Revisiting the retail change theories: A quest for contemporary model of retail change (CMRC) in Bangladesh

Abstract

Changes in retailing over the world has been subject to study for long period of time. Researchers proposes several theories of retail changes, most of which are applicable in the developed country perspective, aged and did not consider the contemporary issues like deployment of technologies and sustainability in retail business. Present study aims to review the existing theories of retail changes to propose a new retail change model for Bangladesh. For this purpose, this study rigorously reviewed the relevant articles, journals and other secondary materials. Considering the relative offerings of the retailers and the impact of environment on the retail business, the Contemporary Model of Retail Change (CMRC) shows that the retail industry of Bangladesh is changing towards the supermarket and e-tailing to multi-channel retailing to smart retailing to the sustainable retailing. The poor access to internet to the people, low score to the sustainable business practices and environmental performances are the major obstacles to reach the model, thus the strategies like ensure the adoption of internet and formulating policies to ensure sustainable retailing may ensure the attainment of the model. Though the retail business is emerging towards the contemporary business models, huge number of population till do not have the internet access and the country is far away from the sustainable business attainment which are the main challenges of modern retail business in Bangladesh.