Service Industry : The Retail Business

Overview
- Retailing adds value to goods and services, marketing them to final consumers for personal and household usage, but not for further commercial use. Retailing functions as the intermediary between producers and final consumers, acquiring large quantities of goods or commodities for sale directly to consumers in small quantities.
- Retailing is a service business that adds value to the national economy by at least THB1.4 trillion a year, or accounting for approximately 13.0 percent of GDP. Cash flow in this business amounts to around THB2.1 trillion a year. Growth rate of retailing is one of the key indicators of people's wealth and national stability.
- Simple business operations of Thai traditional retailers have to adjust themselves toward more complicated business patterns, due to rapidly changing behavior and attitudes of consumers, changes in related government policies and modern IT technologies employed by foreign investors in their management.