Retailers featuring broad product lines include department stores, which are organized into specialized departments: shoes, furniture, women’s petite sizes, and so on. Stores are usually large, handle a wide range of goods, and offer a variety of services, such as credit plans and delivery. Similarly, supermarkets are divided into departments of related products: food products, household products, and so forth. They often stress low prices, self-service, and large selections.

In contrast, specialty stores, such as Lids, a retailer with more than 1,000 stores selling athletic fashion headwear, are small, serve specific market segments with full product lines in narrow product fields, and often feature knowledgeable salespeople.

Bargain retailers carry wide ranges of products at low prices. Discount houses began by selling large numbers of items at substantial price reductions to cash-only customers. As name-brand items became more common, they offered better product assortments while still transacting cash-only sales in low-rent facilities. As they became more established, they began moving to better locations, improving decor, selling better-quality merchandise at higher prices, and offering services such as credit plans and noncash sales.

Catalog showrooms mail catalogs to attract customers into showrooms to view display samples, place orders, and wait briefly while clerks retrieve orders from attached warehouses. Factory outlets are manufacturer-owned stores that avoid wholesalers and retailers by selling merchandise directly from factory to consumer. Wholesale clubs, such as Costco, offer large discounts on a wide range of brand-name merchandise to customers who pay annual membership fees.

Convenience store chains, such as 7-Eleven and Circle K stores, stress easily accessible locations, extended store hours, and speedy service. They differ from most bargain retailers in that they carry fewer products and generally charge somewhat higher prices in exchange for the convenience they provide.

E-catalogs use online displays of products to give millions of retail and business customers instant access to product information. The seller avoids the costs of printing and mail distribution, and once an online catalog is in place there are lower costs in maintaining and updating it. About 90 percent of all catalogs are now online, with digital sales accounting for more than 50 percent of all catalog sales.

Each seller’s website is essentially an electronic storefront (or virtual storefront) from which shoppers collect information about products and buying opportunities, place orders, and pay for purchases. Producers of large product lines, such as Dell, dedicate storefronts to their own product lines. Other sites, such as Newegg.com, which offers computer and other electronics equipment, are category sellers whose storefronts feature products from many manufacturers.

Search engines such as Google and Dogpile serve as cybermalls, collections of virtual storefronts representing diverse products and offering speed, convenience, 24-hour access, and efficient searching. After entering a cybermall, shoppers can navigate by choosing from a list of stores (L.L. Bean, Lids, or Macy’s), product listings (sporting goods, women’s fashion, or mobile devices), or departments (apparel or bath/beauty).

Today, retailers and B2C customers interact with multimedia sites using voice, graphics, animation, film clips, and access to live human advice. Many e-tailers provide real-time sales and customer service that allow customers to enter a live chat room with a service operator who can answer their specific product questions.

Video retailing, a long-established form of interactive marketing, lets viewers shop at home from channels on their TVs. QVC, for example, displays and demonstrates products, allows viewers to phone in or e-mail orders, and is available on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Current generation televisions are available with online capabilities as well, allowing online networking. A television with Wi-Fi network access thus becomes a platform for comfortable at-home online shopping with a large-screen visual display.