Do you love shopping?
Is the mall your favorite place to hang out?
Can you see yourself as a salesperson?
Would you like to run your own business?
Would you enjoy creating advertisements or public relations campaigns?
Are you detail oriented?
Are you friendly and outgoing?

If you answered yes to at least two of these questions, you might enjoy a career in the retail/wholesale sales and service career cluster. In this career cluster, you could have one of these jobs:

• Distribution manager
• Traffic clerk
• Marketing manager
• Public relations specialist
• Retail buyer
• Food products salesperson
• Small business entrepreneur
• Sales supervisor

Cluster Definition

Jobs in the retail/wholesale sales and service career cluster involve planning, managing, and performing wholesaling and retailing services and related marketing and distribution support services including merchandise/product management and promotion.

Career Pathways in Retail/Wholesale Sales and Service

A career pathway is an area of concentration within a career cluster. Each pathway contains a group of careers requiring similar academic and technical skills as well as similar industry certifications or postsecondary education. The retail/wholesale sales and service career cluster has four pathways: merchandising and sales, promotion and public relations, general distribution, and management/entrepreneurship.

Merchandising and Sales
This pathway includes career related to promoting, buying, and selling goods to the public and to businesses. Jobs include wholesale and retail buyer, international salesperson, retail salesperson, cashier, adjustment clerk, and real estate sales agent.

Promotion and Public Relations
Workers in this pathway are responsible for ensuring that customers buy retail goods. Jobs in this pathway include advertising manager, advertising clerk, public relations specialist, marketing researcher, and international marketing manager.

General Distribution
This pathway covers all the jobs necessary to get goods to the right people at the right time, including distribution managers, route salespersons, scheduling and recording workers; traffic, shipping, and receiving clerks; warehouse managers, and material moving packers.

Management/Entrepreneurship
This career pathway is made up of all managerial occupations in this career cluster, including small business entrepreneurs, managers, sales supervisors, merchandising managers, and e-commerce managers.

Click here for a visual representation of the retail/wholesale sales and service career cluster.

Print and Internet Resources

These Print and Internet Resources offer references for career cluster exploration, including trade, professional, and business associations, government departments and agencies, labor unions, and cluster-specific career Web sites.

Retail/Wholesale Sales and Service Print and Internet Resources

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