Marketing Plan For Wal Mart

Wal-Mart is a brand that is well known around the world, especially in the USA. It has gradually developed into the largest retailer in the world. Wal-Mart’s globalization efforts have been happening rapidly. But have they been successful in all aspects of their international expansion or not? This is the main thought that is going to be discussed in this essay. The questions I will be looking at are based on a case called “Wal-Mart takes on the world” from the book of International Business The Challenge of Global Competition eleventh edition – Ball, McCulloch, Geringer, Minor, and McNett. Questions are the following:

The organic food industry has seen a huge spike in growth that is expected to continue into the future due to an increase in consumption. This will provide Whole Foods Market with huge opportunities. In addition, a wave of ethical and responsible consumption has swept across America. Whole Foods’ decision to pursue sustainable activities will certainly give consumers an added incentive to purchase its organic products.

There is more and more demand in the market for organic food. Lots of educated people are going organic instead of buying the regular foods that are full of pesticides and chemicals that are hazardous for human consumption. Since my product is 100% organic it can easily enter that market and satisfy those demands. Even though there are some grocery stores selling organic products there aren’t many suppliers. Therefore, my products have very little competition and I need to expand statewide and nationwide.

Whole Foods is a retailer that specializes in organic foods and it has done an excellent job of determining its target market and how to position itself. Instead of going head to head with large food retailers such as Wal-Mart, Whole Foods has found a niche market that works perfectly for itself. This niche market is one that prides itself on being health conscious and environmentally responsible and Whole Foods has done a great job of positioning itself in the same way through its environmentally safe actions and its use of the local community to stock its stores. However, as Whole Foods grows and expands, a person has to wonder if the company will be able to maintain this same position or will have to make

Furthermore, Shapin was informative, argumentative, and logical throughout his essay. In “What Are You Buying When You Buy Organic Foods”, by Steven Shapin, his main goal in the essay proves targeting both organic and non-organic consumers to understand the controversy of buying organic products. His points comes across clear and allows the readers to follow along without confusion. Shapin’s points in targeting bigger organizations in regards to the industry, health, and the virtue proves his point that buying organic food proves not always having the best

The competitive prices, countless discount opportunities, and friendly employees keep customers loyal to Walgreens even if they are not making frequent visits to the pharmacy department. This paper seeks to analyze the different components of the drug store industry and the aspects of the marketing strategy of the Walgreens Company that have kept it a strong competitor for so many years.

They also decreased the prices of healthy foods to encourage customer to purchase them. Wal-Mart also developed a seal to place on healthier foods with nutrition information rating the levels of sodium, fat, and sugar content (“Paymar Communications”, 2010). The leading factor in Wal-Mart taking this initiative was to reach customers with an interest in a healthy lifestyle. With obesity on the rise across the nation people are becoming more conscious about what they eat and offering healthier foods, organic products, and enhanced labels on the foods will give the customer more options to choose from within the store. By reducing the prices of these healthy products Wal-Mart can increase their customer base, specifically those with an interest in a pursuing a healthy life style. Additionally this will ensure Wal-Mart is leading their competition and could be the benchmark for such companies as Target, K-Mart, Sears, and Costco. The factors influencing the organizations strategies are contingent on the need, not only of the customers, but also Wal-Mart’s increase in sales and profitability. Wal-Mart wants to ensure they not only have healthy customers but also that the organization will garner major gains in sales from these changes. The “Paymar Communications” (2010) website also states that through forging these initiatives, Wal-Mart has figured out a formula to be a good corporate citizen, give consumers superior bargains and still make tons of money; $14.3 billion in

In business, three major strategies comprising of cost leadership, differentiation, and focus strategies exist. The focus strategy emphasizes on providing services and products to a specified buyer group or market segment within a given geographic market. The differentiation approach is often defined as provision of services or products that are perceived to be unique in the market place. Wal-Mart emphasizes on the long-term strategy of cost leadership. Through this strategy, the company ensures that it offers customers with quality products at relatively lower prices than other providers in the industry. Through overall cost leadership strategy, Wal-Mart has been offering better quality products at a lower price than any competitor can offer. For the organization to achieve this goal, it has developed long-term supply chain management, which ensures that products are made available to the market at the required time (Enz, 2010).

The development of the Internet and more specifically the business website has seen brand recognition by consumers escalate to never before seen heights. Because of this brand recognition, it has become important for businesses to design their websites to reflect their overall marketing strategies. This is especially important in the retail world. All retail businesses have a similar overall marketing strategy of generating sales and retaining the customer for future sales. Most of the retail giants still greatly rely on the success of their brick and mortar stores to turn a profit. However, internet sales for these brick and mortar stores have increasingly risen over the last few years to compete with the retail stores like Amazon that are strictly internet based businesses. Brick and mortar retail stores, such as Walmart, Target, Kmart, and Nordstrom, have each designed their websites to reflect the overall retail marketing strategy as well as the individual marketing strategies that have made their brick and mortar businesses successful.

The five generic competitive strategies are low-cost provider, broad differentiation, focused low-cost, focused differentiation strategy, and best-cost provider strategy. According to the textbook, “a company’s competitive strategy deals exclusively with the specifics of management’s game plan for competing successfully” (Gamble, 93).

“Always low prices”, is the first thing you think of when you think about one of the most successful companies around the world, Wal-Mart. For years they stand as a well know company due to their everyday low prices and variety of products. Their mission statement is “Saving people money so that they can live better”. They have chosen their mission statement wisely yet there is a lot of controversy when it comes to this International Company.

To be the world 's largest low cost store that carries all types of merchandise for all possible consumers.

Wal-Mart was founded by businessman Sam Walton in 1962 as a small retail store in Arkansas, USA. From there it has grown to become the largest retail giant in the world. Ranked by Forbes 2000 list for 2011 as the 18th largest public corporation in the world, Wal-Mart is the highest revenue generating public entity in the world as of 31st January 2011, with gross revenue of 422 billion US Dollars (Walmart Annual Report, 2011). It is also noted for being the largest private employer in the world having just over 2 million employees serving in 8500 stores, in 15 different countries, under 55 different names, worldwide. (Daniel, 2010)

1. TARGET MARKET: As discussed, target market is a group of potential customers in which a company directs its marketing efforts. A company should always anticipate consumers’ needs and work towards fulfilling these needs. It is one thing to identify your “target market” and another to satisfy them. Walmart’s credo is, “save money, live better” this summaries their target market, the lower-middle class and the poorer. (Low income consumers). Walmart is the only retail

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