Factors Affecting Market Share of Retailers

Introduction

This chapter entails the background, the statement of the problem, objective of the study research questions, the significance of the study, the limitation of the study and the scope of the study.

Background of the Study

(Levy and Weitz 2009) defines that “retailer” is a business that sells products and/or services to consumers for their personal or family use. Retailers are the final business in a supply chain that links manufacture to consumers. According to Kotler and Armstrong (2006) a retailer is a business whose sales come primarily from retailing.

Although most retailing is done in retail stores, in recent year’s non stores retailing has been growing much faster than has store retailing. Non store retailing include catalogs, telephone interest, TV home shopping shows, home and office parties, door-to-door contact, vending machines and other direct selling approaches. Retailers offer assortment of a product, but they specialize in the assortments they offer. Most customers are well aware of the product assortments retailers’ offer.

Supermarkets are the most frequently shopped type of retail store, offering this broad assortment enables customers to buy a wide selection of brands, designs, sizes, colors and prices in one location. Researchers worldwide have appreciated the role played by small scale retailers to the society and the development of the society as a whole. According to Berkowitz (1997), Market share is the ratio of the firm’s sales revenues or unit sales to those of the industry (competitors plus the firm itself). Companies often pursue a market share objectives when industry sales are flat or declining and they want to get a larger share.

Anheuser Busch has adopted these objectives in the brewing industry. According to August A. Busch III, the company’s chief executive officer “we want 50 percent of the (beer) market in the mid-1990s” Although increased market share is a primary goals of some firms, other see it as a means to other ends; increasing sales and profit. Kotler (1993 – 1974), coined the term atmospherics to describe visual (color, brightness size, shape), aural (volume, pitch) Olfactory (freshness) and tactile (softness, smoothness, temperature) dimensions of store that can influence the purchase probabilities of consumers.

McCarthy (2003), Retailers interact directly with final consumers so strategic planning is critical to their survival. If a retailer loses a customer to a competitor, the retailer is the one who suffers. Producers and wholesalers still make their sale regardless of which retailer sells the product. Retailers worldwide established mutual beneficial relations with their consumers and business partners. In their dealing they expect their consumers to adhere to business principles consistent with their own. Channel members are crucial for every organization as it is the path which the products reach to the ultimate customers and consumers.

As this type of businessmen has very wide range of business operations and large number of products. It is effective and efficient for them to sell directly to the final consumers. For this reasons retailers play a vital role in adding value to the products and selling the products to the final consumers and also retailers play a vital role and have left an everlasting impact to their consumers. Small scale retailers are those retailers whose scale of operation is restricted to small segment of the market and to a narrow range of products.

They generally hold small stocks of the products of regular use such retailers are very large in number but account for a small portion of the total retail business. But, small scale retailing is a very common, simple and flexible way of distributing the products to the final consumers. It incurs low operating costs and is usually owned and operated by a proprietor. The most important feature is that the small-scale retailers have a direct and personal contact with their customers. The most important feature is that he small-scale retailers have a direct and personal contact with their customers.

This form of retailing faces problems of small capital lack of professionalism and low purchasing power (http://www. google co. ke). According to levy and Weitz (1996) retailing operation is an everyday life which retail managers must make complex decisions in developing strategies, locating stores, determining what Merchandise and service to offer and deciding how to price, promotion and display Merchandise. 1. 2 Statement of the Problem Small scale retailers have restricted scale of operation to small segment of the market and to a narrow range of products. They have a direct and ersonal contact with their customers. They have done a lot in terms of customers services deliver but there was still a gap as most of these retailers don’t know the factors that make customers to prefer buying in their stores. However, many consumer packaged goods face competition among product of different quality was a symmetric. Price promotion by higher-quality brands draw disproportionately more market share from lower quality brands. Competitive pressure from internet and ability of consumers to make price comparisons across outlets are helping pull price downwards in the market.

If these problems are not solved then the SSR will eventually lose the market shares. This research help SSR since the research findings and recommendation enables them discover what affects their market share and help the relevant governmental agencies to intervene. The study sought to investigate the factors affecting the market share of small scale retailers in Kericho Town.

Objective of the Study

• The main intention of this study was to determine the factors affecting the market share of small scale retailers. The specific objectives were;
• To find out how pricing affect the market share of retailers. .To determine other marketing mix element available in the area.
• To determine whether management skills influence market share of retailers. To examine how the competition affect the market share of retailers.
• To determine the extent to which government policy affects the market share of retailers.

1. Questions 1. How does pricing affect the market share of the retailers?
2. What are the other marketing mix elements available in the area?
3. Do small scale retailers have management skills?
4. Does competition reduce or increase the market share of small scale retailers?

Do what extent do government policy affects the market share of retailers? 1. 5 Significance of the Study The purpose of this study was to find out the factors that affects the small scale retailers’ market share and satisfaction. The small scale retailers will use the findings in the area to analyze their position regarding the performance and attainment of their profit and thus the level of their competitiveness. The customers will benefit from the findings for the technique use to provide them with the assortment regarding a given product.

The purpose of the review is to examine past studies carried out that may need to show some light on this subject. It also point out some challenges and they study to fill the gaps. Levy and Weitz (2009), defines retailers that “retailer” is a business that sells products or services to consumers for their personal or family use. Types of retailers According to Kotler and Armstrong (2004), retailers are classified in terms of several characteristic. These include; Specialty stores: They carry a narrow product line store with a deep assortment such as sporting-goods stores, furniture’s, florists and book stores.

Department stores: They carry several product lines, typically clothing, Home furnishings and household goods with each line operated as a separate department managed by specialist’s buyers or merchandisers. Supermarket: A relatively large, low-cost, low margin, high, volume, self-service operation designed to serve the consumers total needs for food and household products. Convenience stores: Relatively small, stores located near residential areas, open long hours seven days a week and carrying a limited line of high-turnover convenience products at a slightly higher prices.

Discount stores: Carry standard Merchandise sold at lower prices with lower margins and higher volumes. Off-price retailers: Sell merchandise bought at less-than-regular wholesale prices and sold at less retail. Often leftover goods, over runs and irregulars obtained at reduced prices from manufactures or retailers. This include factory outlets owned and retail corporations and warehouse club selling a limited selection of brand – name groceries appliances clothing, other goods at deep discounts to consumers who pay membership fees.

Superstores: Very large stores traditionally aimed at meeting consumer’s total needs for routinely purchased food and non-food items. Non store retailing in: According to Bearden (2007) defines non-store retailing refers to sales outside a physical structure. They offer customers the convenience of selecting and purchasing merchandise according to their own schedules.

According to Michael and Stuart (2003) price strategy is a systematic procedure for setting prices on regular basis. Price strategy will be obtained on cost, competition, demand and customer needs.

Cost – plus pricing In cost-plus pricing approach a marketer figures all costs for the product and then adds an amount to cover profit any costs of doing business that are not assigned to specific products. The most frequently used type of cost-plus pricing is straight mark-up pricing. The price is calculated by adding a predetermined percentage to the cost. Most retailers and wholesalers use markup pricing exclusively because of its simplicity users need only estimate the unit cost and add the mark-up. Price-floor pricing

Price-floor pricing is a method for calculating price that considers both costs and what can be done to assure that a plant can operate at capacity. It is use when the state of the economy or other temporary market conditions makes it impossible for a firm to sell enough of its product at a price that covers fixed costs, variable costs and profit goals to keep its plants operating at full capacity. Firm that produce their own national brands and also manufacture private label brand sold through various retailers and distributor may use price-floor pricing for the private label and of the business.

Demand – based pricing Demand base pricing means that the selling price is based on an estimate of volume or quantity that a firm can sell in different markets at different prices. To use any of the pricing strategies based on demand, firms must determine how much product they can sell in each market and at what price. Often marketers use customer surveys where consumers indicate whether they would buy a certain product and how much of it they will buy at various prices.

One advantage of demand based pricing strategies is that their use assures a firm that it should be able to sell what it produces at the determined price because the price is based on market research findings about customer demand rather than on eh sellers costs and its disadvantage is the difficulty of estimating demand accurately. They are two specific demand-based pricing strategies; Target costing – A process in which firms identify the quality and functionality needed to satisfy customers and what price they are willing to pay before the product is manufacture only if the firm can control costs to meet the required price.

Yield management price – A practice of charging different prices to different customers in order to manage capacity while maximizing revenues. Pricing based on the competition Sometimes a firms pricing strategy involves pricing its wares near, at, above, or below the competition. Price leadership provide an acceptable and legal way for firms to agree on prices without ever talking with each other and also firm choose to price their product below the competition. Electronic retailers have bargain-priced CDs to get shoppers into their stores in hope of building sales of high-profit electronics equipment.

Pricing based on customers’ needs When firms develop pricing strategies that cater to customers, they are less concerned with short-term results than with keeping customers for the long-term. New Era firms constantly asses’ customer responses in developing pricing strategies. Firm that practice value pricing or everyday low pricing (EDLP), develop a pricing strategy that promises ultimate value to consumers. Value is the “ratio of benefits to the sacrifice necessary to obtain those benefits” but what this really means is that, in the customers’ eyes, the price is justified by what they receive.

Value-based pricing begins with customers then considers the competition and then determines the best pricing strategy. Smart marketers know that the firm that wins is not necessarily the one with the lowest prices but rather the one that delivers the best combination of price and customer value perception. When marketers use EDLP strategies, consumers may feel they get more for their money. Marketers hope that customers will see the price as reasonable and remain loyal rather than snapping up whatever happens to be on sale.

This may not be the case now because shoppers have been “trained” to choose products because they are superior to others. According to Bingham (2005), some of the principal pricing objectives as: Maximize general profit Profit probably is the company objective that is most often stated. A firm entering a new geographic market or introducing a new product or product line may be well advised to set low prices initially, so as to build a large customer base. In this case, the goal would be to optimize profits over the long run focusing attention on the demand curve. If the attempt is successful, the marketer is applauded as a wise visionary.

If unsuccessful, the marker appears to have wasted a great deal of the company’s money. Achieve return on investment Product may be priced to achieve a certain percentage return on investment. This suggest a selling orientation rather than a marketing orientation, in that marketing will be given a price and expected to somehow convince the customer to purchase the product rather than expecting the same return form every product, many marketers prefer to achieve a target RO1 utilizing a mix of margins, each strategically, set as appropriate for the product, customer and situation.

Maintain or increase market share Maintain or increase market share is a popular type of pricing objectives because market share is measurable and may be a better indicator of general financial corporate health than return on investment, especially when the total market is growing, gaining market share because of a good reputation for quality and customer service will generally affect long run profit favorably.

However, being totally focused on building market share often involves imprudent pricing below perceived customer value and even less overall profit. According to Kotler and Armstrong (2004), a marketer needs to know price elasticity, how responsiveness demand will be to a change in price. If the demand is elastic rather than inelastic, sellers will consider lowering their price. A lower price will produce more total revenue. This practice makes sense as long as the extra costs of producing and selling more do not exceed the extra revenue.

At the same time, most firms want to avoid pricing that turns their products into commodities. A retailer need to work harder than ever to differentiate their offerings when a dozen competitors are selling virtually the same product at a comparable or lower price. Implication for pricing decisions According to Bearden, he listed some of the implication of legislation and case law for pricing as:

• Horizontal price fixing among companies at the same level of a distribution channel is illegal. In most cases retailers are free to establish their own final selling prices. Prices charged by manufacturer or wholesaler owned retailers may still be restricted by the owner.
• Some states have enacted minimum price laws that prevent retailers from selling Merchandise for less than cost.
• Price must not be presented in a way that deceives customers.

Discrimination that reflects extremely low prices to eliminate competition, or that does not reflect cost differentials, may be illegal. In industries with a few large firms, it is generally acceptable for the pricing behavior of smaller firms to parallel that of larger firms. According to Adrian Palmer (2002) says product mix decisions include strategic and tactical decisions about the average level of price to be charged, discount structures, terms of payment and the extent to which price discrimination between different groups of customers to take place. These are very similar to issues facing a good marketer.

The personal and non-transferrable nature of many services presents additional opportunities for price discrimination with service markets, while the fact that many services are marketed by the public sector at a subsidized or no price complicated price setting. 2. 2. 2 Other marketing mix element According to Palmer (2000), marketing mix as an aspect of marketing strategy and tactics that marketing management use to gain competitive advantage over its competitors. Marketing mix can also be defined as the overall marketing offer to appeal to the target market (Bearden, 2004).

It is also define as the controllable variables the company puts together to satisfy the target group, McCarthy (1994). According to Saleemi (2007), he defines marketing mix as the combination of detailed strategies, tactics operational policies programmes, techniques and activities to which resources may be allocated such that the company’s marketing objective are achieved. Marketing mix element includes; Product Products are the means by which organizations seek to satisfy consumer needs.

A product in this sense is anything that an organization offers to potential customers, whether it is tangible or intangible. Retailers should be the one to handle the product in the service industry (Palmer 2002). According to Bearden (2007), a product as an idea, a physical entity ( a good), a service or any combination of the three that is an element of exchange to satisfy individual or business objectives. Successful marketers focus on the benefits products supply to customers. Place Place decisions refer to the case of access that potential customers have to a service.

This involves physical location decisions (as in deciding where to place a shop), decisions is about which intermediaries to use in making a service accessible to a consumer and non-location decision which are used to make services available i. e. the use of internet-based delivery systems. These can be either be materials necessary to produce a serve such as travel brochures and fast food packaging material or the service can have as its whole purpose, the movement of goods (Palmer, 2002). The term place or distribution is used in a different sense form the economic meaning the word which deals with reward of factor of production.

In the market content, it means the transfer of good from producer to the consumer Robert (1994) while A W Shaw, distribution is defined as application of motion to materials as they move from the time, places, forms and condition where they have value (Saleemi, 1999) distribution can be further defines by Farmer (1982) about getting your product service to the right people at the right time with a special consideration for profit and effect. People People are a vital element of traditional marketing mix. Management can usually take measures to reduce the direct effect of people on the final output as received by customers (Palmer, 2000).

Gummesson (2001), illustrate that most marketers are part-time working that their actions have a much more direct effect on the output received by customers. People planning within the marketing mix also involves developing a pattern of integration between customers themselves, which can be very important where service consumption takes place in public. People planning assumes much greater importance within the service sector especially where staff have a high level of contact with customers to achieve the objectives methods of recruiting, training, motivation and rewarding staff can regard as marketing mix decision.

People planning within marketing also involves developing a pattern of interaction between customers themselves which can be very important where service consumption takes place in a public place. Stuart (2003) says that employees (people element) have the biggest impact on service perceptions. This makes it extra important for management to engage in internal marketing n which efforts are made to sell the firm’s own employees on the idea that they work for a superior company of which they can be proud.

If the service provider doesn’t believe in the job and the company this attitude will quickly be apparent to the customer. Promotion A specific combination of promotional methods used for one product or a family product. Marketing mix decide upon the best way to leverage the different elements of the mix to maximize the return on your investments. According to Palmer (2002), the promotion of service often needs to place particular emphasis on increasing the apparent tangibility of a service. The mix traditionally broken down into four main elements;

Sales promotion Kotler (1997) defines sales promotion as the marketing activities that provide extra value or incentive to the sale force, the distributors or the ultimate consumer can stimulate immediate sales. The consumer oriented sales promotion is targeted to the ultimate user of purchase materials. These promotional tools encourage consumers to make an immediate purchase and stimulate short term sales. Retailers should be able to use the sale promotion for it to attract and maintain its customers.

According to Kotler (1980), sales promotion is a short term incentives to encourage purchase or sale of product or service. It is direct inducement offering extra incentive all along in the marketing channel to accelerate the movement of its products from products to consumers. According to Berkowitz et al (1997), sales promotion is a fourth promotional element. A short term inducement of value offered to arouse interest I nth buying of goods and services. The advantage of sales promotion is that the short term nature of these programs or sale promotion activities often stimulate sale for their duration.

Offering value to the consumer in terms of cents off, coupons or rebate provides an incentive to buy. Bearden et al (2007) sample size products made available to the prospective purchasers usually free of charge. Marketers use samples to demonstrate products value or use to encourage future purchase; sampling reduces the consumer’s perception of risks by allowing the product trial before purchase of all full size versions. He says also coupons are typically printed certificates giving the bearer a stated price reduction or special value of specific product generally for specific period.

Coupons allow the manufacturers to reduce the product price at any time. They are particularly useful in encouraging new product trials. It states that couponing is the most important consumer promotion tool in the abroad packaged goods industry. It is also a significant factor in US and Canada. Kotler et al (2006) states that, the main consumer promotion tools include samples coupons, cash refunds, price packs, point of purchase displays, contest and sweepstakes. Solomon (2006) stated that promotion inform consumers about new products and service over other.

Although promotions use to be one sided certain product and also builds relationship with consumers. In fact in broad terms it can be urged that every element of promotional mix is actually a form of communication, price of a product itself contribute to impression of the item in people’s minds to turn their attention to small scale organization as their main means of economic development and success of the retailers. Advertising Belch (2001), defines advertisement as any form of non-personal communication about an organization product, service or idea by an identified scholar.

It reflects the fact that the space or time for advertising message generally must be bought. Advertising is the best known and most widely discussed form of promotion probably because of perverseness; it is also a very important promotional tool, particularly for companies whose products and services are targeted at mass consumer’s marketers. For retailers to meet the needs of its customers it should be in a position to use advertisement for creating information about the new products with the better prices, also to create brand images and symbolic appeals for retailer’s brand.

Advertising refers to any paid non-personal communication in the media by an identified sponsor (Gordon 1995) the communication can be about an organization, good service or idea. The paid aspect at this definition is important because the space for the advertising message normally must be bought. Advertising is non-personal because it involves mass media (e. g. T. V, Newspaper, Radio and others) that are non-personal and do not have immediate feedback. The main objectives were to inform, persuade and remind and to increase sales.

Advertising involves mass media such as radio, T. V and newspapers which are non-personal and does not have an immediate feedback, so before the message is sent, marketing research plays an important role for instance it determines that the message is understood by the target market will actually see the medium chosen. Personal selling According to Weitz (2004), personal selling is a person to person business activity in which a sales person uncovers and satisfies the needs of a buyer to the mutual long-term benefit of both parties.

The objective is to build a relationship that provides long-term benefits to both the seller and the customer. Thus selling involves helping customers identify problems offering information about potential solutions and providing after sales service to ensure long-term satisfaction sales person’s performance has considerable effect on the value customers often have greater loyalty to sales people than to the firms employing sales person. This helps retailers make sure that their customers’ needs are being fulfilled.

Personal selling is absolutely essential in the promotion blends of some retailers. According to N. A Saleemi (2007) defines personal selling is a marketing process with which consumers are personally persuaded to buy goods and services offered by a manufacture. Engle (1991) defines personal selling as the process of assisting and persuading prospect to buy goods or services to act on an idea through use thorough use of person to personal communication between a buyer and seller, designed to influence a person’s or group purchase decision, creating awareness or changing attitudes.

Personal selling can also be defined as the task to be perform by a sales person determining the sales message establishing an appropriate sales force designing the sales people training them, compensating and supervising sales personnel. Advertising causes the fruit of potential customer relationship to grow and ripen. Some may fall out of their own accord, but the best fruit require individual picking. This means that personal selling should go hand with other promotional efforts. Public relations

Lesly at el (2005), noted public relation has one major aim that is to give stores visibility and identity’s a store must plan a head for the unknown. Retailers who are regarded as outstanding citizen are those ones that store never stops making a mark on the community, employees, the manufacturers, and the national organization as well. To capitalize on the assets a store has, the public relation departments relay it’s to the organization. According to Kotler (2006), public relation is normally a relations activity.

Publicity is communication in news story form regarding a firm and its product, which transmitted through mass media at no direct charges to the company firms employ, employ publicity to make people aware of a company’s product maintain a certain level of positive visibility with the public, promote a particular image to overcome negative communication. Publicity is highly credible but cooperation with media may prove difficulty calls for the company to purchase the store advertise. As a result, publicity may not be considered as main component of a promotional mix.

Management Skills

Management skills, this is the knowledge of how to a business that one acquires through training in special learning institutions. A small scale business whose management skills will be able to take care of customers so as to purchase the quality and the right quantity of goods, motivate the workers market their goods and services in proper way. Where management skill lacking the performance will be poor, thus the knowledge emphasis here is that any manager or shop owners (Small business retailers in Kericho Town) who expect to be successful in business need training in management skills.

According to Saleemi (2008), three managerial skills essential to successful management are; a) Technical skills This refers to the ability and knowledge in using equipment, techniques and procedures involved in performing specific tasks. This skill is highly necessary at a lower level of management and desirable at the middle management level and also the top level of management and must be familiar enough with their potentiality to ask discerning questions of his technical advisers because technical problems might arise from time to time. ) Human skills This is ability to work effectively with others both as individual and as members of a group. It involves commitment and genuine involvement in inter-personal relationships. This requires win co-operation of others and to build effective work teams. This skill is necessary at all level of management and it helps mangers for organizational success. Conceptual skills The conceptual skill is ability to see the whole organization and the inter-relationships between its parts.

The top management must visualize the entire picture or consider a situation in its totality and formulate the objectives, policies and strategies and also know how each parts of the organization contributes towards the achievement of primary goals and how each part is interrelated to each other. Thus, the relative importance of conceptual skills increases as we move to higher level of management. Importance of management

• Accomplishment of group goals Management enables the expertise to achieve the desired goals
• Optimum utilization of resource
• An enterprise can remain effective only when there is proper direction and control of its day-to-day activities which ensure efficiency everywhere.

Human development Management improves in qualities of a personnel and staffing within and outside the organization. • Sound organization structure Management establishes a sound organization that is in accordance with the desired objectives and the work to be done to accomplish them. The top ten soft skills for which employers are looking;

Communicate effectively – To communicate effectively you need the ability to express yourself clearly, to be a good listener and to show empathy and understanding of others. You also need to be able to use language and grammar correctly. Commit to the job The principal qualities employers are seeking here is honesty, dependability and enthusiasm. Learn new tasks willingly – No matter what the job, at times there will be new things to learn and any employer wants someone who will be willing to learn anything that is required, with reason.

Accept responsibility – Many problems in the workplace are caused by people passing the back, or not taking responsibility for their own actions, or in action. Employers are on the lookout for those who take pride in the quality of their work, evaluate it regularly and use their time wisely. Excellent interpersonal skills. These skills show in the ability to work co-operatively with others, maintain a positive attitude and to accept constructive criticism. Make decisions – Decisions need to be made in most jobs, and prioritization is one much needed decision in the workplace, which goes hand in hand with the ability to organize tasks.

Also the ability to contribute new ideas is part of this process. Show flexibility In this rapidly changing world, the ability and willingness to adapt and be flexible is becoming a core workplace requirement. Leadership potential Even in you are not in a supervisory position, the traits that are involve in leadership are desirable. These include demonstrate persistence, self-motivation and by showing an effort to improve performance. Growing in the job By showing ambition, the job applicant lets the employer know they are willing to train and gain further skills.

Of course, the employer also wants this ambition to include staying with the company. Ability to handle personal problems Everyone at some time has pressures and stresses in their personal life with the possible exception of major crisis, employers are looking for people who can cope with their personal lives without letting it interfere with their work. (http://voices. yahoo. com). Five personal management skills for being awesome; 1. Time management and planning skills Pareto’s law states that 80 percent of our output is generated by 20 percent of our efforts.

Imagine if you could work less and gain more ground weekly than you have been able to make up in the past few years. Time management skills are the key to this personal management skill. All of the awesome and productive workers that I have met successfully manage their time. You could probably work less and be much more at peace with yourself with some quality time-management training. Having time management skills is simply the ability to recognize and solve time management problems. You can develop these personal management skills by keeping a calendar and beginning to schedule everything.

This scheduling your free time and the time it takes to get form one meeting to another. Financial management skills Money management is the wall upon which your personal management skills sit lopsidedly like humpty dumpty. On one side, through the disciplines or successful financial management comes successful personal management as well. There is no need for all the king’s horses to put anything back together. On the other side, humpty fails to the ground the rest of his personal managements skills shatter into the pieces of a broken shell.

The reasons being discipline required for successful financial management is powerful enough to bleed its way into just about every aspect of your life. When you can assert yourself over your financial situation, you can assert yourself to the realization of your goals. Personal management becomes an even greater aspect of your life. Communication Personal management will not become a larger part of your affairs knowing your own voice gives your ability to carry a healthy inner dialog which then confidently guides you towards your goals with great communication skills omes the power to influence and encourage others and yourself. You won’t be able to practice personal management until you’re able to listen to that inner dialog and understand where you are headed. A few tricks to improving your communication skills are;

• Practice active listening, try to look the person speaking in the age and think only about the words that they are speaking.
• Speak slowly an ask questions to test whether the listening party understands what is being communicated.
• Organizational skills Personal management would be incomplete without the ability to stay organized.

We cannot accomplish any goals without the resources required to get the job done. You can greatly increase your personal management skills by getting organized. The best part is you already have the skills required to be organized, you just need to start putting them to good use. Here are a few great organizational skills that will improve your personal management techniques. Through staff in the garbage, most people can get away with throwing 50% of the things the save away without any negative consequence. Use a PIM (Personal information Manager) such as outlook or a day Runner Planner/Organizer. File paperwork away in a manner that is consistent and understandable. 5. Continued self-development skills This is the most important personal skill of them all. Without the ability to continue moving forward with personal development you will be unable to recognize the areas that need to be corrected in order to increase your time, financial, communication and organization skills. Without continued self-development, your personal management skills will falter and the awesome person that you are will fail to reach its full potential. (www. workawesome. com)

Competition

According to Levy (2008), say’s marketers should build a sustainable competitive advantage by offering excellent customer service, though consistently offering excellent service can prove difficult. Customer service is provided by retailers. Firms that offer good customer service must instill its importance in their customers over a long period of time so that it becomes part of the organizational culture. According to Porter (1980) Argue that the state or degree of competition in an industry and thus the industry unattractiveness in terms of profit potential which affect the market share depends on five forces.

These include: Rivalry among competing firms The strategies pursued by one firm can be successful only to the extent that they provide competitive advantage over the strategies pursued by rival firms. Changes in strategy by one firm may be met with retaliatory counter moves, such as lowering prices, enhancing quality, adding features, providing services, extending warranties and increasing advertising. The intensity of rivalry among competing firms tends to increase as the number of competitors increases, as competitors become more equal in size and capability as demand for the industry’s products declines and as price cutting becomes common.

Rivalry also increases when consumers can switch brands easily; when barriers to leaving the market are high, when fixed costs are high; when the product is perishable; when consumer demand is growing slowly or declines such that rival have excess capacity, when the products being sold are commodities, when the products being sold are commodities, when firms are diverse in culture and when mergers and acquisition are common in the industry.

As rivalry among competing firms intensifies, industry profits decline, in some cases to the point where an industry becomes inherently unattractive. Potential Entry of New competitors Despite numerous barriers to entry, new firms sometimes enter industries with higher quality products, lower prices and substantial marketing resources. To identify potential new firms entering the market, to counter attack as needed, and to capitalize on existing strengths and opportunities.

When the threat of new firms entering the market is strong, incumbent firms generally fortify their positions and take actions to deter new entrants, such as lowering prices, extending warranties, adding features or offering financing specials. Potential development of substitute product Retailers are in close competition with producers of substitute products in the market. The presence of substitute products puts a ceiling on the price that can be charged before consumers will switch to the substitute product. Price ceilings equate to profit ceilings and more intense competition among rivals.

The magnitude of competitive pressures derived from development of substitute products is generally evidenced by rivals’ plans for expanding production capacity as well as by their sales and profit growth numbers. Competitive pressures arising from substitute products increase as the relative price of substitute products declines and as consumers switching costs decrease. The competitive strength of substitute products is best measured by the inroads into the market share those products obtain, as well as those firms’ plans for increased capacity and market penetration.

Bargaining power of suppliers The bargaining power of suppliers affects the intensity of competition in an industry, especially when there is large number of suppliers, when there are only a few good substitute raw materials, or when the cost of switching raw materials is especially costly. It is often in the best interest of both suppliers and producers to assist each other with reasonable prices improved quality, development of new services, just-in-time deliveries and reduced inventory costs, thus enhancing long-term profitability for all concerned.

Firm may pursue strategy which is effective when suppliers are unreliable, too costly, or not capable of meeting a firm’s need on a constituent basis, firm generally can negotiate more favorable terms with suppliers when backward integration is a commonly used strategy among rival firms in an industry an it is more economical to use outside suppliers of component parts than to self-manufacture the items.

Sellers are forging strategic partnerships with select suppliers in effort to reduce inventory and logistics costs; speed the availability of next generation components, enhance the quality of the parts and component being supplied and reduce defect rates and squeeze out important cost savings for both themselves and suppliers. Bargaining power of customers When customers are concentrated or large or buy in volume, their bargaining power represents a major force affecting the intensity of competition in an ndustry. Rival firms may offer extended warranties or special services to gain customer loyalty whenever the bargaining power of consumers is substantial. Bargaining power of consumers also is higher when the products being purchased are standard or undifferentiated. When this is the case, consumers often can negotiate selling price, warranty coverage and accessory packages to a greater extent. The bargaining power of consumers can be the most important force affecting competitive advantage.

• Consumers gain increasing bargaining power under the following circumstances;
• If they can in expensively switch to competing brands or substitutes
• If they are particularly important to seller
• If sellers are struggling in the face of falling consumer demand
• If they are informed about sellers’ products, prices and costs

If they have discretion in whether and when they purchase the product. Figure 2. The five-force model of competition Source: Parker (2009). According to McCarthy (2003), the long run of perfect competition, exhibits optimal level of economic efficiency but for this to be achieved all of the conditions of perfect completion must hold related markets. When the assumptions are fall, we move into a world of imperfect competition with all potential that exists for various forms of market failure.

When price and output is not in the competition equilibrium the result is a dead weight loss of economic welfare. Pure competition to exist many firms, combines together, each of whom produces insignificant percentage of total market output and exercise no control over the ruling market price. Firms face no sunken costs-entry and exit from the market is feasible in the long time period. This ensures all firms that are perfect substitutes.

This leads to each firm being passive and facing a perfectly elastic demand curve for their product perfect knowledge consumers have reading available information about prices and products from competing suppliers and can access this at zero cost, there are few transactions cost involved in searching for the required information about prices. No externalities arising from production which lies outside market (Kotler, 2005). Market concept of competition is looking at the firm that is trying to satisfy the same customer need.

A sustainable competitive advantage is an advantage over competition that a retailer can maintain over competitive advantages means that retailer builds a wall around its position in the competitors to contact customers in the retailers market. If the retailer has built a wall around an attractive market, competitors will attempt to breakdown the wall. Over time, all advantages will be eroded by these competitive forces but by building high walls retailers can sustain their advantages, minimize competitive pressure and boost profits for a long time.

Thus establishing a sustainable competitive advantage is the key to long-term financial performance. Competitive advantage can be defined as “anything that a firm does especially well compared to rival firms” when a firm can do something that rival firms cannot do, or owns something that rival firms desire, that can represent a competitive advantage. Getting and keeping is essential for long-term success in an organization. A firm can sustain a competitive advantage for only a certain period due to rival firms imitating and undermining that advantage.

A firm must strive to achieve sustained competitive advantage by continually adapting to changes in external trends and events and internal capabilities, competencies and resources and by effectively formulating, implementing and evaluating strategies that capitalize upon those factors. An increasing number of companies are gaining a competitive advantage by using the internet for direct selling and for communication with suppliers, customers, creditors, partners, shareholders, client’s and competitors who may be dispersed globally.

Most traditional retailers have learned that their online sales can boost in-store sales as they utilize their web sites to promote in-store promotion. There are five importance opportunities for a retailer to develop sustainable competitive advantage, which include; customer loyalty, location, vendor relational management information and distribution systems and low-cost operations. According to levy (1996), four types of growth opportunities that retailers pursue and these are market penetration market expansion, retail format development and diversification.

A market penetration opportunity involves directing investments toward existing customers, using the present retailing format. It is trying to increase sales by inducing current customers to visit the more often or by attracting customers in the retailers target market who don’t shop at its stores. One approach for accomplishing this objective would to open more stores in the target market in locations convenient to more of the firm’s customers.

Another approach would be salespeople to cross-sell; this means that sales associates in one department attempt to sell customers complementary Merchandise from other departments. A market expansion opportunity employs to existing retail format in new market segments. A retail format development opportunity involves offering in present customers a new retail format i. e. a retailer’s adding additional merchandise categories on altering to breadth and depth of assortments in this stores.

According to Perrault and McCarthy (2003), said that there are four basic kinds of competitive situations namely pure competition, oligopoly, monopolistic and monopoly. In this situation, a marketing manager competes for customers against competitors who are offering very similar products because customers see different available products as marketing mixes as close substitutes, lowering prices especially in pure competition where they are likely to be large number of competitors avoiding pure competition is sensible and certainly fits with the emphasis on tough market.

According to Berkowitz (1997 competitive parity budgeting says that the matching the competitor’s absolute level of spending or the proportion per point of market share. This approach has also been referred to as matching competitors or share of market. The competitor’s budget level should not be only determinant in setting a company’s budget. The competition might have very different advertising objectives, which require a different level of advertising expenditures. According to (http://www. cheg. om), perfect competition is the theoretical case illustrating the most competitive market possible. If there are many buyers and sellers, no barriers to entry or exit, perfect information for all agent, no positive or negative externalities, and identical products, then individuals acting in pursuit of their own self-interest will attain the perfectly competitive and socially best market outcome. Although a theoretical extreme case, the model provides a useful approximation of competitive market behavior.

For example, while the designer jeans market is not perfectly competitive there are differentiated products and copyrighted logos the a supply demand model derived from perfectly competitive assumptions can yield fairly accurate predictions of the effect of events and government policy on prices, output, number of firms and other characteristics of the market. Imperfect competition is the market with two or more sellers and buyers that fail to match the criteria of perfect competition. The most noted examples of imperfect competition are the two structures will sell control monopolistic competition and oligopoly.

Lesser known market structures with buying-side control monopolistic competition and oligopsony are also considered as imperfect competition. Competition comes in two basic varieties of which found in imperfect competition are competition among the few and competition among the many. Buying and selling imperfection The four market structures that are technically included in the category of imperfect competition are; Monopolistic competition – This market structure is characterized by a large number of relatively small competitors, each with a modest degree of market control on the supply side.

A key feature of monopolistic competition is product differentiation; the output of each producer is a close but not identical substitute to that of every other firm, which helps satisfy diverse consumer wants and needs. Oligopoly – This market structure is characterized by a small number of relatively large competitors, each with substantial market control, oligopoly sellers’ exhibit interdependent decision making which can lead to intense competition among the few and the motivation to cooperate through mergers and collusion.

Monopsonistic competition – This market structure is characterized by a large number of relatively small competitors, each with a modest degree market control on the demand side. Monopolistic competition represents the demand-side counterpart to monopolistic competition on the supply side. A key feature of monopolistic competition also product differentiation as each buyer seeks to purchase a slightly different product. Oligopsony – This market structure is characterized by a small number of relatively large competitors each with substantial market control on the buying side.

Oligopsony represents the demand side counterpart to Oligopoly on the supply side. Oligopsony buyers exhibit interdependent decision making which can lead to intense competition and the motivation to cooperate imperfectly competitive sellers face negatively – sloped demand curves and imperfectly competitive buyers face positively-sloped supply curves. In either case, in both cases, price is not equal to marginal cost. The satisfaction obtained from production is not equal to the satisfaction on lost form foregone production. hhtp://www. amosweb. com) Competition in our business segments is based on service, product features, price, commission structure, and financial strength, claims paying ability, rating’s and name recognition. We face intense competition from a large number of other insurers, as well as non-insurance financial services companies such as banks, broker dealers and asset managers for individual customers, employers, other group customers, agents and other distributors of insurance and investment products.

Consolidation in the global financial service industry can enhance the competitive position of some of our competitors by broadening the range of their products and services, increasing their distribution channels and their access to capital. In addition, development of alternative distribution channels for certain types of insurance and securities products, including through the internet, may result in increasing competition as well as pressure on markings for certain types of products.

These competitive pressures could result in increased pricing pressures on a number of products and services, particularly as competitors seek to win market share. This may harm our ability to maintain or increase profitability. The adverse market and economic conditions that began in the second half of 2007 and that have continued and worsened since then can be expected to result in changes in the competitive landscape.

For example, financial distress experienced by certain financial service industry participants as a result of such conditions may lead to acquisition opportunities, although our ability or that of our competitors to pursue such opportunities may be limited due to lower earnings, reserve increases and a lack of access to debt capital markets and other sources of financing such conditions may also lead to changes by us or our competitors in product offering and product pricing that could affect our and their relative sales volumes, market share and profitability.

According to Chapman (2004), competition can cause injury to the organism involve and drain valuable resources and energy, it can also be harmful to participants such as athletes who injure themselves when pushing their body past its natural limit, or companies which pursue unprofitable path while engaging in competitive rivalries. McCarty (1993) said that “there are basic kinds of competitive situations namely pure competition, oligopoly, monopolistic and monopoly”.

Customers see different available products as marketing mixes as close substitutes, lower prices especially in pure competition where they are likely to be large number of competitors avoiding pure competition is sensible and certainly fits with the emphasis on toughen marketing. According to Kotler (2005), it states that the market concept of competition is looking at companies that are trying to satisfy the same customer need or serve the same customer group.

The key to identify customer is to link industry and market analysis through mapping the market and product battle field, after identifying competitors the company needs to gather information on competitors’ strategies, objectives strength, weakness and reaction among them. Porter (2008) says that competition is at its core of success or failure of a firm, competition determines the appropriateness of a firm activity that can contribute to its performance.

Government Policy

Policy refers to the specific guidelines, methods procedures, rules, form and administrative practices established to support and encourage work toward stated goals. According to McCarthy (2003), policy addresses the intent of the organization, whether government, business, professional or voluntary, policy is intended to affect the real world, by guiding the decision that are made whether they are formally written or not, most organizations have identified policies.

Policies may be classified in many different ways. These include, distributive policies, this extend goods and services to members of an organization, as well as distributing the cost of goods and services amongst the members of the organization. Government policies, is that impact spending for welfare, public education and public safety. Policies are dynamic; they are not just static list of goal or laws. The action of the firm actually takes may often vary significantly from stated policy.

The changes in political environment often lead to change in the legal environment and the existing laws are enforced to laws. The government has put the rule that every company must fulfill some of the rules that are not imposed by government by its members. The business owners are subject to criminal and civil law if they fail to abide by the law. A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome. The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, this normally referred to as either procedure or protocol.

Policies are generally adopted by Board of senior governance body within an organization whereas procedure or protocols would be developed and adopted by senior executives officers, policies can assist in both subjective and objective decision making policies to assist in subjective decision making would usually assist senior management with decisions that must consider the relative merits of a number of factors before making decisions and as a result are often hard to objectively test e. g. work-life balance policy.

In contract policies to assist in objective decision making are usually operational in nature and can be objectively tested e. g. password policy. The term may apply to government private sector organizations and groups and individuals. Presidential orders, corporate privacy policies, and parliamentary rules of order are all examples of policy. Policy differs from rules or law. While law can compel or prohibit behaviors (e. g. a law requiring the payment of taxes on income), policy merely guides actions toward those that are most likely to achieve desired outcome (Wikipedia org. According to Birkland (2001) in an introduction to the policy process, there is lack of consensus on the definition of policy. The goal of policy may vary according to the organization and the context in which they are made. Policies are instituted in order to avoid some of the negative effect that has been noticed in the organization so as to seek positive benefits. Regulatory policies limit the discretion of individual and agencies in terms of behavior which can be regulated and punished through sanctions.

Karuga and Smith (2004), argue, considerable donor- driven interventions influenced policy. The district focus for rural development program (DFRD), akin to the current developed funds established in1983 was preceded by considerable donor investment in integrated rural development programmes. Donors also invested substantially in rural infrastructure like rural access roads, storage facilities, production and marketing facilities like sugar and coffee. Disappointingly, this period also saw increased political patronage and self-interests of the elite seriously eroding interest in policy advice.

The structural adjustment programs (SAPS) of 1980s for the agricultural sector focused on market liberalization and price decontrols, which were expected to reduce opportunities for rent extraction through the marketing chain by the elite. O’Brien and Ryan (2001) considered the attempted reforms on agricultural pricing and marketing as the most difficult era of policy reform throughout the SAPS period. It created mistrust and the highest level of misunderstanding between policy formulation and implementation was widest.

Implementations of reforms in market were largely tied to release of donor aid. In general when analyzing policy process in the country, it is important to note that one of the problems with effectiveness of policy has been the lack of implementation of policy pronoun cements. As a result, the policies that have been initiated are not reflected in the actions in terms of resource allocations and commitments. While the policies in the 1960s and early 1970s were mostly implemented, this has not been the case over time.

Some policies have also tended to respond more to short term interventions, rather than focus on long term sustainable development. Institutional failure due to lack of capacity by the private sector to take over functions by the state after liberalization, has also been a problem. Weed (2012), public diplomacy involves U. S government activities to conduct US foreign policy and promote us national interests through direct outreach and communication with the population of foreign countries.

Public diplomacy and international broadcasting activities, conducted by the department of state, U. S diplomatic personnel abroad, and U. S international broadcasters such as the voice of America, include providing information to foreign publics through broadcast and interest media and at libraries and other outreach facilities in foreign countries, conducting cultural diplomacy, such as art exhibits and music performances and administering international educational and professional exchange programs.

For decades, congress has enacted legislative provisions concerning U. S government communication to U. S domestic audiences that prohibit influencing public opinion through unauthorized publicity or propaganda. In the case of U. S public diplomacy and international broadcasting, two additional legislative provisions prohibit the dissemination and general availability of communications and related materials intended for foreign publics to U.S domestic audience, section 501 of the united states information and education exchange Act of 1948 (“Smith-mondt Act”) as well as section 208 of the foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal year 1986 and 1987 (“Zorinsky Amendment”) Basic telephony service has long been regarded as a good that required a deliberate policy effort to achieve universal access. However, a close reading of history raises doubt. According to (Mueller 1996), penetration of basic telephony services could easily be comparable to today’s rates, even if there had been no policies of subsidized access.

Various comments to the FCC in their recent docket on Universal service reform indicated that the current structure of pricing in telephony is costing the US billions of dollars in deadweight losses, with very little impact on penetration rates for basic telephone service. These deadweight losses arise because the prices of elastically demand services like long-distance calling are set well above cost, and the prices of in elastically demanded, like basic service, are often below cost, in direct violation of the economic principles of efficient pricing to cover joint and common costs (“Ramsey pricing”).

Gilbert and Shapiro (1990) describe a model under which the optimal policy involves long-lived, but narrow, patents, not unlike the protection offered to trade secrets; Klemperer (1990) provides a related analysis of this issue. However, these models do not account for the possibility that a patent may come to control a larger and larger portion of economic activity due to subsequent inventions patent breadth also arises anthem intersection between intellectual property law and antitrust law, which determine the limits on patentees’ licensing practices.

Davis et al (1994), also argue that software patents should have a shorter lifespan than other types of patents. Each of these policies should be carefully considered. As a practical matter, it would be far easier for PTO to set high novelty standards and grant narrow software patents than for congress to selectively alter patent lifetimes for software patents. Furthermore, in many cases the patent lifetime is unimportant because the pace of progress is great enough that the patent has lost all of its value by its expiration date.

Regulatory policies designed to control monopoly pricing, such as traditional rate regulation and to transform monopoly markets into competitive ones where technology permits. We caution that such a transformation of the telephone industry will take place only very gradually, however, making regulation necessary for many years to come. We also must note that regulation brings its own dangers; a regulatory structure created to control monopoly power can easily be used to serve ther purposes, in particular to engage in cross-subsidization. Inevitably, the services that are doing the cross-subsidizing are stifled; long distance telephone calling has long been subject to such a tax, which is the enemy of efficient transmission of information.

Critical Review

According to Perrault and McCarthy (2006), market share refers to a brand’s share of the total sales of all products within the product category in which the brand competes.

Market share determined by dividing a brand’s sales volume by the total category sales volume with a certain percentage of the market area or targeted market population, it is usually used to describe a forecasted goal or a past penetration of the market percent of a given market sold to owned by a company be a whole as a result of its success in marketing effectiveness, products characteristics, pricing, cost, delivery time, quality and many other factors for many firms to perform well, a percentage of the market that is purchasing a particular brand, product or supplier should be fairly high compared to rivalry firms, thus the higher the percentage of the market area or targeted market population, the higher the performance of the firm and vice versa. The nature of the competition in retail market is affected by barriers to entry, the bargaining power of consumer and competitive rivalry. Retailer markets are more attractive when competitive entry is costly. Barriers to entry institute conditions in a retail market that make it difficult for other firms to enter the market such as economies, customer loyalty and the available of good locations scale economies are advantage due to a retailer’s size 2. Conceptual Framework Conceptual framework is diagrams or figures that illustrate the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. Dependent variables: Represent those factors which change in response to previous changes of independent variables. Independent variables: Represent those factors that influence or cause some changes in other related factors. These factors include marketing mix, competition, management skills and government policy. The model below shows the framework and concept of market share in retailers market and the resultant improved features use of flow chart. Independent variableDependent variable Figure 2. The conceptual framework flow Source: Researcher (2013) Brief explanation of conceptual framework Market share Market share is the ratio of the firms’ sales revenues or unit sales to those of the industry. Management skills Management skills are the secret tools in the hands of any manager. They are the special abilities that are different in different individuals. Some of these skills are taught during training but the level at which they are utilized optimally are based on manager. Policy Refers to specific guidelines, methods, procedures, rules, forms and administrative practices established to support and encourage work toward stated goals. Marketing mix

A combination of detailed strategies, tactics, operational policies, programmed, techniques and activities to which resources may be allocated such that het retailers’ marketing objectives are achieved. Marketing mix elements include; Price It can be defines as the amount of money charged for product or service are the major factor that affects the market share, in marketing mix price changes as the product passes its life cycle. Product A good or service that most closely meets the requirements of a particular market or segment and yield enough profit to justify its continued existence. Promotion A specific combination of promotional method used for one product or a family product. Marketing mix decide upon the best way to leverage the different elements of the mix to maximize the return on your investment People

People are the most important element of any service or experience. Service tends to be produced and consumed at the same moment and aspects of the customer experience are altered to meet the individual needs of the person consuming it. People planning within the marketing mix involve developing a pattern of interaction between customers themselves. Competition Rivalry in which every seller tries to get what others sellers are seeking at the same time. Sales, profit, and market share by offering the best practicable combination of price, quality and service where the market information flows freely, competition plays a regulatory function in balancing demand and supply.

Summary Conclusion

Most retailers face intense competitive pressure, the desperation that comes with such pressure has pushed some retailers towards questionable marketing practices. Retailers too often promote their sales item to bring price sensitive shoppers in the store but they don’t stock enough to meet demand, they can’t always anticipate demand perfectly and deliveries may not arrive on time therefore retailers are encouraged to improve on the service they offer to their final consumers so as small retail businesses don’t collapse in the meantime. Ongoing economic difficulties have encouraged operators throughout the retail market to push on with their strategies of deep discounting and promotions, resulting in increased competition and putting pressure on suppliers to keep prices low.

Another growing channel adding price competition to the market is internet retailing, which has seen notable development, as large scale retailers have invested heavily in improving their online facilities and services.

Introduction

This chapter contains research methodology and procedures that were used in carrying out the research. It also describes the research design, target population, data collection procedure, sampling techniques, data collection instruments, reliability and validity of instruments and data analysis and presentation.

Research Design

According to Kothari (2008), research design is the arrangement of condition for collections and analysis of data in a manner that aims to combine relevance to the research purpose with economy in procedure.

The case study was appropriate to undertake an investigation of Kericho Town with the purpose of determining the factors that affect the market share of small scale retailers. The design helps to curb the issue of pricing in terms of the customers, data collection and the ability to understand the sample size selected. It provides a room extensively based on the same and other related topic. Mugenda and Mugenda (2003) describe the study as comprehensive study of social places like institution, a district or community.

Target Population

According to Mugenda and Mugenda (2003), Target population is that population to which a researcher wants to generalize the results of the study.

Kericho is a fast growing town managed by Kericho municipal council. It has seen the sprouting of many retail and wholesale businesses in the recent past. The other sites are small roadside shopping centers with mainly small retails. The researcher targeted an estimated 300 retailers. The respondents consist of shop owners, grocery store owners, peddlers and service outlets like small hotels outlets, M-pesa outlets, Mitumba traders etc. These were the people best placed to put across the problems and suggest ways to improve their activities in the market.

Sample Design

The study set to utilize the responses of forty seven purposively retailers from the population.

According to Mugenda and Mugenda (2003) purposive sampling is a sampling technique that allows a researcher to use cases that have the required information with respect to the objectives of the study. Purposive samplings are used in the selection of people of interest and exclude those who do not suit the purpose of the study. The researcher opted on this method so as to reach only the retailers within Kericho Town. The merit of using purposive sampling rather than snowball sampling in the population are that is less costly, faster and if selected properly gives results with accuracy that be easily calculated. Accuracy of purposive sampling was compromise due to time constraints and budget.

The necessary data required for this study was primary and secondary, primary data was acquired through questionnaire and interviews.

Questionnaires

According to Kothari (2008), questionnaire consists of a number of questions printed in a definite order on a form or sets of forms. The questionnaires were personally administered to the selected sample of 47 retailers. The structured questionnaire had both open and closed ended questions. In this case, open ended question gives respondent freedom to respond in their opinion in space provided. This method was used as it was easy and less time consuming. The questionnaire was designed to cover general information about the factors affecting the market share of small scale retailers.

Interviews

According to Mugenda and Mugenda (2003), interview methods involved presentation of oral response. Interview was another techniques used in the collection of data since most of the peddlers and shop owners may be illiterate and may not be able to fill in the questionnaire. In this case, researcher should establish a friendly relationship with the respondent and also involves face to face communication in their field work. This method is advantageous because respondents will give more complete and honest information which helps to reach the conclusion.

Reliability and Validity

Validity refers to the accuracy and meaningfulness of inferences which are based in the research (Mugenda and Mugenda, 2003).

This is the degree to which results obtained from the analysis of the data actually represents phenomenon under study, through field study was carried in some shops and M-pesa firms. Reliability refers to the measure of the degree to which research instrument yields consistent results or data after repeated trials. To test validity and reliability the researcher administer questionnaires among selected retailers who take part in the main study and then the result tested was valid and reliable.

Data Analysis and Presentation

After the questionnaires were returned from the field, the response was edited, and coded to make it simple for analysis by using percentages and presented using tables, charts and graphs. The qualitative data collected by means of questionnaires.

The findings on marketing mix elements the respondents normally used was product and this was represented by 21 (44. 68%) and 11 (23. 40%) uses distribution. The findings management skills was that majority says yes and this was represented by 30 (63. 8%) of the respondent. The findings on record keeping were yes 40 (85. 1%) and those who say no were 7 (14. 9) of the respondents. The findings on performance of business, majority of respondents said good 29 (59. 75%) of size 19 (40. 43%) says badly, they were not sure of importance of record keeping. The findings on competition was that majority say yes and this was represented by 35 (74. 47%) of the respondents and those who says no were 12 (25. 53%) of the respondents.

From the findings on government licensing and taxation, it was found that majority of the respondents said yes 37(78. 72%) was represented by the sample size and 10 (21. 28) said no government licensing and taxation don’t affect their sales from findings of government policies. Majority says it was high and this was respondents 18 (38. 30%) say it was very high, 5 (10. 64%) low and no one suggest to be very low. From the findings on what needs to be done in order to overcome government policies especially in small business retailers was that most of them have suggested fairness from government will improve their business and this was represented by 26 (55. 2%) of respondents, 21 (44. 68%) supported that prompt payments will be of great importance to them.

Conclusions

The researcher concluded that factor affecting small scale retailers particularly at Kericho town was precise. If the retail entrepreneur is handicapped by being unable to compete on buying power and a low price strategy and there is no interest in expanding by buying additional outlets, then they need to focus on equality and on maximizing sale in the store. Accordingly one of the critical success factors in small scale retailing is being aware of the changes in order to develop suitable retail market strategies to meet these challenges.

Retailing is of importance to the government as well as the customers not only because of its economic contribution but also because of the social factors and market power of individual retailers and the evidence suggests that retail markets do not necessarily work in an environment of perfect competition.

Recommendations

The researcher recommend that business people should keep record so as to detect whether the business venture running at a profit or loss hence making it easier to avoid any discrepancies thus smooth flow of the business and also ensure product sold to customers are of the right quality so as to build the reputation of your business. The researcher recommends the use of emerging technologies in the retail business. Government should introduce the policies that lower the number of competitors in the market and reduce taxation rate so as to enable scale business to achieve their goals.

Suggestion for Further Studies

This area of research is wide and little attention has been made, the researcher therefore suggested future researchers to address their issues on: a) Factors affecting large scale retailers b) Consumer buying behaviour

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