RTL-MGMT F(requently) A(sked) Q(uestion)s Revision Date: 7 June 1995 The following anwers to the following FAQ's are mantained by Alan Flaschner. Alan is responsible for any errors contained in those answers. Please send corrections, additions, deletions, or flames to his preferred address which is LEWBRC@UToledo.EDU. The model used in outlining answers to the FAQ's is based on the model used by Charlie Hofacker, the owner of MARKET-L. See: http://nsns.com/MouseTracks/Market- L.FAQ.txt. What is RTL-MGMT? RTL-MGMT is an email list running on the MAILSERV list management software. RTL-MGMT exists to facilitate communication about retailing and retail management practices, policies, plans, and procedures. RTL-MGMT includes practitioners, academics, and consultants who want to: - share information - discuss and react to relevant news items and current events - announce papers/abstracts - announce conferences, meetings, and other events - request advice or assistance with problems - announce job opportunities - post resumes Though not supported by either organization, the list is of interest to, and includes among its participants, members of the: - American Marketing Association's (AMA) Special Interest Group (SIG) on Retailing and Retail Management and - American Collegiate Retailing Association (ACRA). A partial list of topics discussed on RTL-MGMT includes: - retailing policies, practices, procedures, and planning - research on retailing policies, practices, procedures, and planning - techniques for teaching retailing policies, practices, procedures, and planning - pricing - product selection and display - merchandising - promotion and advertising - segmentation - service quality - positioning - retail management information systems and decision support - ethics - compensation - location (trade area) analysis and decision- making (site selection) - retail organization and human resource mangement - financial dimensions of managing operations - buying and handling merchandise - financial dimensions of managing merchandise - establishing and sustaining an image - careers in retailing Where do I go to talk to a real person about RTL-MGMT rather than talk to MAILSERV? RTL-MGMT is owned by Alan B. Flaschner. His preferred address is LEWBRC@UToledo.EDU or by phone at 419.537.2098. Please ask him administrative or technical questions. Do not post them on the list. What are two email addresses associated with RTL-MGMT? - MAILSERV@UToledo.EDU, the address for the server - RTL-MGMT@UToledo.EDU, the address for the list Please note the distinction between the address for the server and the list itself. The server address is used to subscribe to the list and to signoff the list. The list address is used when you want to send messages to everyone on the list. How do I SUBSCRIBE to RTL-MGMT? To subscribe to RTL-MGMT, send email to the server, MAILSERV@UToledo.EDU The body of the message should say: SUBSCRIBE RTL-MGMT It is a good practice to save subscription confirmation information. How do I UNSUBSCRIBE from RTL-MGMT? To leave the list, send a message to the server, MAILSERV@UToledo.EDU The body of the message should say UNSUBSCRIBE RTL-MGMT If you have difficulty signing off RTL-MGMT, please send email to LEWBRC@UToledo.EDU telling Alan Flaschner what the problem is. Please do not send email unsubscribe help requests to the whole list! Please do not use RTL-MGMT@UToledo.EDU to signoff. If someone uses the list address to signoff, please either ignore them or send them a personal message telling them how to leave the list. Please do not send messages to the list telling those on the list how to unsubscribe from the list. The list owner will unsubscribe those that send an unsubscribe request to the list. How do I send a message to the everyone on the list? To send a message to everyone on RTL-MGMT, address your email to: RTL-MGMT@UToledo.EDU What are the guidelines for posting? Personal attacks or flames are not allowed on RTL- MGMT. Keep the emotional content of all of your messages as positive, or at least as neutral, as you can. Personal attacks result in loss of subscription priviledges to RTL-MGMT. Do not send one-to-one conversations to the list. If the subject only concerns you and one or two intended receipients, send your email directly to your targets. This requires that you type in their addresses and that you not use the email 'reply' function. Include your email address at the bottom of messages to the list. Some mail systems do not include header information which tells recipients from where a message has been sent. Can I advertise on RTL-MGMT? Yes, but only if your product or service relates to retailing or retail management per se. Advertising a book on Merchandising is OK, Advertising a conference on retailing or retail management practices, policies, plans, or procedures is OK. Advertising merchandise unrelated to the practice, policies, procedures, or plans of retailers is not OK. As recommended by Advertising Age magazine in a 5-2-94 editorial, if you advertise, include the key work "AD:" in your subject line. Please keep in mind that RTL-MGMT exists to discuss retailing practices, plans, policies, and procedures. It does exist as a site for people to retail products. It is housed on the computer at an public academic institution. Housing the list at that institution means that advertisements must be in keeping with knowledge dissemination rather than as an alternative to free-market systems. For example, an ad for a product that might be relevant to people on another list may not be relevant to people on this list. Even though the word "ReTaiLing" appears in the name of this list, it is not to be used for ReTaiLing products or services unless those products or services relate to retailing policies, procedures, practices, and plans. If you feel that the readers of RTL-MGMT would benefit from an informative message you may so inform them, but keep that message very short. Include contact information for interested readers. If you reply to such an advertisement, please 'reply' to the sender, not to the list. If you object to an ad you see on RTL-MGMT, please respond directly to the poster, not to the list. Can I post my resume or a survey? The answer is "yes," but only if you are an individual seeking employment in retailing, with a firm that serves retailers, or are seeking a position teaching retailing. When you post your resume, include the keyword "RESUME: [position title]" on your subject line. For example: Subject: "RESUME: Location Analyst" Also include contact information in the body of the email message for interested readers. Employment agencies and other third party postings are not allowed. You can post a survey to RTL-MGMT using the keyword "SURVEY:" in the subject line. Note that RTL-MGMT list members are not representative of any mathematical describable population. Can I advertise job announcements on RTL-MGMT? The answer is "yes," but only if the position relates to retailing per se and your firm is the hiring company. When you post your job announcement, include the keyword "JOB: [position title]" on your subject line. For example: Subject "JOB: Location Analyst" Include contact information in the body of the email for interested readers. What are other MAILSERV commands? To learn more about managing your subscription, send the one line message HELP to the server address: MAILSERV@UToledo.EDU MAILSERV does not support a digest option. RTLMGMTD, a digest version of RTL-MGMT, will be opened to subscribers when the amount of mail on RTL-MGMT becomes substantial. RTLMGMTD subscribers will receive one message when the amount of traffic on RTL-MGMT reaches 1000 lines, or a week has passed. What is the best way to pose a question to the list? Start by describing your product or service with which you would like assistance. Tell the readers of RTL-MGMT the product/service's benefits as opposed to its features. Describe the targeted market targeted or tell readers when you do not know to whom the product/service should be marketed. Tell readers if you have a budget, and, if so, how much. Describe competition, as you understand it. Tell readers what is unigue about your operation. Tell readers your goals. Do you want to achieve awareness, interest, desire, action, lots of phone calls, email, point of purchase exposure, share, ... ? Remember that answering questions on RTL-MGMT is voluntary. Entertaining requests are more likely to be answered than less entertaining ones. Offering answers for a fee should be done directly; that is, on a one-to-one basis. In a spirit of give-and-take, so that the list keeps moving from topic-to-topic and searchers are rewarded for asking questions, as you send in your questions, vow to help others when you feel you can offer special insight in answering their questions. What other network resources are devoted to retailing and retail management? Network resources that relate to marketing and indirectly relate to retailing and retail management include: - Mailing lists - Gopher - WWW - Usenet Mailing Lists Every mailing list has two addresses, one for taking care of subscription and signoff messages, called the server, and the list address itself. The following lists pertain in some way to retailing and retail management. For each entry you will find the name of the list and the full address of the server. Except where indicated, send the one line message 'help' to the server to learn how to subscribe and signoff. You can also find mailing list information at "The List of Marketing Lists" Web page: http://nsns.com/MouseTracks/tloml.html -- AMODLMKT -- List for discussing market modeling and includes topics such as GLS, simulated annealing, waiting times and cross elasticities. A spot where the modeling of the effect of changing merchandise assortment on sales might appear. The list owner is Bill Meade (sbmeade@ums1vma.ums1.edu). Send email to: listserv@ums1vma.ums1.edu -- CRM-L -- List for scholars interested in issues in relationship marketing. As a retailer if you are interested in creating lasting relationships with your customers, this list might have some information of interest to you. The list owner is Mike Cummins (mcummins@emubus.bus.emory.edu). Send email to: listserv@emuvm1.cc.emory.edu -- DIRECTMAR -- Unmoderated list pertaining to direct marketing. If you are a retailer involved in or planning to be involved in direct marketing, this list may be of interest to you. The list owner is Bill Banks (bfb@world.std.com). Send email to: majordomo@world.std.com -- ELMAR -- Moderated list for the discussion of marketing and marketing research. Its focus is academic. The moderator is Peter Palij (pbp1@columbia.edu). Send subscription requests to: elmar-request@columbia.edu -- MKTTEACH -- Unmoderated list for the discussion of teaching issues in marketing education. MktTEach was established by the Teaching Special Interest Group of the AMA Academic Council. The list owner is Robert Pitts (rpitts@wppost.depaul.edu). Send email to: majordomo@hawk.depaul.edu -- SERVNET -- List for discussing service. This list might be of interest to retailers interested in service issues. Send email to: listserv@asuvm.inre.asu.edu Gopher Gopher is a simple menu based client/server application. To use it you must have access to a gopher client, either on your machine or on some host to which you have access. There are no gophers dedicated to retailing and retail management per se. A fairly comprehensive A set of links to general business gophers can be found by pointing your gopher client to: cob.fsu.edu 4070 Once connected to the server, pick the menu option "Internet Business Resources." The URL for this connection is: gopher://cob.fsu.edu:4070/other A gopher worth the visit is: zeus.nijenrode.n1. Pick Business, then pick marketing. Another fine gopher is the one at niord.shsu.edu. Pick the menu item for the Network Access Initiative Project. WWW The W(orld) W(ide) W(eb) is a hypermedia network on the Internet. You can access WWW servers using any of several WWW client programs. There are graphical clients such as Mosaic, Cello, and Viola; and character-oriented clients such as Lynx. Once you have one of these clients on your system, or can access a system which has such a client, you will be able to access WWW servers using U(niveral) R(esource) L(ocator)s. Marketing specific Web pages are starting to appear. One good place to start is /MouseTracks/ available at: http://nsns.com/MouseTracks/ Another useful server is Yahoo which is a hierachical listing of topics with a search engine. The URL for Yahoo is: http://www.yahoo.com/ Marketing appears as a topic under the Business category. Usenet Usenet is a collection of bulletin board-like topical forums called newsgroups. There are several newsgroups in which marketing is performed, but only four in which marketing itself is a topic of discussion: biz.general alt.tv.commercials misc.entrepreneurs.moderated, and alt.marketing.issues No newsgroups seem to be solely devoted to retailing issues. RTL-MGMT.FAQs.950607 +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Alan B. Flaschner, Professor | | Department of Marketing 3051 Stranahan Hall | | College of Business Administration 2801 W. BANCROFT | | University of Toledo | | Toledo, Ohio 43606-3390 HOME: 4924 Tamworth Road | | VOICE: 419.537.2098 Sylvania, Ohio 43560-2931 | | FAX: 419.531.0555 VOICE: 419.882.3408 | | Email: AFlasch@UToledo.EDU | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+