Comparison of the importance of location to other elements in the retail marketing mix.

Résumé du document

According to Omar (Retail Marketing, 1999), the elements of Retail Marketing Mix are the Service, the sales Personal, the Price, the Ambiance, the Communication, the Sales Incentive, the Location and the Image. All these elements aim at improving the Brand and its image in the mind of customers. A retailer can therefore use each of these elements to build a strong image and to make his sales increase. But is one of these seven elements more important than the others? Does the retailer have to focus more on one of these elements?

Extraits

[...] But is one of these seven elements more important than the others? That I to say, does the retailer have to focus more on one of these elements? One may say the personal selling and the ambience in the shop are the most important things to improve sales. Some specialists assume that the location is the key factor in the retail marketing mix. To explain this point of view, a comparison between the importance of location to the other elements of the retail marketing mix has to be done. [...]

[...] Location may be the most important element of the retail marketing mix to reach the targeted market, before price, personal selling or anything else. You have to be implemented were your target market is! Then, he has also to take into account some real important factors such as the costs engaged or the legal factors, but also what is very important, the accessibility to the store for the customers and the site “physical characteristics”. If there is no place for a parking, how can he expect to get customers? [...]

[...] Why should location be the most important thing in the retail marketing mix? First of all, the choice of the store location is a big decision to take as it will be then really difficult and expensive to change the location once the store implemented, whereas the sale incentive or the price for example can be changed very quickly and without any cost . In a word, any of the other points of the retail marketing mix can be changed quite easily, but the location is the most difficult and the most expensive to change. [...]

[...] To conclude, location is one of the elements of the retail marketing mix but may be the most important one. “Location, location, location». It is a real investment that can have a huge impact on the retailer's future; therefore it has to be well planned. It is more important than the other elements of the retail marketing mix as it is the most difficult and expensive to change, and as it is physically in relation with the customers and get the customers involved. [...]

[...] Therefore the prices will be high, the ambience in the store will be chic, the service will be well developed as well as the personal selling, and so on but what if the store is located in a middle class suburb? Would the other points of the strategy marketing mix be relevant thus? Obviously, the store would fail in targeting its market. The store location is in this point of view a key factor in the strategy marketing mix of a retailer. But also the location can help to generate profit What about the competitors? Indeed, a retailer must use each ad every elements of the marketing mix to position his firm compared with his competitors. [...]