Unit-4

Responsibility of a store manager:

Managing a store is a highly challenging assignment. Most Stores, Supermarkets, and even all
retail shops are opened for long hours in the day, sometimes on weekends, to respond to the Cods
of family shoppers and working people. Peak shopping hours occur during lunchtime in the
evenings and nights after office hours, or during discount sales. Managers have to deploy
manpower in a creative manner to fulfil customers' requirements during odd hours, probably by
using standby or additional part time employees along with the shift manpower This is done in the
full knowledge that a part time employee may not be as dedicated as the shift or regular employee.

Part time employees can also quit whenever they desires. There is always a risk in such workforce
deployment. Stores Managers have also to control expenses. Many of them would be very
apprehensive about paying high wages. Part time employees would probably be paid very
conservatively, and on an hourly basis, even though many of them would be in dealing with
customers.

The lack of experience and motivation among retail employees is a matter of great concern to
managers, since many of them would be in contact with customers. Without customer satisfaction,
it will be difficult for a store to do sustained business, capture a definitive market, increase sales
and profits and enhance market share.

Poor appearance of both the employees and the store, the poor manners and attitudes of employees,
uncertain stock situations, varying prices, products which are less preferred can all dissuade
customers and result in losses

If the store has diverse product range, a heavily mixed group of normal and part time employees
(in terms of aids, abilities and attitudes), and there is stiff competition, the manager of the store is
in for a difficult and stressful time. He will have to employ all his managerial prowess and
proficiency to deal with such situations.
Store security:

 Appointment of uniformed security

 Thorough check at entry and exit points
 Without uniformed security guards can be located in the store
 Use of TV cameras can be beneficial to catch the stealers
 Cash deposits in banks must be made frequently
 Brighter lighting should be arranged
 Coordination between all security personnel
 Access to storage areas and ware houses should be restricted

Parking space problems in the retail centres:

Parking The amount and quality of parking facilities are critical for eating a shopping centre and

specific site within the centre. On the one hand, if there aren't enough space or the spaces are too
far from the store, customers will be discouraged from patronizing the site and the store. On the
other hand, if there are too many open spaces, the shopping centre may be perceived as having
unpopular stores. A standard rule of thumb is 5.5: 1,000 (five and a half spaces per thousand square
feet of retail store space) for a shopping centre and 10 to 15 spaces per 1,000 square feet for a
supermarket. Retailers need to observe the shopping centre at various times of the day, week, and
season. They also must consider the availability of employee parking, the proportion of shoppers
using cars, parking by no shoppers, and the typical length of a shopping trip.

An issue closely related to the amount of available parking facilities but extended into the shopping
centre itself is the relative congestion of the area. Congestion can refer to the amount of crowding
of either cars or people. There is some optimal level of congestion for customers. Too much
congestion can make shopping slow irritate customers and generally discourage sales. However, a
relatively high level of activity in a shopping centre creates excitement and can stimulate sales.
Store record and accounting system:

1. Store functions

2. Pricing of purchased material.

3. Pricing of store returned material.

4. Material received account.

5. Issue of material from store

1. Store functions:

Store functions will be supervised by different persons and will have separate sphere duties.

 Store Procurement
 Store Keeping
 Store Accounting

2. Pricing of purchased material.

 Local Purchases through Tender / Quotation.

 Purchase through Purchase Committee or through Petty advances.
 Material Transferred in/from other WAPDA formations.
 Foreign Material Purchase.

3. Pricing of store returned material.

 Un-used Material(Not needed now to be used in future).

 Defective / Damaged Material (To be used after repair).
 Scrape for disposal.

Material at site will be kept only for immediate use for the ongoing specific jobs. Otherwise,
material returns to Store at month end through Store Return Warrant (SRW).

4. Material Received Account.

1st copy of SMB page attach with commercial invoice and process for making payment by the
Accounts Section.
2nd copy of SMB page sent to Accounts Section along-with GST invoice for posting in the Stock
Value Ledger and compiling GST input claim of the formation.

3rd copy of SMB page sent to Store Section for posting of receipt of material in the Stock Register
along-with following documents.

 Purchase order
 Invoice
 Bill of entry.
 Inspection Certificate.
 4th copy of SMB retain for office record. Based upon the office copy procurement Section
will prepare list of all the SMBs recorded during the month and sent it to the Accounts
Section and Store Section.

5. Issue of material from Store.

A. Issue of consumable material.

B. Issue of Spare Parts.

C. Issue of T&P

D. Issue of Store to other Formations.

E. Issue of Scrape for disposal.

6. Physical verification of Store Stock.

 The Procurement Section and Accounts Section will jointly carry out physical verification
of the store stock items by classifying the material as follow: -
 The stock item having unit price of Rs.50,001 and above will be physically verified 100%
in the month of June of each financial year as first preference,
 The stock items having unit price of Rs.5 000 to Rs.50,000 will be physically verified 100%
in 2nd preference in June of each financial year,
Material handling in stores:
Material handling is an integral part of all retail stores and accounts for 10-20% of the total cost
of the selling price. It is the way by which the goods of greater efficiency can be attained not only
in stores but wherever materials can be moved either manually or with the help of slings, or other
handling instruments. Material can also be moved by people using machines such as forklift trucks,
and other lifting fixtures (mechanical lifting). It does not directly add value to the product but adds
to the final cost.

Thus material handling function includes all types of movements within the retail stores. These
materials are of various types, shapes and size. At each stage of selling materials are loaded and
unloaded are travel widely inside the store moved. It is method for moving material.

Each handling task poses unique demands on the floor staff. However, workplaces can help store
staff to perform these tasks safely and easily by implementing and upholding proper policies and
procedures for minimum and automatic materials handling resulting in reduction in handling costs.

Manual material handling operations are carried out in most retail stores because the goods
comparatively belong to FMCG sector and these are light in weight. But in case of electronics
furniture/luxury retailing, manual lifting can spoil the goods/items meant for sale. As when these
items collide with each other, they can create hazards that result in injuries.
Controlling cost and reducing inventories loss:

Using store employees efficiently is an important and challenging problem. While store employees
provide important customer service and merchandising functions that can increase sales, they also
are the store's largest operating expense. Labour scheduling (determining the number of employees
assigned to each area of the store) is difficult because of the multiple shifts and part-time workers
needed to staff stores 12 hours a day, seven days a week. In addition, customer traffic 1 arise
greatly during the day and the week. Bad weather, holidays, and sales can dramatically alter normal
shopping patterns and staffing needs.

Managers can spot obvious inefficiencies like long checkout lines and sales associates with nothing
to do. But some inefficiencies are subtler. For example, if 6 percent of a store's sales volume and
9 percent of the total labour hours occur between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m., the story might be overstaffed
during this time period. Many stores use specially designed computer software to deal with the
complexities of labour scheduling. Labour scheduler can reduce stored payroll costs between 2
and 5 percent without affecting store sales.

Store maintenance entails the activities involved with managing the exterior and interior physical
fasciitis associated with the store. The exterior facilities include the parking lot, entrances to the
store, and signs on the outside of the store. The interior facilities include the walls, flooring, ceiling,
and displays and signs. Store maintenance affects both the sales generated in the store and the cost
of running the store. A store's cleanliness and neatness affect consumer perceptions of the quality
of its merchandise, but maintenance is costly. For instance, floor maintenance for a 40,000 square
foot nome center runs about $10.000 a year. Poor maintenance shortens the useful life of air
conditioning units, floors, and fixtures.

Layouts:

method of encouraging customer exploration is to present them with a layout that facilitates
specific traffic pattern. Customers can be enticed to follow what amounts to a yellow brick road
as in The Wizard of Oz. For instance, Toys "R" Us uses a layout that almost forces customers to
move through sections of inexpensive impulse-purchase products to get to larger, more expensive
goods. It takes a strong-willed parent to navigate through the balloons and party favours without
making a purchase Retailers use three general types of store layout design: grid, racetrack, and
free-form. Each of these layouts has advantages and disadvantages that are discussed later in this
section Another method of helping customers move through the store is to provide interesting
design elements. For example, antique stores have little nooks and crannies that entice shoppers to
wander around Off-price retailers intentionally create some degree of messiness so that people will
be encouraged to look through the racks for bargains, These feature design elements are also
discussed later in this section.

Grid Layout The grid layout, illustrated in Exhibit 18-1, has parallel aisles with merchandise on
shelves on both sides of the aisles. Cash registers are located at the entrances/exits of the stores. A
grid layout does not provide a visually exciting design, but it's well suited for shopping trips in
which customers need to move throughout the entire store and easily locate products they want to
buy.

For instance, when customers do their weekly grocery shopping, they can weave in and out of the
speedily picking up their desired products every week. Since they know where everything is they
can minimize the time spent on a task that many don't especially enjoy. Thus, most supermarkets.

The grid layout is also cost efficient. There's less wasted space with the grid layout than with other
lay-outs because the aisles are all the same width and designed to be just wide enough to
accommodate shop-fixtures is low their carts. The use of shelves for merchandise enables more
merchandise to be on the sales floor compared with other layouts. Finally, because the fixtures are
generally standardized, the cost of the One problem with the grid layout is that customers typically
aren't exposed to all of the merchandise in the store. This limitation generally isn't an issue in
grocery stores, because most customers have notion of the types of products they are going to
purchase before they enter the store. But other retailers, such as department stores, use a layout
that pulls customers through stores and encourages them explore and seek out new and interesting
merchandise available in the store

Racetrack Layout The racetrack layout, also known as a loop, is a store layout that provides a
major aisle that loops around the store to guide customer traffic around different departments
within the sto re. Cash register stations are typically located in each department bordering the
racetrack.

The racetrack layout facilitates the goal of getting customers to see the merchandise available in
multiple departments and thus encourage impulse purchasing. As customers go around the
racetrack, their eyes are forced to take different viewing angles rather than looking down one aisle,
as in the grid design
Exhibit 18-2 shows the layout of the JCPenney store in the North Park Center in Dallas, Texas
Because the store has multiple entrances, the racetrack layout tends to place all departments.

Free form layout:

It provides an intimate, relaxing environment that facilitates shopping and browsing. This layout
is typically used in small specialty stores or within the departments of large stores. However,
creating this pleasing shopping environment is costly. Because there is no well-defined traffic
pattern, like the racetrack and grid layouts, customers aren't naturally drawn around the store, and
personal selling becomes more important for providing guidance. In addition, the layout sacrifices
some storage and display space to create the more designer’s objective was to create a simple,
clear space that draws customers into the area Fixtures with the latest garments are placed along
the perimeter of the boutique. Yet the flooring and lighting clearly delineate the area from adjacent
departments and the walkway, Retailing View 18.3 describes Diesel unique approach to store
layout.
VISUAL MERCHANDISING

Visual merchandising is the presentation of a store and its merchandise in ways that will attract
the at tension of potential customers. This section examine issues related to the presentation of
merchandise, and the following section explores more sensory aspects of the store environment.
This section begins with a review of the fixtures used to display merchandise and then discusses
some merchandise presentation techniques.

Fixtures:

The primary purpose of fixtures are to efficiently hold and display merchandise. At the same time,
the must help define areas of a store and encourage traffic flow. Fixtures must work in concert
with other design elements, such as floor coverings and lighting, as well as the overall image of
the store. For instance, in stores designed to convey a sense of tradition or history, customers
automatically expect to see of wood rather than plastic or metal fixtures. Wood mixed with metal,
acrylic, or stone changes the traditional orientation Fixtures come in an infinite variety of styles,
colours, sizes, and textures, but only a few basic types are commonly used. For apparel, retailers
utilize the straight rack, rounder, and four-way. The mainstay fixture for most other merchandise
is the gondola

The straight rack consists of a long pipe suspended from supports going to the floor or attached to
a wall. Although the straight rack can hold a lot of apparel, it's hard to feature specific styles or
colours. All the customer can see is a sleeve or a pant leg. As a result, straight racks are often found
in discount and off-price apparel stores.
order, also known as a hulk fixture or capacity fixture, is a round fixture that sits on a pedestal
merchandise, Because they are easy to move and efficiently store apparel, rounder’s are found in
most apparel stores But as with the straight rack, customers can't get a frontal view of the fahibil
18-4 Although smaller than the straight rack, is designed to hold a maximum amount of A four-
way fixture, size known as a feature fixture, has two crossbars that sit perpendicular to other on a
pedestal, This fixture holds a large amount of merchandise and alhectometer to view the entire
garment. The four-way is harder to maintain properly than is the straight rack, however All
merchandise on an arm must be of a similar style and colour, or commonly utilized by fashion
oriented apparel retailers de customer may become confused. Due to their superior display
properties, four-way fixtures are gondolas are extremely versatile (Exhibit 18 6D) They're used
extensively, but not exclusively, in grocery and discount stores to display everything from canned
foods to baseball gloves. Gondolas are Wed displaying towels, sheets, and housewares in
department stores. Folded apparel too can be Apparel opondolax than on straight racks displayed
on gondolas, but because the items are folded, it's even harder for customers to view.

Presentation Techniques

me presentation techniques are idea-oriented, style/item, colour, price lining, vertical

merchandising,

merchandising and frontage presentation

Idea-Oriented Presentation Some retailers use an idea-oriented presentation method of

presenting merchandise based on a specific idea or the image of the store. Women's fashions for
instance, are often displayed to present an overall image or idea. Also, furniture is combined in
reemitting to give customers an idea of how it would look in their homes. Individual items are
grouped show customers how the items could be used and combined. This approach encourages
the customer to make multiple complementary purchases.
Manufacturers with strong consumer demand are often merchandised gather in the boutique layout
described previously in this chapter. This tech- Refacttique is similar to the idea oriented
presentation in that merchandise made by Pity percent of women the same vendor will tend to be
coordinated. Some apparel manufacturers like et their ideas for clothes from store displays or Liz
Claiborne and Jaeger coordinate both style and colour to influence multiple window shopping
purchases within the line and enhance the line's overall image

Style/Item Presentation Probably the most common techniques of organizing stock is by style or
Discount stores, grocery stores, hardware stores, and drugstores employ this method for nearly
way category of merchandise do many apparel retailers. When customers look for a particular type
of merchandise, such as sweaters, they expect to find all items in the same location.

Fringing items by size is a common method of organizing many types of merchandise, from nuts
and bolts to apparel. Because the customer usually knows the desired size, it's easy to locate items
or need in this manner.

Colour Presentation A bold merchandising technique is by colour. For instance, in winter months,
Women's apparel stores may display all white cruise wear together to let customers know that the
store is the place" to purchase clothing for their winter vacation.

Price Lining Price lining is when retailers offer a limited number of predetermined price points
and price categories within another classification. This approach helps customers easily find
merchandise at the price they wish to pay. For instance, men's dress shirts may be organized into
three groups selling for $30, $45, and $60

Vertical Merchandising Another common way of organizing merchandise is vertical

merchandising. Here, merchandise is presented vertically using walls and high gondolas.
Customers shop much as they read a newspaper-from left to right, going down each column, top
to hot Stores can effectively organize merchandise to follow the eye's natural movement. Retailers
take vantage of this tendency in several ways. Many grocery stores put national brands at eye level
and store brands on lower shelves because customers scan from eye level down. In addition,
retailers ten display merchandise in bold vertical bands of an item. For instance, you might see
vertical columns of towels of the same colour displayed in a department store or a vertical band of
yellow-and orange boxes of Tide detergent followed by a band of blue Cheer boxes in a
supermarket.

Tonnage Merchandising As the name implies, tonnage merchandising is a display technique in

which large quantities of merchandise are displayed together. Customers have come to equate
tonnage with low price following the retail adage stock it high and let it fly." Tonnage
merchandising is therefore used to enhance and reinforce a store's price image. Using this display
concept, the merchandise itself is the display. The retailer hopes customers will notice the
merchandise and be drawn to it For instance, before many holidays. grocery stores use an entire
end of a gondola (i.e., an end cap) to display six-packs of Pepsi.

Frontal Presentation Often, it's not possible to create effective displays and efficiently store items
at the same time. But it's important to show as much of the merchandise as possible. One solution
to this dilemma is the frontal presentation, a method of displaying merchandise in which the retailer
exposes as much of the product as possible to catch the customer's eye. Book manufacturers, for
instance, make great efforts to create eye-catching covers. But bookstores usually display books
exposing only the spine. To create an effective display and break the monotony, book retailers
often face an occasional cover out like a billboard to catch the customer's attention. A similar
frontal presentation can be achieved on a rack of apparel by simply turning one item out to show
the merchandise.

ATMOSPHERICS

Atmospherics refers to the design of an environment through visual communications, lighting,

colours music and scent to stimulate customers perceptual and emotional responses and ultimately
to affect their purchase behaviour. Many retailers have discovered the subtle benefits of developing
atmospherics that complement other aspects of the store design and the merchandise.

scent.

important for these atmospheric elements to work together-for example, the right music with the
right
Lighting

Good lighting in a store involves more than simply illuminating space. Lighting is used to highlight
merchandise, sculpt space, and capture a mood or feeling that enhances the store's image. Lighting
can also be used to downplay less attractive features that can't be changed. Having the appropriate
lighting has been shown to positively influence customer shopping behavioural good lighting
system helps create a sense of excitement in the store. At the same time, lighting must provide an
accurate colour rendition of the merchandise. A green silk tie should look the same colour

Planning Merchandise Assortment:

 It is a technique of developing, securing, pricing, supporting and communicating the

retailer ‘s offerings.
 This task is done by a retailer who ensures that right product should reach to the customers
at right time, right place and at right price.
 Therefore, he devotes most of his time to understand consumers ‘needs and selling
merchandise accordingly.
 What to sell and how much to purchase is an important task for every retailer.

Merchandise Buying system:

Retailers throughout the globe usually employ two types of buying systems:

I. Staple merchandise buying system

II. Fashion merchandise buying system

Buying System for Staple Merchandise

 Staple merchandise consists of the items that are regularly purchased, displayed
and sold by the retailers.
 For a grocery store, staple merchandise will be bread, butter, milk, salt, eggs, and
tissues and so on.
 Similarly, most of the merchandise at sports store and home improvement centres
are staple.
  For a departmental store, staple merchandise is camera rolls, stapler pins, pens,
notebooks, briefcase, gift items and house wares.

Buying System for Fashion Merchandise

 Fashion merchandise consists of the items those usually have unpredictable demand and
limited sales record. Demand forecasting as discussed earlier, in the absence of any sales
history for specific fashion SKU becomes difficult.
 For instance, ‗Yoga and meditation ‘that was part and parcel of Indians‘ lives before
seventies, was replaced by gym, spa and health centres, has again entered in Indians‘ lives
and becoming popular among youths too.

Methods of Communication:

1. Paid Impersonal Communication

 Sales Promotion
 Advertising
 Store Atmosphere and Visual Merchandising
 Websites

2. Paid personal Communication

 Personal Selling
 E-mail

3. Unpaid Impersonal Communication

 Publicity

4. Unpaid Personal Communication

 Word of Mouth Communication