These products also have numerous options from which to choose. Because they offer a multitude of brands for a majority of their items, this tends to initiate competitiveness between product manufacturers. This competition results in lower prices that are passed down to consumers. In contrast, Publix’s primary focus is being a grocery store. They offer limited choice options for most of their grocery items, sometimes as few as only two brands.
T.J. targets it’s stores at highly educated and travelled, but not necessarily wealthy, segments of the population. T.J. has a team of experienced buyers, who does extensive traveling and research before bringing new products into the stores. Moreover, the products are tested and tasted before they are offered to customers. (Palmeri, 2008) T.J. also avoids the middlemen in its supply chain, preferring to deal directly with suppliers and manufacturers by contracting early and by locking down prices. This has been able to ensure them strict control over the price and quality of the products it offers.
Bloomingdales is a higher end store that sells high quality products at a high price. They are currently losing many customers because the economy will not move out of the stagnation period. Right now the customers need to be saving their money in case they need it later to pay bills rather than spending it on clothing. Many consumers are starting to shop at stores like Macy’s or Kohl’s where they are offered almost the same quality products at lower prices. Some of Bloomingdales biggest competitors are Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Barneys New York, Lord & Taylor and Nordstrom.
When Brad Anderson took over as CEO he faced a context in which “Best Buy’s competitive advantage was fading away vis-à-vis mass merchandisers such as Wal-Mart, Target, and online retailers such as Amazon.com and Dell”. These players (with the exception of Dell) were offering a larger variety of products targeting the consumer’s convenience (I can buy a high end electronic product while buying groceries or cheap furniture for my college son) and becoming a growing threat to Best Buy (Competition landscape is shown on Exhibit 2). Companies like Amazon were growing in the market by offering the consumer a different, new and innovative value proposition taking advantage of the fact that consumers were getting access to larger amounts of information through the internet. Because of the continuous
Product development can be seen as high risk because the target market may not want to try new products but there certainly is a gap in the market for healthier fast food which could lead to them decreasing McDonald’s market share. Tim is also carrying out market penetration which involves selling existing products into existing markets. Tim’s company’s first market strategy in Canada was market penetration because it started selling coffee and doughnuts just like competitors. This has led to him planning to introduce his products into America, not just Canada. This is a good decision because the company’s overall market penetration in Canada exceeds that of McDonald’s in the US.
Wal-mart’s competition consist of big box retailers such as Best Buy, Target, K-Mart, Lowe’s, Home Depot, grocery stores and smaller retailers such as Dollar General and Family Dollar. Many of companies these companies have reinvented themselves by stocking more inventory and offering lower prices than Wal-mart on particular products. The analysis of the external environment presents the Wal-Mart retail stores with a number of opportunities. Firstly, due to its stature in the industry, Wal-Mart is presented with an opportunity to seek strategic alliances and mergers with other leading local and global retailers focusing on a given market niche. Additionally, analysis of the external environment suggests unmet targets in the supercenters business.
This has caused incredible controversy, almost tainting their reputation. Secondly, KKD has the reputation of great tasting donuts, but with unhealthy trans fats. The reputation of having fattening foods is terrible when we live in a time where national obesity is increasing everyday. Lastly, the company is expected to have a decline in revenue of 24% when Brewster enters the company. Obviously, it is very difficult to do well as a president and CEO when the company inevitably will go down hill within their first couple of months.
The major trend that affected Whole Foods Market was mainstream supermarkets, such as Safeway, Kroger and Publix, expanding its grocery selection to include organic products (Thompson, Strickland & Gamble, p. C-5). Prior to the introduction of organic foods, it was rare to shop at a local Safeway or Kroger to purchase these items. In addition, some stores have introduced their own private label of organic products. It is now not uncommon to walk into one of these supermarkets and find an aisle or section dedicated to organic products. The impact this could have on supermarkets that specialized in organic foods, such as Whole Foods Market, is a loss of customers and profits.
Starbucks was hit hard, the net income was down nearly 70% and it also dealt with its first ever decline in quarterly revenues. CEO Howard Schultz suggested that Starbucks is following a well organize plan to rebuild the strength of the business through more developed operations. While declining sales and profits could be the main reason, because on the global recession, Starbucks share price showed more of a concern about the company’s future. Starbucks problems could have also came from several other factors: Could Starbucks expansion resulted in too much store mass in a few metro areas. Growth of competition, not just from other coffee restaurants but from big-time fast-food restaurants like Krispy Kreme, McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts.
Impulse locations: The market changed as Foodservice operators added soft-serve yogurt to business in the early 90’s. By the late 90’s, impulse locations occupied 2/3 of the soft-serve market, which made impulse locations a very important sales segment for GMI. Since the soft-serve trade is only performance topspin for impulse locations, they are unwilling to take any risks on new product innovation. As a result, potential sales from impulse locations are limited; although, they are the main distribution segment for GMI. GMI’s marketing strategy * The Foodservice sales force serviced both Shops and Impulse locations.