Task

1. Share ideas with your colleague below about how he can address the questions he has posted.

2. Make recommendations for refining his research topic.

Dear all,

The retail industry has recently been dynamic and innovative nowadays. Consumers do not only look at the beauty of the store but are influenced by factors beyond that characteristic. The surveys I have performed through my extensive search through informative journals and articles has convincingly re-aligned my research topic accordingly.

"The Impact of the Marketing Mix and Sustainability on shaping consumer references Towards Non- Food Stores" threw more light into the information and the targeted literature I needed to present in my project. In Summary, the paper focuses on customers as major key players in the industry with ideas, and operations based on their perspective. It further goes ahead to expound the buying attitudes of customers and further dissects the sustainability of the stores into two significant parts thus the quantitative and the qualitative. The quantitative category represents the ambience of the store, competitive prices, fantastic customer service a robust supply chain while the qualitative refers to factors regarding the environment which includes corporate social responsibility (CSP), environmental protection, promoting fair trade products, waste management and recycling. The paper further investigates the changing trends of the consumer and bridges the gap with regards to the consumer's philosophy.

Another article is "Behavioral responses to customer satisfaction; an empirical study" which systematically outlines the significance of customers and empirically researches into their meaning of satisfaction. The paper further display a significant way to measure instruments of service quality in order to identify its impact in ensuring customer satisfaction in the minds of customers. It further goes ahead to summarize and compare the relationship between customer satisfaction and the successful financial performance of the retail firms.

Another article that has assisted in redefining my research topic is "Green Marketing Factor of Competitiveness in retailing "a peculiar paper whose literature does not follow the usual characteristics of retail customers. The research reveals that sustainability of the industry does not only mean availability of goods, competitive prices or the accurate market mix. The perception of customers with regards to sustainability in this research paper is the positive impact the retail business has on the environment. The retail business has developed a paradigm shift from the normal research results and have resorted to qualitative findings which includes recycling of products, looking at the health of consumers in food and non- food, optimizing packaging procedures in order to gain competitive advantage.

Having glanced through this significant research papers has enables me restructure my research topic as such to reveal logic and meaningful literature with regards to the retail industry. Having been in this professional field for barely a decade I feel my topic "The relationship between BSC and Marketing Mix in Sustaining the Retail Industry in Ghana" which is will use the Balanced Score Card and the Marketing mix to determine the level of sustainability it emits from the customers perspective. The literature will provide detailed assessment of the retail companies and the environment and measures that would like to be employed to be satisfied.

However it is important to note that having successfully drafted this lengthy topic I would like to address some hazards on the way. First will my topic be able to yield the required amount of information needed? Are the component of the topic related in a way that makes sense? Is it relevant to focus on the whole industry or a focus on a specific part? On the other hand most research websites have limited research documents regarding this topic? My topic is open to assistance.

Reference
- AthanassopoulosA,Gounaris, S. (2001) " Behavioural responses to customer satisfaction: an empirical study available at http://www.emerald-library.com/ft

- Dabija, D.C., Pop, C.M. (2013), "Green marketing - Factor of Competitiveness in Retailing", Environmental Engineering and Management Journal, Vol. 12, No 2, pp.393-400.

- Dabija D.C., Dinu V., Abrudan I.N., Postelnicu C. (2014), „The Impact of the Marketing Mix and Sustainability on Shaping Consumer Preferences towards Non-Food Stores",Transformations in Business & Economics, Vol. 13, No 3 (33), pp.36-53.