Types of Retailing Trade

There are many types of retailers in India. To understand them, it helps to group them into common categories, and experts use several bases of classification:

• By size of business: large, medium and small retailers.
• By type of ownership: sole trader, partnership firm, cooperative store and company.
• By merchandise handled: speciality store, supermarket and departmental store.
• By whether they have a fixed place of business or not — the basis used in this chapter.

On the fixed-place basis, retailers fall into two categories:

• Itinerant retailers — those who have no fixed place of business and keep moving in search of customers. …