Porter's Five Forces In Retail Industry

Entering the market requires heavy investment in establishing a name and make lots of outlets. It is a growing market with lots of pioneers that can make branches anywhere and threat the other chain in there selling areas.

Threat of new entrants is relatively low. There are high barriers to entry in the discount retail market, including high capital costs, limited access to investors, and a largely crowded-out market place.

The threat of entry of the supermarket industry in US is low, which base on the analysis of the three major sources that related to the entry barriers. The first barrier is the economies of scale of the existing large supermarkets. When these incumbents achieved larger volume sales, they can have lower unit costs than new entrants, and it will very difficult for those new entrants to compete with them (Johnson, Whittington, &Scholes 2011). For example, Wal-Mart had invested in innovative procurement, automated distribution centre and bar coding to increase its economies of scale, and these investments created a great barriers for new small retailers to enter into the supermarket industry (Porter 2008). The second barrier is the incumbency advantages, which mean the incumbents established their own strengths that cannot be used by competitors (Porter 2008). For example, the top ten supermarkets in US have accumulated extensive experiences on how to run their businesses more efficiently than new entrants (Johnson, Whittington, &Scholes 2011). The subtle differentiation between the products that sold in supermarkets is the third barrier for new entrants. Because most of the product assortment is same or similar between each supermarket,

Bargaining Power of Buyers: The bargaining power of buyers is high in the department store retail industry. The volume of buyers is high, and buyers are very price sensitive in this industry. The products are not highly differentiated, and there are numerous stores that offer the same, or similar, products, giving buyers the opportunity to search for the lowest prices and information. The industry has substitutes available in the form of specialty, differentiated products and stores. This increases the power of buyers,

Bargaining power of buyers is medium-high because of the low switching costs and wider spectrum of similar products selling at competitive prices due to the influence of developing countries

The industry does not possess major threat from new entrants due to strong barriers to entry and strong competition for retail space. There is also a strong rivalry between competitors as limited space is being contested by major players alongside

The retail industry is a sector of the economy that is comprised of individuals and companies

The retail industry has always been a large portion of the U.S. economy. In 2012, the industry had nearly one million stores and accounted for four trillion dollars in revenue. An estimated two-thirds of the U.S. GDP

The threat of new entrants is measured by the level of entry barriers, brand reputation and customer loyalty, potential for existing competitors to expand, growth of buyer demand,

The threat of new entrants is high in the fast segment. There is a threat of new entrants is because the entry barriers are very low. The business barriers to entry the market could take those forms: first one is the capital costs, the higher the investment required, the less the threat from new entrants. Secondly, regulation and legal constraints are the main concerned points. In most industries, regulations related to health and safety, products handling, and licenses to operate, export, or install new facilities. And other forms of barriers could be brand loyalty which could be an important factor in increasing the costs for customers of switching products. The new entrants need to change the valuable brand suppliers with its efficient economies of scale to have a reasonable supply chain network or corporate with the low cost producers to supply the products in the market. Also it might gain a large market share in the market as well. For instance, Sports Direct Company reported retail sales were £371m while gross profit increased 9.6 percent to £149m, it

The retail industry is highly competitive, with few barriers to entry. Each Company competes with many other local, regional and national retailers for customers, associates, locations, merchandise, services and other important aspects of the Company’s business. Those competitors include other department stores, discounters, home furnishing stores, specialty retailers, wholesale clubs, direct-to-consumer businesses and other forms of retail commerce. Some competitors are larger than JCPenney, have greater financial resources available to them, and, as a result, may be able to devote greater resources to sourcing, promoting and selling their products.” There are many factors that characterize competition, including advertising, service,

Retail stores, are one of the biggest and largest businesses around the world. They produce thousands of hundreds in revenues and they are some of the biggest employers industries. WALL-MART, IKEA, TESCO, ARGOS, MACYS, WALLGREENS and OFICCE DEPOT are some of the well-known retail stores that supply us every day with different kind of goods and services. For a better understanding, one of the main definitions of retail is: “...store commonly a shop or stall for the retail sale of commodities, but also a place where wholesale supplies are kept, exhibited, or sold…” What this means

The bargaining power of suppliers is medium. Since corporates conditions vary, whether the power of suppliers is strong should be determined accordingly. But to survive in the online retailing industry, keeping a close relationship with the suppliers is imperative. Many of the multi-national companies in the industry is depending on limited numbers of suppliers that are concentrated in production, differentiated in products, and not heavily relied on a single industry, which give them great bargaining power and can better facilitate the corporations’ success. Small companies may not have established such strong alliance with its vendors.

Suppliers in the industry seek buyers who can move a lot of merchandise in a short period of time. The threat of substitution is a big deal in this industry. Most retail stores carry the same types of products with little differentiation. This makes it difficult for companies in this industry to keep customers coming back. This places an emphasis on the need to build a good reputation with customers.

Porter’s five forces are used to determine the competitive intensity and attractiveness of a market. These are close forces that affect a company’s ability to make a profit and serve customers. If any of these forces change, a company must reassess its marketplace. The five forces include: the threat of substitute products, the threat of the entry of new competitors, the intensity of competitive rivalry, the bargaining power of customers and the bargaining power of suppliers.