Sun and Sand Sports has been committed to ensuring that their customers have access to some of the best sporting brands in the world. They are exclusive dealers and distributors for over 50 International Sporting Brands namely Timberland, Nike and Columbia. Over the years, Sun and Sand have won numerous awards and accolades, recent one being the ‘Most Progressive Distributor of the Year' in 2011. Its constant innovation and association with leading sports brands has made it synonymous with quality and reliability. Over the years, Sun & Sand Sports has emerged as the conveniently located premium sports shopping destination in all high footfall malls across the Middle East.

Sun and Sand Sports distribution centre is located in Jebel Ali, laid out on a huge 140,000 square feet state of the art storage facility. Sun and Sand is well equipped with latest technology when it comes to logistics management. The Merchandise department is looking for a Category cum Retail assistant and have decided to shortlist you among the candidates who attended the interview provided you impress them with a detailed report on Retail and Merchandising Industry dated January 5, 2013. Sun and Sand is keen to ensure that the successful candidate has good knowledge of the Industry and Merchandising issues in which you will be working in the future, if you are selected.

Your report should:-

• Critically evaluate Sun and Sand's approach to retailing, examine their strategies and make recommendations on how they can further improve on and retain their competitive advantage.

• Employ approaches given below to evaluate the merchandising decisions of Sun and Sand Sports:

• Describe retailing in general

• the role of retailing in the distribution channel

• retailing then and now

• Characteristics

• Move from stockist of other manufacturers products to own brand

• How Sun and Sand has adapted to the changing wants and needs of its target markets?

• Discuss Sun and Sand strategies in the following areas:

• Product range;

• Positioning;

• Branding - sub brands;

• Price positioning and,

• Merchandising decisions

• Make recommendations for improvement

Additional Requirement

This is a case let that Aries from Operations Management and it is about Sun and Sand Sports which is a sports merchandise company. In this case study we describe, the role of retailers in distribution channels, retailing a few decades back and now and the strategy adopted by Sun and Sand Sports have been discussed in the explanation.

Word count 2600