Course 2024-2025

Retail Management and E-commerce [ELMSM411]

  • 5 credits
  • 30h
  • 2nd quarter
Language of instruction: English
Teacher: Zidda Pietro

Learning outcomes

Regarding student’s competences, the course mainly develops knowledge and reasoning and personal development and to a lesser extent the other competences of the competency framework, i.e., corporate citizenship, innovation and entrepreneurship, professional development, teamwork and leadership as well as communication and interpersonal skills.

Objectives

The course Retail management & e-commerce aims at providing students with an understanding of the principles and practices of retail management, that is appreciate the complexity of retail problems, raise awareness about the retail industry, retail strategies and tactical issues such as store location, merchandise management, price and promotions, etc. It also aims at sharing the excitement and challenges in the retail industry, in particular the new retail formats and channels such as the Internet and mobile platforms.

Content

This course deals not only with traditional retailing issues but also with nontraditional retail management in the context of new information technology (e.g., web-based, emailing, mobile platforms). The topics covered are strategic aspects of retail management, channel formats, selection and management, consumer behavior in a retail setting, consumer loyalty and relationship management (CRM), consumer patronage behavior and location issues, assortment management, and pricing and promotion issues. This course also emphasizes the similarities and differences between the traditional perspective of retail management (brick-and-mortar) and the related web-based or mobile-based retailing (e-tailing) issues.

The topics and issues covered are

  • Introduction to retail management
  • Channels of distribution: theoretical aspects and case study
  • The retail industry: from Belgium to the World
  • New trends in retailing: E-shopper and E-tailing
  • Customer loyalty and relationship management, store/website image, loyalty and patronage management
  • Location issues: from location strategies to site selection analysis
  • Planning merchandise assortments and branding strategies
  • Pricing merchandise and promotions: the manufacturer-retailer relationship
  • Pricing merchandise and promotions: promotional tools
  • Store layout, atmosphere and customer experience

Teaching methods

The course is taught by a university faculty (half of the sessions), Prof. Dr. P. Zidda (course coordinator; full professor at UNamur, researcher in the field of retailing, loyalty management and customer relationship marketing) as well as by two practitioners from the retail industry (the other half), M. Vincent Carton (Sales & marketing director at Chimay Brasserie et Fromagerie, former sales director at Unilever and Lutosa-Findus, former managing director at ECR Europe) and M. Marc Mondus (Senior consultant, Team leader, GfK Panel Services).

The course alternates

  • Classes (learning)
  • Research article discussions (discerning)
  • Exercises and case studies (thinking & applying)
  • Practitioners lecturing (discovering)
  • and emphasizes interactions between students and lecturers through discussions, examples, articles, etc.

Evaluations

The evaluation format varies across academic years. There is always a two-part written exam with a theoretical part (concepts and methods) and an implementation part (quantitative exercise and/or small case study). Some years the evaluation also comprises a group project (30% to 40% of the final grade if any).

Recommended readings

Course material and recommended readings

The course pack (slides) is available before the course on the web platform.

Reference textbooks (non-exhaustive list) are:

  • Dunne, P.M., Lusch, R.F, and Carver, J.R. (2013). Retailing. 8th ed., Orlando, FL: Cengage Learning.
  • Levy, M., Weitz, B.A., Grewal, D. (2013). Retailing Management. 9th ed., Boston, MA: McGraw Hill Higher Education.
  • Berman, B., Evans, J. R. (2012), Retail Management. 12th ed., Upper Sadle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
  • + selected articles in scientific and professional journals.

Language of instruction

English

Location for course

NAMUR

Organizer

Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales et de gestion
Rue de Bruxelles, 61
5000 NAMUR

Degree of Reference

Master's Degree