Explore publications.

The needs of the customers residing in townships are generally met by informal retailers operating spaza and tuck shops. These retailers sell personal and household products such as cooking oil, sugar, maize flour, snacks, soap, paraffin, candles, matches, disinfectants, cigarettes, and prepaid airtime for mobile phones. However, several factors determine the success and marketing of these products to townships by retailers. Therefore, this study sought to analyse the factors determining the marketing of products to townships amongst Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) within the retail sector. Thus, a literature review was conducted to collect information to identify factors determining the marketing of products to townships amongst SMEs within the retail sector using several databases. The year 2012 signaled the commencement of an organised search for publications that were pertinent to the topic. The researcher searched for journals published on township retail and marketing using buzzwords relevant to the current study. The findings of this study show that the following are marketing factors: product quality, product price, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and customer service. Non-marketing factors encompass competition, the transport system, road infrastructure, security, licensing and regulatory requirements, and business location. Therefore, retailers are asked to pay particular attention to these factors because they are crucial to marketing and achieving a competitive advantage.

The determination of retailers to deal with the challenges of managing perishable products’ category continues as they persist to provide quality service and fresh products to their customers. These challenges often afflict retailers and consumers alike, which innately impact category management and good consumer behavior. This article reports on a study that investigates the influence of category management on consumers’ purchase behavior of perishable products.  The objectives of this article are to determine the influence of category management on purchase behavior, to explore the current retail category management practices for perishable products, and to investigate the relationship between pricing and shelf life of perishable products and how this relationship influences consumers’ purchase behavior.  To achieve these objectives, in-depth semi-structured qualitative interviews that were explorative by nature were conducted, with ten (10) staff members of a selected store in Durban, South Africa, who were responsible for the perishable products category.  The findings reveal that category management does influence the purchase behavior of perishable products; however, problems were identified concerning assortment planning, shelving, promotions, pricing, and shelf life. The results were limited to this Durban store. Recommendations were made to the retailers to solve those problems to effectively satisfy consumers.

The upsurge of private label brands has allowed retailers to expand their product offerings. However, these brands have been met with varying perceptions among consumers across the world. Therefore, this study investigated the role that marketing might have on the purchase intentions of customers opting to/not to purchase private label brands. The marketing instruments in question for this study were advertising, pricing, and price promotion, and their effect on customers’ purchase intention for private label brands. An integrative systematic review methodology in searching, screening, selecting, including, and excluding research articles; search strings were also formulated in searching for articles was followed. In this paper, a synthesis of the literature was undertaken, and future research direction was provided, giving future research and retailers three propositions to understand the effect of pricing, price promotions, and advertising in the purchase of private label brands.

Independent retailers face many challenges that influence their growth and development. Independent retailers are small businesses facing competition from major retailers in South Africa (SA) that have penetrated the townships and rural areas. The purpose of the study was to investigate the challenges that influence the development of independent retailers in SA. A survey was conducted among small independent retailers in SA. The convenience sampling method was adopted for the study due to the inaccessibility of a database on independent retailers in SA. Existing literature was used to design a questionnaire, targeted at small independent retailers, to investigate the challenges that influence their business performance. The findings of the study revealed that finance and marketing are the major challenges influencing the operations of small, independent retailers. Business-related challenges are the least challenging aspects for small independent retailers in SA. Independent retailers need to manage their businesses appropriately in order to survive and sustain their businesses. Independent retailers buy products from wholesalers while a few of them buy directly from manufacturers.


 
 
 
 ncreased technological development and the innovations and conveniences offered to consumers encourage to companies day by day for different practices in order to gain competitive advantage. Although firms are often observed to bring innovations to the product in order to be perceived by consumers as superior to firms' competitors, it is obvious that they will not be enough alone. For this reason, companies have begun to implement innovative strategies in pricing strategies increasingly. One of the most remarkable of these strategies is the pay-what- you-want pricing method. In this method, the seller transfers the authority of determining the price to the consumer entirely. In the study, a literature review was performed on pay what you want pricing and factors affecting the voluntary payment in aforesaid pricing method have been established. In addition, the pay-what-you-want pricing method is discussed from a theoretical perspective.