The aim of this course is to introduce and provide a comprehensive review of retailing and sales. Upon the completion of the course, students will have knowledge of both the theoretical background and the main practices related to retailing management, and sales and sale management in various business contexts.
Students will acquire a holistic skillset for appreciating and being able to fully comprehend and appropriately utilize the retail and sales environment, while acknowledging the different sales strategies that can be implemented. Students will also amass the skills required to manage retail operations and plan, manage and control sales in various business contexts.
Adopting these skills requires an analytical and result-oriented mind set as well as creative ability to identify key customer and competition forces and take advantage of them.
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This course is based on a group-learning approach which requires cooperation among students and individual commitment. The aim of this course is to improve students’ cognitive abilities, critical evaluation of the given task and ability to work with others. Flipped teaching is also employed in this module.
Students are required to:
- Attend at least 75% of the classes in order to participate actively in the group work and business testimonials, in order to put into practice the knowledge acquired
- participate actively in class case study discussions and general discussions in order to engage with the collective learning process
- read papers in advance and contribute to the discussion at the end of students’ presentations;
- write case study reports in groups and submit it for review to further develop and evidence the skills related to the topics
For attending students: group/individual assignments during the course
For non-attending students: written exam with open-ended questions
The course comprises of lectures, independent work and group assignments on the basic principles and real-life cases relating to the role and the function of a retail or a sales category manager.
By leveraging this managerial perspective, the course provides students with a holistic and real-life view on the following key aspects: retail strategic planning; retail operations management; retail supply chain; ethical behaviour in retail; merchandise buying; retail pricing; sales settings; ethical issues in sales; personal and relationship selling; direct and online sales; sales control, budgeting and evaluation.
Students will present their assignment solutions and discuss the practical managerial implications, while getting feedback from peers, course staff and marketing practitioners.
Course attendance is not compulsory but highly recommended. In the case in which the course will be taught completely or partly on distance, the course syllabus will be slightly or significantly changed to make it suitable for online teaching and learning.
In case of provisions of the competent authority on containment and management of epidemiological emergency, teaching may be subject to changes from what is declared in the syllabus in order to make the course and examinations in line with the regulations.
