What are the types of Retailers?

TYPES OF RETAILERS
The retailers can be classified into Small scale retailers and large scale retailers:

1. Small Scale Retailers: It includes
(a) Unit stores: These are the retail stores run on proprietory basis dealing in general stores or single-line stores.

(b) Street traders: They are the retailers who display their stock on footpaths or the sidewalks of the busy street.

(c) Market traders: These retailers open their shops on fixed days or dates in specified areas. The time interval maybe a week or a month.

(d) Hawkers and pedlars: This type of retailers do not have any fixed place of business. They carry goods from one place to another. They keep on moving from locality to locality.

(e) Cheap-jacks: Cheap jacks is a retailer who has fixed the place of business in a locality but goes on changing his place to exploit the market opportunities.

2. Large scale retailers: It includes

(a) Departmental stores: A departmental stores carry several product lines, invariably all that is required by a typical household. It includes food, clothing, appliances, other household goods, furnishings, and gifts, etc. It is a central location and unified control. In a typical department store, each product line is managed independently by specialist buyers.

(b) Multiple shops: It is a chain of a retail store dealing in an identical and generally restricted range of articles operating in different localities under central ownership and control. It works on the principles of centralized buying and administration and decentralized selling. It is also known as a chain store.

(c) Mail order houses: Here, the customers do not visit the seller’s premises and there is no personal inspection of goods before the purchase. Orders are received from customers through the post and the
goods are also sold through the post. The transaction is settled through a postal medium. Eg. Leather goods, ready-made garments, etc.

(d) Consumer co-operatives: These are the stores owned by a group of consumers themselves on cooperative principles. Here the store purchasing in bulk quantity and sells it to the consumers at a reasonable price. It is formed to eliminate the exploitation of middlemen.

(e) Supermarkets: This is a large, low cost, low margin, high volume, a self-service operation designed to serve customer’s need for food laundry and household products. The wide range of product mix carried by these stores makes them a favorite retail outlet.

(f) Discount stores: Discount stores are the ones that sell standard merchandise at a lower price than conventional merchants by accepting lower margins but pushing for higher sales volume.

(g) Convenience store: These are generally food stores that are much smaller in size than in supermarkets. They are conveniently located in residential areas. Due to a high degree of personalized service and home delivery by a store clerk, these stores fill in a very important need of a housewife.

(h) Speciality store: These are ones that carry a narrow product line with a deep assortment within that line. According to some marketing thinkers, the future scenario belongs to the super specialty store as they provide increased opportunities for market segmentation, focused marketing, and creation of brand equity.