The ‘4Ps’ of the marketing mix have long been popular with students, tutors, trainers
and practitioners as a learning and teaching aid. The purpose of this paper is to present
an equivalent tool for retail and e-retail: ‘Sale the 7Cs’. The approach is by reference
to other authors’ versions of the marketing, retail and e-retail mixes, distilled into a
simplified framework: C1 Convenience; C2 Customer value and benefit; C3 Cost to
the customer; C4 Computing and category management; C5 Customer franchise; C6
Customer care and service; C7 Communication and customer relationships. This
simplified mnemonic is new for (e-)retail. Mini case examples are used to illustrate
the applicability. These have a practical value for trainers and educators as specimen
answers to activity exercises. Retailers may find the convenient 7Cs structure useful
when planning strategies and tactics