It is easy to take for granted the impact retailing has on our lifestyle. In fact, retailing, which is responsible for matching the individual demands of the consumer with vast quantities of supplies produced by a huge range of manufacturers and service providers, has made a significant contribution to the economic prosperity that we enjoy so much. The nations that have benefited from the greatest economic and social progress have been those with a strong retail sector. This statement can be illustrated two ways. First, in 2006, the Nobel Peace Prize was given to Bangladesh economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, a micro-retail bank which he founded decades earlier. The Prize Committee recognized the importance of financing the business aspirations of ‘‘millions of small people,’’ with loans as little as $20 to help some of the world’s most impoverished people start businesses so that they could work to bring about their own development by establishing a retailing sector.
Retailing, as we use the term in this text, consists of the final activities and steps needed to place a product made elsewhere into the hands of the consumer or to provide services to the consumer. In fact, retailing is actually the last step in a supply chain that may stretch from Europe or Asia to your hometown. Therefore, any firm that sells a product or provides a service to the final consumer is performing the retailing function. Regardless of whether the firm sells to the consumer in a store, through the mail, over the telephone, through the Internet, door to door, or through a vending machine, the firm is involved in retailing.
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