In the past, Costco has had a great strategy to gain the public’s awareness. Not only has this company done well in the past but it has also gained respect from large families who appreciate not going to the store twice a week while saving money at the same time. With today’s society being the way it is, it is not logical for Costco to keep on going the way it’s going if they want to be able to stay afloat. With the company growing to online retailing they believe that they can overcome a huge competitor, Amazon Prime. In the article, business insider it states “We compared prices between Costco and Amazon Prime to find out which retailer offers the best deals. It turns out that Costco is the cheapest by a landslide, with an average discount of 19% on items where there was a price discrepancy”. With this being said, I think Costco’s next strategic plan is genius and will even take away some business from Amazon by new clients who have never shopped at Costco. However, Amazon prime does offer many perks that Costco doesn’t especially for the consumers are picky and who prefer the convenience of two-day shipping. In the textbook strategic marketing problems it defines marketing penetration strategy as when an organization seeks to gain greater dominance in a market where it already has an offering. Which is exactly what Amazon is doing considering they have already established themselves in many means. …show more content…
It also states in the textbook strategic marketing problems it defines market development strategy as a strategy where an organization introduces its existing offerings to markets its not currently
Customers’ loyalty is another influence factor. The real example of the customers’ loyalty role is given by the Sam’s Club and Costco competition. Sara Altukhaim, an analyst at Kantar Retail, stated that Sam’s Club customers are more predisposed to use Amazon than regular shoppers. That effect occurrence is explained by services like Amazon Prime, which operate on a similar model to club warehouses: pay a premium to get all the benefits and discounts (Berman 2014 n.p.). Therefore, Sam’s Club has a trend on losing the customers to the Internet. Due to that company has low customer loyalty level. As for Costco, the company has incredibly loyal customers. It is caused by the chain’s commitment to signature offering, which is often advantageous
They are performing very well from a strategic perspective. No, Costco does not enjoy a clear competitive advantage over Sam’s. It does however enjoy a competitive advantage over BJ’s. the nature of this competitive advantage includes the fact that BJ’s has too many products, which makes rapid turnover harder to achieve. I think that Costco has a winning strategy because they are selective with the
From a strategic perspective, Costco could be doing a better job. When an industry is experiencing high growth, a company should gain a competitive advantage by determining what makes it unique to its competitors. As mentioned previously, the three components of the company’s strategy are low pricing, limited product selection and “treasure-hunt
Amazon can benefit from lower transaction costs. In the past, many firms did not want to price discriminate because it was time consuming, difficult and expensive to collect information about how each customer reacts to a change in price. However, recent advances in computer technology have pushed the transaction costs
Market development is when a company is using an existing product but is marketing it in a new market such as other countries. This increases popularity for the service and the company.
Costco has many risks associated with its financial and operational performance. One of the biggest risks that Costco is facing todays is the competition from other retailers and wholesalers, such as Wal-Mart and Target. Costco compete with its competitors for customers, qualified employees and management personnel, suitable sites and suppliers. The retail business is extremely competitive and continues to get even more completive. Such events as the evolution of retailing in online channels has improved the ability of customers to compare prices and products and as a result enhanced competition. Any significant increases of competition may adversely affect Costco’s financial performance, and make Costco incapable to compete successfully in the future.
Chief elements of Costco’s strategy were low prices, limited selection, and a treasure-hunt shopping environment. The ultra-low pricing strategy includes a mark-up capped at 14% and Kirkland, a Costco brand designed to be of equal or better quality than national brands. Product Selection is limited to 4,000 items within a wide variety of categories. Costco does however include ancillary businesses to increase member alternatives. The loss of sales from customers who refuse to purchase large amounts is considered “Intelligent loss of sales.” Treasure-Hunt Merchandising consists of a constantly changing selection of 1,000 luxury items on the floor enticing shoppers to spend more than
The US warehouse club and superstore industry includes about 20 companies; however the major competitors that Costco faces are Sam 's Club (owned by Wal-Mart), BJ’s Wholesale Club, and Meijer. The club superstore industry is so competitive that these four companies alone hold over 90 percent of sales. These superstores are able to offer competitive pricing because as large companies they can offer a wide selection of products and have purchasing, distribution, marketing, and financing advantages. Due to low margins, the profitability of these individual superstore companies depends on high volume sales and efficient operations. This is where Costco has been able to succeed and set itself aside from the competitors.
The first of Porter’s Five Forces that impact Costco is the threat of new entrants. The threat of new entrants into the wholesale and membership retail space is low. There are several reasons why the threat of entrants into the market is low. The leading reason why the threat of entry is low is because an emerging company will struggle to have the volume necessary to compete with Costco. Costco is the sixth largest retailer in the U.S. As a major retailer, Costco has the highest discounts on a majority of its
Costco has a cost (i.e. price) advantage and would be able to price an entrant out of the market. We must still be mindful of other big-box retailers that offer portions of what Costco has for inventory. Companies such as Super Wal-Mart, IKEA and even WinCo are lesser threats but threats all the same.
Another important aspect is a limited selection of goods. Whereas Walmart or Target may have upwards of 150,000 items sold in their stores. Costco will have less than 4000. They also have their own private label which is only equal to 15% of what they carry in the stores, but it equals out to over 30% of their total sales currently. Another aspect of the product selection is that instead of buying many
Costco is one of the nation’s top three retailers and the world’s largest membership warehouse chain, Costco wholesale Canada operates about 80 membership warehouse clubs across Canada. The company never advertises, charges its 64 million members to shop there and doesn’t mark up any product more than 15 percent, even at this lowest profit margin, 15% for Kirkland private brand, the products were 20% lower than comparable to other brand products. Costco works with this business model and generating $93 billion in annual sales.
If you have noticed, most of the time we would go for a quick errand to buy necessities we would usually go to Wal-Mart, Sam 's Club, King Soopers, Safeway, Walgreens, or Costco. Of course, there are other retail markets out there, but we 're going to focus on the "two leading American retailers, posting more revenue than any of their rivals" (Bowman): Wal-Mart and Costco. For many years, Wal-mart has been growing instantaneously and is the number one retailer in the world for many years. Although, when it comes to employee benefits, Costco 's would be considered a better choice for employees. Costco may be treating employees better when it comes to
At the end of 2012, Costco was a successful business, but there are some issues that they would need to deal with. These issues mainly arise from their previous successful ventures as a warehouse wholesale company. The first issue is that Costco has competitors that can actually be and are a threat to their success. Competition allows a company to improve itself and prove its prowess to its customers. However, when a competitor is able to provide the service at a much reduced cost, problems will arise. As for the second issue, it seems that Costco’s efforts to become an international company are moving slowly. They have not reached a point where their US and Canadian warehouses provide a backbone for their finances. Costco’s third issue is that their finances are too reliant on acquiring new members and not on selling their products. If they cannot keep acquiring new members at a steady rate, their financial infrastructure could suffer.
2. Market Development- Market development is when existing products are marketed in new markets such as marketing an existing product to a