Retail comes from an old French word for cutting off a piece
The word retail grew from Old French retaillier, to shape by cutting, and by 1433 English used it for selling in small amounts. That captures the trade neatly. A retailer buys in bulk from makers or wholesalers, then slices the stock into the portions individual shoppers actually want, taking a profit on each piece.
Shops go back to antiquity, when many sellers were travelling peddlers, and over the centuries simple booths gave way to elaborate malls. What separates retail from wholesale is the customer, not the price tag. Wholesalers mainly supply organisations that resell goods or use them in business; retailers mainly serve households. Some jurisdictions demand that at least 80 percent of a retailer's sales go to end users, which is why a store branding itself a wholesale outlet but selling mostly to the public is legally still a retailer. The idea stretches beyond goods too: banks, insurers, tour operators and private schools all have retail sides.
Running a store starts with getting the right quantities of stock to the places people will buy them, so purchasing and supply sit at the core. Chief executives typically revisit strategy every three to five years, scanning markets, customers, rivals and their own capabilities, and margins hinge largely on keeping transaction costs competitive. Day to day, managers juggle what textbooks call the six Ps: product, place, promotion, price, personnel and presentation. The last two were added to the classic marketing four because staff and store atmosphere are what most set one shop apart from another.
Each of those carries choices. Pricing can mean permanent low prices, alternating high and low, loss leaders, bundles or psychological tricks. Service ranges from none at a vending machine, through basic self-service, to the attentive staff of a boutique. Store design, from layout and lighting to music, signage and a calm decompression zone at the entrance, is tuned to shape how people shop.
The work itself bends to the calendar, which is why flexible scheduling is common; one estimate held that around 70 percent of American retail staff were part-time in 2012. Many chains now mix physical stores with online sales, offering buy-online, pick-up-in-store services, and some have tried cashierless shops.
Source: Retail
