New England Consumer Electronics Market

So far APP has been successful as a retention and acquisition strategy. From 1992 to 1996 Tweeter 's core customer market share has grown from 19.6% to 25.2% (Appendix 8 Tweeter). By contrast with the exception of Circuit city (Appendix 10 Circuit city) over the same period the market share for this class of customer has increased by a smaller percentage (Appendix 9 Lechmere) or actually declined (Appendix 11 Other retailers). Since Tweeter has retained its customers and acquired more customers over the years I would say the strategy is applicable and successful for both functions.

Founded in 1921 by two Bostonian brothers Theodore and Milton Deutschmann, RadioShack opened a their single-store retail and mail-order operation in downtown Boston. Comprised of mainly leftover Army surplus, the brothers provided the public with this cutting-edge radio technology. The name “Radio Shack” was chosen, which was a term for the room that housed a ship’s radio equipment (RadioShack Catalogs, 2015).

Target’s business-level strategy is one that does not strictly focus entirely on one plan to gain a competitive advantage over competition. It encompasses various strategic and meticulous planning and decision making that is implemented in order to position the company at the top of the retail industry. With competition from the likes of Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and Costco, Target uses several clever and “out-of-the-box” ideas to attract consumer attention and ultimately increase market share within the industry. Most of the company’s ideas centered more on the differentiation of products and services provided to customers than lowering prices. For quite some time, the company’s plan was to not compete head-to-head with Wal-Mart in terms of lowering prices but instead to provide their customers, who they identify as “guests”, with a special experience every time they visited a Target location. One idea that was implemented was to market and sell upscale, trendy clothing and unique merchandise at discounted prices.1 This strategy, known as the “cheap-chic” strategy, focused on providing good quality clothing from various well known designers and fancy products from high-profile manufacturers for prices lower than their competition. This plan was vital because it began essentially began the concept of customers referring to Target as “Tar-zhay” which according to Patrick Barwise and Sean Meehan, who are university professors, as a “connote its trendy sensibility”. Target

TJX’s value is one of their key advantages for growth. TJX focuses on four main things which include: fashion, brand, quality and price. They believe these values have gave them the opportunity to expand and grow around the world since it can fit perfectly in the different economies and geographies. Besides this, they consider themselves one of the most flexible retailers in the world. This gives them the ability to “(…)act nimbly in the vendor and real estate marketplaces, react quickly to changing consumer and pricing trends, and navigate various economic and retail environments successfully.” (pg. 5)

The retail industry has been highly competitive for many years. JCP, Kohl’s, Macy’s and Sears have been clashing for some time to keep the attention of the avid shopper. It would seem that each company would be on an equal playing field, but according to the strategic group map below, Macy’s is in a group all by itself. Macy’s pricing and number of stores are different for JCP. Macy’s promotes the branding of having high class products that have celebrity names on the tags, which draws the shopper who is attracted to being in the know. The Macy’s customer is willing to pay more for their product because they know that a celebrity made this, which ultimately allows them to connect with their favorite stars. The supplier power is what helps Macy’s stay in a different category than JCP, Kohl’s, and

In the past, JCP had, on average, one price campaign every day. The stores were full of sale signs and retail rise was getting out of control. JCP partnered with numerous exclusive collaborations which was hoped to bring about an expansion for the firm. However, due to the economic slump, the oversaturation of the market, and an expected lack of quality in the goods from the consumer perspective, JCPenney’s success was degrading in contrast to its competitors. (Sloan, 2010).

Trader Joe 's sells gourmet foods to its customers with a low cost business model, which may seem very difficult to maintain, due to the rising costs in the international markets and the United States. However, with Trader Joe 's long term experience in operations and limited variety of products, this enables the company to reduce costs and transfer those savings to their customers. Furthermore, Trader Joe’s has a very efficient management process that allows keeping the product costs down to keep their customers satisfied. The management process is very significant for Trader Joe 's in which they have planned marvelously to carry certain products which is obtained at a discounted price from their suppliers. Additionally, Trader Joe’s keep costs down to a minimum by choosing non-prime store locations. For

In 1975, Hi-Value Supermarkets became a division of Hall Consolidated, a privately owned wholesale and retail food distributor. In 2002, Hi-Value had sales of $192.2 million, which was the smallest out of the three supermarket chains owned by Hall Consolidated. Although Hi-Value is considered small against industry standards, they were the number one or two ranked supermarket chain in each of its trade markets measured through market share. The primary problem that Hi-Value has developed is that they are the highest priced compared to the competitors within the region. The Hi-Value Supermarket Shopper Interview Results (Exhibit 7 in case) demonstrates this through the question “Liked most about other regular store,” the most popular answer across the board was “Price.” So what is Hi-Value supposed to do?

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

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

Another top stakeholder within Costco’s organization is its customer clientele. After careful research, the author noted several variables that contributed towards Costco’s highly-rated customer service and satisfaction ratings that speak from sales in addition to positive feedback. The author will briefly dissect this stakeholder group and display, in writing, why this group aids Costco in providing low prices on select items, its continuous service method which has proven, both financially and through praise, to be one of the more successful methods in retail, and to demonstrate why Costco

Several weaknesses have played a part in J.C. Penney Company’s recent financial difficulties. One of the main weaknesses was a shift in pricing methods that became confusing to customers. In 2012, the company began using “Every Day” prices on most days reflecting what used to be sale prices, “Monthly Value” for certain items every month in place of sales, and “Best Price” the first and third Fridays of each month, which were tied to customer

Costco developed a unique strategy that sets them apart from their competition. The key elements of their strategy is to offer customers ultra-low prices on their products, provide a limited selection of name brand and private label products, create a treasure-hunt shopping environment, strong emphasis on low operating cost, and geographic expansion (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, & Strickland, 2014). Costco believed they could keep customers coming back by offering products at extremely low prices. This way they could convince the customers to spend more money because they believed they would save more. They only marked up items minimally to make sure their prices stayed below their competitors. Costco’s strategy was also to only offer a limited number of items at a given time. By reducing the selection of products to choose from, Costco believed this made it easier for the consumer to make a choice.

This case involves a mid-sized, regional grocery store chain called Reed Supermarkets. Reed has 192 retail stores, two regional distribution centers and 21,000 employees in five states in the Midwest of the United States. This case discusses Reed’s market strategy for the Columbus, Ohio, market in particular, which is one of Reed’s largest markets. The Columbus market has grown slightly over the past five years, while Reed’s market share has dwindled slightly in the market. Reed has watched their market share stagnate with the entrance of new competitors (10% growth in stores) and a dramatic shift in customer preferences to value or

To make his business successful, Colin must consider an integration of price, promotion, place, and product. He must also try and distance themselves from their competition. To do so the brothers must maintain the quality of their merchandise and customer service, reasonable prices, and improve their promotion strategies. For one thing, the price of his products must be within a