Strategy of Rural Retailers Towards Sustainability: Case Study Evidence from Malaysian Micro Enterprise

Abstract

The demand arising for retailing in micro enterprise sustainability in rural areas has received an attention in these recent years. There are great competition from the other rural retailers and immigrant retailers that become a threat for rural retailers to sustain especially in rural area. To remain sustain in the market, the rural retailers need to have an effective strategy and to explore the possibility of the strategy. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to explore the business strategy used by the rural retailers to sustain in the marketplace. This study use inductive approach, case study research strategy, cross sectional time horizon and thematic analysis technique. 9 informants have been interviewed based on interview protocol using in-depth interview technique. The findings reveal that rural retailers’ strategy to sustain in the rural area market are customer relationship, family influence, community engagement, marketing strategy, employee welfare, product and service quality, financial performance, and also the religious element. The results show that the new strategy to sustain in micro enterprise for rural retailers is within the domain of economic, social network and professional ethics. The findings of this study will be a guideline to the practitioners in retail micro enterprise to plan strategically towards business growth.