Legal and Ethical Orientation of Indian Retailers

Abstract

With the ongoing process of globalisation, complex competition, increase in consumers’ income and shift in the shopping patterns of Indian consumers, the retail marketing has changed from traditional family run stores to highly modernised large departmental stores and shopping malls. With corporate world’s significant attention to marketing ethics, retail marketers too give adequate cognisance to ethical values and compliance of legal norms in their dealings with different stakeholders, particularly consumers. Consumer is one of the most significant stakeholders on whom the retailers’ existence matters. Consumers buy variety of goods, broadly classified in marketing literature as convenience, shopping and specialty. Consumers are increasingly sensitive in choice making especially in shopping goods because today, due to global business everywhere, they have to choose among various alternative brands of products. It is in this context the retailers are supposed to serve the consumers by fulfilling their expectations in a legal and ethical manner in addition to mere customer satisfaction. This paper is, thus, an attempt to study the various legal norms and ethical values in retail practices through the perception of consumers with special reference to shopping goods. The paper is based on the data obtained from 470 randomly selected consumers from Jammu city. The data were purified through Factor analysis. The results provide that retailers are moderate in terms of abidance of legal norms as well as ethical values. The study suggests a plan of action for higher legal norms and ethical values in retailers selling shopping goods so that the expectations of customers can be fulfilled in an ethical manner.

Keywords: Retailing, Shopping Goods, Legal Norms and Ethical Values

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