REFLECTIVE PAPER ABOUT MANAGING RETAILING AND WHOLESAILING.

The two major intermediary marketing channel functions are retailing and
wholesaling. Retailing is the business activity of selling services or goods to the final
customer for their personal, non-business use. According to Kotler (2013), wholesaling
refers to all activities involved in selling goods and services to those who anticipate
reselling or using the same for services or producing goods.

Retail stores are convenient, they provide guarantee and service, financing of
transactions, and they perform storage function, and serve as buying agents of the
consumers. Retailers come in all different sizes and shapes from a family owned salon
that I go get my hair cut at to a specialty chain retailer such as Williams-Sonoma to
mega discounters such as Costco or Wal-Mart. The major store retailer types are:
specialty stores (Williams-Sonoma), department stores (Macy’s), supermarkets
(Safeway), convenience stores (Target), off-price retailer (Costco), and superstores.

Retailers are first categorized by their sales volume, second by their product mix
which is divided between general merchandise stores which carry a large variety of
product lines, and specialty stores which carry only a specific line of products. Next,
retailers are organized by their form of ownership that divided them between corporate
chain stores (composed of two or more outlets owned by a person or people selling a
similar product), independent store (owned and operated by independent retailers), and
franchise stores (an independent retailer given a right to sell products in definite market
area).Finally, types of retailers are categorized by method of operation. These consist of
full service retailers which are stores where assistance is extended to customers,
supermarkets which are large stores that offer many goods, discount stores that are
self-service retailers selling wide variety of goods at less traditional retail prices, and
non-store retailers which refers to those who sell outside of the store.

Wholesaling on the other hand involves all of the activities involved in selling
goods and services to those buying them for resale or business use. Wholesalers sell
and promote, anticipate customer needs, finance their customers by giving credit and
finance suppliers by ordering early and paying bills early, they transport goods quickly to
buyers, they take risks by taking title and bearing the cost of theft, damage, and
spoilage, and finally they give customers money by buying in carload lots and breaking
large lots into small quantities. Wholesalers can be divided into full-function
wholesalers, limited function wholesalers, and industrial wholesalers.

Overall, both retailers and wholesalers work together to act as middlemen to

manufacturers, and are vital to most business operations. In using them, a large
population of people are served.