Anyone who has ever had a retail job knows
it’s like working on the front lines. It’s the line where the
customer comes in contact with the company their buying from.
It should be obvious that this job requires excellent customer
service skills if you’re working on the sales floor or even in
management. Customers want and expect a good reception when
they walk into a store to spend their money.
With the arrival of e-commerce, many people
felt that online shopping would be the wave of the future. And
that the traditional retail model of shops, store and even
shopping malls would lose significant shares of the market, But
the habits of the consumer are not always cut and dry. Although
people liked the convenience of shopping from their living
rooms, waiting for the purchases to be delivered was a turn off
for many.
This may be the single highest factor that’s
holding the online retail environment at bay, while allowing
the more traditional outlets to maintain a place in the market.
Of all the different types of industries in the world, the
retail industry is probably the industry that faces the public
most often.
Most people don’t have to go to the bank
every day or even every week. But most people buy something
almost every day. It could be a pack of chewing gum from a shop
one day and vegetables from a super market the next followed by
clothing from the mall the day after. And the fact that the
retail market is highly competitive means there a need for
competent manager, purchasers, stock room personnel and all the
other positions that a typical retail enterprise would
have.
Working in retail can be quite fun if you
have the right personality. A person needs to be a people
person and have good manners. Sometime customers can be
difficult and the job itself can become stressful, so a person
with a calm demeanour would be an asset. As the market place
becomes more technology centered, there will probably be more
IT related jobs popping up in the retail sector. The retail
landscape is likely to continue to change.
Nowadays, there seems to be a movement
towards super retail outlets or superstores, where customers
can make one stop and pick up most of the items they need. This
means retail staffs now have to work as part of large teams to
keep these large stores running. It may not mean more or less
retail jobs. But it may change where those jobs are. Like most
industries, retail has been affected by the global recession.
But as the recession shows signs of easing, retail sales rose
in the UK, for the first quarter of this year, by a total of
6.6 percent.
That could very well mean more jobs in
retail may be opening up in the future. Retail job vacancies
have always been strong in the UK. There’s no indication that
will change when the economy does bounce back. But we’re not
out of the woods yet. There are some negative forecasts for the
retail industry for the immediate future.