Short answers, pulled from the story.
Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which sells to business or institutional customers. The word comes from the Old French verb retaillier, meaning "to shape by cutting", recorded around 1365, and was first used as a noun in 1433 meaning "a sale in small quantities".
Retail trade mainly sells to households and consumers, while wholesale trade mainly sells to organizations that resell goods or use them in operations. In some jurisdictions, a business must make at least 80 percent of its sales to end-users to be defined as retail.
The six Ps of retailing are product, place, promotion, price, personnel, and presentation, with presentation also known as physical evidence. Scholars added personnel and presentation to the original marketing mix because they shape the customer's experience and form the principal basis for retail differentiation.
The 18th-century retail entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood devised both the money back guarantee and the buy one get one free strategy. Both were designed to entice the buyer.
American architect Victor Gruen developed the shopping mall concept after the war as a self-contained complex with an indoor plaza, statues, piped music, and car-parking. The first opened at Northland Mall near Detroit in 1954.
Softline retailers sell short-life goods like clothing, footwear, and cosmetics, while hardline retailers sell durables such as automobiles, appliances, and furniture. Grocery stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets, and convenience stores carry food and household items, and home shopping covers catalog, telephone, and online ordering.
The retail apocalypse is a noted business disruption in which many retailers, especially in North America, are sharply reducing their number of stores or going out of business entirely. It is driven by competition from online sales models and issues such as business debt.