BUSI3221: Retail and Services Marketing

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• Raise students' awareness and critical understanding of the significance of both retail marketing and services marketing. The module provides a comprehensive and critical introduction to the main theoretical and managerial issues of relevance to both of these key areas of marketing practice.
• Show that retail marketing can work in subtle or overt ways to affect the behaviour of the consumer prior to and at the point of purchase. Main considerations retailers face in developing and maintaining their presence in the market will also be covered.
• For each consumer purchase, decisions are made regarding how and where to make purchase as well as what to purchase.
• Explores frameworks for understanding the nature and characteristics of services, and how these help in formulating marketing strategies and planning marketing tactics in relation to services.
• Provide students with an in-depth understanding of the key issues in the specialist marketing of services in particular, how the utilisation of the services marketing mix facilitates effective strategy formulation by services organisations.

• Retail Planning
• Establishing and maintaining store image
• Designing a suitable retail environment
• Managing merchandise and the store
• Multi-channel and omni-channel retailing
• Service Planning and Strategy
• Designing and delivering a suitable service offering
• Understanding services, consumers and markets
• Managing the customer interface
• The future of retailing

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Students will be able to:
• Appreciate the ways in which retail and services marketing relate
• Appreciate the critical importance of retail and service activities in the modern world economy
• Appreciate how changes in technology and consumer trends are changing the shape of retail and service provisions
• Understand the decisions retailers need to make in designing their offering
• Critically analyse factors contributing to store image
• Identify and justify a suitable merchandise strategy
• Explain the key influences on merchandising decisions
• Understand the role of environmental psychology in affecting consumers behaviour in retail environments and engineer a retail environment to elicit the most favourable customer response
• Critically analyse the unique elements of services marketing vs. product marketing
• Understand the ways in which services differ and how they can be classified
• Understand the complexity of how consumers purchase and evaluate services.

Subject-specific Skills:

• By the end of the module students should be able to:
• Critically analyse the various dimensions of a service offer and key issues regarding customer evaluation of services
• Identify and prioritise key areas for advanced service design development
• Understand notions of co-creation of value in customer-service provider relationships.

Key Skills:

• Students will develop:
• Effective written communication skills
• Planning, organising and time management skills
• Problem solving and analytical skills
• The ability to use initiative.

• The teaching and learning strategy is designed to develop knowledge and understanding of the key concepts and challenges faced by retail and service marketing managers. The module will provide a balance of theory in the discipline and how practitioners use this. The teaching and learning methods include lectures and seminars, using examples, case studies and seminar exercises. Seminars place emphasis on small group discussion of concepts from lectures. Preparatory readings will be provided in advance of some lectures while additional readings will be added after sessions. Students will be expected to read any preparatory readings highlighted and complete preparatory work and readings for seminars.
• Formative assessment will provide students with the opportunity to prepare and develop analytical and critical skills for the summative assessment while developing team working skills.
• This module is assessed with a single summative assignment, intended to assess both retail and services parts of the module. Students will need to demonstrate their understanding of the relevant theoretical concepts covered in class, and critically assess the specific managerial challenges met by retailers and services organisations.

To gain some experience and gain feedback for their summative, the formative will involve a written assignment. Working in groups, students will create a 1500 word assignment to analyse some aspect/s of the operations of a retailer of their choice. Students must demonstrate an understanding of relevant concepts and the ability to apply them to a real case.

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