HOW RETAILING HAS CHANGED? WHAT MARKETING DID FOR THIS CHANGE?

Retailing is carried on by those business which sell goods to the final consumer. The obvious example is provided by the shops we all know and deal with. The retailing stage, therefore, is the one where goods reach the end of their journey from the manufacturer. This does not that in those instances there is not retailing. The manufacturer or wholesaler who sells direct to the consumer is acting as a retailer; he adds retailing to his other activities. What ever channel of distribution is used, the retailing function always exists. In the past almost all retailers confined their activities to retailing; they did not combine it with other activities. These we can call “traditional” retailers. The functions of the traditional retailer where/and are: they break bulk into saleable portions; they put the goods in a saleable condition; they make goods immediately available to consumers; they measure consumer preferences. But the times have changed! In the “new” retailing the retailer provides a long range of services to whom he sells and to those from whom he buys. We’ll have in mind in this paper the refrigeration engineering and the “artificial cold”, the creative services at the point of sale (POS), the POS marketing, the marketing activities a the point of promotion (POP), the international diversity. In recent years most retail businesses tend to grow, and the statistics proves this, as it is shown in the paper.