Ch. 15 - Retailing

The Role of retailing

The MKTG 5 describes retailing as “all the activities directly related to the sale of goods and services to the ultimate consumers for personal, non-business use.” This means that Retailing is a distribution channel function where one organization buys products from supplying firms or manufactures the product themselves, and then sells these directly to consumers.

This week I had the chance to visit one of the Apple store located on Fifth Avenue, 767, New York. Just like Apple Product, the retailing stores are also very unique and distinctive. The appearance of the Apple store is very appealing; no matter which Apple store you’re visiting you will always be able to identify an Apple store. What I noticed on my visit is that Apple has been successful due to the exceptional products, exclusivity services and calibers of the staff, all these factors collectively determine its popularity. All Apple stores in NYC are conveniently located, none being more than 3 blocks from a train stop and also in high traffic areas. Apple Store, Fifth Avenue, is open 24 hours a day, 365 days. Recently when you inter the store, the first thing is the new eye catching iPhone posters, which are displayed on the walls.

The retailing mix consists of six Ps: the four Ps of the marketing mix (product, place, promotion, and price) plus presentation and personnel.The classification of retail operations can be classified into four stages. These stages are ownership, level of services, product assortment, and price. Apples ownership consists of being private as it operates for the purpose of profit. Basically, The Apple Store is a chain of retail stores owned and operated by Apple Inc., dealing in computers and consumer electronics. The level of services for Apple comes into the category of full-services. The stores offer an excellent level of service, including free workshops, one to one membership service, and the genius bar. The Genius Bar is the name for the in-store tech support provided in retail Apple Stores. The next classification is the product Assortment, Apple has expanded its product assortment over the years, however its beginning in 1976, not only limited its product assortment in breadth, but also depth. Even now Apple has introduced several new products but still the diversification is very limited which make Apple unique and successful. The last classification is Price. Apple doesn't try to compete with PCs directly on price for many motives. First of all lower pricing leads to reduced profits and loss of shareholder value and it also weakens the reputation of the Apple brand.

Apple is also involved in non-store retailing. For consumer’s convenience, Apple has setup an electronic retailing which includes online retailing and the 24-hour, shop-at-home through internet.