Mark 1012 Report

The reputation and recognition make Aldi attractive in the marketing activities and this aspect needs to be improved in the future to compete with both existing and forthcoming rivals. Meanwhile, the high buying power and costs control would help Aldi to diversify its products and increase market penetration to serve diverse Australian population. This leads to the reconsideration of Aldi’s current strategy of limiting product range to adopt other strategies as a number of differentiation strategies has been used by other

1. The grocery industry is a commoditized industry, which makes it difficult for grocers to sustain through differentiation. Buyer power is high and thus, cost leadership and operational efficiencies are critical. There is fierce competition amongst various grocery stores, with the main players such as Loblaw and A&P holding multi-banner stores in various market segments. Traditional grocery stores also lose some of their market share to drug stores, convenience stores and other retailers who have entered the industry. Threat of substitutes from fast-food and take- away outlets is not as prevalent, since many grocery stores have started stocking ready-to-eat meals and have deli services available for consumers. Competitive

Morrison’s is a food retailer which was established in 1899. Morrison’s started off as a stall at a local market in Bradford run by William Morrison and has since grown to be the UK’s fourth largest food retailer. Morrison’s aims to, “attract, motivate and develop people to ensure that Morrison’s becomes the ‘food specialist for everyone’”. In addition to Morrison’s being a supermarket it also offers a range of other services; cafés, recycling, dry cleaning, photo printer, petrol station and pharmacy. Morrison’s is highly customer orientated as they try to provide the best service to their customers by providing them with high quality and reasonably priced items.

From the time it opened, Aldi has expanded the number of product assortments that allow consumers to find nearly anything they need to supply and feed their families. Aldi developed a strong marketing program and decentralized their pricing and assortments that also include some well-known products. Aldi’s begins its value propositions to shoppers with its amazingly low prices. Their “hard” discount pricing, averages about 30% below standard supermarkets like Winn-Dixie or Kroger’s (Brick, 2016). They attribute their success and growth to the “hard discount” model as it has demonstrated to be highly effective. Aldi is different than “large” discounters like Walmart where Walmart’s varieties are limited in size and led by private label products, and investments are made in stores atmosphere, unfortunately, resulting in lackluster customer service. This allows “hard” discounters like Aldi to win the grocery price war by greater margins than Walmart, making Aldi a major competitor of Walmart (Bartone,

Operating on very thin profit margins, players in the supermarket industry traditionally either focus on a premium segment or follow a discounter strategy at the low end. Premium players address educated and more price elastic consumers who value healthy, natural and organic food; the share of perishable items for these players is normally distinctly higher. Players that focus on a discounter strategy offer a higher share of simple necessity items and value price competitiveness over premium features like healthiness or organic origin. Independently of the focused customer group it is imperative for players in the supermarket industry to be cost efficient and optimize operations

The UK supermarket industry is a very competitive and profitable industry. It is made up of four main players with significant share of the market, and then various smaller companies who focus on smaller niches in the market such as the bottom of the market discounters and the top of the line speciality stores. It is an interesting market and this report evaluates the attractiveness of the industry using Porter’s five forces model with an insight into how market nicher Waitrose sustains a competitive advantage. Next this report looks at how major player Sainsbury’s successfully competes against its rivals using differentiation strategies, and analyses current consumer trends and problems can effect this industry.

If focusing on the retail industry it involved, such as Coles supermarket, the main competition comes from its countpart, Woolworth. Coles and Safeway are the two main retailors in Australia as analysed by Inside Retailing organisation in Australia. Australia’s retail industry has developed to become a leading industry in the national market as well as in the world market. As this article indicates, all entities in the retail industry confront pierce competition. Also cited in the article, a 1966 issue of trade magazine Inside the Food Industry observed that: Woolworths and Coles are now nearing 10% of total Australian retail sales. They are opening more stores than anyone else. Up until now, this figure can be much bigger than 10 percent; and the competition between retailers is increasingly intense.

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.

Larger stores also offer people the convenience of additional services along with their shopping, for example post office, pharmacy and opticians. By addressing consumer’s expectations and using their buyer power they can offer a choice of products to reflect consumer’s diverse budgetary, dietary, ethical and environmental requirements. Furthermore their global buyer power enables consumers to benefit from choosing exotic produce all year round. With 30,000,000 customers (Bevan cited in Allen, 2009) choosing to use the big four supermarkets on a weekly basis it would suggest that they provide a format that consumers want.

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)

Reed Supermarkets started out as a lower-end retailer, but over the past two decades Reed has moved into the high-end in the supermarket business. They have done this with a combination of exceptional customer service, a full assortment of both standard and high-end products, including bakeries, meats and seafood. This niche has been very successful and been the diving force in their growth. Unfortunately, as noted above, customer loyalty to a quality brand has dwindled and been replaced y the need to find the best price. Reed has attempted to combat this by both increasing their high-margin products (private label and prepared foods) and increasing the number and amount of specials they offer. These tactics have done little to change customers’ perception of Reed as a high-end and high-priced retailer. See Appendix A for a full SWOT analysis on HLL.

To understand the role of H-E-B’s Own Brands, we need to understand the role of private labels to a retail store. Retailers manufacture carry private brands since retail gross margins in the private labels are relatively high. Retailers are able to realize cost advantages since they do not have additional advertising and distribution costs associated with private labels. In addition to increasing profits, store brands help to attract and retain customers. Retailers however need the critical procurement revenue from national brands for ad space and displays on stores and hence need to maintain a balance between their Own Brands and national brands.

High employment rates and a family culture are the main contributors to the lack of substitute services. Possible threats such as restaurants or takeaway stores do exist; however, their threat is minimal. Conversely, the intensity of rivalry among competitors is strong. In terms of market share it is extremely difficult for Aldi to penetrate the dominance of Woolworths and Coles, especially considering the current price war breaking out.

Many retailers are giving more and more offerings in their different product categories, Bigbazaar, Easyday, Spencers etc are among them. For example private label share in Spencers is 60% of its 650 product categories, and the sales of private labels are growing almost at the rate of 40% annually. In Lifestyle International private labels contribution is approximately 25% of its sales etc. (Reyes,