The main trends of the consumer market development.
A retail chain is a combination of the goods enterprises placed on the certain territory (a town, a village and so on).
There are some features of the classification of trade enterprises and centers. The following features are emphasized:
a stationarity degree;
stationary enterprises as a primary kind of the trading network. Enterprises of the stationary retail trade are placed in the fundamental buildings and they have special premises supplied with trade and technological equipment;
semi-stationary retail trade is represented by pavilions, booths, stalls, slot-machines;
mobile retail trade is subdivided into delivery and peddling trade. Retail delivery trade includes town and village shops, shop cars. Peddling is organized for the sale of the periodical press, flowers and so on.
The advantage of the retail delivery trade is in its mobility and capacity to react to demand moving on the certain territory. Moreover the retail delivery trade can be organized in the places where the organization of the stationary and semi-stationary enterprises is complicated;
mail-order trade. It is a specific kind of trade organizing by catalogues through mail orders.
goods-assortment profile. By this type the following kinds of enterprises are emphasized :
mixed enterprises. The sale of products of different food and nonfood groups. There are no specialized sections and workplaces in the shops;
unspecialized enterprises on the sale of food and nonfood articles;
specialized enterprises. The sale of products of one group (for example, milk, shoes, furniture and so on);
narrow specialized shops. The sale of a part of the product group (for example, men’s shoes, tea and so on);
combined shops. The sale of goods of different product groups but kindred by the demand (for example, meat - fish, vegetables – fruits);
versatile enterprises (department stores). There is a broad assortment of articles of different product groups represented by separate sections and specialized workplaces.
According to types and peculiarities of the structure the enterprises of the retail trade are divided into shops, warehouses, pavilions, booths, car shops and others.
About 90% of all retail trade enterprises fall to the shops share. They have rooms and equipment necessary for different trade technological operations. Shops are placed in the fundamental stationary buildings.
Warehouses sale construction materials and fuel. They have well-equipped grounds, sheds and storage rooms for construction materials and fuel, also they have rooms for samples, sale household goods and sale registration of the construction materials and of the other goods.
Pavilions, booths, stalls and kiosks represent light constructions and belong to small retail chain. In contrast to shops they offer a narrower assortment of merchandise and fewer conveniences by purchasers’ service.
Car shops and other means of the mobile trade are used for the service of residents who live in small settlements and also for the service of agriculture workers on camps, distant pastures and so on.
Depending on the assortment of the realized merchandise and the dimension of the trade area all shops are subdivided into types, and inside every type there are dimension types. For example, such stores as “Department store”, recommended for new building in the consumer co-operation, can have the trade area of 650, 850, 1000, 1650, 2150, 3000 and 3500 square meters. Such shops as “Goods of every day demand” have the trade area of 100, 150 and 250 square meters and so on.
According to the form of service the shops are divided into self-service shops, also enterprises selling over the service counter and so on.
Taking into account the type of the building and the peculiarities of its volume-planning decision the enterprises of the retail trade are subdivided into separately placed, built-in and built to and trade complexes, they also can be one-storied, many-storied, with basements or without them.
Ending the combined trade-technological process of the product distribution shops perform a number of commerce and technological functions.
The primary trade functions of the shops are the following: study of the purchase requirement for merchandise; making up requirements for goods supply; formation of the merchandise assortment; advertisement of goods and services; selling of goods (offering of goods and helping customers in making their choice, making clearing transactions).
One of the long-range directions of the retail chain enhancement is its specialization. It contributes to the work facilitation of the trade workers and to the increase in its efficiency, to more effective use of the material and technical basis and it influences to the service level.
Shop specialization can realize according to the trade profile (characteristic), to the forms of trade service, to the functional role.
The leading direction of the specialization is the shop specialization according to the trade characteristic, foreseeing the limitation of its activity by separate kinds or groups of goods under the simultaneous expansion of the assortment.
The necessity of the specialization of the retail enterprises is the consequence of the constant expansion of the goods assortment which needs the profound division of the whole trade mass into groups. There are better conditions for thorough study of the purchase requirement, for raising the level of trade workers’ skill in the specialized shops. Here are more opportunities for offering to customers a wide range of goods assortment within the limits of one or several kindred trade groups, for more effective influence on goods production.
At the same time too narrow shop specialization adversely affects trade service of people as it can lead to the territorial moving off their consumers and this fact causes the increase of time for the acquisition of goods. Besides, the dispersion of goods in several shops complicates performing one complex purchase.
The efficient disposal of the retail chain:
The constant development and renewal of the retail chain, the enhancement of its structure require the efficient disposal of the trade enterprises. They must be placed to people as close as possible assuring the high effectiveness of capital investments. Solving questions concerning placement of shops in town’s transport, town building, social and economic factors should be taken into account.
The size of the town, the character of planning and the functional zoning of its territory, the density of population, the disposal of work places and also the disposal of administrative, cultural and sport centers enter into the group of town building factors.
Transport factors include the direction and the intensity of the main streams of the public and individual conveyances.
The necessity of the reduction of time spending in the retail enterprises and the achievement of high trade service level refer to social factors.
The equability and the aliasing of the shops disposal refer to the main principals of the efficient disposal of the retail enterprises.
The placing equability plans the shops placement evenly on the whole town territory taking into account the density of population. It is applicable not to all but only to single-type shops, and first of all to the shops selling goods of every day demand and serving mainly constant purchaser base.
The grouping placement means the necessity of the territorial closing of shops of different merchandise profile with the purpose of satisfying in complex demand for goods. First of all it concerns the disposal of small shops selling bread, vegetables, milk, fish and meat in the places where there are no department stores or shops with the common assortment of foodstuffs. Taking into consideration the enumerated principals the functional system of the retail enterprises disposal is formed in accordance with which the whole shops chain is divided into the enterprises of local and town importance.
An important condition of the efficient organization of the trade service is the correspondence of the retail chain structure to the certain correlation of the quantity of grocery and nongrocery stores on the whole and in the merchandise groups.
Under the efficient system of the trade service organization the following is understood:
the placement of enterprises (buildings) in the town building assuring the best conditions of their accessibility and minimal time spending of people;
the choice of such enterprises which according to the conditions of their placement on the town territory and the composition of goods groups fully meet the people’s requirements using them in the proper zone of the town (residential, working, visiting people this zone due to some reasons);
the system of placement and of choice of buildings type taking into account the claims settlement of nowadays service and enough for the long-run outlook (from the point of view of satisfaction of changing people’s needs as well as taking into account the improvement of the service organization).
In the trade development the main tendency is the continuous increase of the production volume of the merchandise of mass consumption and the expansion of their assortment, this fact requires the shops enlargement. The improvement of the goods quality, the product standardization, the packing enhancement are the most important prerequisites for joining up in one trade hall the selling of foodstuffs and some nonfoods, adoption of new progressive methods of the sale – self-service, catalogue trade, the system of orders with the home delivery, post and retail delivery trade. These methods contribute to the time saving by acquisition of goods.
In the trade service organization the most important requirement from the point of view of the consumers’ interests is the creation of a big merchandise choice and the assuring the minimal time spending for their buying. However, these two requirements have different significances for the person in the process of buying different kinds of goods. Buying goods of every day demand (foodstuffs) the most important requirement is the time saving for going to the enterprises and for the service. Buying goods of more complicated and durable assortment the main requirement is the maximum choice and the high service comfort. These things can admit some enlargement of time spending.
From the point of view of town building significance and of the placement on the town territory the enterprises chain can be subdivided into two main groups:
the enterprises of the local importance placed primary in the residential area and serving people in the limits of pedestrians accessibility;
the enterprises of the town importance serving a town on the whole and attached population taking into account transport accessibility.
The enterprises of the first group perform the standard service of people; the enterprises of the second group perform selective and partially standard service.
The chain of enterprises of the standard service is placed on the whole residential area and it covers comparatively equal the whole residential area in such a way that in any part of the town people can use them with the minimal time spending. This equability is linked not with the territorial division, but first of all with the system of the public conveyances of the town.
The chain of the selective service counts on the satisfaction of the people’s needs of the whole town and attached settlements and it constructs taking into account the functional zoning and the planning structure of the town on the whole, its systems.
Long-term plans of the development and the placement of the retail chain.
Long-term plans of the development and the placement of the retail chain in the town are worked up in the general plans of the towns in the composition of the complex projects of the organization of the trade service chain.
The succession of the working up of the long-term plan of the development and the placement of the trade chain is the following:
the collection and the analysis of the materials;
the working up the common concept of the chain organization;
the determination of the common requirement of the town population in the trade enterprises in prospect and in the first place building and its disposal in the enterprises of the local importance placed in the residential area and the enterprises of the town importance;
the determination of the places and service zones of the local shopping centers (department stores), the calculation of the shops capacity;
the determination of the places of the main shopping centers and other enterprises of the town importance in accordance with the architecture planning solution foreseen by the general town plan and taking into account the formed chain;
the determination of the enterprises types of the town importance in size and specialization, the formation of trade centre complexes (of the municipal importance, planning regions or other sub centers of the town importance) and the clarity of the placement of these centers and separate enterprises:
the selection of the buildings types of the enterprises;
the control of the shops chain by the trade structure;
the determination of the economic effectiveness of the capital investments in the chain building.
The use of the given principles of the trade chain organization of the trade service enterprises and its construction let:
to increase the level of the service organization assuring maximal comfort for people – a wide range of goods, comfort and time saving;
to make closer the service level in towns and in rural areas due to the creation of one system of trade service in the system of settling;
to strengthen buildings efficiently and it contributes to the increase of technical, technological, constructive and architecture and planning solutions and it assures the saving of capital investments;
to create the special system of the architectural ensemble on the basis of rational combination of different trade service enterprises in the public centers and their rational placement on the town territory.
The inculcation of the rational service system enables to reduce time spending of people for the service, to enlarge the merchandise assortment and to enlarge buildings and accordingly to reduce capital investments and maintenance charges; to decrease the number of the stuff engaged in trade service enterprises, to increase the comfort the people’s habitation because of the transport exclusion out off the residential area; to safe the town territory; to improve the architecture art quality of the mass building by force of the carry-over of trade buildings and complexes from the building depth to highways, to town transport stops.
The social-economic importance of the consumer services development:
The sphere of the consumer services is a numerous group of branches, where first of all the “production” branches are emphasized simultaneously concerning to the consumer services and to the material production: an individual tailoring shop, a shoemaking shop, a hat making shop, a furniture making shop, a household goods repair shop, a shoe repair shop, a flat repair shop, a dress repair shop; the services connected with the personal hygiene (bath-houses, laundries, dry-cleaner’s, hairdresser’s) and the services connected with the house and personal transport care, rental agencies, photo studios concern to the second more numerous group; the ritual services take the special place and these services connect with the structure and care of the cemetery, of the columbaria, the crematorium service.
The economic significance of the sphere of the customer services is great. It is necessary for the increase of people’s free time and also for saving their financial assets. It helps to save the natural resources of the country used in the process of the consumer services production; it contributes to the increase of the working efficiency. A good organization of the consumer services enterprises frees a part of the able-bodied citizens from the household sphere.
The social significance of the sphere of the consumer services is greater. It contributes to the improvement of the quality of people’s life, to the full and all-round satisfaction of the needs of a modern person and to his high living standards.
The degree of this branch development characterizes the degree of the corresponding area development and the living standard of people.
The enterprises of the consumer services give to their consumers the services of the dress, hats, shoe, furniture and other articles production. But the special importance of the branch is in the restoration of the consumer properties of articles: laundry and cleaning, repair and maintenance; it is very important especially for those who can’t buy new things. These peculiarities of the personal services sphere cause its financial resources.
More significant factors influencing on the operation and the development of the consumer services enterprises are: asserts lack, big communal expenses, high prices for stuff and materials.
The problem of the rooms lease is also a significant problem. Main problems are a high rent, lack of the made repair and long lease period. A majority of enterprises and receiving centers take on lease spaces being at the disposal.
The rooms are taken on lease by enterprises accommodating the repair of the domestic machinery and appliances, the repair and production of furniture, the laundry services, the dry-cleaning and pawnshop services, the hairdresser’s and so on. A part of owners is also high.
For the most part the owners of the occupied rooms are the enterprises engaged in repair and production of metalware, watch repair and hire services. The owners of the occupied rooms don’t have to pay the rent, but their property-tax is higher than the property-tax taken from leasers and subleasers.
Some enterprises of the communal services have some restructured rooms; it means that these are the rooms leased to subleasers. As a rule these are enterprises accommodating unprofitable kinds of services, their main source of income is sublease. Photo enterprises, repair and technical maintenance of transports enterprises, enterprises of electronic equipments repair, repair and dressmaking enterprises, hairdresser’s, bathhouses, showers refer to them.
The lack of the rooms for placement of necessary consumer services enterprises is also a big problem because of inefficient use of the rooms of functioning consumer services enterprises and also because of no apportion by the state spaces from the town share for consumer services enterprises on rent with good conditions.
The main ways of the development and the enhancement of the consumer services sphere.
It is very important to look for new ways for the development and the enhancement of the sphere. It is possible to do due to the effective use of some existing consumer services enterprises or due to getting help from state and commercial establishments. Several main ways of the development and the enhancement of the consumer services sphere are taken up on picture 1.
The following things are foreseen in the sphere of the infrastructure development:
the placing new and reconstructed consumer services enterprises of different types and specializations including socially important enterprises;
the creation of pavilions, kiosks in the places of mass residence and intensive passenger streams;
the level of supply of consumer services enterprises and of parking places;
the working out a new typology of differentiated guidelines of the people’s supply with consumer services;
the opportunity to use the spaces of big shopping centers occupied by consumer services establishments (to foresee the placing of the consumer services establishments at the design stage of trade establishments);
the working out a mechanism of the sale of rooms used for the organization of consumer services enterprises on preferential terms (at the price of the builder and the giving long-term installments of date).
The following ways are possible in the sphere of the strengthening of the social directivity:
the development of the chain of consumer services enterprises orientated on the service of unwell-to-do citizens in the part of socially important services (municipal bathhouses, funeral services);
the protection of consumers, the assuring the quality and the safety of the general goods and the services, the cooperation with the public consumers organizations;
the organization by the enterprises the personal calculation of the given consumer services benefits to the unwell-to-do groups of citizens;
the development of the social monitoring system in the consumer services sphere.
For the improvement of the services quality it is necessary to have skilled workers besides gut equipment. The preparing workers of the consumer services sphere is rather complicated, however, it is important to attract young specialists to the work by profession.
Nowadays the work’s conditions are not satisfied to most of workers’ wants, that is why there is a constant employee turnover. For the stabilization of the situation it is necessary to reconsider the work form and schedule, wages and possible benefits and incentives.
The task solution concerning to the increase of the services level and the increase of the supplied services quality supposes first of all the enlargement of the services kinds being popular among consumers, the inculcation of new technologies in the consumer services sphere, assuring consumer rights. The following methods foresee:
the development of services concerning taking orders in the places of residence (at home, in hostels, in hotels), in work places, in the places of intensive passenger streams;
the development of the services by taking orders with the help of the phone or Internet;
the priority development of large technical centers having the branched structure of affiliates and receiving centers in different parts of the town, in the part of service by the repair and the maintenance of the domestic equipment and the electronics;
the development of the services by the dress dry-cleaning and the self-service laundry.
The consumer services are a professional occupation, traditions, and the way of our people’s life organization which should be effectively protected from any political, economic, techno gene cataclysms.
The goals, objectives and the peculiarities of the catering of the population:
The nutrition is a form of consumption. As the society develops the nutrition begins to have a socially organized character, it means that the catering develops. Two forms of the organized nutrition can be distinguished:
The individually organized (home) nutrition;
The public catering (the term “mass catering” is used in the countries with the market economy).
The system of the public catering in the town functions in different socially economic forms.
The public catering sphere includes all organized forms of the mass catering (in children’s homes, in infant schools, in hospitals, in the enterprises of the public catering of different property forms and others.), their goals are the recovery and the keeping up the proper level people’s health.
The public catering also can be regarded as the branch and its main goal is the rendering of services to people in the form of the socially organized nutrition in exchange for their income. The community of the material and technical basis, the trade-technological and the organizationally economic structure are characteristic for the branch of the public catering. By the specialists’ estimation about 83% of food is cooked at home and about 17% of it is cooked in the enterprises of the public catering.
The socially economic significance of the public catering is expressed in the arrangement of conditions for the increase of efficiency and the improvement of the labour management due to the giving to people hot food at the place of employment or of study; the significance is expressed in the assuring the saving of the social labour and means; it is expressed in the creating the necessary prerequisites for the increase of the free time for members of the society, especially for women.
The main goal of the public catering in towns and villages for next years is the renewal its place in the organization of the public nutrition. The following things are necessary for the goal solution: firstly to use more intensively the power of the given enterprises, secondly to enlarge the number of the enterprises, to increase the density of the chain, to distribute the enterprises equally on the territory of the municipal formation, to make them accessible to all residents. It is necessary to direct main efforts to the creation conditions for more intensive use of the given chain, especially the enterprises of the closed type and not enough busy enterprises of the opened type (restaurants in low-class hotels, in separate cafes, in canteens and etc.).
Special attention should be paid to the organization of the workers, school, students catering, to the tourism catering (including the international tourism), also the attention should be paid to the supply with the public catering for unwell-to-do groups of the population, and the attention should be paid to the development of the food enterprises in the pleasure and leisure resorts including sports events, mass festivals and so on.
The combination of three functions is peculiar to the branch of the public catering: the production of hot food; its realization; the organization of the consumption. The initial function is the production function, its labour inputs are the labour inputs in the branch.
During the process of production a new product is produced in the enterprises of the public catering. The proper production of the catering goes into realization with new consumer characteristics and extra cost.
As the economy is based on the commodity-money relations the food enterprises perform the function of the product realization and the purchased goods as costs.
All establishments of the public catering can be classified according to different characteristics:
The property forms (state and private enterprises, including the enterprises belonging to the consumer’s cooperation, collective enterprises based on the mixed property, foreign enterprises);
Types of establishments (a canteen, a restaurant, a café, a snack bar, a refreshment room, a bar, a cookery shop, a cookery plant, a nourishment plant);
Specialization (the enterprises of the common type and the specialized enterprises);
The extra charge category and the service level (the establishments of the highest category, of the first category, of the second category and of the third category, and also of the de luxe category). The third category is given to the establishments of the public catering connected with the service of the definite consumers groups and placed by schools, buildings, manufacturing enterprises. In this case the education agencies, the manufacturing enterprises and so on must give rooms, equipment to the nourishment organizations free of charge and they must pay public utilities;
The organizations of the trade-technological process (the establishments of the direct services, of the central production and the complex establishments);
Transportability (stationary, mobile, seasonal establishments);
Completeness of the industrial process (the enterprises with a kitchen and without a kitchen – precooked).
A necessary condition for the branch development is a search for new forms and the enhancement of the old forms of the people’s service which are directed at the creation of maximum comfort for consumers’ choice, the getting ant having food, the saving of time for the service.
The regulation of the public catering market.
As nowadays the market of the public catering is entirely in the private sector possession, the municipal power cannot determine the supply volume, the connection of the consumers with the suppliers, the prices on foodstuffs and nonfoods. But the municipal power can use the forms and the methods of the indirect financially-economic regulation and also it can use the measures of the administrative influence on the basis of the municipal law statements.
The possible mechanisms of the municipal regulation of the public catering are shown on picture 1.
Hand in hand with it the municipal machinery of government can influence on the private and joint-stock enterprises by giving them information, analytical and marketing data about the market development of the public catering, the workings of recommendations, the forecast of the market development and balances.
The mechanisms of the privatization and regulation of the process connected with the changing of the enterprise property form are important and efficient instruments of the municipal influence on the public catering.
The municipal machinery of government has the opportunities:
using law and economic methods to bar from the profile changing of socially important privatized enterprises of the consumer market;
to correct quickly the benefits and privilege given to the labour collectives during the privatization with the aim to assure the efficient development of the enterprise;
to control the activity of the privatized enterprises, the observance by them the conditions of the purchase contract of the municipal property.
For socially significant enterprises the following actions are possible: the rejection of privatization and keeping in the municipal property used by them uninhabited rooms. This measure is one of the main methods of the municipal regulation of the public catering market.
The enterprises with the municipal participation form a definite part of the enterprises of the public catering market. The main goal of their activity regulation is the profitable use of shares and stocks belonging to the municipality.
The residences unions should play an important role in the control under the municipal market of the public catering. Here are these unions: Consumers union, the unions of goods producers and businessmen, the society of protection of consumers. The local government must establish the cooperation with these unions, to render them assistance in their work, to use the forms of the public control under the public catering market.
Relying on the public support the municipalities have the definite instruments of the influence on the public catering market and they must use them efficiently in the interests of people. Besides the municipal enterprises and establishments buy (including at the expense of budgetary funds) foodstuff for child care institutions, hospitals, social purpose institutions and etc., medicine, fuel, transport vehicles, material and technical resource for maintenance and repair of the municipal housing and non-residential stock and others.
For the saving of money for these aims the local government creates special structures researching the market of the public catering and concludes contracts concerning trade delivery of foodstuffs and of other productions for municipal needs. With their help it is possible to attract considerable salespeople from other regions and adjoining states on the city markets or vice versa to restrain the delivery of some goods. Out of other economic price regulators it is worth to mention rental rate for business places and storage rooms.
Municipal authority also influences on the consumer market with the help of administrative and control mechanisms. The following mechanisms can concern to them: the establishment of the trade rules on the municipal establishment territory; the legislated licensing of the trade of the separate kinds of goods; the cooperation with the state sanitary-and-epidemiologic inspectorate, with the trade and veterinary inspectorates; the organization of the municipal consumer protection structures (including judicial protection) and the assistance to the appropriate social organizations.
A structural unit engaged in the regulation of the consumers market is created in the structure of the administration of the municipal establishment. The experts in protection of consumers belong to this structural unit. There is an appointment of the deputy administration head working with the public catering market in some towns.