Analysis Of The Book ' The New Rules Of Retail ' By Lewis And Dart

This report will demonstrate, apply and evaluate knowledge and understanding of key managerial disciplines of the chosen high street retailer, Marks and Spencer, in different real-world global contexts. According to the report by Deloitte, the retail industry is undergoing immense changes and faces a tough competitive

Companies in the retail industry operate in a high price elasticity environment as there is not much product differentiation to leverage. Buyers face almost no switching cost if they chose a substitute offering better value. On the contrary, large and diverse population making small purchases works in favor of the industry. No one individual or a small group has the power to significantly impact the industry, but overall buyers enjoy have a high bargaining power in the industry.

Shopping has become a daily activity which happens a billion times in America and around the world. We cannot imagine how our lives would be affected if shopping was suddenly stopped. Malcolm Gladwell and Anne Norton both write articles about two sides of modern day shopping: how consumers have impacted the retail industry and how the industry influences consumers. In the article " The Science of Shopping," Malcolm Gladwell, a well-known writer and journalist, analyzes the shopping behaviors of customers and how retailers can lure customers; while Anne Norton, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, in

Author Malcolm Gladwell in “Science of Shopping” argues about the study of shopping and how important position of advisement is to attract customers. Gladwell uses Paco Underhill as his claim. Underhill has five theories including downshift theory, Decompression zone, the butt brush, and “petting” Gladwell uses these Underhill’s theories in his writing to describe the customers. For example, downshift period is even customers are looking so fast they cannot even see the sign; this theory came about by studding people when walk fast and slow. This theory is important because this is why position of the advertisement is important.

The book that I read was John Huey’s and Sam Walton’s, “Sam Walton: Made in America” published in 1992. John Huey was the senior editor at Forbes magazine at the time. He is known for reporting on the business world and profiling many of the leading personalities. Sam Walton was the man who started it all for the national corporation, Wal-Mart. He was the founder and CEO. Sam’s main purpose of this book is to tell the “formula” of to how to be successful as a business owner.

The bargaining power of customers is high. First of all, the customer size is tremendous globally, which also has an accelerating growth rate in recent years. Customers’ leverage is strengthening as a result of this. Another inevitable factor is that with countless retailors online, there is low switching cost for customers to find other alternative companies that suits their desire to conduct purchases. Moreover, consumers today are more sophisticated. Consumers are less commit to impulsive-buying, yet are more willing to study about product features and evaluate their options before purchasing online. Their purchase pattern can also be hard to learn too.

Today’s customers are more aware and empowered, and have more bargaining power due to the exponential increase in competition – direct, indirect or substitute. In retailing, they want hassle-free shopping, have less time at their disposal to locate the shop and the merchandise and are reluctant to keep waiting. The modern format retail stores are doing their best to anticipate the customer’s demands and are going all out to redesign their store interiors, offer more choices in varieties and assortments, and are giving as many services as feasible.

(4) The fact that customers are mainly men limits the available market, too, to sellers, causing sellers to keep prices high. However, the Internet has reduced barriers to entry into the industry. The overhead of maintaining a shop, even of hiring models to pose for pictures now that computer graphics can substitute, has reduced costs. The Internet has also increased demand as it has taken away much of the embarrassment of ‘real life’ purchasing. Thus, technological change can fundamentally change both the supply and demand sides of the equation of any industry.

As the diagram shows, John Lewis’s share in the retail market was constantly increasing from 2005 to 2008. In 4 years, the industry’s share rose by 1.4%. And even though from 2008 to 2009 its share in the market remained the same, it can be predicted that its market share will continues to rise in 2010 and 2011. This forecast can be justified by the firm’s aims to build more stores, as well as launch foreign language websites for its European customers.

The global supply chain in the retail industry has witnessed changes and shifts which have led to opportunities and challenges for the involved players. This has occasioned shifts in trade and consumer behavior patterns. Among these are global growth patterns brought about by explosion of more cities and thus growth in infrastructure. There have been flexible supply chain trends which have enabled retail operators to adapt effectively to unexpected circumstances and changes. Moreover, globalization has changed the way retail supply chain is managed as more mature markets emerge to provide logistic and standard solution needs of the businesses. Conversely, near-shoring has

The recognized giants in today’s discount retail market are Wal-Mart, Sears, Roebuck and Company, and Target, and this paper compares Wal-Mart and Target. As the competition stiffens to capture market niches, these two organizations are heading for a showdown. This work demonstrates distinctive differences in company culture, promotion within the organization, lofty goal setting, and leadership styles between these two organizations. Although this paper shows a definite competitive advantage for the Wal-Mart organization, it will also demonstrate that Target

It shows that between 2004 and 2007, total retail growth was only 4.6% while online retail was increased by 130% (The Times 100, NA) (Table 5). With no doubt, it seems more difficult for retail shops to survive, but Lindquist (2002) stated that shoppers prefer to integrate internet shopping with other forms of shopping (Lindquist et al., 2002). The supply chain of Topshop and its changes can help us to understand how retail shops nowadays adjust its position in the

The recent recession has hurt the entire retail market and regaining profits will be a constant challenge for the entire industry. In order to remain competitive, Ann Krill states,” value and versatility have become very important. She needs an incentive to shop.” (Hymowitz, 2012) Ms. Krill goes on to say,” I think in uncertain economic times, value becomes more important...” (Hymowitz, 2012)

Trade itself in a course of development, practices and performance to convene the original anticipations of communities and community on it. At the same time as technological forces will carry on to force supermarkets to be internationally incorporated, law-making and shopper demand requires to be much further in the consumer field, and behave as a socially responsible company, therefore is becoming

International Retailing has existed and gained market in the past decades. There has been a financial boom in many countries. International Retailers are the companies who are dealing with the retails in the Countries abroad, i.e. far from the countries of the company’s origin. Earlier they were just Domestic Retailers covering their domestic market in the country of their respective origin, but with the elapse of time the demands of people rise in various items and in various countries. It was not possible for them to fulfill the demand of their domestic market and other countries at the same time. So with a risk they started to increase their retails shops within the origin country to have a look at the response of the people. But their sole purpose was to internationalize their retails shops. With time they opened the same retail shops with the same fashion quality but in increased quantity. This is how they became International Retailers. When we talk about International Retailing, the most common names that we come across are K-mart, PAK’nSAVE, Walgreen, Woolworths Ltd, etc. But the leading names of the Retailers that have covered most of the countries are Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Tesco, with their net sales turnover running are $374.5 billion, $130 billion and $102.6 billion, respectively. There are 2 types of International retailers in the industry, i.e. - international Grocery retailers and International fashion retailing. The products of International