The Effect of Covid-19 on Retail Marketing Assignment Sample

Introduction

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Retail marketing is the procedure implemented by the retailers to promote the products and services directly to the consumers. Through retail marketing, the organisation makes the products available to the customers and produces various awareness and sales programs to increase sales. Furthermore, retail marketing has a very complex and close competition in the market, making the organisation to implant changes as per the growth and the market trends. Due to the pandemic, the economy has drastically been affected, and it is assumed that it may take years to normalise the condition. Furthermore, the Covid-19 has adversely affected retailers as government norms were imposed, and the lockdown was implemented in various parts worldwide. Therefore, in order to understand the impact of Covid- 19 in retail marketing, the researcher has selected this topic.

Aim

To derive the effect of Covid-19 on retail marketing around the world

Objectives

To determine the impact of Covid-19 in the business environment

To evaluate the effects of Covid-19 on the retail marketing

To determine the challenges faced by the retail industry by incorporating the changes

Research Question

What is the impact of Covid-19 on the business environment?

What are the effects of the pandemic on retail marketing?

What strategies implemented by the organisation to incorporate the challenges faced by the pandemic?

Rationale of the study

The topic "the effect of Covid-19 on retail marketing is chosen by the researcher to comprehend the hindrance caused by the pandemic for the retailer. The Covid-19 has destroyed everyday business activities as a precaution to protect the public from the virus's harmful effects. Governments of several countries have taken strict measures such as social distancing, no public gathering, and lockdown in order to stop the spread of the diseases. However, it had an adverse effect on the business organisation, which led many companies to shut down. Though, various new developments and changes were also incorporated as per the suitable circumstances. Retail marketing has enhanced and focused towards digital strategy. Marketing through virtual and social media platforms was implemented for a business to customers through advertising and promoting through the internet. The cruciality of the topic has been the key-driven force for the researcher to select the above topic.

Significance of the study

The study is based on current issues which the whole world is facing right now. In order to run a retail business through the pandemic, circumstances are in itself very challenging. The retail industry has very effectively adapted the new changes in the retail marketing such as promotion through online medium, emphasis on digitalisation and technological advancement and further incorporating work from home facilities to operate the business effectively. Thus, the research highlights the pandemic's effects in retail marketing and relevant data is collected to justify the research effectively.

Limitation of the study

The study has been conducted with utmost sincerity, and proper validation and reliability of information are conducted. However, the researcher had to face various challenges to accomplish the research. Lack of time and finance has been the primary limitation of the study.

Literature Review

Impact of Covid-19 on the business environment

According to Smith-Bingham (2020), the pandemic's outbreak has left the whole world into a standstill, with a huge fall in the economy. It has cracked the global trust, increased global governance challenges, and drove towards the pitfalls of interdependency globally. The coronavirus has affected every type of business sector and has increased the risk to a great height. The emerging infectious or contagious disease has been the most crucial point of concern. The pandemic has disruptive every norms and perspective of the health professionals. Furthermore, it has shown that the medical experts, high-rank agencies, government, health security, researchers have all failed to provide a solution to mitigate the destruction caused by the virus. As opined by Bashir (2020), it has also showcased the incapability of the developed nations and the lack of risk preparedness response for such a situation at all levels. Initially, when the precautions were needed, the governments of various countries showed ignorance and continued with the surrounding as a small issue. Later on, when the virus has already spread to a great extent, the governments took action plan and declared mass quarantines, social distancing, lockdown and various other norms. The authorities' failure has majorly disrupted the business sector, which resulted in many small businesses to shut down their organisation. This led to individuals losing their jobs, lack of food and proper shelter homes, and no treatment to mitigate the issue. As per Bartik (2020), the whole economy is in an unstable position. The restriction of travelling has brought a huge slowdown and halted the performance of the business unit's day-to-day activities. Moreover, the commodities' prices were declined, and the supply chains are disrupted, low productivity due to shortage of labour. Every industry has been drastically affected due to the outbreak of the pandemic. It has changed the business's whole perception, and now the business activities have to implement various transformations to maintain a stable position in the market again.

Effect of Covid-19 on retail marketing

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According to Vader (2020), the pandemic continues to spread drastically around the globe, and there have been various vital changes or impacts on the demand of the product, logistics services, factory, and consumer behaviour and retail store. Furthermore, the growth estimates have been halved of the retail market globally based on the pre-Covid-19 forecasts. However, there is still no static information regarding the current situation. In the retail industry, organisation specifically dealing with electronics, fashion, and furniture has been affected the hardest because customers are focusing towards discretionary purchases to stock and purchase a huge amount of food and daily essential to survive the pandemic. Though the grocery chain is not affected their operations and production, have to face many challenges, and they need to be prepared to adapt Omnichannel shopping and shift in the demand due to high responsiveness. For example, Bread is in high demand, but the organisations face issues to cope with the requirements due to the shortage of labour and high cost of operations. When the entire world has to face the quarantine period, the business houses were also had to shut down. However, in the global response and preparedness, various new strategies and decisions were implemented in the retail industry. The faster the organisations adapted that transformation, the more beneficial for them. As per Hand (2020), retailers have to use their accumulated capital to implement a digital business strategy to run their companies. It was understandable that changes have to be made frequently within a very less period based on the current situation. Furthermore, retailers have to think about their long term benefits and move towards investment and are prepared for any sudden risks. Investment in technological advancement, training the employees for work from the home method, incorporating digital or virtual platforms to promote goods and services.

Changes and the challenges faced by the retailers in the pandemic situation

To normalise the situation, it is essential to get acquainted with the new changes and run the business actively. Firstly, managing the fluctuation in demand is one of the essential components in this situation. Due to the lockdown except for the grocery stores and pharmacies every market was close. According to Martínez (2020), though retailers face a fall in demand but sometimes due to low production, the retailers are facing issue in supplying the products in time. Thus, unprecedented demand needs to be managed with an enhanced assumption based on the current situation. Secondly, for retail marketing, it is mandatory to stock up cash reserves. The business needs to have liquid money in order to operate in the present situation. The organisation needs to make changes in their working capital dynamics to have well-resourced liquid cash available to continue their day to day activities. Furthermore, the dependencies on cash reserves are quite high, specifically for the stock market, real estates. Therefore, retailers are focusing on the policymakers to regulate and support to fund their hardships. Thirdly, adapting the steps towards digitalisation, information technology has shown a drastic growth and had been a great boon to our society. Social distancing can be maintained, by virtual interaction and working could be reset to perform the business activities effectively. As per Hand (2020), some of the common challenges which are faced with implementing the changes are training of the employees, secured payment methods, High privacy and security setting to protect from cybercrimes, extra cost for maintenance of hygiene factors and most essential is to communicate with the customers to understand their requirements.

Research methodology

Research methodology reflects the chosen methods of accomplishing the research objectives. Therefore, the research method refers to the design, approach, data collection methods, and sample size if primary data collection methods have been applied. Therefore, Research methodology also displays the proper methods used to fulfil the research objectives and the relevant information about the research. Therefore, the impact of COVID-19 on the retail market has disrupted the small details' overall operations in every context. Therefore, different types of researches have been prepared on the same topic with effective information. In this assignment, the researcher has chosen the secondary data collection method to provide theoretical knowledge about the research topic and the essential information about retail marketing(Belyh, 2020). Therefore, in the secondary data collection methods different types of articles, case study and theoretical books have been analysed by the researcher for providing an in-depth knowledge of retail marketing and effect of COVID-19 pandemic crises on the marketing operation of the different organisation(www.brandwatch.com, 2019). Thus, the researcher has also chosen the thematic analysis to fulfil the researcher objective thematically to better understand the research.

Findings and Data Analysis

From the above literature review, it can be determined that Covid -19 has played a drastic role in the economy of the world. It changed the operations of the organisations around the world. Furthermore, it gave an ultimatum which portrayed the negligence of the government and lack of preparedness of such types of risky situation. The developing countries also demonstrated the countries are much more actively and have implemented strategies which are effective than the developed countries. However, the massive effect on the business organisation is devastating. Retail marketing has also been hugely affected but it also opened various opportunities and development for them. The business organisation in retail management are opting for digital business strategy and shifting from their old way of working. Organisations are investing in the upliftment of technology such as developing website, advertising through social media, connecting through video calls and creating apps for the sales of their product and services. However, there are still various challenges that the retailers need to mitigate in order to maintain and regularise with the current circumstances. Furthermore, they should be more alerts and focus towards pre assumptions and accumulation of funds to avoid such situation in the near future. Moreover, total dependency on technology is also not good, as many times technical faults or glitch can disrupt the whole system which may lead to great loss. In addition to that, cyber crime and security issues have also developed to a great extent which is a huge threat for the individual along with the organisations.

Conclusion

It has been concluded from the above assignment that COVID-19 has affected the operation of the retail organisation, which has disrupted the overall business activity. Therefore, it has also highlighted the organisation's challenges in the pandemic period as per the market trends. Thus, in collecting the essential data through online sources, many obstacles have been arising due to the unrevealing of essential information. The assignment could be more informative if the primary data collection method has been applied to analyse the retails' viewpoint by conducting a survey or interview. Therefore, due to the shortage of timing, the research was unable to provide effective information about the research and the main challenges faced by the organisations. Thus, the overall research paper has fulfilled all the research topic's objectives to provide better knowledge about the research paper.

Reference

Bartik, A.W., 2020. The impact of COVID-19 on small business outcomes and expectations. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://www.pnas.org/content/117/30/17656" https://www.pnas.org/content/117/30/17656 [Accessed 7 January 2021].

Bashir, M.F., 2020. A brief review of socio-economic and environmental impact of Covid-19. Air Qual Atmos Health 13, pp.1403-09.

Belyh, A., 2020. Market Research Techniques: Primary and Secondary Market Research. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://www.cleverism.com/market-research-techniques-primary-secondary/" https://www.cleverism.com/market-research-techniques-primary-secondary/ [Accessed 7 January 2021].

Hand, L., 2020. COVID-19 Impact on the Retail Industry. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK [Accessed 7 January 2021].

Martínez, R., 2020. 5 Challenges the new Retail post Covid-19 needs to overcome. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://blog.atrivity.com/compettia-covid-19-0-0-0-0" https://blog.atrivity.com/compettia-covid-19-0-0-0-0 [Accessed 7 January 2021].

Smith-Bingham, R., 2020. This is the impact of the Coronavirus on business. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/02/why-is-coronavirus-a-global-business-risk/" https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/02/why-is-coronavirus-a-global-business-risk/ [Accessed 7 January 2021].

Vader, R., 2020. The realities of retailing in a COVID-19 world. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home/insights/2020/03/realities-of-retailing-in-covid-19-world.html" https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home/insights/2020/03/realities-of-retailing-in-covid-19-world.html [Accessed 7 January 2021].

www.brandwatch.com, 2019. 10 Essential Market Research Methods. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/market-research-methods/" https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/market-research-methods/ [Accessed 7 January 2021].