Top Retail Courses in India & Retail Sector Employment Options

Sales Personnel—students passing from retail management and training institutes often need to start at the lower end of a retail organization’s hierarchy. This essentially means working as Sales Personnel. This job shouldn’t be interpreted as being easy or basic. In fact, this is perhaps the most demanding of all profiles since the sales personnel need to handle different types of customers personally, understanding and resolving their queries and helping them make better choices.

Store Managers—these people are required for handling the overall operations of the store. Store managers are often interpreted as the real all-rounders in the retail chain, i.e. they need to be multi-dexterous to the extent of handling front-office and back-office operations with ease and ensure that the management and other employees are able to communicate effectively along with ensuring that profit targets for the store are met. Please note that the definition and actual role of a store manager can be differently interpreted by various organizations. They might be recruited as:

• Supply Chain Distributors
• Logistics Managers
• Warehouse Managers

Retail Managers—these professionals can be understood as a more specialized form of store managers wherein they are not required to handle personnel-related aspects of the store. They are needed to take care of stock-related issues and ensure that the merchandise is delivered, stocked, ordered and presented in the appropriate manner. Some organizations insist on recruiting highly experienced retail managers and that too with a history of passing from the best of retail management and training institutes since these professionals need to have an understanding of the consumer’s buying preferences and decode the market competition. Retail managers function beyond the aspect of just handling the supply chain. Often organizations prefer to hire retail managers who present additional qualifications like having passed from the top MBA colleges in India or abroad.

Visual Merchandisers—these are the more creative professionals in the retail chain. For instance, they are often recruited as Brand Managers. The visual merchandising niche is highly demanding wherein the visual merchandiser needs to have an eye for gauging the market trend, expect changes, consumer behaviour, suggest alternative marketing strategies and ensure a progressive layout for the store’s presentation both in terms of actual, physical display and its marketing methods. Sometimes, visual merchandisers with a background in creative fields like interior designing or landscaping industry are recruited since visual merchandising often borders on presenting more engaging promotional activities.

Product Development Managers—these professionals are responsible for handling the development a soon-to-be-launched product or refining of an existing product/service. A product development manager might be required to work with everyone within the retail hierarchy of an organization, including the marketing professionals and the supply chain executives. Experience is of utmost importance for this role and some organizations can be very specific in their demand for such professionals. For instance, they might only entertain individuals with loads of experience in retail operations/management along with qualifications like passing from one of the top management colleges of India.

Please note that the exact profile of an individual recruited in the above roles can vary immensely depending upon the specific requirements of an organization. Similarly, there are no defined regulations regarding the salary packages or range of duties allocated to retail professionals since their niche represents a wide range of activities. However, what can be assumed without doubt is that the retail sector is no longer a vocational course option. It is considered as a serious career choice and students who manage to gain admission in the leading retail management and training institutes can look forth to an ever-widening and financially-lucrative professional life.