6.7 Retailing and Wholesaling

	Wholesalers and retailers perform a vital role of delivering products and services to the customers.
	In fact, some companies rely heavily on these intermediaries to sell their products and services.
	Retailing

		A company that produces goods and services might be selling its products directly or indirectly as we learned in this chapter.
		For the company that has marketing channel members particularly retailing enjoys the benefits of gathering vital information or customer`s feedback through the retailers.
		Retailing is the act of buying products or services from manufactures and selling them directly to the final users.
		One major advantage of retailing is that it gets first hand feedback for the main target of the products or services.
		Nowadays, with the coming of internet the retailing function is moving gradually from retail stores to non-store retailing.
		That is selling to the users directly through telephones, catalogues, mails, fax etc.

6.7 Retailing and Wholesaling

Types of Retailers

		Retailers can be classified according various forms of characteristics such as size, type of business, location etc.
		Kotler and Armstrong (2004) describe the most important types of retailers as specialty stores, department stores, supermarkets, convenience stores, discount stores, off price retailers and superstores.
		Another classifications form of ownership, shopping effort by customer, services provided to customers, product lines, location of retail transactions.

Functions of Retailers

		Risk taking: Retailers keep goods before actual buyers. There are therefore various forms of risk such as destructions through fire, theft falls in quality.
		Assembling goods: Retailers assemble goods at shops, and work sites.
		Providing credit to the users: One role of retailers is that they extend credit facilities to the final users. Without their service, some final users will find it difficult to manage their unstable income.

6.7 Retailing and Wholesaling

Wholesalers

		Wholesalers are vital links in the physical distribution system (Khatibi, Mohan and Haque, 2004).
		Wholesaler is the trader who purchases goods in large quantity from manufacturer and re-sells them to the retailers or final users.
		Wholesalers are one of the important intermediaries in the channel of distribution that deal with good in large quantity.

Types of wholesalers

		Merchant wholesaler: This is independently owned business that takes title to the merchandise it sells. These can be divided into two vis-a-vi full service wholesalers and limited service wholesaler.
		Broker: Is the wholesaler that does not take title to goods and whose function is to bring buyers and sellers together to assist in negotiation. A broker coordinates between buyers and sellers and assists in negotiation.
		Agents: Agent is a wholesaler who stands as a representative of buyers or sellers on a relatively permanent contract with few functions to perform.

6.7 Retailing and Wholesaling

Functions of Wholesaler

Wholesalers add value to the product or service. Wholesalers generally perform the following functions.

			Collection of goods: Companies uses wholesalers to deliver goods and services to the customers. They collect the goods in large quantity, unlike retailers or final users.
			Storage of goods: A wholesaler stores goods till the time of delivery to avoid lost or wastage.
			Distribution: A wholesaler distributes goods to different retailers.
			Risk taking: This is an important function that a wholesaler performs. Keeping inventories at his risk is very important without which distribution may be delayed and cost rose.