MK9527 - Retail and Multichannel Marketing

What will I learn on this module?

This module provides you with an understanding of the strategic marketing principles and tools used by retailers to satisfy both transactional and relational objectives.

You will consider the principles of retailing and how they translate into the practice of digital alternatives which have evolved in this vibrant sector, enabling retailers to engage and interact with customers across various platforms and touchpoints.

The following three themes will be covered within this module:

• The Principles of Retailing: Its role and importance to the economy and to customers and their decision-making process.
• The Retail Mix: An applied marketing mix (e.g. buying and selling, merchandising, service, store environment and image, digital alternatives).
• The Digital Revolution: How technology has impacted and evolved the retail function into a multichannel approach for ‘media meshing’ customers, requiring different approaches to the standard Retail Mix

On completion of this module you will be able to link theory to practice and analyse the options for different trading platforms for diverse types of product and service offerings and target markets. You will interpret and rationalise solutions to a range of business problems across alternative business retail models.

How will I learn on this module?

You will learn through a range of lectures, seminars, webinars, independent and directed learning. Two-hour weekly lectures will be used as the starting point for providing you with a foundation for further directed study. Lectures will cover main content of the topics in retail and multichannel marketing.

You will be able to follow up on these lectures and seminars through a one-hour weekly webinar with the members of the teaching team and fellow students to reinforce both the practical and theoretical learning of the module.

The directed learning will enable you to keep up-to-date with events in this dynamic market and your independent learning will enable you to explore areas of retailing and practitioners' practice that are of specific interest to you.

There will be a range of different exercises built into your seminars and directed learning, from which you will receive formative feedback, some of which will contribute to the module assessment through tasks undertaken during seminar sessions as part of the overall assignment.

Retailing and multichannel retailing is so fundamentally customer orientated that whether or not you go on placement into this area of business or have career aspirations here, a knowledge of how to best to satisfy your customers in the different ways they want to be satisfied within the constraints of different business models will be invaluable to you across all business sectors. Wherever your interest lie, the combination of your lectures, which will be tutor-led, your seminars and directed learning and independent learning will enable you to gain a deeper and broader knowledge of the topic whilst allowing you the opportunity to work both individually and in groups to enhance your research base and develop your skills and levels of engagement, creativity and individual choice.

The module’s e-learning portal will provide you with the main module material, which consists of lecture and seminar material, Teaching and Learning Plan, assessment strategy and information on further reading.

How will I be supported academically on this module?

Support will be provided to you by a Module Tutor and teaching team. A team of academic staff are allocated seminar groups of about 20 students, which provides closer, more personal academic support. These seminar groups are typically based on study programme cohorts, so you will be taught here alongside fellow members from your specific programme. The final aspect of the direct contact support is a 1-hour weekly webinar, where students can link with the module tutor and other members of the teaching team to engage in question and answer sessions on the module materials and assessment brief.

You module is supported by the e-learning portal, which will include module documentation including lecture and seminar schedules and materials, assessment information, electronic reading lists, relevant conference papers, journal articles, web links etc. that will of relevance to your involvement and learning in this module.

The assessment will include both group (presentation) and individual (report) components planned sequentially as your knowledge and understanding progresses through the module. All tasks are linked and build up to the final task in the assignment which will be the culmination of all the research you have undertaken using a variety of methods designed to allow you to develop and showcase the skills you have developed thus far prior to going out on placement and for later on in graduate employment.

Support will be provided to encourage you to become active and independent learners through an experiential approach to the co-creation of knowledge through engagement and enquiry which will prepare you for higher levels of academic rigour.

What will I be expected to read on this module?

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. Online reading lists (provided after enrolment) give you access to your reading material for your modules. The Library works in partnership with your module tutors to ensure you have access to the material that you need.

What will I be expected to achieve?

Knowledge & Understanding:
* Understand and evaluate the relevance and importance of retailing to the economy and the extent of its application, challenges and influence on society. [MLO1]
* Through research based .learning you will understand and apply the fundamentals of retailing in both physical and multi-channels platforms to achieve appropriate business solutions. [MLO2]

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
* Apply team working and communication skills effectively in a group research setting. [MLO3]
* You will evidence skills in the use and application of technology as an aid to your learning and research and how it impacts on business applications and models. [MLO4]

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
* Be aware of the issues of corporate social responsibility and ethics as fundamental to business models in retailing, national and international contexts. [MLO5]

How will I be assessed?

You will be summatively assessed via 2 components in this module. A group component weighted at 25% of the module assessment and an individual report weighted at 75%.

The group work, which will address MLO1, MLO2, MLO3, MLO4 and MLO5, will involve research on a retailer of your choice addressing its current strategy for its operations.

Formative feedback will be given to students during the preparation and development of this process. The assessment will incorporate an element of the multichannel approach and will be delivered using a digital tool, such as a vlog. Written and oral feedback on this task will be given by the tutor alongside discussion with you on how the key issues can be progressed to the next stage of the assessment as a means of feedforward.

The individual task will take the form of a report which will build on the work you undertook in the group task but enable you to incorporate your own research into an analysis, critical review and proposal for how your chosen retailer might progress its business model in the future to sustain its place in an increasingly competitive market. This component will address the same MLOs as in the group task, MLO1, MLO2, MLO3, MLO4 and MLO5.

Pre-requisite(s)

None

Co-requisite(s)

None

Module abstract

We always used to think of retailing as physical stores on the high street or increasingly out-of-town retail parks. However, the digital
revolution has made retailers consider how they can deliver the best customer experience across both online and offline channels.
Introducing you to a range of contemporary practices in a dynamic business environment with increasingly sophisticated, tech-savvy and
demanding customers, this module explores how marketers achieve this. You’ll research the practices of retail marketers and the demands
that face them as technology fundamentally changes how they do business. At the same time you’ll develop your academic research and
critical review skills across a variety of tasks including the assessment which has a multichannel theme.

Course info

UCAS Code N555

Credits 20

Level of Study Undergraduate

Mode of Study 3 years Full Time or 4 years with a placement (sandwich)/study abroad

Department Newcastle Business School

Location City Campus, Northumbria University

City Newcastle

Start September 2025

Fee Information

Module Information

All information is accurate at the time of sharing. 

Full time Courses are primarily delivered via on-campus face to face learning but could include elements of online learning. Most courses run as planned and as promoted on our website and via our marketing materials, but if there are any substantial changes (as determined by the Competition and Markets Authority) to a course or there is the potential that course may be withdrawn, we will notify all affected applicants as soon as possible with advice and guidance regarding their options. It is also important to be aware that optional modules listed on course pages may be subject to change depending on uptake numbers each year.  

Contact time is subject to increase or decrease in line with possible restrictions imposed by the government or the University in the interest of maintaining the health and safety and wellbeing of students, staff, and visitors if this is deemed necessary in future.

 

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