Retailing as a Critical Part of Modern Society - Essay Example

Retail Essay Contemporary society is affected by retailing in various great ways. Retailing is widespread today with the prevalence and encouragement of a consumerist way of life, particularly in developed, capitalist nations. The purposes for shopping determine retailing by retail enterprises, as consumer behavior or opinion is critical to them. In the process, retailers sway modern society and vice versa. The following paper attempts to answer the questions why retailing is a critical part of modern society and how the location of retailing can play an important role in the way a community works. Retailing is a critical part of modern society because of convenience. Retailing fosters the transportation and presentation of consumer goods to the doorstep of buyer’s doorstep (O’Brien and Harris, 2012). The community gains from retailing as retail enterprises conduct marketing roles that make it likely for consumers to make use of a wide range of commodities and services. A second critical role played by retailing in contemporary society is availability. Commodities and services do not have value for consumers until they acquire and use them. Retail enterprises get commodities and services from various locations, categorize them at one point in line with consumer needs, and foster consumer availability. Retailing is also a critical part of modern society because of bulk convenience. Retail shops itemize bulk goods and present them in amounts and sizes as wanted by customers (O’Brien and Harris, 2012). Retail stores assist consumers by offering suitable goods, services, and guidance in the packaging and amounts they want. Retailing is assures a supply chain, which is critical to contemporary society. A supply chain ensures the flow and availability of commodities and services to consumers after leaving manufacturers or distribution points (Madaan, n.d.). The supply chain is an incorporated framework in which retail enterprises play a vital role. The relationship between retail enterprises and manufacturers or distributors is a categorization process. This process entails gathering a variety of commodities and services from a broad array of suppliers, and presenting them for sale (Madaan, n.d.). Another chain assured by retailing is the value chain that is critical for modern society. When buyers buy products, retail enterprises ought to order additional products to refill their stock (O’Brien and Harris, 2012). Afterwards, manufacturers buy additional resources to use to make additional products. This process is the root of consumer spending, which drives modern society. Retailing also boosts employment, which is a critical aspect of modern society. A host of enterprise communities and individuals make up the manufacturing, distribution, and retailing process of economy. Retailing makes up the biggest revenue maker and job producer just after agriculture. Retailing offers jobs to the least financially fortunate and unprofessional together with the learned and skilled. Retailing is a form of social responsibility that modern society considers very important. Successful retailing acknowledges that the community wants to experience the developments in the overall degree of consumption and social organization over a given period. Retail businesses have to improve their apparent value of contemporary society by serving as a central point and through proficient public affairs and profile-raising campaign such as sponsorships (O’Brien and Harris, 2012). This improvement encourages social responsibility behavior by corporations where just a given percentage of buying prices of an organization’s goods fund public wellbeing initiatives. Retailing today acts as an ecosystem that generates and provides value to consumers. Consequently, the retail enterprise and its trade partners appropriate this value. The location of retailing plays an important role in the way a community works in terms of the relationship between community population and buyers, availability, prominence, and traffic. Many communities depend on modern means of communication and media to get around and learn about new commodities and services. Location demographics regarding retailing within a particular community help members determine cheap and expensive services or products (Saxena and Al Hashemi, 2011). Considering retail enterprises study location demographics before setting up a store, a community responds appropriately by setting up homes or social amenities close to these stores. Retail stores influence the flow of traffic on the road, availability of homes through goods flow, and their prominence too. Even though a lot of traffic does not imply many consumers, retailers know it defines target markets. As long as a community knows its economy is dependent on consumer spending, retailer locations will be critical. A two-way relationship slowly builds between retailing location and a community (Saxena and Al Hashemi, 2011). With the definition of target markets, retailing gain from different levels of traffic. For instance, in a consumer spending community, retailing can determine the number of individuals who walk or drive near a retail store in a particular location. In this case, the community may consider whether there is public transport to this particular store in an effort to save on gas money while visiting it. Retailing location determines whether customers can enter and leave parking lots effortlessly. From this consideration, the community may consider ample parking a critical role for retailing (Saxena and Al Hashemi, 2011). As a result, having between eight and eight parking spaces per 1,000 ft2 is wise for a retail enterprise. However, this recommendation largely depends on the retail business’ size and type. Prominence is applicable when the way the community sees a retail store determines its success or failure. Prominence, or visibility, is the community’s perspective with respect to retailer’s location. If community members can see the store from the chief flow of traffic, it is close enough to consider for shopping. Clearly, the better the visibility, the higher the chances of community members making effort to go to the store’s location and shop. Modernization changes the role of society in the sense that events associated with or dedicated to retailing activities change. Modernization is a model that appeared to be closing a gap in the market economy, particularly in the United States. This gap was evident in the retail sector as the manner in which goods reached consumers affected prices largely. During the 1970s, Americans shopped in great numbers on dedicated days such as Sunday or Wednesday as the retail sector associated these days with consumer spending. After the 2000s, spending became a 24/7 affair as items and stock checklists were available online for all kinds of stores (Madaan, n.d.). A virtual market became available for consumers across the world after the boom of the digital and wireless age beginning mostly from the year 2000. Consumers no longer had to save for Wednesdays or Sundays to go to the mall as stores were available on the internet, which was a click away in their homes. Acquiring and keeping a strategic competitive edge in retailing needs knowledge of the features buyers find worthy and apply to discriminate between stores, as well as their importance. Even though numerous retail shops have stocks that determine discriminant features, few have tried to account for how these features result in the contentment of personal shopping motives. In addition, few retailers have tried to account for how knowing these features are useful to concentrate and strengthen a strategic position. Today, retailers are gaining a corporate mindset as they have gained an insight of how consumer store choice works as a role of the connections between store features, shopping reasons, and risk sizes (O’Brien and Harris, 2012). For instance, during the 1980s, retail stores that sold electronic devices such as television sets strictly adhered to this kind of stock. Today, the same line of retails may have diversified into computers, automobiles, and even clothing. In conclusion, retailing is a critical part of modern society because of convenience, availability, bulk convenience, supply chain, value chain, employment, and social responsibility. The location of retailing plays an important role in the way a community works in the sense that it influences population demographics and consumer behavior. The location of retailing determines the information available to the community about its products and services, thereby affecting the distribution of social amenities. The location of retailing further dictates the availability and distribution of community members’ homes. Lastly, visibility produced by a retail store’s location determines the behavior of community members while in traffic or simply near the store. References Madaan, K. V. S. (n.d.). Fundamentals of Retailing. Los Angeles, CA: Tata McGraw-Hill Education. O’Brien, L. and Harris, F. (2012). Retailing: Shopping, Society, Space: Shopping, Society, Space. New York, NY: Routledge. Saxena, R. P., and Al Hashemi, B. (2011). Importance of Location in Successful Retailing. International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management, 11(1), pp.37-60. Read More