In 2002 wal-mart had $219 billion in sales and $6.6 billion in net income, over 1 million employees in the United states and 1.4 million employees worldwide. The top factors that make Wal-Mart the best is the degree of customer intimacy, community building, and one-to-one marketing. Everyone should know that Wal-Mart has given that community feel through its brick and mortar stores and its superior customer service that makes the customer feel that intimacy with the company. Another big thing that Wal-Mart has over all others in the same field is a second area of major investment was in distribution technology. Wal-Mart established a network of innovative hubs which used “cross-docking” to minimize distribution center inventory and to facilitate the need-based inventory delivery system enabled by the satellite network.
Because of their consistently low prices on products, their competitors have lowered their prices in order to compete with Wal-Mart. In turn, this has driven overall prices down. Wal-Mart has also created many new jobs and increased tax revenues. Businesses that are located next to Wal-Mart stores have also benefited from them because customers who are shopping at Wal-Mart will stop at other businesses before or after shopping at Wal-Mart ("Walmartstores.com: Economic Opportunity"). Because of the impact Wal-Mart has had not only on the retail industry in the United States, but also globally, I think it is safe to say that Wal-Mart is a very secure company.
“T. J. Maxx is the leading off-price retailer of apparel and home fashions in the United States and worldwide, ranking 119 in the most recent Fortune 500 listings and ranked #1 on The Boston Globe 2010 Globe 100 list” www.tjx.com/aboutus. T. J. Maxx’s competitive advantage of its competitors is really not amongst competitors because the normal stores that a consumer would shop prices in comparison with T. J. Maxx would usually be Marshall’s. Marshalls just happens to be owned by T. J. Maxx, therefore there is a dominant factor in the field of competition because T. J. Maxx has saturated the market that if you one does find a better price at Marshall’s, T. J. Maxx still reaps the harvest of that sale. As mentioned, the bright, colorful décor that T. J. Maxx uses to dress up their stores is a great leap towards attracting consumers.
By focusing on sales, service and execution, which helped the company, achieve considerable sales growth in the past few years. Lowe’s Company, Inc. is its only direct competitor up to date. [pic] Source: www.christopherlinker.com Since the market is dominated by Home Depot, Inc. and Lowe’s Company, Inc., buyers do not have much choice in selecting the company for home furnishing. Besides, Home Depot and Lowe’s offer advanced product features and quality that are not currently offered to the customers by other companies. Thus, with limited choice of company selection for home furnishing and high switching cost, the bargaining power of customers in this industry is quite low.
Cheddar’s had always been profitable through that it had ever closed a company-owned store and had shown steady increases in sales and customer counts over time. Also it has a source of income from its franchise stores which could grow at a faster rate. Cheddars’ estimated EBITDA was $12.0 million in 2003 and it had a projected EBITDA of $18.9 million in 2007. Cheddar’s also had an average EBITDAR of $1,027k which was much higher than its competitor Chili’s which was $723k. At the purchase price of $60.5 million, we can also confirm that the Market Value/EBITDA (5.4) of Cheddars’ is higher than its competitor’s (2.6) when we compare multiple ratios, which means Cheddar’s is overvalued.
In a highly competitive business world, on a firm’s priority list is the subject of increasing profit and reducing cost. One might than pose the question, has this put them out of business (mom and pop store)? The answer is absolutely not, but rather, they too benefit from cheaper prices as they continue to buy in bulk and continue to operate as the name suggest, convenient
Today 8 million Americans suffer from eating disorders, approximately 90% of them are young women, which is the age group proven to be influenced most by the advertisement of a woman’s body. The body image of women had changed significantly over the years. In the middle
It’s also unknown how long this took to build. DIYers are shopping at much lower price points covered by Gainsborough. Early association with discount channels could hurt the premium brand; however future moves to introduce Gainsborough with Quartz technology could grow shares in the value segment. Marketing to developers is illogical, as they are happy with ShowerMax. However,
Also the oral care industry is growing (47% increase 2004-2009) due to increase in disposable income and influence of the western culture. Cottle has enjoyed the first mover advantage in the toothbrush market as it has competitive advantage in the manufacturing of the advanced technology toothbrushes without relying on the imported process. It enjoys a market share of 46% with only two competitors. Also Indians considered Cottle an authority in oral care and held their products in high regard because Cottle partnered frequently with IDA. Cottle, while focusing on the toothbrush market, introduced low and mid range products, being first to secure the market initially by creating brand awareness.
Reducing price will increase sales volume at least for short time but it not good in building the brand and increasing the brand market share as one the analyst has clearly stated that a price sensitive consumer will easily shift to another brand which offers a lower price than La Shampoo, thus rendering the entire exercise fertile. Another positive out come from Eric’s solution is that the brand can buy time for Caroline to think of a better decision. Beth’s solution is to create new advertisement campaign. This solution seemed better to improve sales but there are still no specific changes that suggested to repositioning La Shampoo on the consumers’ minds. Taking into consideration