First of all, several concepts need to be clarified. General retail enterprises are composed of three formats, namely, household appliances format, supermarket format and department store format. The Gome you mentioned is specialized in household appliances, so Gome belongs to retailers. (Electrical goods are provided directly by the manufacturer, skipping the supplier link)
The characteristics of household appliances are: thin gross profit and large sales. The operating cost and logistics cost of household appliances are very high, but because the middleman (that is, the agent you mentioned) is skipped, and because the transaction amount and sales amount of household appliances are large, the benefits brought to retail enterprises are more working capital, more cash flow and more sales.
Supermarket format belongs to fast-moving consumer goods, and retailers do supermarkets mainly for the passenger flow attracted by supermarkets.
Needless to say, the department store format is profitable. For example, selling men's wear, women's wear, cosmetics and jewelry. (but it's not the same as the clothing store you said)
After understanding these basic concepts, it will be much clearer to answer your questions. As for the ownership of goods you mentioned, you can get inspiration from the centralized sales model of retailers. There are four sales models: distribution, joint marketing, leasing and cooperation (P2C).
1. Distribution: Simply put, distribution means that retailers directly buy goods and sell them. That is, retailers have the ownership of goods. This business model is suitable for supermarkets, office supplies, maternal and child supplies, cosmetics, mobile phone digital products.
2. Joint marketing: The advantage of this sales method is that the goods will not be overstocked and the risk is low. The ownership of the goods sold in this way belongs to the supplier, and the retailer collects the income from the supplier's business according to a certain proportion (that is, the deduction point). For example, in Northeast China, Nike's monopoly in retail stores is basically represented by Shenyang Peng Da Sporting Goods Company. That is to say, after the American Nike Company established a domestic production base to produce Nike products according to the standard, it was sold by Peng Da Company at a low cost and on a large scale (generally at a discount of about 30%), and Peng Da Company cooperated with retail enterprises to conduct in-store sales in retail stores, and XX% of the goods sold flowed to retail enterprises.
3. Lease: The clothing stores you mentioned are generally leased or self-operated. They rent the space of retail enterprise stores for sales, pay a certain rent every year, and the store manager is responsible for its own profits and losses. Such as Giordano and Benillo.
4. Cooperation mode: A supplier directly gives it to customers, which saves the retailer's link. The most typical: Taobao.
So to sum up, a complete sales channel is generally: manufacturer-supplier (agent)-retailer-consumer.
I hope my answer can help you.