Relational Proximity With Customers in the Retail Industry

Abstract

This chapter uses a theoretical background to identify and explain a new proximity concept in retail sector. In particular, adopting a marketing and management approach, an innovative type of “proximity” is presented, explaining a set of numerous elements and relationships that could link retailer, customer, and territory: “the relational proximity.” The factors useful to describe the roots of “relational proximity” between retailer and customer are presented and identified in a specific case study. The new concept of relational proximity represents the originality of this study. It explains the mood coming out from the integration between the retail value offering and its contextualization with environment, society, and contemporaneity. Following this logic, the retailers in the future will focus their competitive advantage working with the customers, building day by day their relational proximity.