Retail Management Individual Assignment

Introduction
In Malaysia, retailing have become one ways of business who earning profit from it.
Retailing which means that those product and services have been added value and sell
to consumers, sometimes retailing may have a store, sometimes they didn’t have
because they are using online store with delivery services. Beside, retailer mean of a
person or business sells goods and services to public and markets. Retailer also
created value which providing an assortment and services, breaking bulk and holding
inventory to run their business. In Malaysia, retail sales growth rate based on year
2019 and 2020.( Appendix 1) We can see that in year 2019 online retailing growth
rate have increase 0.5% to 20.0% in year 2020. With store-based retailing growth rate,
year 2019 to 2020 have maintain the same rate which is 3.6%. We can see that online
retailing growth rate is higher than store-based retailing due to the changes in century.
Nowadays, people are using online to make order and purchase because it seem more
convince and saving times.

Types of retailers selected

First of all, there are many types of retailer shop we can seen in Malaysia. There are
two type of retailer which going to discuss in this part. First type of retailer which is
supercenters as example given we have Tesco in Malaysia. Supercenters combine
supermarket with full-line discount store. Next, Tesco also providing non-stop
shopping experience for their customer which having different groceries such as fresh
food, daily used, drinks, household, non-food & gifting and so on.( Appendix 2)
Those categories will be label at the top of the rack to make customer easier to find.
Besides, Tesco also provide better value with their own private-label product
( Appendix 3) , compare to others brands of the similar product, Tesco brands is much
more cheaper than others brands. Tesco not only earning profit from retailing, they
earn profit with their own brands also. Tesco can be label as Big-box store also which
same meaning with supercenters.
Second types which is a general merchandise retailer, Popular Book Co (M) Sdn Bhd
as example giving in this. Popular Book Co (M) Sdn Bhd can be know as category
specialists. Inside Popular bookstore, self-service are need for customer, but if any
books they cant find, they may seeking for help also. There are many types of books
can be selected which makes consumers drawn to deep assortment and competitive

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price while choosing the books they wanted to buy. Beside every books inside
Popular bookstore is intense competition due to different types of book. Other than
books, Popular bookstore sells CD-Rama, IT& Gadgets and stationary also.

Relative strengths of both the retailers’ major retail channels

Relative strengths of both retailer Tesco and Popular Book Co (M) Sdn Bhd are
similar, which they used multichannel retailing. Both of them have their physical store
to let their customer purchases and complete a transaction. Customer can walk in their
store to shop and select those products they want to buy. Beside, both of them also
having their own websites and applications for customer. Function of using their
websites and applications are the same, customer have to crate a account to log in as
their member to make online purchases.(refer Appendix 4 and 5). Customer who have
membership with the company will get promotion as well. Example, customers will
receive coupons from their emails or first register customer through the websites and
applications.

Membership in Tesco Malaysia which providing a membership card, when customer

make a payment at counter with using their membership card, they can earn point
inside the card. All the point they collect might used for the next purchase with cash
rebate. This help Tesco to earn loyal customer and help to keep those customer with
the next-time purchasing in Tesco. Popular bookstore also providing their
membership card also such as POPULAR Student Card, Teachers' Privileged Service
Card, POPULAR Privilege Card and POPULAR Card. Each membership have their
each subscription fees but all of them have up to 10% discount when customers used
during payment.

With the online channel of both company, they provide a shopping cart inside to let
customer pick the product they wanted to buy, item pick can be cancel also if
customer disappointed on the product or compare with others similar items. During
payment, both company provide different bank online payment to customer to
complete the payment with more convenience.

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Challenges facing selected retailers
Challenges that Tesco Malaysia facing with is their shopping environment. Compare
to their competitors, we can see that the cleanness of Tesco Malaysia would never be
clean and tide as Aeon big. Beside that, we also can see that item arrange on the rack
sometimes is mixing with other product which is not relevant at the part, we can say
that this is responsibility of customer to put back the item to right place, but staff of
Tesco Malaysia didn’t take their job to put the item back. This is a serious problem to
Tesco Malaysia because customer will confuse that the price or name of the product is
not similar to the information written there. Next, we can see that Tesco Malaysia
didn’t not provide auto payments counter to customer, customer may need to wait for
a long queue to make their payment. Compare to Aeon big, they provide self service
payment counter to customers with Debits or Credits cards.

Challenges that Popular bookstore face which is the Mco period, bookstore are not
allow to run their business. This have become a big issue to Popular bookstore
because people are willing to go a physical place, reading some interest part of the
book then only decide the book is worth to purchase or not. During the Mco
lockdown, Popular bookstore can only used online channel to run their business, but
they face another problems also. Books from oversea cannot be delivery to Malaysia,
they cant provide to latest version and new books to customers. Delivery company
during Mco have delay their delivery time frame due to over demand from customer
who stay at home waiting for their parcel. Too many business have rely delivery
service, because it is the only way to run their business during Mco period.

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Recommendations and Conclusion
Recommendation for Tesco Malaysia which is providing suitable staff training
programs to improve their customer service and performance. Old and new staff of
Tesco Malaysia should have trail after taking the training programs, if their staff fail
the trail they might face again where their problem at or retake the training program
as well. With this customer will feels that Tesco management have take good care
about what customers feels, making customers know that staff of Tesco Malaysia
have their responsibility to do their own jobs. Beside, we will like to recommend
rating test that Tesco provide to customer to rate that any shortage or dislike part
during shopping in Tesco, With getting feedback from customers, they might know
that which area they should take care to fulfill customer and taking idea from the
feedback forms. Another recommendation we would like to give which is providing
auto-pay machines area to customer. This strongly help Tesco Malaysia increase their
effectiveness during payment. Customers might feels bored while waiting the queue
to counter, with the auto-pay machines, customer can scan and make the payment
own. This might clam customer temper and saving customer time too. All of this help
Tesco Malaysia gain more customers to maximize profit growth.

Recommendation for Popular bookstore which providing their own delivery

transportation. With their own delivery services, they can make a fast and effective
delivery service to their customer. While getting charge from others delivery
company, they might earn their own delivery fees from customers. This help Popular
bookstore not only earning profit from books, from delivery charge also. They can
provide the tracking number of customers orders and giving a fix date to delivered the
parcel. Customers will feels reliable while getting correct information from them.

Conclusion, there are many retailing we can know from Malaysia market. Retailing
have become one of the important role in the markets which fulfil customer needs and
wants which seeking in the market. Compare different retail channels and business
ways might gain retailer a lots of information and idea up-to-date. In the change of
century , technologies involve better from time to time that make retailers and
consumers more convenient and time saving.