A Few Significant Tips for the Contemporary Marketing Practice - Essay Example

Running Head: Contemporary Marketing Practice Contemporary Marketing Practice [Institute’s Contemporary Marketing Practice Somesay that recession hits hard everybody, everywhere and in everyway. However, careful analysis and research shows that this is merely a myth. Even on January 12, 2010, the BBC news proved that it is a myth. With their news that some of the United Kingdom’s retailers are enjoying healthy sales and profits, people are now in search for these golden formulas, with which these retailers have been to show profits in spite of this disastrous ongoing recession. Quite understandably, one can rewrite this myth to get it closer to reality as, recession hits everybody hard but the rest are just smart. It is also important to understand the meaning of smartness here. In today’s business world, smartness is all about coping with change, understanding the changing trends, being responsive and sensitive to the customer’s needs and having a constant and careful eye on the market (Miller, pp. 65-74, 2008). These retailers have done the same to show high incomes on their balance sheets. The rest of this article takes a closer and deep look at the possible approaches, strategies, plans, and moves of these profitable retailers. Marketers define “retailing as all the activities involved in selling goods or services directly to the final consumers for personal and non-business use” (Bruce, Moore & Birtwistle, pp. 74-79, 2004). Similarly, by a retailer or retail store marketers mean “any business enterprise whose sales volume comes primarily from retailing” (Phillips & Rasberry, pp. 23-29, 2008). The first difference between the recent profitable and non-profitable retailers lies in their levels of service. Experts divide it into four categories of self-service, Self-selection, limited service and full service. Self-service refers to the approach where customers are allowed to carry out their own “locate-compare-select” process. It is a common sight at most of the discount stores (Phillips & Rasberry, pp. 23-29, 2008). The second type is of self-selection where customers have to find the goods that they desire but there are people to assist them to quite some extent. Limited-service retailers are those which carry more goods that generate a complex and dissonance filled buying behavior therefore customers require information and assistance (Zentes, Morschett & Schramm-Klein, pp. 102-127, 2007). These retailers not only offer the required information and assistance but also offer services like credit and merchandise return services. Lastly, there are retailers, which hire full time sales people who have the job to assist, inform, update, and notify the customers at every stage of their buying process. Despite of the fact that full service retailers are the most sensitive to the customer needs and the ones who seem to be making more effort for attracting and retaining customers but these businesses are at a higher risk during recession periods (Negen & Negen, pp. 41-58, 2006). This is because of the fact that these businesses generate more expenses of staffing, specialty goods, and slow moving items (Bruce, Moore & Birtwistle, pp. 74-79, 2004). However, self-service retailers save money in these fields. This explains why Whole Foods Market has been showing decrease in their profits over the past few years. Their net income has showed a decrease of around 10-20 percent during the 2007-2009 periods. With more than 279 stores in United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and other countries, it remains the largest organic food retailer in United Kingdom (Miller, pp. 65-74, 2008). More importantly, Whole Foods Market believes on the philosophy of offering all the possible information to their customers. You enter in any store of Whole Foods Market and express your desire of knowing about the treatment and environment that the chicken had witnessed since its birth to this point in time, the well-dressed and well-equipped employee would hand you over a 16-pager handbook answering all your questions. Even if you would find that information as insufficient then the employee would give you an invitation to visit their farm in Pennsylvania to get the first hand information (Phillips & Rasberry, pp. 23-29, 2008). Whole Foods Market was able to generate enough sales before the recessionary period with the same approaches. Customers who view organic food an as affordable luxury were more than happy to visit their stores. In fact, it was able to beat Wal-Mart in terms of sales growth. However, things just did not work out the same for Whole Foods Market in the same during the recession period because a considerable portion of their customers switched from organic foods to more affordable types of items (Zentes, Morschett & Schramm-Klein, pp. 102-127, 2007). Despite the fact that more than 90 percent of the goods and services are sold using traditional ways of store retailing, non-store retailing has increased in some drastic passion over the past few years (Miller, pp. 65-74, 2008). Experts divide non-store retailing in four major categories of direct marketing, direct selling, automatic vending, and buying services. With the advent of information technology, increased use of computers and internet services and the revolution brought by the same, made it evident over all the businesses that sooner or latter it will dominate all lifestyles and the same is happening. Businesses that have accepted and used this truth have seemed to be prospering. This explains why direct marketing, with direct mail, catalog marketing, and all other dot.com retailers, are the order of the day. There are so many examples like Lands’ end, L.L. Bean, 1-800-FLOWERS, Home Shopping Network, QVC, Amazon.com, and Autobyel.com (Miller, pp. 65-74, 2008). All these companies understand and acknowledge the fact that customers today are busier than ever. They would go for every possible thing that would make their life easier and comfortable and direct marketing is the solution for these busy people. Moreover, these people save the costs of transportation and time by sitting by direct marketing. Successful retailers like Avon, Electrolux, Southwestern Company of Nashville, May Kay Cosmetics, Tupperware, and others have long been using direct selling as their formula of success (Huizinga, pp. 3-16, 2001). Even today in this recession, their formula of network marketing is bringing them considerable returns on their investments. The Japanese idea of automatic vending machines is getting a lot of attention from the marketing experts from all over the world (Bruce, Moore & Birtwistle, pp. 74-79, 2004). These machines do involve a high initial cost of set up or the fixed costs but they seem to generate higher sales, which help to spread these fixed costs over a high volume of sales and low operating expenses. Since these machines offer fresh merchandise, self-service and reliable service therefore they have become the order of the day. Many marketers are now recommending using this technology in high traffic areas of United Kingdom to boost their sales. The rest depends upon the other variables like relationship marketing, logistics, facilities and others. Many experts like Paco Underhill have recently come up with tips and tricks to improve the shopper’s experience. No successful retailer store disagrees to the fact that that the amount a customer spends in the store is directly proportional to the volume of sales. Therefore, many stores are coming up with innovative ways to make sure that shoppers stay for longer periods. Improving shopper’s experience also includes efforts to reduce the hunting done by the customers. Customer convenience is important since busy shoppers would not bother to notify to shift to other stores due to the same reasons. For example, at staples, ink cartridges are the products placed at the entrance. In fact, the whole step up should be in such a way that busy customers find their products urgently and leisurely shoppers find more reasons to spend more time and continuous browsing. Marketers now emphasize that customer’s hands are the most important in determining the buyer’s behavior (Gilbert, pp. 19-28, 2003). Therefore, the successful stores make sure that whatever products they are offering should be available for the customer to reach, pick, and touch. For example, people would love to buy candies and chocolates if a little sample is available to taste (Huizinga, pp. 3-16, 2001). These stores are also making a lot of research in understanding customer psychology. Quite understandably, men and women shopper differ in all aspects of buying behavior. These stores must understand that men shoppers are the least likely to ask for help. They also not prefer to disturb the salespeople and store representatives for asking the location and qualities of any product. Moreover, men shoppers are always in hurry and a male shopper browsing around the store for more than 20 minutes is a rare sight. Therefore, quite understandably, if male shopper is unable to find the desired product within 10-15 minutes for his entrance or within 2-3 rounds of his shopping then it is highly likely that the male shopper would leave the store right away. This explains why there is a need and why stores have female representatives and employees in their stores and why these females’ representatives are quick at spotting you if you seem for searching anything (Phillips & Rasberry, pp. 23-29, 2008). Smart stores understand these shoppers and make sure that they keep an eye on these male shoppers. However, on the other hand, the female shoppers seem to have come from a different planet altogether. Most of the female shoppers love to browse for hours looking for their products. Moreover, their buying behavior is complex and they usually consider many variables before taking a final decision. In addition, a women shopper is less likely to reject an item for a little scratch from the previous shopper on a product than a male shopper is. It is women psychology that they need all things bright and beautiful therefore it is important to have wide and clear aisles for them (Negen & Negen, pp. 41-58, 2006). In addition, there are many other small things as well which retailers have been trying to increase their sales lately. From placing multi language ads in local news paper to disturbing small items having the shops logo and from little in houses to from maintaining consistency in all the P’s of the store’s strategy, these all are common approaches of these retailers (Negen & Negen, pp. 41-58, 2006). Reflective Journal Since few decades, there have been rapid advancements in the field of information and technology that has enabled students, scholars, and researchers to carry out the research process in an efficient and easy manner. A number of companies are now offering e-books at various websites; however, at the same time, one of the major drawbacks of internet is the notion of validity that mostly becomes an issue. From this aspect, the researcher focuses primarily on the physical libraries to carry out the secondary research methodology, in order to acquire quality content from the books that are the most efficient and valid sources of the information. However, before selecting the books, the researcher carries out comprehensive information on the internet while searching through the search engine of www.google.com; however, as earlier mentioned, it was very difficult to find out the valid options, which inclined the researcher to benefit significantly from the library. Even in the library, the researcher found out various books on marketing and practical marketing practices that have been fundamental component of every business organization. During the analysis, it was an observation that a number of books were available but was either written more than ten years ago that became a major problem for the researcher to find out quality books, and at the same time, recent ones. At last, the researcher came up with seven books listed in the reference list. These books were very informative and enabled in comprehensive and critical understanding of different aspects of marketing that play a vital role in the success or failure of business organizations globally. In this regard, although carrying out research in the library was quite a boredom and difficult process, however, it provided an opportunity to step into the scholarly environment and acquire the feeling of being a research that often lacks during the research on the internet through e-books and websites. Moreover, learning environment of the library facilitated in studying different books and recognizing imperative points in easy manner that often becomes an issue on the internet bringing a number of discouraging factors with it. In brief, research process for writing the paper on contemporary marketing practices was learning and informative experience that will help in carrying out future researches in effective and easier manner. References Bruce, Margaret, Moore, Christopher, & Birtwistle, Grete. (2004). International retail marketing: a case study approach. Butterworth-Heinemann. Gilbert, David. (2003). Retail Marketing Management. Pearson Education India. Huizinga, Henk. (2001). Retail marketing. Kluwer. Miller, Dale. (2008). Retail Marketing: A Branding and Innovation Approach. Tilde Publishing. Negen, Bob, & Negen, Susan. (2006). Marketing your retail store in the internet age. John Wiley and Sons. Phillips, Michael, & Rasberry, Salli. (2008). Marketing Without Advertising: Easy Ways to Build a Business Your Customers Will Love and Recommend. Nolo. Zentes, Joachim, Morschett, Dirk, & Schramm-Klein, Hanna. (2007). Strategic Retail Management: Text and International Cases. Gabler Verlag. Read More