Qualidade no Serviço Varejo

Resumo (EN)

The present research deals with the quality management in the retail trade of products and services in the city of São Paulo, as an element for the commercial quality and productivity. lt checks the existent relations between quality and price, in the retail trade, emphasizing the importance of basic quality concepts, like their approaches and dimensions, and aspects of the quality, like cost, security, delivery, intrinsic and moral quality, which can be viewed as indicators of the organizational performance in delivering the services offered to the clients and participants of the retail chains business. Much has been written about quality of products, services and processes, but there is much less talk about quality at the end of the supply chain, the retail sales sector. The aim of this study is to identify and analyze the activities involved in the retail trade quality management, appraising their importance for the productive sector and pointing out the benefits of these applications, thus offering a contribution towards a better knowledge about the whole set of problems that affect the quality in our country's retail sector. The research was carried out on a sample of retail chains, done by means of study of multiple cases and using the technique of open-ended questions. The enterprises used as information sources for collecting data are traditional retailers with a chain of shops spread around the city of Sao Paulo, covering its main commercial centers. The study reveals that the retail trade is well aware and preoccupied regarding quality, with special concerns on training and client services activities, among other aspects. However, during the course of the inquiry were also detected some flaws, incoherence and conceptual confusion, which can be seen as improvement opportunities for the enterprises of the sector.