Cabela's Marketing Strategy

Today, Bass Pro Shops is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that specializes in sporting and hunting equipment. The company's current position is a far cry from its modest beginnings in 1971 when the company's founder, Johnny Morris began selling fishing lures on just two shelves in his father's liquor store. With fifty-two retail outlets as well as a number of Outdoor World superstores in the United States and Canada, a user-friendly Web site and extensive mail catalog sales, Bass Pro Shops has become a leading sporting and hunting goods in North America today. To determine how the company achieved this impressive growth, this paper provides an analysis of Bass Pro Shop's corporate strategy using Ansoff's Growth Strategies and Porter's generic strategies for growth, the company's market segmentation and marketing mix. Finally, an assessment of appropriate Bass Pro Shop's marketing metrics is followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.

When it comes to pricing we always strived to provide one of the lowest prices in the market. We decreased product prices by $0.50 on each product each year to appeal to consumers. Since providing a low cost product was one of our strategic goals we did not stray from decreasing prices. Looking back, perhaps we shouldn’t have been so loyal to our strategy when we were unable to turn a profit. While a strategy is important to stick to, being a profitable company is the ultimate goal.

Cabela’s will also be tasked with setting up vendor relationships to implement new product lines. The company will need to investigate new advertising mediums and find the most cost-effective means to reach a new, younger target market.

Pricing can play an important role in the success or disaster of any product. Too high a price and the product will fail; too low a price and not enough profits will be made to sustain business operations (Hisrich, Peters, & Shepherd, 2014). The key is to make the customer think that they are paying exactly the right price for the product. Anything else though in this regard means the product is not positioned well in the mind of the consumer. First of all, Gril-Kleen will have to decide on what sort of strategy it needs to pursue. This strategy is decided on three factors namely costs, margins and competition.

To determine the optimal prices for the UriCap products, the team used competitive pricing, both indirect and direct, custom willingness –to-pay, cost plus pricing based on distribution channel partner needs, and economic value analysis. Direct competitor pricing, which was only applicable to the UriCap-M product, was determine through secondary research. On the other hand, primary research was used to determine indirect competitor, or substitute, pricing. A combination of primary research and secondary research was used during economic value analysis while customer willingness-to-pay (WTP) was determined through an online survey.

The camping category at Cabela’s encompasses a large variety of products that people use to go camping. These products include everything from tents and sleeping bags to knives and flashlights. The product offering is vast and the consumer has a chance to see the big picture and decide what kind of camping experience they will have based on what they chose to buy and take on their trip.

Over the past 40 years, Bass Pro Shops, Inc., a privately held corporation, has leveraged a unique business model into a major success story, becoming one of the largest retailers of sporting goods in the United States. In fact, the company's flagship retail store in Springfield, Missouri, is the state's largest tourism attraction, outdistancing even major attractions such as Silver Dollar City located in Branson. This paper analyzes Bass Pro Shops strategic marketing methods, including potential growth opportunities, the different marketing strategies that are available, objectives for Bass Pro Shops' marketing plan, and the capacity of the company to respond to changes in the marketing environment. In addition, the paper examines the extent to which identified changes will impact the marketing strategy and provides an analysis of the company's current marketing strategy strengths and weaknesses. A discussion of key local, national or global emerging themes that have the potential to affect Bass Pro Shops, Inc. and recommended strategic responses is followed by a summary of the research and important findings are presented in the paper's conclusion.

Welch Manufacturing has excess capacity. The following per unit data apply for sales to regular customers:

When setting a price for its products, a marketing manager will use more than one approach to find the cost. Consumer tastes and preferences lead Carmex to use a demand-oriented approach. Carmex has been a successful company for 75 years, they would do anything to appeal to their customers demands and the quality of product they have always delivered. Furthermore, the cost of ingredients, packaging, and manufacturing lead Carmex to use a cost-oriented approach so that they can cover the fix costs. Lastly, with the consideration of prices from competing brands, Carmex uses a competition-orientated approach when looking at other competing prices.

With the implementation of Omni-channel retailing, Cabela’s customers have full access to the company’s global inventory of products. Therefore, customers are no longer limited to product availability by location or shopping channel. Customers can order online or by phone and have their orders direct-shipped from any location or they can choose store pickup. In-store customers can carry their purchases with them or have it shipped to the location of their choice. Cabela’s primary shipping locations include the U.S., Canada, and Japan, but the company will also ship orders worldwide on request. In-store customers can shop non-store inventory at in-store kiosks and at in-store catalog desks. Cabela’s Omni-channel retail model also means

The Costco strategy for getting into the wedding gown business is to have a set of touring trunk shows at its Western stores during the season where people are planning their weddings. Costco's typical pricing strategy is to undercut competition and make up for this with high volume sales. The company applies this strategy to the wedding gown business as well. Costco offers one of the lowest prices of any company on its wedding dresses. The company's business plan ensures that the details have been fleshed out, and that has led to the unique distribution strategy for wedding gowns.

However, there are several factors for the company to choose its pricing strategy. In this case, it may be better if the company choose to sell its product at $21.50 instead of $15.50. This is due to the fact that price-cutting appears to be not a good strategy in this industry. If every player in the same industry starts to lower the price of their products, every company will end up having the low price, which in turns lead to a low profit margin. Moreover, referring to the calculation in a below table, it also implies that if the price is lower than $12, sales will not be able to cover the variable cost incurred, thus it will bring about a loss in net profit.

The strategy for setting a product’s price often has to be changed when the product is part of a product mix. In this case, the firm looks for a set of prices that maximizes its profits on the total product mix. Pricing is difficult because the various products have related demand and costs and face different degrees of competition.

Price interacts with all other elements of the marketing mix to determine the effectiveness of each and of the whole. The objectives that guide pricing strategy should be a subset of the objectives that guide overall marketing strategy. Thus, it is probably wrong to view price as an independent element of marketing strategy or to assert that price, by itself, is a central element in the marketing mix.” (Webster, 1979)

Price, which is one of the most important elements of the marketing mix, can be difficult to get right. Pricing too high, or low, can negatively impact on customer satisfaction and revenue. Adopting a pricing strategy is necessary to achieve desired sales objectives (Chan & Wong 2005).