Principles of Retailing

Retailing is a major business format in which you sell goods and services directly to end consumers. While the types of retail providers are virtually limitless, several common principles of retailing contribute to successful development of a profitable retail business. The approach a retailer takes in applying these core principles impacts the nature of the operation.

Duties and Responsibilities:

According to this principle, the duties and responsibilities of each and every employee, working at various levels in the retail store should be clearly defined. The line of authority must be clear from the highest to the lowest positions. All employees must be well informed of their respective position, responsibilities in the retail organization and the persons to whom they are answerable and who reports to them.

Clear definition of objectives and policies:

According to this principle of retail organization, each employee must understand the objectives and policies of the store. If the objectives are not clearly defined, the employees in the retail organization shall not be in a position to understand what is expected from them and in what type of activities the organization engage itself.

Unity of Command:

According to this principle, one employee working at junior level should be responsible to one direct supervisor. The purpose is to avoid any conflict regarding responsibilities of employees receiving orders from more than one supervisor.

Supervision and Control:

According to this principle, even after delegating the authority, the supervisor still will be responsible for a manager’s or employees’ mistakes. He cannot get rid of the mistake done by his juniors or those who are to achieve the goal.

Monitoring of Human Resource:

According to this principle, issues related to employees like attendance, employee turnover, punctuality and absenteeism should be regularly monitored otherwise they can create problems for the whole organization.

Rule of Simplicity:

According to this principle, simplicity in all sorts of operations is must for running a retail organization properly. There should be a limit to the number of employees a manager could directly supervise.

Responsibility and Authority:

According to this principle, assigning duties without any authority will not work in a retail organization. Therefore, responsibilities should be associated with proper authority. An employee who is responsible to achieve some retail organization’s objectives needs the power to achieve it.

Interest in employees:

According to this principle, the retail organization should show continuous interest in its employees, job promotion, employees’ participation in management, internal promotion, efforts/job recommendation, job enrichment, induction and so on; improve employee’s morale and efficiency.

Division of Labour:

According to this principle, in order to achieve organizational objectives, the work should be divided among subordinates properly. It means dividing the retail organization’s work in various departments into various components and then assigning the same to each employee of the organization. It enables the management to fix up the responsibilities on each employee concerned.