Coles and Woolworths Case Study Essay

In accordance to the annual report of Woolworths Limited 2016, the current accounting practice that is applied to the business regarding its inventory disclosure includes; a perpetual inventory system which continually updates the information by increasing or decreasing inventory from reports throughout the year to verify accounting records (Bragg 2016). A perpetual inventory system in comparison to a periodic inventory system is more efficient and effective for larger corporations. With entities like Woolworths, many transactions occur between themselves and other stakeholders, so by utilising a perpetual inventory system, it saves time and also money (Woolworths 2016)

§ Non-food business: We now have a 6% market share. Our goal is to be

1) Should Wal-Mart be expected to protect small businesses in the communities within which it operates?

Cue is an Australian fashion retailer, which has been in operation since 1968. The company opened its first story in Sydney, but has since opened a number of shops across the country. The retailer focuses on fashion, which is creative, innovative and youthful. The company has become one of Australia’s most loved and Marie Claire readers awarded it with the title of the Best Australian Fashion brand in 2015-2016.

The industry we have chosen is the department store-retail industry. Within this industry, we have chosen the department stores of JCPenney and Macy’s. We find this industry, as well as these two companies, interesting from a strategic perspective. JCPenney has recently undergone a massive strategic restructuring in regards to its pricing, brand offerings, and store layout, pushing it away from the typical department store strategy of discounts and coupons. Its new strategy has become much closer to Wal-Mart’s strategy of every day low prices. Macy’s, on the other hand, has restructured with a push from the economic

In this article Michael Baker discusses the livelihood of small retailers in a market subjugated by the financially dominant oligopolies, Woolworths and Coles. While the small independent retailers in direct competition with Woolworths and Coles provide some competitive respite for consumers, as they encourage competitive pricing, albeit predatory pricing, it is clear that Woolworths and Coles control the supermarket industry in Australia, in the formation of a duopoly. It is evident that Woolworths and Coles engage in predatory pricing in an attempt to eliminate independent retailers from the market. This article discusses recent efforts made by the Australian government and the Australian Competition

Cole is an Australian supermarket with large influence and market share in the country. In addition, the company contributes significantly to the nation’s economy. In essence, the company has acquired more than 30% of the market share of the supermarket industry in this nation. Specifically, the company’sproduct line consists of daily products, grocery, meat, deli, fresh produce, bake house, cigarettes, liquor, apparel, general merchandize and over head products. Notably Cole has a culture of low price as its marketing strategy of attracting and retaining customers.

Bunnings is the market leader in this industry who gains 64% of total market share, followed by Mitre 10 with 13.0%, and Masters with 8.0% of market share (The Australian, 2016). The company’s revenue continuous increased since they started the business in 2011 to 2014, they gained total revenue around $1527 million in 2014 (Woolworths, 2015) but the company still got the loss from their operation expenses. Moreover, the sales dropped by 16% in 2015 that was the main reason for Lowe’s to delist the joint venture in the beginning of 2016 as it claimed that Masters has poor profit performance (IBIS, 2016). In the meantime, Woolworths publicised its intention either to selling the business or shutting it down (ABC, 2016, para. 15). Thus, there are several causes of these problems that Masters should solve in order to survive in this business and compete with its competitors.

‘We aim to return the UK High Street Retail business to its role as Britain's most popular stationer, bookseller and newsagent … Our plans encompass improved efficiency through cost savings and margin enhancement, while rebuilding the competitiveness and depth of our product ranges.' (Ms Swann BBC, July 2005)

The following report will investigate the Australian retail/grocery supermarket Woolworths and its parent company Woolworths Limited. This report will explore the success Woolworths and its contribution to the Australian economy.

Woolworths is the major supermarket grocery store chain in Australia, owned by Woolworths Limited. Woolworths is an incorporated public company, listed on the Australian stock exchange. This company has incomplete permissible responsibility through its shareholders and lies in the tertiary industry and retail sectors. Through their authoritative organization strategies and processes Woolworths has been able to make available to its 1.3 million customers a level of service, expenditure and manufacturing available across their franchise stores located across Australia. Woolworths' function as one of the largest public companies is obvious through its nature of management. This report will explain the nature and responsibilities of management in light of Woolworths.

On the other, although the majority of the information shown in the case study presents arguments for the fact that it was inevitable that Woolworths would fail as a business, it is also shown that the company was once a reputable company and generated high levels of consumer demand through the customer being able to buy “pick-n-mix sweets, a DVD, a magnifying headlight and a cheese grater “ in the same store. The revenue generated within the first six months of 2008 was £1107 million, which suggested that the firm was able to sell efficiently to an extent. If the financial department at Woolworth’s had evaluated the balance sheet and income statement from previous years, they would have potentially been able to minimize the risk of the high expenses, reduced profit margins and overall prevent the administration of the company that occurred in 2008. This point therefore indicates that it was not entirely inevitable that Woolworths would fail as a business, as measures could have been carried

The Australian Supermarket Industry is the very hot topic that’s why very interesting topic now days. The Australian supermarket and grocery stores have a very severe competition in Australia mainly because of organizations competing in this mature industry are going towards cost reduction initiatives with competing advantage rather than product differentiation strategies, In other words business in this industry increase market share by charging lower prices while making reasonably fair profit. The growing popularity of ALDI – German based company of introducing its own label goods (products manufactured and sold under the retailers own brand) with low cost has forced the two giants –Woolworths and Coles to cut price

When the first Woolworths supermarket open, the Founding CEO Percy Christmas has stated that a key principle for Woolworths were “Every man, woman and child needs a handy place where good things are cheap” which has been insisting by all the Woolworths employees and suppliers until now. Now Woolworths has more than 3,000 stores in Australia and New Zealand that span food, liquor, petrol and general merchandise. (Woolworths Limited, 2015).

On the other hand, another control system the organization is their rewarding strategy; as they link their performance and abilities to meet goals and targets to pay raise and promotion.