In the late sixties, the commercial and financial situation of USEGO, largest consumer cooperative of Switzerland, had become extremely critical. The Marketing Department of Allgemeine Treuhand AG, Zurich, was charged to elaborate a new marketing strategy to be carried out by the new management of USEGO. The presentation of the USEGO-case, unusual and dramatic in itself, at the ESOMAR-seminar will stress the importance of marketing informations on which decisions in an extremely difficult situation were based, the conclusions reached and the results achieved.
The paper sets out to examine the function of advertising for a retail organisation; the need to select the correct target audience at whom to direct it; the criteria for media selection; the creative approach and the subsequent measurement of results. It attempts to discuss some of the information sources available and information therein provided and how it can be used to satisfy these needs and criteria. It examines some examples of pre and post advertising research.
This paper deals with information systems in a department store environment (as a large retailer). Management information is mainly concerned with short-range problems, since retailers in general and department store retailers in particular manage in a fast changing environment. The typical systems structure of a retail organization is shown and then some of the more important, computerized internal information systems are discussed:- investment budgeting as an important tool for decision making in a fast growing industry; -money budgeting and control systems as the predominant basis of running the daily business; -merchandise unit control systems, the upcoming instrument for better merchandising decisions. Special emphasis is given to some technological questions like data capture and the advance of distributed computing intelligence.
In this highly competitive situation the "IHA Retail Trade Index" provides every retailer with information about: - the size of the various markets; - their and their competitors' share of the market; - the importance of various product groups within the product field investigated; - the purchasing behaviour of their customers (number of buying acts, quantity bought and amount spent per buying act). The purpose of this report however cannot be to describe these and other special analyses in detail but to have provided you with a short survey of the Swiss retail trade situation as observed by a neutral market research institute.
A general strategy for application development is first defined to balance short-term benefits with longer-range development of systems to aid decision making. Then, to simplify description, a grid of applications of increasing sophistication is defined to assist in the control of the three key retail resources: money, merchandise and people. Basic applications are defined as those linked to a store system including electronic point-of-sale devices, so the IBM 3650 Retail Store System is very briefly described, followed by its applications. This foundation is then built upon for each of the three resources above. Money control is developed to sales budget planning and full credit management. Unit reporting is developed through computer-assisted merchandise administration to automated merchandise management. Work load recording is developed through labour scheduling to a personnel information system. Finally a possible corporate model is outlined based on combining the three developed applications. The model is simple in objective: to project stock, buying and personnel expense budgets from detailed sales budgets which are themselves derived with computer assistance. By-products of the process are detailed parameters for subsequent operation of the agreed plan.
The high price of real estate today and the profit potential that lies in developing well-conceived retail developments, has encouraged many far-sighted and dynamic retailers to enter the field of real estate development. From the major tenant's point of view, such an undertaking can be financially interesting, since generally the relationship between the return and investment is the most advantageous at the time the major tenant lease is signed. Much of the preliminary development work is within the competence of an experienced retail organisation and the trend towards retailer-developers is likely to become more marked in future years.
Marketing Research has proven great value for Migros in the day-to-day business. Migros could base several important product decisions on research studies. In retrospective we can say that these decisions, based on marketing research, have shown success.he increasing complexity of both retail business and its social environment will demand in future more sophistication, which can only be achieved with the help of marketing research. Retailers and Researchers have to seek a better communication in order to develop a market monitoring system which enables the management of retail organisation to make the right decisions.
These trends have led retailers to assume more of the marketing functions previously undertaken by manufacturers. Retailers are encouraging store rather than brand loyalty through promotional and media expenditure, through own label brands and through shopper incentives such as trading stamps. Above all retailers are beginning to market themselves to promote a corporate identity to distinguish themselves from the competition, so as to persuade shoppers to use their stores rather than any other. Management decisions historically based on the business flair, expertise and judgment which have been so prevalent in European retailing are gradually being supplemented by a recognised marketing function in many firms. This function can be defined as 'reconciling what shoppers want with what the retailer can sell at a profitâ.
The System discussed in this paper was designed to provide the Management of NICOL, a French Chain-Stores Retailer, with a new aid in the analysis, evaluation and planning of marketing activities. The specific object of the project was the design of a complete simulation of the Retailer Store Wine Market that would enable Management to investigate, in a synthetic environment, the implications of alternative strategies and policies without making the commitment of resources required for comparable investigation in the real world.
There is no doubt that the main information required for the management of a retail business is fast and accurate internal statistics on sales, costs and profits. I have tried to demonstrate why this should be supplemented by information which can only be obtained from market research, basically: Who buys what? From whom? and why? And why not?. I have mentioned various resistances to retailer research. Market research is diagnostic and can help retailers to go a stage further towards understanding customers' needs and satisfying them at a profit.