14. Retailing
Vignette: Roots is a retail success story - it has grown from a small family shoe store to a world contender, with the Olympics teams as notable customers.
Featured URL: http://www.roots.ca
The Old Fashioned Way
In the online article, "The Value of Retailers" on the Retail Council of Canada site, The Honourable Eldon Lautermilch, Minister of Saskatchewan Economic and Co-operative Development declares that Retailers are the lifeblood of the Canadian economy, especially in Saskatchewan. Last year alone, he reports, retail sales contributed $8.1 billion to the provincial economy. He tells us that the importance of retailers goes far beyond the spreadsheet with many people in Saskatchewan depending on the retail industry for paycheques.
Lautermilch's father started a family business, Old fashioned Foods in 1970 and the business continues to grow and flourish. The Minister enjoys the satisfaction of dealing with customers and challenges of working with staff in an ever-changing marketplace and plans to return to the business he retires from his current duties. He has become a champion for the retail industry in Saskatchewan and in Canada.
Find one example of a Canadian retail business represented on the Web
in each of the following categories:
| department store | specialty store | full line discount store |
| supermarket | warehouse club | discount specialty |
Give the name and URL for each site and tell which category it represents.
Sites
Retail Council of Canada - http://www.retailcouncil.org/govrelations/msg_lautermilch.asp
Canadian Internet Retailing Report - http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/ir01582e.html
Electronic Retailing Association - http://www.retailing.org/
Power retailing - http://www.retailing.com/
Careers in Marketing: retailing - http://www.careers-in-marketing.com/rt.htm
World of Retailing - http://www.worldofretailing.net/
Retailing.net - http://www.retailing.net/
Articles
"Xtreme
Retailing: Stores fight the online onslaught" - Business Week
"Online
Retailing Is Now a Business Requirement" - Ernst & Young
Thought Center
"The
Internet: Bringing Dramatic Changes to Retailing" - Cisco Systems Industry
Solutions
"Retail
Business is Show Business!" - About.com: Retail Industry
"Manitoba
first with eTail Bill" - CBC News
Jobs
http://www.plusjobs.com/
- Plus Jobs Canada
http://www.canjobs.com/
- CanJobs.com
http://www.allcanadianjobs.com/
- All Canadian Jobs
http://www.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/menu/jobs.shtml
- Human Resources Development Canada
Instructors: Optional Activities
As with all of the Web exercises, the exercise for Chapter Fourteen can be used as suggested or certain parts can be adapted to better suit your student population. You will want to estimate how much time is required to complete any part or all of the parts. It will be helpful to give students a suggested time frame for completing their assignments. It will also help to determine how much credit might be given for the assignment.
1. Reviewing Retail on the Web
Browse the retail sites given in the Resource section. Rank the sites
in the order of most useful to least useful. List them in rank order
giving each site from 1-5 stars depending on its effectiveness as a site
about retail. Briefly annotate or describe each site giving the reasons
for the number of stars you have given it. What criteria are you using?
Here is a suggested checklist for analysis of the sites. You may want to
create your own guideline for evaluation.
2. Retailing VS eTaling
eTailing is retailing online. Read the articles given in the resource section and gather ideas for a debate - pose a dozen interesting questions that give your team and other teams can debate in class, taking sides for either eTailing or Retailing.
Alternately, based on information gathered from the articles, conduct
research to find a guest speaker in your community who could come to your
class to talk on the topic of how to be a successful Retailer and/or eTailer.
3. Careers in Retailing
"Industry Report: Retailing Demographics Add Up to Jobs in Retailing" Dr. Lucy J. Reuben writes:
"In today's corporate environment, where firms are cutting thousands
of office jobs each year, many students would be well-advised to consider
a career in retailing. Based upon the Occupational Outlook Handbook, published
by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, as many as
877,000 new jobs in retail sales may be created through the year 2000.
According to Professor Jean Newhouse of Tuskegee University, in 1990 disposable
income in the United States totalled more than $4 trillion, and more people
are looking for things and spending money today. With the largest segment
of the population--the babyboomers--well into their peak earning years,
demographics dictate increased demands for many types of retail services."
From The
Black Collegian Online