Perpetual Inventory is a method for tracking and knowing the value of inventory and quantity of merchandise on hand at any time by tracking sales, returns and receipts with information systems.

A perpetual inventory system is a continuous record of unit quantity/valuation increases and decreases to a particular line item of merchandise in the inventory. A periodic inventory system only uses physical verification/valuation of inventory at predetermined intervals, but no less frequently than annually.

Key features:-

• Requires more record keeping than periodic inventory management system.
• Records are kept of the quantity and, usually, the cost of individual items as they are bought or sold.
• This system provides useful information for management purposes.
• The cost of each item is recorded in the Merchandise Inventory account when purchased.
• As merchandise is sold, its cost is transferred from Merchandise Inventory account to the Cost of Goods Sold account.
• The balance of the Merchandise Inventory account equals the cost of goods on hand.
• The balance of the Cost of Goods Sold account equals the cost of the merchandise sold to customers.
• The Purchases account is not used.
• Due to the widespread use of computers, the distinction between which inventory system is most appropriate is blurred.

INTRODUCTION:
The USD 1 Billion Conglomerate- DS Group, the promoter of Ebony Retail Holdings Ltd, is a multinational group founded in the 1940s with business interests in infrastructure development, real estate, IT, hotels & leisure management and retailing. In India, the Group’s thrust is retailing and infrastructure

When Ebony first opened its doors to the discerning Indian consumer in 1994 at South Extension, New Delhi, it had little idea of the retail revolution that was about to sweep the country. Leading the revolution and with a core aim to bring a global shopping experience to India, Ebony has, ever since, successfully opened seven stores across 7 Indian cities.

As a leader in the retail industry, Ebony Retail Holdings Ltd, the company that owns and runs all seven Ebony outlets in India, has pioneered several industry trends. Most notable among them are the highly successful Ebony in-house brand ETC and a special books and music venture called Wordsworth. With over 2 lakh square feet of retail outlet space, Ebony is today among the largest retail players in India.

Ebony is characterized by an ambience that is comfortable, unobtrusive and spacious. The first organized retail player to make its entry into Chandigarh and Noida (Uttar Pradesh) with two large format stores each spread across 35,000 sq.ft, has one store each in Ludhiana and Jalandhar in Punjab. The Amritsar store, which opened in October 2002 and Faridabad in January 2003 is the most recent addition to a venture that originated at South Extension in New Delhi.

Attracting over 8000 people everyday, with the figure doubling over the weekends, the Ebony stores cater to over 50% of a consumer’s shopping basket. Ebony is known for its innovative promotions that offer value-add benefits to shoppers across all stores, right through the year. Besides cross promotions, regular impromptu promotions keep excitement alive within the stores.

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Services marketing is marketing based on relationship and value. It may be used to market a service or a product.

Marketing a service-base business is different from marketing a product-base business.

There are several major differences, including:

1. The buyer purchases are intangible
2. The service may be based on the reputation of a single person
3. It’s more difficult to compare the quality of similar services
4. The buyer cannot return the service

5. Service Marketing mix adds 3 more p’s, i.e. people, physical environment, process service and follow-through are keys to a successful venture.

When one markets a service business, one must keep in mind that reputation, value, delivery of “Managing the evidence” refers to the act of informing customers that the service encounter has been performed successfully. It is best done in subtle ways like providing examples or descriptions of good and poor service that can be used as a basis of comparison. The underlying rationale is that a customer might not appreciate the full worth of the service if they do not have a good benchmark for comparisons.

However, it is worth remembering that many of the concepts, as well as many of the specific techniques, will work equally well whether they are directed at products or services. In particular, developing a marketing strategy is much the same for products and services, in that it involves selecting target markets and formulating a marketing mix. Thus, Theodore Levitt suggested that “instead of talking of ‘goods’ and of ’services’, it is better to talk of ‘tangibles’ and ‘intangibles’”. Levitt also went on to suggest that marketing a physical product is often more concerned with intangible aspects (frequently the `product service’ elements of the total package) than with its physical properties. Charles Revson made a famous comment regarding the business of Revlon Inc.: `In the factory we make cosmetics. In the store we sell hope.’ Arguably, service industry marketing merely approaches the problems from the opposite end of the same spectrum.

Rural Malls: Chaupal Sagar
Chaupal Sagar is one of the first organised retail forays into the hinterland. It was soft-launched on 15 August. It is actually a warehouse for storing the farm produce that ITC buys through its e-chaupals. The mall has come up in one part of this warehouse.It has been set up by the international business division of tobacco major ITC. It has been initiated as rural shopping-cum-information centres in Madhya Pradesh. The first rural mall has come up 40-odd kilometres journey from Bhopal towards Sehore.

ITC Spent 3 years and Rs.80 crores on research and development of this concept including investments in E-choupal.
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Features of Indian Rural Markets

*Large and Scattered market:
The rural market of India is large and scattered in the sense that it consists of over 63 crore consumers from 5,70,000 villages spread throughout the country.
*Major income from agriculture:
Nearly 60 % of the rural income is from agriculture. Hence rural prosperity is tied with agricultural prosperity. read more »