The Advantages and Disadvantages of Departmental Store.
Advantages
The various advantages of a departmental store are:
i. The customer is spared from the botheration of going different places to collect his desired articles as most of the requirement of a customer are found in a departmental store.
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ii. Since the departmental store goes for huge purchases, it avails a good number of trade discounts which helps to reduce the selling good number of trade discounts which helps to reduce the selling price of the products. So the selling price per unit becomes very low because of large volume of sales.
iii. The customers are assured of quality of the products and have the advantages of selection because a departmental store stock a wide variety of commodity.
iv. A departmental store can afford to advertise on large scale and thereby attracts a large number of customers.
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v. A departmental store can afford to employ specialists which provide expert knowledge on various functions.
Disadvantages
A departmental store suffers from the following disadvantages:
i. People living at a distant place cannot avail the advantages of departmental store because these are located at a central of the cities.
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ii. The cost of running the departmental store is higher because of certain free services which they give. The cost of free services are much and as such it increases the prices of the product.
iii. The cost of advertisement and publicity is much higher.
iv. Fluctuation in prices adversely affect the operation of these business houses as they go for bulk purchases.
v. Customers are not given individual attention because these establishments are too large.