A Career in: Retail Management

Shop 'till you drop. Love it or hate it, nearly all of us do it – shopping, that is. But what sort of retail experience could you have if you choose to be a manager rather than a customer?

Just think of the increasing number of ways in which consumers can buy goods and services; airports, large out-of-town shopping centres, High Street shops and stores, theme parks, hospitals, vending machines or through their TV or computer. Shopping is the number three leisure activity in this country, and retailers are increasingly linked with the tourism and leisure industries. Retailing influences all our lives and is a dynamic, exciting and powerful sector which is the dominant force in many first world economies. This really is a big and fascinating area of business.

Retailing isn’t just about shops, although most retailers do have some. It's about recognising and creating consumer needs. It's about planning for the future in terms of products, employees, pricing, marketing, and merchandising. It's about finding the best location for stores and warehouses and designing the layout of stores and catalogues. It's about creating websites and management information systems. More than anything, the retail business is about people - their rapidly changing tastes and demand patterns, what influences them to buy and what they are going to want tomorrow. Managers have to understand all this, and the challenge and skill is to ensure that you are able to offer what the customer wants at the right time, in the right place, in the right quantity and at the right price.

The industry is concerned with image, creativity and innovative selling techniques. It's about new products, new ways of presenting products and new ways of successfully delivering these products to the modern consumer. It's about developing a seamless alliance between the best of traditional service skills and the latest new technologies to create great customer experiences.

Since the 1980’s many retail companies have recognised the need for retail specific graduates, as opposed to business students with some retail knowledge, to fill their senior management jobs and there are now a number of university and college courses to choose from. The best will offer real industry experience as well as theory, either through a placement year or project and consultancy work or, ideally, all three. You will also want to study as many of the specialist areas of retail as you can – for example; fashion buying, e-tail, systems, human resources and store design – and ensure that the core management areas, such as finance and marketing, are covered from the retail perspective.

And what can you expect at the end of your course? An industry that offers excellent career prospects, exciting challenges and real responsibility where no two days are the same. The chance to combine your own interests – whether for sport or fashion, cars or computers – with your career and to play a key part in the global economy. Because in business, nothing happens until somebody sells something.

Written for Get Smaart by Bournemouth University. www.bournemouth.ac.uk