2. Although most retail transactions occur
in stores, nonstore retailing is an
important marketing channel for
many products. Both consumer and
business-to-business marketers rely on
nonstore retailing to generate leads or
requests for more information that
may result in future orders.

3. Direct marketing is a broad concept
that includes direct mail, direct selling,
direct-response retailing,
telemarketing, internet retailing, and
automatic merchandising. Direct and
interactive marketing expenditures
amount to hundreds of billions of
dollars in yearly purchases.

4. Direct mail is a major component
of direct marketing. It comes in
many forms: sales letters,
postcards, brochures, booklets,
catalogs, house organs, and
DVDS. Both not-for-profit and profit
seeking organizations make use of
this distribution channel.

5. Through direct selling,
manufacturers completely bypass
retailers and wholesalers. Instead,
they set up their own channels to
sell their products directly to
consumers.

6. Customers of a direct-response retailer
can order merchandise by mail or
telephone, by visiting a mail-order
desk in a retail store, or by computer
or fax machine. The retailer then ships
the merchandise to the customer’s
home or to a local retail store for
pickup.

7. Telemarketing refers to direct
marketing conducted entirely by
telephone. It is the most
frequently used form of direct
marketing.

8. Internet-based retailers sell
directly to customers via virtual
storefronts on the web

9. The world’s first vending machines
dispensed holy water for five-
drachma coins in Egyptian temples
around 215 B.C. This retailing method
has grown rapidly ever since; today
nearly 5000 vending machine
operator sell about $6 billion in
convenience goods annually to
Americans.