Mar 09
29
At a superficial glance, one might be executed for thinking that the retailer has no cause for compliment, since the manufacturer, in the circumstances described, does the selling job for him! This might be so if each retailer had a monopoly in a given consumer area. But this is not so, and a retail shop must be considered as a “product” also, competing with other such “product”. The retailer must find a unique selling proposition with which to compete, difficult to attain if a majority of the products he wants to stock are the same well-known brands as his competitors are selling.
Where, then, is the retailer to look if he wants to mark out a field for himself in which he will have some advantage over his competitors? He cannot go far in the direction of manufacturing on his own account (vertical integration upwards) unless he is in a very big way of business indeed. And even if he were, conceivably, big enough as a manufacturer to stock up entirely with his own merchandise, he would still be lacking in one essential item -consumer choice, that is, competitors products!
In this battle for the initiative, the manufacturer would seem to have the upper hand -at any rate the big mass-producing manufacturer whose product is among the leading brands. For in this category of merchandise the retailer is forced, in his own commercial interests, to stock the manufacturers`s brand. This statement must be modified, of course, according to the product field concernerd. In furniture and leather goods, for instance, there is still considerable scope for the exercise or merchanting skill, for selling service and personal “know-how”. In other fields, where branding is well-look in other directions to find competitive advantage -such as the position of the shop, service diversification, price competition, or a combination of all these, together with a succesfull measure of “own-branding”.
