RETAIL MANAGEMENT INFORMATION

SYSTEM

Retail Management Information System anticipates the information

needs of retail managers, collects, organises and stores relevant data
on a continuous basis; and directs the flow of information to the
proper decision makers.

Retailer’s philosophy Strategic

Environment
And objectives plans

a) Data collection, Information b) data storage and

Analysis and control center retrieval
Interpretation c) updating of files

Retail Operations

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 ADVANTAGES OF A GOOD RIS
1. Information collection is organised and is broad in
scope

2. Data are regularly gathered and stored, thus

opportunities can be foreseen and crisis avoided

3. Elements of strategy can be coordinated

4. New strategies can be devised more quickly

5. Quantitative results are obtainable and cost

benefit analysis can be done
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 DATA-BASE MANAGEMENT

Data-base management is a procedure used

to:
• gather
• integrate
• apply and
•store information
related to specific subject areas.
It is a key element in RIS and may be
employed with customer databases, vendor
databases, category databases and so on.
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 DATA-BASE MANAGEMENT…

Retailers can use these databases for:

•Frequent shoppers program
•Customer analysis
•Promotion evaluation
•Trading-area analysis
•Joint promotions with manufacturers
•Media planning
•Customer communication

There are two specific aspects of data-base

management: data warehousing and data
mining and micromarketing.
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 DATA WAREHOUSING
Data warehousing is the mechanism for storing and
distributing information whereby copies of all the
data bases are maintained in one location and
accessible to employees at any locale.
There are four components to a data warehouse:
1. The data warehouse, where the data are
physically stored.
2. Software to copy original data bases and transfer
them to the warehouse.
3. Interactive software to allow inquiries to be
processed.
4. A directory for the categories of information
maintained in the warehouse.
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 DATA WAREHOUSING…
Data warehousing has three major
advantages:

• Both information access and

inconsistency problems are eliminated by
consolidating data in one place.
• Executives and other employees can
quickly get access to the same data at
the same time no matter where they are
located.
• By storing information centrally, greater
data analysis are possible.
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 DATA MINING

Data mining involves the in-depth analysis of

information so as to gain specific insights about
customers, product categories, vendors and so forth.
The goal is to determine whether there are
opportunities for tailored marketing efforts that
would result in better company performance.

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 MICROMARKETING

One emerging application of data

mining is micromarketing, whereby
the retailer uses differentiated
marketing and develops focused
retail strategy mixes for specific
customer segments, sometimes fine-
tuned for individual shopper.

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 GATHERING INFORMATION THROUGH UPC
AND EDI
UPC- UNIVERSAL PRODUCT CODE:

The advantages of using UPC are:

•to produce better merchandising data,
•improve inventory management and control,
•speed up transaction time,
•increase productivity,
•reduce clerical errors in processing transactions, and
•coordinate the flow of information.
Example: Wrigley’s chewing gum in 1974 in Wal-Mart.

EDI- ELECTRONIC DATA INTERCHANGE, with EDI, retailer and

suppliers regularly exchange information through their computers with
regards to inventory levels, delivery times, unit sales and so on.
Example: WILLS LIFESTYLE.

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 EAN
European Article Number

EAN India, is a non-profit organization affiliated to EAN

International, is under the Ministry of Commerce, GOI.
It is formed with the objective of assigning Indian trade in
adopting EAN international system for identification and
communication of information on products and services.

Organizations that perform one of the following functions:

•Produce products that are ultimately sold at retail outlets,
•Distribute or store goods on a large scale,
•Exporter,
•Repackaging goods for further selling.

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 FACTORS AFFECTING THE USE OF RIS

1.SCALE AND SCOPE OF OPERATIONS

2.FINANCIAL RESOURCES AVAILABLE TO
THE ORGANISATIONS
3.NATURE OF THE BUSINESS
4.HUMAN RESOURSE AVAILABLE

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 E-COMMERCE MARKET IN INDIA
E-COMMERCE portals that saw light of success in India are:
Bazee, Fabmall, Timer Internet, Rediff and Sify.
Popular product categories are: Books, Music, Gifts.
Most recent fastest selling category is : Travel
www.oxfordbookstore.com : launched in 2000 has a three
tier integrated architecture, that at the top end, features
catalogue browsing and ordering, on-line payment and
customer registration. The middle tier constitutes a
centralized web server to service the on-line shopper and
retail shop, customer data mining solutions, inventory
management and online enterprise management. The
bottom tier represents the relational database management
system.

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