Fundamentals of Retailing

Assignment - A

1. _{What is retailing? Describe the evolution, growth, and future of retailing in India.}
Answer:
    

2. Write a short note on the retailing format and their various different types of formats with an example of it.
Answer:

    
3."Location of a retail store is a critical point to consider for the success of retailing." Elaborate this statement with supportive examples.    
Answer:

4. What are the store design and store layout? Explain the concepts of visual merchandising.    
Answer:

5. What is merchandising management? Describe the various factors affecting the merchandising management.    
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6. What is vendor management? How do we select a vendor for our retailing business?
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7. What is the pricing? Explain the factors affecting the retailing for the product.    
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8. Describe the concepts of retail communication. Explain the elements of retail communications and the retail advertisement. Solve by www.solvezone.in
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Assignment - B

Case Detail:

HOMESHOP18
The Company
HomeShop18 is online and on-air retail marketing and distribution venture, India’s first 24-hour home shopping TV channel. HomeShop18 operates in a multimedia environment including, television, web, catalog, and print, to reach high-quality products and services directly to customers across the country. The company uses a 24-hour sales and customer service center allowing customers to call in and book orders as per their convenience with free home delivery across India. Today, HomeShop18 has close to 833 executives with an efficient IT infrastructure that manages nearly 62,000 inbound calls, 5,000 outbound calls & 300 short messenger service (SMS) interactions.
Motivation for Change
The company was using a third-party outsourced sales and customer service center to manage incoming calls from prospective and existing customers for sales booking and service queries. There were also a growing number of outbound calls both to restart conversations with those customers who were disconnected while exploring the voice portal menu or for new sales orders and promotional campaigns. New channels were set up, driven by market and customer needs, such as SMS-based channels for customer interaction. On average, the center managed a significant number of outbound calls and inbound calls per day along with a plethora of SMS interactions. Managing these disparate processes efficiently was turning into a major task for the organization.
In addition, the business was growing, both in terms of the scale of operations, as well as the volume of business driven by the increasing popularity of the HomeShop18 brand. Moreover, while the company was also looking to minimize lost sales (through abandoned calls) by keeping track of incoming calls, database and information management, as well as analysis of that information were becoming complex and burdensome. Existing infrastructure was already up to capacity and could not cope with this demand. The company needed a larger contact center set up, one that would deliver the efficiencies and the scalability it needed.
Why Aspect
The company chose to set up an in-house contact center instead of continuing to use its outsourced contact centre. The new contact centre at Noida in the National Capital Region of India has the capability to scale more than 200 percent of the original capacity to accommodate the growing call traffic.
After a review of a number of vendors, HomeShop18 chose to implement Blended Interaction, a unified communication application for the contact centre from Aspect. The company found Aspect rated better than other solutions on the following major features: unified solution, quality management and voice logging capabilities.
Specifically, the reason for choosing Blended Interaction was to eliminate the need to integrate multiple point products for managing different contact channels. Blended Interaction unites inbound, outbound and blended multi-channel contact with workforce management in a single, scalable technology platform. In addition, the application also delivers the voice portal, recording and quality management functionality that HomeShop18 required to improve agent performance and deliver enhanced customer experience through speech-enabled self-service.
HomeShop18 also selected Blended Interaction™ because of its open platform, enabling them to seamlessly integrate their existing technology investments and back-end customer relationship management (CRM) systems with the new solution. Additionally, the company saw the value and expertise that Aspect® Professional Services could bring to bear during the implementation process. HomeShop18 worked with Aspect partner, Wipro Technologies for the implementation of the solution. The implementation was completed in eight weeks with complete involvement of Aspect specialists who made the deployment and integration very smooth.
Results
HomeShop18 also selected Blended Interaction™ because of its open platform, enabling them to seamlessly integrate their existing technology investments and back-end customer relationship Following the implementation, HomeShop18 immediately improved productivity using the Blended Interaction application. The voice portal capability of the application enabled HomeShop18 to offer product selling, promotional offers, billing related issues, and refunds via an automated menu. Customers could book their orders through the portal and also through the contact centre. As most of these types of transactions are now automated, agents have time to address more complex customer issues.
The universal queue feature within the application organizes incoming contacts across all communication channels in a single queue and routes them to the most appropriate agent, taking wait times, incoming traffic volumes and service levels into consideration. This enables HomeShop18 to make changes to the provisioning rules without stopping and starting systems, campaigns or services. Through direct routing of data to the sales agent, SMS call response time has reduced from 12 hours to only in some minutes. The call routing features and automated voice portal menus also helped increase the company’s call handling rate from 9 to 10 calls per hour to 13 to 14 calls per hour.
In addition to voice channels, HomeShop18’s contact center sales agents can continue to take calls or interact with customers via text chat/messaging. Plus, the automatic outbound dialing capability of Blended Interaction enables HomeShop18 to use multiple dialing options, such as predictive, preview, timed preview and manual to deliver a message involving order status when a customer answers his or her phone, to respond automatically to a number of follow-up questions and to route the answering customer to a live agent, if necessary. The solution also has the fully integrated email management capabilities for sending, receiving, routing and auto-responding to emails. And, by using multi-channel recording and quality monitoring, HomeShop18 is able to review interactions between its sales agents and customers and provide offline or real-time coaching to the sales agents. This ensures that customers are receiving a quality experience, which is very important to HomeShop18.
Overall, Blended Interaction has helped improve operational efficiency, for the company, helping HomeShop18 leverage a universal agent pool for inbound and outbound contacts, increasing agent productivity from 60-66 percent to 85 percent. The company is also seeing a higher sales conversion rate, of 35 to 40 percent against 20 percent in the earlier outsourcing model.
The company’s success stems from its highly efficient operations and the value that it places on its in-house contact centers and the employees who help the company manage call traffic and ensure a positive customer experience.

1. What was the motivation behind HomeShop18 to change its customer service center?
Answer:

2. What was the change in results after the implementation of Blended Interaction on its business? Discuss in detail.
Answer:

3. Explain the benefits of implementing the Blended Interaction provided by Aspect to the Homeshop 18.    
Answer:

Assignment - C

1. Which of the following statement about Radio Frequency Identification is not true?    
 
Options    
RFID tags transmit data about a product when scanned.    
"Passive" RFID tags do not require a battery to transmit data.    
RFID tags can be scanned by just being near the scanning device.    
RFID codes are not subject to viruses.

2. An RFID tag that generates and transmits an outgoing signal to an RFID tag reader is known as:    
 
Options    
A semi-active RFID tag.    
An active RFID tag.    
A semi-passive RFID tag.    
A passive RFID tag.

3. Which RFID component is attached to the item to be identified?    
 
Options    
Bar Code    
Antenna    
Reader    
Tag

4. Which document contains the RFID tag data (ePC) and is sent from the vendor to the buyer notifying them that the product has been shipped?    
 
Options    
Product    
Pallet    
PO    
ASN
 

5. A terminal that is often connected to complex inventory and sales computer systems, is known as the -    
 
Options    
Data    
Sales    
Point-of-sale (POS)    
Query

6. A system that is a small, wireless handheld computer that scans an items tag and pulls up the current price (and any special offers) as you shop, is the -    
 
Options    
PSS    
POS    
Inventory    
Data Mining

7. The Committee of Secretaries has recommended that 51 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) be allowed in the multi-brand retail sector provided the investment is not less that than -    
 
Options    
$ 100 Million    
$ 200 Million    
$ 250 Million    
$ 500 Million

8. All of the following are examples of non-store retailing except:    
 
Options    
Selling by mail.    
Selling jewelry in a clothing store    
Door-to-door contact    
Selling goods on the Internet 

9. Retailers can be classified in terms of several characteristics.  Each of the following is found within this retail classification scheme except:    
 
Options    
The profit potential    
Amount of service offered    
The breadth and depth of product lines carried    
The relative prices charged

10. The typical method of retail operation used by supermarkets and nationally branded fast-moving shopping goods is called:    
 
Options    
Self-service Retailing    
Limited-service Retailing    
Full-service Retailing    
Service-Merchandiser

11. Describing retailers by the length and breadth of their product assortment is classification by:    
 
Options    
Amount of Service    
Product Line    
Relative Prices    
Control of Outlets

12. A retail store that carries a narrow product line with a deep assortment within that line, is known as a -    
 
Options    
Shopping Goods Store    
Convenience Store    
Specialty Store    
Department Store

13. The increasing use of market segmentation, market targeting, and product specialization has resulted in a greater need for:    
 
Options    
Specialty Stores    
Convenience Stores    
Shopping Goods Stores    
Department Stores

14. The type of retailer that carries a wide variety of product lines, each managed by specialist buyers or merchandisers, is called a:    
 
Options    
Specialty Stores    
Convenience Stores    
Shopping Goods Stores    
Department Stores

15. If a store sells standard merchandise at lower prices by accepting lower margins and selling at higher volume, the store is classified as being a:    
 
Options    
Specialty Store    
Off-price Retailer    
Discount Store    
Factory Outlet

16. If a retailer buys at less-than-regular wholesale prices and sells at less-than-retail, then the retailer is called a:    
 
Options    
Specialty Store    
Off-price Retailer    
Discount Store    
Sponsor Outlet

17. Dayton-Hudson operates Target (discount stores), Mervyn’s (lower-priced clothing), B. Dalton (bookstores) in addition to its Dayton’s and Hudson’s department stores. As a retail form this ownership arrangement is called a:    
 
Options    
Corporate Chain    
Merchandising Conglomerate    
Franchise    
Retailer Cooperative

18. Retailers have many marketing decisions that compete for their attention. Among the first decisions that any retailer must make is to:    
 
Options    
decide on their price policy    
decide on their name and logo.    
define their target market and how they will position themselves in these markets.    
decide whether to go international or not.    

19. Every store has a physical layout that makes moving around in it either hard or easy. This “feel” is called:    
 
Options    
Store Psychology    
Buyer Enhancements    
Store Atmosphere    
Store Personality

20. The choice between high markups and high volume is part of which of the following retailer marketing decisions?    
 
Options    
Target Market Decisions    
Product Assortment and Services Decisions    
Pricing Decisions    
Promotion Decisions

21. The concept that many retailing forms begin as low-margin, low-price operations that gradually upgrade their offerings until new forms evolve with lower costs and prices is called the:    
 
Options    
Product-life Cycle    
Business-form Cycle    
Wheel of Retailing    
Margin Cycle

22. Which of the following statements is most true about the growth of non-store retailing?    
 
Options    
Non-store retailing has primarily grown in the southern United States.    
More non-store retailing is conducted by “click-and-brick” retailers than by click-only” retailers.    
The primary growth of non-store retailing has been in Europe.    
Non-store retailing has surpassed store retailing as the number one way people shop.

23. When wholesalers buy in carload lots and divide these shipments into smaller quantities for resale, this function is called:    
 
Options    
Assortment Building    
Risk Bearing    
Bulk Breaking    
Bulk Accumulation

24. Which of the following is a recommended strategy for retailers when consumers select the outlet first and the brand second?    
 
Options    
Appropriate Pricing    
Brand Availability Advertising    
Brand Image Management    
Price Special on Brands

25. Which of the following is a recommended strategy for manufacturers when consumers select the outlet first and the brand second?    
 
Options    
Retailer Image Advertising    
More Exclusive Distribution    
Point-of-Purchase Displays    
Price Special on Brands

26. Any source of products or services for consumers is referred to as a -    
 
Options    
Retail Outlet    
Contact Point    
Transaction Point    
Distribution Outlet

27. Consumers acquiring product through mail, telephone, or computer orders is referred to as -    
 
Options    
Outsourcing    
Outlet Shopping    
Non-traditional Shopping    
In-home Shopping

28. Which of the following statements is FALSE regarding Internet retailing?    
 
Options    
Internet retailing is a booming and increasingly competitive business.    
Apparel is one of the largest sales categories on the Internet and one of the fastest growin    
Research has shown that consumers shop online for reasons different to those for shopping from catalogs.    
Catalogs and the Internet appear to work in a complementary fashion.

29. Which of the following is the major reason consumers give for shopping online?    
 
Options    
Unique Merchandise    
Price    
Impulse    
Convenience

30. The major reason people give for not shopping on the Internet is -    
 
Options    
Lack of “Touch”    
Security Concerns    
Too Difficult    
Unfamiliar Merchants

31. Which of the following barriers to online purchasing is related to consumer fears regarding how personal information about them that is gathered online might be used?    
 
Options    
Lack of “Touch”    
Online Privacy Concerns    
Economic Costs    
Opportunity Costs

32. How can firms enhance consumers' control with regard to online privacy concerns?    
 
Options    
Don't ask for information    
Use bots    
Use Bogs    
Use the “opt-in” approach

33. Which online shopper segment is the most computer literate, does not view online shopping as novel, and isn't usually champions of the practice?    
 
Options    
Suspicious Learners    
Business Users    
Fearful Browsers    
Technology Muddlers

34. Which segment of online shoppers has an appealing income, but they don't purchase from the Internet because they don't like to wait for products to be shipped to them, and they like seeing merchandise in person before buying?    
 
Options    
Business Users    
Fearful Browsers    
Technology Muddlers    
Shopping Avoiders

35. What was the main reason consumers gave in a survey for why they don't like shopping in stores?    
 
Options    
Don't Like Shopping    
Dealing With Crowds    
Salespeople are Poorly Informed    
Parking and Traffic

36. Consumers who browse and/or purchase in more than one channel are known as -    
 
Options    
Cosmopolitan    
Multi-channel Shoppers    
Multi-Taskers    
Market Mavens

37. Which of the following affects consumers' retail outlet selection?    
 
Options    
Outlet Image and Retailer's Brands    
Retail Advertising    
Outlet Location and Size    
All of the above

38. Which of the following is NOT a factor affecting consumers' retail outlet selection?    
 
Options    
Outlet Image and Retailer's Brands    
Retail Advertising    
Outlet Location and Size    
Number of Levels of Distribution

39. A given consumer's or target market's perception of all the attributes associated with a retail outlet is generally referred to as the -    
 
Options    
Store Atmosphere    
Servicescape    
Store Image    
Store Ambiance

40. The “Merchandise” dimension of store image includes -    
 
Options    
Quality and Style    
Selection    
Price    
All of the above