According to the Europe 2020 strategy, if Europe is to meet the economic and social challenges it faces, there is a critical requirement for its citizens to become more entrepreneurial across all walks of life – for example, in economic and social innovation, new business creation, employability and active citizenship. The European Commission has been a long-term supporter of entrepreneurship education, which is the fourth objective of the ET2020 strategy (Enhancing creativity and innovation, including entrepreneurship, at all levels of education and training) and in this field of education and training lie the project’s outcomes.

The distributive trades, and especially retail trades, are key actors of the economy, as they are the main interface between producers and consumers. Around half of private consumption is accounted for by the retail trades. Also, the “value added” of the intermediation service provided by the distributive trades is substantial, accounting for, on average, about 25% of consumer goods prices. Retailing is essentially a local business. While the huge majority of retail businesses are Micro and SMEs (95,1% and 4,8%, respectively), employing over the half of the total human resources in the sector (37,2% and 25,9%, respectively), large firm contribute to 44,7% of the sector added value, reflecting the twin challenges of efficiency through scale and meeting local demand. Retailing is a very competitive sector, showing low levels of profitability compared to other sectors. It is characterised by a high level of birth and deaths of businesses. Technological progress and consumer behaviour are at the heart of a profound transformation within retail and wholesale and the growth of online trading is changing the way businesses operate and consumers interact, generating new challenges and opportunities. For small retails, there is a need to enter into the digital economy, which will bring them major efficiency, transform management and their business environment, stimulating new business models and trading formats, but will also create new jobs with new skills requirements.

Objectives of the RETAIL project

The main objective is to develop and deliver innovative training and practical education and an innovative training course for developing sustainable business models aimed at experienced small retailers and youth looking for future career opportunities.

  • Support experienced entrepreneurs from the retail sector, in the need of changing their business model and practices
  • Support youth and unemployed, for which retail is an entrance door to the labour market, in search of opportunities in the sector and having a strong sense of new customers values and behaviours, seeking for connection and sense.
  • Support VET stakeholders and other business support organisations and educational institutions, who will access to the OER and will be multipliers of the methodology and contents to be developed

Target groups

Definition of retailer: Retailers can appear under different formats, sell different products, have different legal structures, and be located in different locations. A retailer’s competitive capabilities derive from its superior ability to produce the range of goods that consumers will want to buy, and offer them in the right way, in the right location and at the right price.

  • Experienced retail entrepreneurs, needing to renew their skills and up-skills to develop further their SMEs toward long term sustainable practices, integrating digital, social, environmental and economic factors.
  • Youth, especially low-skilled youth or unemployed, providing them new knowledge, skills and competence in business management and business models in the retail sector as a career opportunity. This group has informal high level digital competences that might be used by the first group.

Activities

  • Retail entrepreneurs training package:

The first output will be dedicated to the development of a training package addressed to the first project target: the experienced entrepreneurs.

  • Youth and unemployed training package:

The second output will be dedicated to the development of a training package addressed to

the second project target: the youth and unemployed.

  • Intergenerational Training package:

This output will provide the intergenerational contents, so to create the expected dialogue

between the two target group and their collaboration toward sector innovation.

  • Online cooperative platform: The last output will be dedicated to the development the training platform hosting the different training packages and the social modules for the implementation of the training.
  • Learning activity, bringing together representative of the two target groups, and

creating a first collaboration seeking for solutions to specific study cases.

Organisation of multiplier events:

  • National Multiplier events
  • Final conference

Project meetings:

5 transnational project meetings will be organised every 6 months in different locations,

corresponding to project partners cities.