Retailing and Direct Marketing - Article Example

Retail and Direct Marketing Retail and direct marketing is an activity that is a part of every business enterprise.This is the core principle in any business-oriented practice which facilitates the trade in goods and services. Retail marketing involves selling products and services from a fixed location like a shop where consumers directly access the product or service. It ensures that customers derive the maximum value from the buying process because there are higher levels of customer service and satisfaction.

Direct marketing involves engaging the customer on a one on one basis without the use of media. It means sending a message regarding a product directly to the customer through various means like direct email, telemarketing, broadcast, integrated campaigns, direct selling and door to door leaflet marketing. Direct marketing depends on measurable and track-able consumer responses concerning the product. Ethics and social responsibility is a key component of any business enterprise, which ensures that the customers’ needs are addressed in a business’ policies.

This paper aims at addressing the impact of ethics and social responsibility in retail and direct marketing. Observation of sound ethics in business practices has been shown to boost consumer confidence in a retail outlet’s products and services. This is because customers recognise these efforts and they in turn reciprocate by being loyal to that retail outlet. A business should always strive to do what is right and good for its clients by upholding their ethical principles of operating business (Pride & Ferrell, 30).

‘Beyond Scarcity’ is an article by Doug Wallace that he wrote for the The Magazine of Corporate Responsibility. In the article, he highlights the ethical dilemma faced by a company of whether to accept a take over bid or refuse the bid. Accepting the bid means making a handsome profit because the take over bid offered to buy the company’s shares at the double their value. By doing this, the company will be abandoning their shareholder’s and customer’s welfare. The company offering the bid only interest is in the company’s substantial reserve fund which they aim to use in boosting their diminishing financial position (Wallace, 14).

This is interesting because the prospecting company is likely not to care about Kemper Products’ customer satisfaction. There is also the issue of the fate of junior employees because the prospective company does not offer welfare packages for them as it did for the senior management. This an ethical question because as far as business is concerned, accepting the bid would be logical thing to do. This is because it entails making a huge profit, which is the core principle of any business entity.

This would see the junior employees facing a bleak future without any concrete promise of job security. The market served by Kemper Products would be faced with the probability of being provided with lesser quality goods and services. This is because the prospecting company’s interests do not lie in the target market served by Kemper Products. Kemper Products’ social responsibility lays with the shareholders, employees especially those in junior positions and their clients. Acceptance of the bid could result into job losses and deterioration of the product quality and services rendered to its customers.

Ethics and social responsibility of a company should always be focused on what is right for the company’s employees and the community it serves. Ethics and social responsibility is determined by the situation at hand and decisions should be made with regard to all those who are involved.Works Cited.Pride, W. M, & Ferrell, O.C. Pride & Ferrell Marketing. 16Th Edition. London: Cengage Learning. 2011. Print.Wallace, D. Business Ethics: The Magazine of Corporate Responsibility. ‘Beyond Scarcity’. Web. April 11Th 2013. 15:29PM. Retrieved from: http://secure.pdcnet.org/bemag/content/bemag_2003_0017_0003_0014_0014