A Brief Note On The World's Leading Online Grocery Retailer

WAITROSE Ltd was found in 1904 by Wallace Wyndham Waite, Arthur Rose and David Taylor when they opened their shop in Acton (Andidas, 2003). In 1937, it was acquired by the John Lewis Partnership and its Self Service was introduced in 1951. From a small business selling grocery products, it has been built up to a network of over 300 shops known for its own historical and the quality of products. The majority of their customers are those who have stable incomes and above due to their uncompetitive price. Their key aims and objectives are to archive improvement in services and gain more profits by open new store and expand their business into the North-West. In addition, Waitrose also wants to archive more targets in the next period of time such as to motivate their staff to provide better services, which can increase levels of customer service, and develop their organic range as well as their relationships with local community In this project. In this essay, the dominant stakeholders and their main interest will be identified as well as the discussion of Waitrose 's detailed analysis.

Tesco is the largest UK store, founded in 1999 by Cohen. It is currently among the principal retailers in the world (Akridge, 2012). The company has undergone different steps to put up with customer demand (Piercy, 2012). Because of these steps, changes have occurred that have increased customer satisfaction (consortium, 2006). This has introduced self checkout systems which have increased sales and save more time while shopping (Jones 2008). These systems also bring challenges (infrastructure network 2002). Different solutions can be used to counter these problems

From the industry benchmark report for 2014, (appendix) between the year 2013 and 2014 our share value increased from 15.80 to 27.04 placing us ahead of everyone in our world. That is an increase of 172%. From out firm reports (appendix), our net income of 2,764,446 unfortunately fell short of our profit forecast. of 3,501,014. Even though our share holder’s value was the highest amongst our competitors, our profit before taxes was second to Bikes ‘R’Us by a total of $450,000. They had a profit of 4,339,987 while we only had a profit of 3,949,209. A part of the reason why our net income didn’t meet our forecasts and profit before taxes fell short of Bikes’R’Us is due to

The objective of this report is to analyse the UK supermarkets industry for John Lewis in order to seek their competitive advantage in the market. This report is to be presented to the Board of Directors of John Lewis Partnership.

Larger stores also offer people the convenience of additional services along with their shopping, for example post office, pharmacy and opticians. By addressing consumer’s expectations and using their buyer power they can offer a choice of products to reflect consumer’s diverse budgetary, dietary, ethical and environmental requirements. Furthermore their global buyer power enables consumers to benefit from choosing exotic produce all year round. With 30,000,000 customers (Bevan cited in Allen, 2009) choosing to use the big four supermarkets on a weekly basis it would suggest that they provide a format that consumers want.

Opportunities for Ocado are mostly related to the trends in modern society and economy. People in the UK are working long hours and need services that help them manage their time. Being able to order groceries for delivery at late hours of the day is one of the more important opportunities for Ocado. It is important to note that Ocado is the grocery delivering service that offers delivery slots as late as 11 30 pm. Other opportunities lay in the fact that the company is an established player and that it is recognized as having the best customer experience and service among online grocery retailers. Thus

In order to stay ahead of competition Ocado should also revamp its online presence. Ocado's website is fairly good, with clean and easy to navigate interfaces. It has to be noted, however, that other players in the UK's online grocery markets are not far behind with their design of websites and overall user experience. While Ocado's website is very good in some aspects and has no significant

Nowadays,, E-commerce is remarkably developing and any company not utilizing the opportunity by investing on their products online will not only become retroactive but also are forced to be reactive. Therefore, companies are cognizant that to enhance competitiveness in market , Internet technology play an important role in the business process and essential to adhere it. According to Shelly and Vermaat (2008,p.91) “ E-commerce is a business transaction that occurs over through an electronic network as the Internet”. As E-commerce are of many kinds and variation, online grocery and food are one its kind.

In this report, the writer will explain the background of Tesco, purpose, benefit, the shortcomings and the impact on its business by using e-business strategy, as well as the developments in the strategies and business models of online supermarket retailing.

Operating profit margin figures in the table above show the return from net sales[13]. However profit margin ratios are high enough for the 3 years, there is a fall from 12.86% to 11.26% during 2011-12. Sales revenue increases with a higher rate than gross profit so there is a poor

Waitrose was setup at Acton in 1904; it was founded by Wallace Waite, Arthur Rose & David Taylor. In the year 1906 Taylor left the firm, the first shop named “Waitrose” was formed. The company was later acquired by John Lewis Partnership in the year 1937. At that time it had 10 small service food shops and had a turnover of 150000 GBP. After the acquisition, Waitrose now are specialist Supermarkets, having more than 175 supermarkets all over UK mainly in the south-eastern region. It now boasts a work-force of over 37000 employees and many new stores. They offer fresh produce, poultry, bread & meat. Waitrose is a company known for providing high and good quality

The above ratios indicates a declining performance for Tesco in 2015. Margins which measures the return of profit on all invested capital has declined significantly and may be as a result of tense competition and other supply chain management issues. ROCE of -23.54% is indicating that shareholders are paying heavily for Tesco’s investment in current assets and

FreshDirect is a relatively new entrant to the online grocery market and relies on Porter’s Five Forces. FreshDirect relies on bulk purchasing to pass the savings to its customers. The ability for the company to turn a large profit and attract investors has made concept attractive to new entrants. FreshDirect uses quality, price, logistics, technology, and strong stakeholders’ relationships as barriers to entry and competitive advantage. Because FreshDirect focus on providing ready-made meals and

New technologies in the food industry and large supermarkets such as Waitrose have created new products and new processes. Online shopping, bar coding and computer aided designs have resulted in improvements in business at Waitrose.

Supermarket e-commerce stores that have altered business practice grow very fast. The popularity of online supermarket increases every year. Keynote’s study (as cited in Hand, Riley, Harris, Singh, and Rettie, 2009, p. 1205) explain that in 2006, the percentage of online supermarkets are higher approximately 35% than previous year. It could be that customers will shop online only in the future if the popularity of traditional stores go down. In addition, many supermarkets such as Walmart, Coles, and Giant are starting to build e-commerce. Online supermarket grow