analyzing
data and
identifying
target
market

Implementin
g CRM
programs

Developing
CRM
programs

Collecting customer data: in order to develop and implement a CRM program

well have to collect data of our customers firstly, well be following these steps
mentioned below.
Customer database ware house: creating a customer database involves
the following things
Transactions
Customer Contacts
Customer Preferences
Descriptive Information
Responses to Marketing Activities
Complete household information: combining the family information to
see whats the potential and what would be most purchased products
Independent retailer database: Being a small and independent retailer
we can collect the data quite easily because of less customers

Analyzing data and identifying customers: this phase includes the following
steps mentioned and discussed below;
Identifying information: where possible we can ask our customers about
their proffered products but its not possible all the time it be the violation
of their personal information some times in which they are nt interested to
share

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Offering shopping cards: Through these cards you well be able to see
what amount of products they are buying and how recently they have been
shopping
Identifying Market segment: by having RFM surveys we can get to now
who was the most recent customer, what was the frequency of their
purchase and what is the monetary value, so we will be able to know the
type of customers we are having and their require products
Knowing the type of customer: dividing the customers into following 4
types shown in the customer pyramid, well be able to know their types
and focus on platinum customers and converting others inot platinum as
well and deselecting the lead ones.

Pla
tin
um

gold
iron
lead

RFM analysis: it deals with how recently that customer has purchased
any product whats the frequency of his purchase and whats the monetary
value he is purchasing and by having this analysis wed be able to know
the type of that customer and then dealing with him accordingly

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Recently
Frequency
1-2
1-2
3-4
3-4
5-6
5-6
Over 6
Over 6

Monetary
<50000
>5000
<10000
>10000
<25000
>25000
<50000
>50000

0-2 months

3-4

5-6

Over 6

Developing CRM program: in order to develop a CRM program Home

Shopping would take the following steps.
Objectives: we wish to achieve following objectives from our CRM.
Well select the most valued customers would give them all the
dedication and best services
Well try to convert good customers into high valued customers by
our different value adding programs
The leads or unprofitable customers would be deselected by the
store.
Customer Retention: old and loyal customers can be retained by frequent
shoppers card these cards would be offered to those who have been
shopping for a while with a specific monetary value and after some
shopping on s specific point they would also be offered discounts and
other deals for keeping up their journey with us.
Special Customer Services: we wish to retain and maintain our loyal and
highly valued customers, so wed be concentrating on them and would be
trying to bring up our gold and iron customers to a upper rank by giving
them services like we are offering to our platinum customers.

Implementing the program: by following all the steps and phase we can
implement and ensure a safe and profitable CRM program and can maintain a
relationship with our customers to be profitable and satisfy their needs as well.

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11) Buying
Merchandise,
Brand
Negotiation Strategies with Vendors.

Decisions,

The strategy of our store for buying merchandise for sale its
decision making and negotiations with vendors are described
below:

Buying Merchandise and Brand Decisions: wed be

buying both national brands and private label brands as well
to maintain a broad variety and deep assortment of
products.
Merchandise management process: the process of
buying merchandise from any of the above vendor
involves the steps given below.
forecast catagory sales
develop an assortment plan
determine the appropriate inventory level
develop a plan for managing inventory
allocate merchandise for stores
buy merchandise

monitor and evaluate performance and make adjustments

Meeting national brand vendors: the vendors who

supply us can be wholesalers or manufacturers,
meetings for inspection of products or purchase can be
made online or in whole sale markets or even by directly
contacting the manufacturers
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Whole sale Market Centers: for many type of

merchandises retailers rely completely on whole sellers
we can have some of the wholesalers who would be
supplying us the required products at retail prices so we
can have some profits and can sale it to customers at a
normal price
Trade shows: around 3500 trade show are arranged in
Pakistan every year we can also select our vendors from
there who best suits us and is honest in its conduct as
well.
Negotiation with vendors: vendor negotiations in terms of
product purchase and finalizing the prices can be beneficial
for the retailers, some of the points are discussed below that
how would we negotiate and what would be its benefits to our
store.
Well be having al required information about all vendors in
the market and all product at minimum price and whats the
best choice to make would be easier by having all the
knowledge to serve our customers well and save our costs as
well
Negotiation issues: there can be some issues as well
in terms of negotiations with vendors given below.
Price and gross margin: sometimes there can
be problems like deciding prices and margins
there we can settle with vendors by choosing the
appropriate one who doesnt makes any false
offers of profits for himself.
Margin Guarantees: vendors may disagree
sometimes on the margin ratio and that can be
problem so having adequate information about
product and company can be a win-win situation
while negotiating.
Terms of purchase: they should be clear enough
at the time of purchase like return policy or any
other changes to make after wards.

12) Retail communication-advertising strategy and

decision.
Following are the objectives of our retail communication mix.
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The communication program informs the customers about the retailer as well
as the merchandise/services

Develops repeat visits and customer loyalty

Have a short and long term effects on retailers business

Can be used to create and maintain a strong differentiation for the retailer and
his brands

Image develops customer loyalty and creates strategic advantage

Complements the retailers CRM program

Value of Brand image: retail communication is a continuous

process of building brand value and getting a better perceived
image that leads to customer loyalty, brands provide value to
both retailers and customers as well, having good brands at any
store affects the customers perception about the store and their
buying decisions as well and the value a brand or store offers is
its brand equity.
Building brand equity: well be following the following three
things to build a better brand equity of our store.
Creating a high level of brand awareness
Develop favorable association with brand name
Constantly reinforce the image of brand
Methods
of
communication
with
customers:
the
communication with store customers is divided in to four
categories shown below.

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Comparison of different communication methods: heres short

comparison between these methods shown above in the matrix
Control

Flexibility

Credibility

Cost

High
Highest
High
High
High

Lowest
High
Low
Low
Modest

Lowest
Low

Low

Modest
Modest
Modest
Modest
Modest

Modest
Highest

Highest
High

Low
Low

Highest
Low

Low

Low

High

Low

Paid
Impersonal
Mass media

Direct mail
Sales promo.
Store atmos.
Website
Paid
Personal
Sales person
Email
Unpaid
Impersonal
Publicity

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Unpaid
Personal
Word of mouth

Low

Low

High

Lowest

By using this table wed be able to see which type of communication with customers best
suits us in terms of coverage and cost.

Advertising strategy: wed be following the strategy for our advertisement as

shown below.
Developing the right advertisement message: message would serve the
following purposes:
it would have a short life and would be designed for immediate
attention
Grabs readers attention at first sight
Local ads would be proffered
Choosing a specific media to convey message: once the message is
developed it would be serving customers so a specific media should be
choose.
Magazines
Direct mailing
Radio
Billboards
Internet
Determining the frequency and time: wed determine after selecting a
proper mean of advertisement that when the customers would see it how
often should it be displayed and what should be the frequency, in our case
its a grocery store so people should recall it at the time of monthly
purchase so wed be on air at the end of a month and the first week of
month.

13) Store Management: store management is a set of activities to manage the

employees, environment and costs of the store; wed be taking these steps to
manage our store discussed below.
Managing store Employees: human resource has always been an important
and crucial task wed do it the way mentioned below
Recruiting and selecting: employees would be selected on the
base of their qualification and previous work experience in the
field if its related to store management, we are a medium sized
store so wed try to keep the number of employees low and they
would be selected after an interview with them to know about them
Socialize and train new employees: new employees who join us
would be given training to get to know about our store and area of
store, socializing with customers can be beneficial for store, they
would be trained to have better communication with customers.
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Motivating and managing: people need motivation to work

harder, the store management would try to motivate all employees
to encourage them and make them work harder for the business.
Evaluation: the performance of every employee would be
evaluated and feedback would be requested form employees and
customers as well about their performances.
Rewarding and compensating: if the employees are serving well
enough and management and customers are if satisfied by their
performances then they would be rewarded for their exceptional
work.
Controlling Costs: to keep the costs of purchase and holding low wed be
taking the following precautions.
Increase labor productivity: well try to increase their
productivity by getting the maximum output out of them by just
using a minimal level of input to save costs, time and effort as
well.
Reducing maintenance: maintenance and energy costs will be
kept to as low as we could to save energy and electricity at the
same time, ultimately it would also save a major part of our
expenses, maintenance costs can be lower down by maintaining the
store on daily bases so almost zero expense would be charged.
Reducing inventory losses: during shifting and storing inventory
breaking and losses are a common problem for any store but we
would some how manage to keep it low by storing a low amount of
inventory at store at keeping it with vendors so when ever it would
be required we can order it so save our transportation costs and
losses as well
Managing Merchandise: storing and managing is one of the most important
tasks in store management process
Displaying Merchandise: merchandises would be displayed in a
chronological order or by brands or of same type and visual
standards would be maintained to keep the store an easy shopping
destination.
Suggesting new products: the customers that would come to us as
a strategy we can suggest them new products that are on promotion
or may be better than they are choosing so they would have a
choice of alternatives.
Planning and managing events: we would become sponsors of
some sports and social events in the town, it would benefit our
store image and all sports lovers associated to those events would
likely to come to us and we would also be arranging some social
and charity events in the meanwhile to appraise our brand image.

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14) Layout, Design and Visual merchandise: the design of our store that
wed be following for better view of our merchandise and the store layout I
described below.
Objectives of Store Design: some of the important objectives are given below.

Implement the retailers strategy

Influence the customer buying behavior
Provide flexibility
Control design and maintenance costs
Meet legal requirements
Store Layout: we needed to determine the basic layout that how the store would
look like to save the costs and space so more merchandises can be visualized in the
store space, we would use signage to guide customers to their desired products and
departments.
Grid Layout: we are using grid layout for our store as it saves a lot of space and its
easier to find products here some advantages are below;

Facilitates the goal of getting customers to see the

merchandise available in multiple depts.
Facilitate impulse purchase.
Customers forced to take different viewing angles.
Cost efficient, less wasted space, all aisles are of same
width.
Use of shelves- more merchandise on sales floor.
Low cost standardized fixtures

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Checkouts

Exit
Entrance

Office

Signage and Graphics: signage helps the customers in locating the products.
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Category signage: used within particular dept. or sector of the store, smaller than
directional signs. Purpose- to identify the types of products offered-located near
the referred goods.

Promotional signage: Signage displaying special offers may be displayed in

windows to entice customers into the store.
Point of sale: placed near the merchandise they refer to so that customers know its price
and detailed information. Help to quickly identify special offers

Space Management: given below are some of our objectives of space

management in our store.
Space within store- is a scarce resource
Allocation of store space to merchandise
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Final Project
Location of departments or merchandise categories in the same
area
Space allocated to Merchandise categories: well be allocating major space on
the base of the categories of product to achieve the following goals.
Space productivity: we would have to manage to space to
increase the productivity we will use less space in store arrange
them into categories to in less space more products can be shown
to customers
Inventory turnover: we would like to keep our inventory turnover
high, keeping the stocks in stores so more products would be sold
and new can be welcomed.
Store Sales: better space allocation and management would lead to
high store sales causing higher profits and achievement of goals
Display Consideration: when better arranged in categories,
products will be more visible and it would be easier for customers.

15) Customer Service: customer service has always been a plus point for any
retailer or business, retailers can get sustainable competitive advantage through it,
its discussed in detail below.
Strategic advantage through CS: customers can help achieve sustainable
advantage by providing them exceptional services, all employees and all
elements in a retail mix used by the retailer can add value to the services that
they are providing and can cause success for the business.
Challenges in providing quality services: providing customers the best
services in town is quite a hard target to achieve for retailers they can cost
much and would require much bigger human resource as well
Services provided are intangible
Its the hardest thing to control performance of employees
Services cant be measured
Keeping a check on services is quite hard
Services that we will offer: well be offering the following services to add value
to our products.
Acceptance of credit cards
ATM terminals
Credit sales
Easy return policy
Free delivery
Vast parking
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Final Project

Customer evaluation of service quality: after providing all these services to

our customers we will let them evaluate our store on the base of our products
and value adding services.

Customer Feedback: because of customer feedback we will be

able to better our self through quality enhancement by continuous
response of our customers,

GAPS model for service quality: this model represents the gaps that are left
by retailers and lacks in quality that can be covered somehow.
Knowledge gap: knowledge gap is the lack of information about
what customers want and what retailer perceives, this gap can be
covered by knowing about customers and having a complete or
adequate information about their buying behavior and seeing that
we will try to cover that gap and give them products they have been
looking for.

The standard gap: services that are offered can always not be
accepted by customers they should meet a defined criteria and if not
meeting customers will not be coming to store every time due to
lack of standard, we will cover this gap by setting absolute
standards that are predefined and achievable.
The communication gap: retailers sometime fail to deliver what
they intend to and to fill that communication with customers is
required, we will cover this gap if customers arent satisfied by our
services by taking their feedback and trying to manage their
expectations, we will listen to them what they want to by becoming
a customer focused business, and providing them a fair solution and
resolving the issue.

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