CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

• Background of the Study

Retailing means the resale of goods to the final consumers or users. (Nwokoye 1996) Retail business therefore refer mostly to entities that engage in retail trade, such as shops, market stores, supermarkets, departmental stores, motor vehicle dealers, petrol dealers, hotels and consumer co-operatives, it also include restaurants, and other catering and drinking places.

Retailing businesses are the building blocks of any growing economy like Nigeria. Some of the roles of small businesses in an economy include employment generation, rural development, youth employment, contribution to national income and growth spread and development of adaptable technology and reginal balance growth channel.

Retailing involves the process of selling consumer goods of services to customers, through multiple channels of distribution to earn a profit.

Retailers satisfy demand identified through a supply chain. Some of the earliest retailers were itinerant peddlers. The term ‘retailer’ is typically applied where a service provider fills the small orders of a large number of individuals, who are end-users, rather than large orders of a small number of wholesale, corporate or government clientele.

Modern retailers typically make a variety of strategic level decisions including the type of store the market to be served the optimal product assortment, customer service, supporting services and the stores overall market positioning.

Once the strategic retail plan is in place, retailers devise the retail mix which includes product, price, place, promotion; personnel and presentation in the digital age, an increasing number of retailers are seeking to reach broader markets by selling through multiple channels, including both bricks and mortar and online retailing,. Digital technologies are also changing the way that consumers pay for goods and services. Retailing support services may also include the provision of credit, delivery service and rage of other supporting services

1.2      Statement of the Problem

Rapid social economy, political and technological in business and industry have presented levels have initiated countable policies and programmes for support retailing business sub-sectors of the Nigerian economy. But there still exist some problems which are militating limiting their access to capital and services for which government policies are specifically meant to solve. It can be noted that less than six percent (6%) of retail business enterprises set up in Nigeria survive beyond their first year of existence. This unusual development can be attributed for poor management on the part of owners. Equally, this situation may be due to the other factors, namely, lack of entrepreneurial skills and knowhow poor infrastructures, poor management skills and of access to information even when they have the final finance to set up these businesses.

1. Fund (NERFUND): The Community Bank (CB) now Microfinance Banks. (MB). Nigeria Agricultural Credit Guarantee Schemes (SMECGS), (Solodo 2008).
2. International Development Agencies (IDA): This is member of World Bank group (WBG), which is also referred to as the international finance corporation (IFC) has made significant contribution towards retail business enterprises financing in Nigeria. In 2010 alone, the I F C, double its exposure to Nigeria Banking sector investing almost & 400 million of equity and loan financing in First Bank of Nigeria (FBN) PLC, First City Monument Bank (FCMB) and Guarantee Trust Bank (GTB), (Omorogbe, 2011). The purpose of new investment and advisory service to the economy that need better funding such as infrastructure and the small and medium scale Enterprises (SMES) Specifically, FCMB received $ 70 million and in November 2010 participated in helping retail traders increased maintained and expand their business
3. 3. Government Policies and Direct Assistance: Government support (to retail bossiness enterprise) have been in the form of polices direct assistance and the establishment and continued finding of specialized agencies such as University, Polytechnic, Research institution etc. All aimed at aiding entrepreneurs and SMES operating in the country. Researchers and scholars have shown that the following bodies were establish to promote entrepreneurship (such as retail businesses in Nigeria)… it is because of the above mentioned challenge that government through private public partnership (PPP) have come up with some schemes to promotes  or support this sector in their businesses.

Every enterprise is financed either through debt or equity of a combination of both. Both types of financing are sourced from either the informal finance sector (TFS) or the formal financing concepts of retail business enterprises, the formal and informal forms of financing have been identified by researchers, scholars and practitioners Gelias (1998), Arnnea, 2004). The researchers identified commercial banks and Development Band, in the former sector as the popular sources of finance for enterprises. Therefore, the major ways through which government promote and assist retail business enterprises are as follows:

1.     Formal Finance Sector (FFS): The formal finance sectors (FFS) include: commercial Banks, microfinance Banks international Development Agencies, the central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and some of it agencies are of the institutions in the formal finance sector that have played very prominent roles in the financing of retail businesses in Nigeria. For example, Commercial Bank remain the biggest source of finance of retail business enterprises across the globe similarly, merchant Banks Loans to retail business enterprises as a percentage (%) of total credit increased from 31.2% in 199 to 90% in 2000 (Ahua, 2011).