REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

The main focus of the course is to provide me and other students with a deeper knowledge and understanding of the techniques currently used by retailers for marketing their products and services. This will involve various pricing strategies and how the methods used to understand consumer behaviour are applied and the information obtained used to develop an appropriate retail marketing strategy.


By the end of the unit, I expect to have acquired both theoretical and practical knowledge on using various techniques to understand, designing and implement an appropriate retail marketing strategy, as well as understanding changing consumer behaviour patterns and adapting the marketing strategy in response to the changes. Furthermore, I expect to have developed and be able to demonstrate excellent understanding and application of the new ways that have been used in marketing recently and also be able to think creatively in assessing the pros and cons of these techniques.


The purpose of this journal is to set out the strategy I implemented in achieving the objectives I set for myself at the beginning of the unit. I will also discuss the challenges and difficulties I faced and how I overcame them and include an overall self assessment of my performance in the unit. Furthermore, I will discuss my thoughts and feelings and how I dealt with negative behaviour and how I plan to avoid this in the future.


The structure of the journal will be according to the weeks as through this I will be able to clearly describe my progress through the unit.


At the beginning of the unit I set out a study plan for myself. This involved both carrying out research and reading a lot of the study material before each lecture. This was to enable me fully understand the areas where I may experience difficulties so I can concentrate more during lectures. I also planned to prepare a list of relevant questions, which I will box-tick if I feel I have understood the area as the lecture went on. If at the end of the lecture or a topic there were still some questions not yet ticked I would ask these to the lecturer for further clarification. I also planned to go through the lecture notes for each day after the lecture so I could fully understand the area or topic.
In order to compliment my theoretical work with some practical knowledge, I planned to visit some retail organisations for observations, so I could understand first hand how the theories were being implemented as well as understand the weaknesses in the system.