Compare And Contrast Cole And Woolworths Referencing Pricing Strategy

Product offerings by these contenders are similar as Tesco’s to a huge degree. This procedure helps Tesco to ensure its commercial center by expanding competition. A large portion of the contenders of the Tesco have an equivalent or a bigger market share in the store business. By industry investigators, Tesco PLC has a twenty nine per cent of shares the grocery store industry.

However, when Franklins unsuccessfully attempted to reconfigure their position in regards to their consumers, they lost their hold on the market (Armstrong et al. 2012). It is also outlined by Armstrong et al (2012) that the inexperience of Franklins in regards to market segmentation resulted in the loss of existing consumers as well as future consumers, and ultimately resulted in an uncontested response to ALDI. 4. ALDI’s Private label strategy Smith (2006, p. 39) implies that due to the nature of the supermarket industry, stores that offer a larger range of products are often more efficient than those that offer fewer items. ALDI however tests this notion, as they stock roughly 700 private label products - which is less than other retailers who stock 25000 to 30000 products (Bonn 2006, p. 1), yet they are still able to secure their market position and contend with rival retailers (Armstrong et al. 2012) 4.1 Perception of Private Label Within the last 20-30 years, private label brands were initially targeted towards the lower classes; therefore people’s adoptions of private label brands were not very common (Kumar & Steenkamp 2007, p. 12). However, in recent decades private label products have become more favorable to Australian consumers. This is evident in 2010 Nielson Global Survey (The Nielsen Company 2010) as the total percentage of sales of private label products have increased

Stores are also competing in other forms in order to secure loyal customers. Some of the forms are product range and quality by which stores are offering privately-labeled products that are primarily used in the commodity lines at lower prices.(Australian Government, Department of Agriculture) This has caused a significant shift in the industry, thus allowing players like ALDI who started with a private labeled product early on to gain and improve its market share. Another major form is convenience where several non-price factors such as opening hours, strategic locations, parking area, distribution options (delivery or in-store pickup) and online shopping comes into play. (Australian Government, Department of Agriculture)

The threat of substitutes in the food retail industry can be high among the ‘Big Four’ as switching costs are relatively low and products can be similar. However, most have their own private labels and also target slightly different markets, such as Sainsbury’s having more upmarket positioning and Tesco’s cost leadership. Waitrose offers unique and differentiated products, which are, in the eyes of the consumer, significantly superior. No other supermarket offers such premium quality products with great service and such a large range of organic products as Waitrose, so this makes them extremely difficult to substitute. (Euromonitor, 2008).

The second force that I will use to analyze the Trader Joe’s company is the “the rivalry among established competitors”. Factors to consider when looking at the rivalries in the industry are industry demand, cost conditions, and exit barriers. Trader Joe’s competitors include The Kroger Co., Whole Foods Market, and Safewat Inc., and all super markets in general (Llopis, 2011). With that said, there seems to be a high demand for what Trader Joe’s offers, private labels. This means that the intensity in the industry is less compared to an industry with a flat demand. Trader Joe’s does not have to fight hard to sell their products because of the service they have created. Trader Joe’s brand can be considered “diversity on steroids” which has somewhat of a cult following among consumers (Llopis, 2011). Consumers that want unique experiences with their food are able to do exactly that at

These four retailers average private-label dollar share of 22%, well above the industry average of 16%. They have also seen higher levels of overall sales growth versus non-leaders – 5.3% versus 3.4% over the past 3 years. (Future of Food Retailing 2008, 136)

When you shop for groceries where do you stand in choosing either a generic vs. brand name product? Do you reach for the brand name box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, or would you rather pick up a generic box of macaroni and cheese to save that extra 10 cents? Is your decision based off a difference in taste or is it simply a matter of paying for quality of the product? What does spending more money on a brand name food product have to say about who we are in our culture today? Today there is an idea that by buying a brand name product a person is buying something of more quality, which can strangely in turn determine our importance in society.

We look around ourselves everyday and see many brands and logos. Some of these brands and logos that we see are fancy and pleasing to the eye, but all come with a price. There are many varieties and many categories that these brands produce products in. Social media, the masses, and resource quantity are all factors of why these sought after products are very pricely. Man or women are willing to pay extra money for a brand name. Whether it may be the elderly, young, man, or woman, if it has a well known name on it, people are willing to pay more money for it than a similar version.

The retailers are motivated to promote private label goods because of their lower costs and greater profit margins.

Since the demand for the brand has traditionally outstripped supply, the company can easily and without loss charge a premium from its customers. As mentioned the company sells its products at a 100% markup and which in turn translate into increased revenues.

The Big 3 had high advertising to sales ratios of 10-14%, also deterring entry, because average first year advertising cost for a new brand was over $20 million. We can conclude that total costs related to producing private label products are lower than new branded products. Private label products can offer greater margins to grocers and still sell at lower prices. They have a considerable competitive cost advantage over the new branded products.

2.3 THREAT OF SUBSTITUTES Substitutes do not entirely replace existing products but may introduce new technology or reduce the costs of producing the same product (Porter, 1980). Substitutes may limit the profits in an industry by keeping their prices down (Porter, 1980). The threat of substitution is quite high in this industry because consumers are able to substitute to other major retailers, convenience stores, niche product outlets, restaurants, bakeries, butchers and farmers (Coriolis Research, 2004). Supermarkets like Tesco and ASDA have a range of products and services that have close substitutes, effecting price elasticity of demand because the market is sensitive to price (IBISWorld). The demand for a particular brand or retailer will increase or decrease concurrent to the movement of price in comparison to its competition (IBISWorld). The UK supermarkets are always trying to increase the quality of products and services resulting in a constant need to differentiate products and services from competition to make them less price sensitive.

The supermarket wars has been increasingly frustrating for consumers as sometimes consumers tend not to know where to get the best deals, as they all advertise the same price and brands, in the UK companies such as Tesco and Asda advertise and sell the same products but also claim to low on prices for the customer satisfaction, but in fact they charge more when it comes to their own brands, looking in the telecommunication sector is clear that with the privatization of the telecommunications industry, the mobile phone industry experiences transformations that enhance the dynamics of competition.

It was clearly stated in the case that the products from those private-label brands can be 20 percent, or in some cases even 30 to 40 percent less than first-tier national brands. No matter what strategies P&G would use, it has to be related to a series of price adjustments to absorb the impact of the entering of low priced private-label product – in this case, Wal-Mart’s private-label diapers supplied by Kimberly Clark. Although the case didn’t provide any alternative solutions to the situation, in my opinion there were two main options to resolve the problem. The first option is to lower the price of P&G’s diaper product to better compete with Wal-Mart’s private-label. The second option is to mainly maintain or slightly raise the price to establish P&G’s diaper brand – Pampers as a premium brand in the segment.

➢ Product differentiation - Products that are relatively the same will compete based on price. Brand identification can reduce rivalry.