The Marketing Book 5th Edition

Ability

to reinvest

Investment

in training

Knowledgeable

staff

Improved

profits

Enthusiastic

and able staff

Lower costs

of recruitment

Higher

revenue

Customer

loyalty

Relationship

developments

Lower staff

turnover

Higher sales

per employee

Better service

to customer

Get toknow

customers

Retailing 799

Asda, for example, the average rate of stock-
turn per year improved from 15 to 23 in just
five years. Using just-in-time (JIT) delivery
principles, retailers can minimize the space
devoted to stockholding and reduce the pro-
portion of older stock. To an extent, this may
push stockholding costs back up the supply
chain, but it does provide better product
availability and space utilization for the
retailer.
Such systems require a high proportion of
scanner equipped stores: by the year 2000, 91.4
per cent of grocery volume in the UK was
scanned (Nielsen, 2001). This also offers direct
benefits to customers in terms of faster service
and itemized receipts. Further service enhance-
ment is provided by the integration of elec-
tronic payment systems, accepting credit or
debit payments and, in the latter case, offering
customers the facility to request cash back. The
same systems also capture individual customer
purchase data, via the 50 million loyalty cards
estimated to be in use in the UK.

Internationalization of retailing

In spite of the power and sophistication of

large-scale retailers, the process of interna-

tionalization has been slow and painful. In

addition to the legal, linguistic and logistical

problems, it is difficult to export even the most

successful of retail concepts into other markets.

As noted earlier, competitive structures differ

greatly and there are still major differences in

consumer tastes and preferences (McGoldrick

and Davies, 1995).

Difficult or not, the internationalization of

retailing is gaining pace. A view of inter-

nationalization should also recognize the flow of

know-how and the import/export of retail

concepts. International product sourcing has a

long history in some companies but is becoming

more widespread; for some retailers, it has also

facilitated the development of branches abroad

(Liu and McGoldrick, 1996). International buy-

ing groups and alliances are another major facet

Figure 30.10 Benefits of training
Source: Adapted from Uncles (1995).