Studies in retailing consumers cooperation and public distribution system

The present collection of studies is a modest attempt to help the retailers and consumer cooperatives break a new path and overcome the difficulties that lie ahead. The first study Harbinger of Revolution in Retailing maps out the current trend in the offing in the retail marketing and enthusias response of the new consumer who shall predominate the market of the future.

The emphasis is on merchandising low cost, low service, high turnover It is followed by two studies on Consumer Identi fication and Consumer Preferences. The focus is on the all important cor sumer and the strategy to cater to his demand prof ably. The parameter that has been drawn is that of economi viability and welfare of the community. The focus then shifis to the productivity of the retail trade-the measurement of productivity, the factors that influence productivity and the steps that can help improve productivity. As the retail trade has been neglected in India, the two studies build up a perspective and pinpoint attention on areas of general neglect. An attempt to chalk out plan for initiating action

in order to attain a fair degree of profitability has also been made. It is followed with a study on layout, placement and display which should be read with the previous two studies

Retail employee is the centre of attraction in the following two studies, which highlight his role in the business, his expectation, his motivation and his response to the environments. A touch of be havioural sciences is added to remove the cobweb woven by some of the arm-chair thinkers especially while discussing the monetary in centives as a means of improving retail productivity.

Five studies on Inventory Control and Management, Budgetory Control and Financing of Retail Trade by the commercial banks follow. Each one discusses the operational aspect of the retail trade.

The last study of Part I, in a way, is the projection of the future pattern of retail trade and builds up a possible pattern of rela tionship between the size, the costs structure and the type of compe tition that the retailer is likely to face in the eighties.

Part II contains studies on public distribution system and the consumers coperatives. These studies aim at to bring out the salient features of the working of these socially oriented retail shops and the imperatives for giving them institutional, structural and admini strative support in the absence of which they can play but a limited role. Part III gives my impression of the retail trade in the West European Countries and here author try to identify the present trends and problems encountered thereof It may not be an exaggeration to say that the retailing institutions in this country shall be modelled on the partern of the institutions that one sees now in these countries. It was largely owing to this belief that this has been added in the present collection.