Assortment Strategies And Customer Evaluation Of Small Retail Stores In Beijing

Small retail is exquisite industry. Most of the retailers are small, pressed hard by theorganized retail and difficult to grow. At the same time they are often beneficial to the localcommunity in providing goods distribution, service and especially job opportunities. Onecurrent focus for the sector is its optimization as it has a huge number of independent players.The problem is the lack of research in the area, even in the basic research of smallretailers and their customers. This research try to complement the current gap by choosingone of the important aspects of the sector: Assortment. As merchandises often are the maincontact point between small retailers and its customers, the perspectives of both sides on thesubject are a must to know.This research first conclusion is that small retailer adapts assortment to its customernicely. Factor analysis results in4strategic and3functional factors of assortment. Whilecluster analysis shows5different groups of retailers with a different focus of theirassortment decision. As an example, some retailers in the classical6-7story apartmentresidential areas are found to exhibit their best to fulfill customer needs because thecustomers’ low willingness to do in-store substitution.While from the customer side, evaluation and behavior toward assortment exhibitunique features of the social environmental factor. Education level and residential categoryare found to explain some differentiation in assortment evaluation and substitution behavior.In general, assortment evaluation relates to store satisfaction; sensitive category (e.g.,beverage) is an important part of the small retail assortment; and substitution rate in smallretail can be considered high. It can also be concluded that allocated space–demand modelfor organized retailers cannot be generalized to small retailing.