Domain
Where are we?
Grocery, fashion, electronics, e-commerce and omnichannel retailers — working with brands, vendors, 3PLs and payment providers.
How the retail business actually flows
From the buyer's plan to the shelf, the checkout and the return — how stores and online retail really run. Every session in this track hangs off this one flow, so you always know which part of the business you are looking at.
- Planning
- Sourcing
- Distribution
- Store & online sales
- Customer experience
- Inventory & replenishment
The nine layers of the Retail domain
Every BDC track answers the same nine questions in the same order, so knowledge from one domain transfers to the next. Here is what each layer looks like in Retail.
Business
How does it make money?
Margin on goods sold. KPIs: sales per sq. ft, GMROI, sell-through, average basket size and shrink %.
Process
How does the work flow?
Plan → Buy → Move → Sell → Serve → Replenish, with returns and markdowns closing the loop.
System
Which applications run it?
Merchandising ERP, WMS, POS, order management (OMS), e-commerce platform, pricing & promotion engine, CRM & loyalty.
Data
What information matters?
Item/SKU master, store & location, vendor, price, promotion, inventory position and sales transactions.
Integration
How do systems talk?
EDI 850/856/810 with vendors, POS-to-head-office sales polling, OMS ↔ WMS order release, payment gateway APIs.
Transaction
Follow one, end to end.
Customer adds shoes to cart → Payment authorised → OMS picks a store → Pick & pack → Shipped → Delivered → Stock reduced → Sale posted to ERP
Testing
How do we prove it works?
Price & promotion calculation, POS offline sync, inventory accuracy, tax, cross-channel returns and peak-season load.
Real-world scenario
What happens on a live project?
Festive flash sale: two promotions stack on the same item and it sells below cost for 40 minutes. Trace the missing stacking rule — and design the test that catches it.
Sessions in the Retail track
Ten sessions, one per framework layer, closing with a proctored certification assessment. Session 01 is free for everyone, in English and Telugu.
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The whole retail machine on one page: how a product moves from a merchandiser's plan to a customer's hands and back into replenishment.
- Planning: what to sell, how much and when
- Sourcing and vendor purchase orders
- Distribution centres and store allocation
- Store, online sales and customer experience
- Inventory tracking and automatic replenishment
- SKU
- PO
- DC
- POS
- Replenishment
-
Margin on goods sold — and the numbers a retail leadership team watches every week.
- Margin, mark-up and markdowns
- GMROI, sell-through and sales per sq. ft
- Open-to-buy and the seasonal budget
- Merchandise planning and assortment
- Pricing, promotions and loyalty economics
- GMROI
- OTB
- Sell-through
- Markdown
-
RTL-S03
Plan, Buy, Move, Sell, Serve
UpcomingThe end-to-end retail process, the roles at each step and the business rules that govern them.
- Planning and buying decisions
- Sourcing, vendors and purchase orders
- Distribution centres and store allocation
- Store and online selling
- Returns, replenishment and markdowns
- PO
- Allocation
- Replenishment
- Returns
-
RTL-S04
The Retail Systems Landscape
UpcomingWhich application is responsible for what — and where each one stops.
- Merchandising ERP and PIM
- Order management (OMS) and e-commerce platform
- WMS and store systems
- POS and payment acceptance
- Pricing engine, CRM and loyalty
- ERP
- PIM
- OMS
- WMS
-
RTL-S05
Retail Data: Product, Price, Stock & Customer
UpcomingThe master and transactional data that every retail process depends on — starting with how a product is created.
- Product creation and merchandising
- Style, variant, SKU, GTIN and attributes
- Store, location and assortment data
- Price, promotion and tax data
- Available-to-sell inventory and sales transactions
- SKU
- GTIN
- ATS
- Price list
-
RTL-S06
Retail Integrations
UpcomingEvery interface between the retailer, its stores and its trading partners.
- EDI 850, 856 and 810 with vendors
- POS-to-head-office sales polling
- OMS to WMS order release and ship confirm
- Payment gateway APIs
- Marketplace and channel feeds
- EDI
- Polling
- API
- Feed
-
RTL-S07
One Order, End to End
UpcomingA single real order traced across every process, system and interface.
- Cart to payment authorisation
- OMS sources the stock and picks a store
- Pick, pack and ship
- Delivery events and customer updates
- Stock reduced and sale posted to the ledger
- Order
- Sourcing
- Ship confirm
- Posting
-
RTL-S08
Testing Retail Systems
UpcomingThe high-risk scenarios, the test data you will need and what to validate at each layer.
- Price and promotion calculation
- POS offline and sync scenarios
- Inventory accuracy and oversell
- Cross-channel returns and refunds
- Peak-season load and performance
- Promotions
- Offline
- Oversell
- Peak load
-
RTL-S09
Real-World: The Festive Flash Sale
UpcomingA production incident, how it was traced and the test that would have caught it.
- Two promotions stack on one item
- It sells below cost for 40 minutes
- Tracing the missing stacking rule
- The financial and brand impact
- Designing the test that prevents it
- Incident
- Stacking
- Root cause
- Prevention
-
RTL-S10
Retail Certification Assessment
UpcomingThe whole retail track in one place — a short recap video, then a proctored online assessment that applies all nine framework layers to a real-world scenario.
- Nine-layer recap of the domain
- The five things most people get wrong
- 30 questions · 45 minutes · 70% to pass
- Webcam-proctored, one question at a time
- Certificate with a verifiable ID
- Assessment
- Certification
- Proctored
- Nine layers
Retail terms you will hear on every project
The vocabulary that separates someone who can follow a retail requirements discussion from someone who cannot.
- SKU
- POS
- OMS
- Planogram
- Open-to-buy
- Shrink
Certified Retail Domain Practitioner — BDC-RTL
Finish the ten sessions, pass the online proctored assessment, and submit a scenario analysis to earn this domain's certificate. Each domain certifies separately.
Step 01
Learn
Watch every session in the Retail track and work through the handbook, framework workbook and test scenario checklist.
Step 02
Assess
Sit the online domain assessment — proctored with webcam on, no copying, no switching tabs and no looking answers up.
Step 03
Certify
Submit a real-world scenario analysis and receive your BDC-RTL certificate.
Enrolment
₹3,499₹4,999
Including GST · $49 outside India · launch price
One payment unlocks the whole Retail track: all 10 sessions in English and Telugu, every handbook, workbook and deck, the proctored assessment and the BDC-RTL certificate. Session 01 stays free for everyone. Taking more than one domain? Two are ₹9,999 and all seven tracks are ₹19,999 for a year.
Common questions
What is retail domain knowledge, and why do QA and BA roles need it?
From the buyer's plan to the shelf, the checkout and the return — how stores and online retail really run. Margin on goods sold. KPIs: sales per sq. ft, GMROI, sell-through, average basket size and shrink %. Without that picture, testers write cases against screens instead of against the business, requirements get read literally, and defects that matter most are the ones nobody thought to look for. This track gives you the business first and the systems second.
What does the Retail track cover?
Ten sessions following the nine-layer BDC framework: 01 Retail Life Cycle at a Glance; 02 How Retailers Make Money; 03 Plan, Buy, Move, Sell, Serve; 04 The Retail Systems Landscape; 05 Retail Data: Product, Price, Stock & Customer; 06 Retail Integrations; 07 One Order, End to End; 08 Testing Retail Systems; 09 Real-World: The Festive Flash Sale; closing with the Retail Certification Assessment.
Is the Retail training free?
Session 01, the "at a glance" overview, is free for everyone in both English and Telugu. The remaining sessions, materials, assessment and certificate unlock when you enrol for this domain's certification, which costs ₹3,499 including GST, or $49 outside India — a launch price, down from ₹4,999. It is one payment for lifetime access to this domain — there is no subscription.
Are the sessions available in Telugu?
The website and the main sessions are in English. Separate Telugu explanation videos are published on the YouTube channel for released sessions, in conversational Telugu with technical terms left in English.
Who teaches these sessions?
Chandramouli Pasumarthy, Director of Quality Engineering and Delivery with 20+ years in the IT industry, leading QA and delivery for enterprise programmes across healthcare, retail, financial services, government and logistics.
Start the Retail track
Session 01 is free. Create an account to keep your progress, download the summary notes, and get each new session as it releases.