Definition of Retailing

Definition of Retailing

The word retail has its origin from the French word ‘retaillier’ which means ‘to break bulk’ or ‘to cut a piece off’. A retailer is a dealer or a trader who organize the availability of goods on a large scale and sells the same in small quantities to the ultimate consumer. Retailing is not only concerned with the tangible physical goods, it also includes intangible services. The services may be pure services or those accompanied with products. Retailing involves the sale of merchandise from a fixed location, such as a store for direct consumption by the customer. Thanks to the development of information technology, with the advent of e-tailing retailing is not confined to the availability of a fixed location.

Retailing encompasses of all activities involved in marketing of goods and services directly to the final consumer for their personal, family or household use. It should be noted that the sales should be to the ‘final consumer’ and not for resale purpose. Buyers’ reason for buying distinguishes the retail sales from other types of sales. If a buyer buys a product for the purpose of resale at a profit it is a business sale and not a retail sale. Thus it should be understood that retail is the last stage in the process of process of moving the goods or services to the consumers. The process involves activities and steps needed to place the products made elsewhere in the hands of the customers. In the process retailers create value to the customers in terms of providing accessibility of location, convenience of timing, size, information and lifestyle support. Retailing can be defined as the set of business activities that adds value to products and services sold to the consumers for their personal or family use. The concept of retailing has moved from a distribution-oriented perspective where the emphasis is on the physical aspects of merchandise availability and supply chain to consumer-value oriented perspective.