Apr 09
8
These alternatives are also open, of course, to the other, more powerfully financed and organized enterprises; but for the moment, let us consider the small independent shopkeeper`s marketing problems.
In a field of fast-repeating products, standardization -uniformity of brand-types within each product category- has encouraged the building up of chains and the consequent exercise of bulk-buying power to obtain a price advantage over the small independent who cannot buy on such bulk terms; they then aim at high-volume sales on the basis of competing on price at retail. Resale price maintenance (RPM) -that is, the system whereby manufacturers supplied only on condition that stipulated retail price was maintained- has virtually ceased to be fully effective in large areas of retailing and this, together with the bulk-buying strength of the retail chains, is what has enabled these large retailers to use price as a weapon in the competitive struggle.
Some small independents complain that they could not buy a product at the price a chain store sold it at! This is the measure of the independent`s problem.
The word “standardization” used here in relation to brand types was not meant to be interpreted literally that products of different brands were in fact the same! The effect of national branding has been to assure the comsumer that, wherever he bough, there would be the same range of choice available. A range of branded soft drinks, of razor blades, in effect, the same range of choice whether the shop was in Birmingham or Bristol, Leeds or Liverpool -more or less.
