Study On The Introduction & Application Of Relationship Marketing In Retail Business Of China

Retail industry is the main part of the tertiary industry. It is a barometer of the development of economy and society of a country or region. Currently, China's economy is in the structural transformation period when the tertiary industry is developing very fast. Retail industry plays an important role in this process. Faced with ever changing consumption environment and increasingly fierce marketing competition, our retail industry is undergoing an unprecedented severe test. As a result, how to shake off the restriction and binding of traditional operations concepts becomes an important issue requiring every retail enterprise to think about and cope with. Under this condition, a new marketing theory, relationship marketing, is introduced and applied by enterprises in varying degrees. Relationship marketing is an activity identifying, establishing, maintaining and consolidating the relationship between enterprises and customers as well as other stakeholders. It emphasizes the maintenance of current customers and the cultivation of long-term customers with high loyalty, so that the enterprises can gain in profit and competitive edge in the fierce competition.The status quo of relationship marketing, however, is not so optimistic. Because of the binding of traditional economic regime and the superficial understanding of the relationship marketing of many enterprises, there exist such problems as the wrong attitudes to relationship marketing, the unsuitability between organizational structure setting and the concepts of relationship marketing, the inferiority of the methods of strengthening relations with stakeholders, the lack of scientific Market Segmentation and insufficient use of latest means of relationship marketing. All those problems have, to certain extent, hindered the development of our retail enterprises.This paper, based on the reality of retail industry in China, first analyzes the status quo of the application of relationship marketing in our retail industry, the problems in the application as well as its causes. Then, it outlines the necessity of introducing relationship marketing in our retail industry and the principles of relationship marketing in our retail industry. It also looks at the essential ingredients of inner and outer relationship marketing in retail industry and the relationship marketing strategies of related markets. Finally, it gives some countermeasures for applying relationship marketing in our retail industry. That is to recreate the retail industry flow, to properly use the level marketing, to perfect customer management system and enforce the combined strategies of retail marketing on the basis of relationship marketing concepts. Through using the successful experience of the application of relationship marketing in western countries, this paper, combined with our own reality, explores the application of relationship marketing in our retail enterprises, hoping that this will help to improve the development of relationship marketing in our country.