Swot Analysis Of Nick 's Retail Chain Store

For the company to ensures success in its operations there is need to cultivate customer loyalty and facilitate efficient supplies, differentiator linkage between operations and buyers must be put in place. This will be facilitated through some ways. To cater for customer needs the company will have to ensure it adopts a competitive pricing strategy against the existing competitors and new entrants in the market. The company has a lean pricing policy and to take advantage of its off- price apparel strategy. The customer’s loyalty has to be sustained through the low prices they enjoy

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

Some main strengths of Trader Joe’s are the strong brand image, their employees, organic and private label products, customer loyalty, and offered unique products. Trader Joe’s strong brand image helps them to attract and retain more customers. Their private labels are named according to the background and nationality of food. They offered an extensive line of private label items with brand names such as Trader Joe’s, Trader Ming’s, Trader Jose, Trader Giotto. Due to their strong brand image, they established themselves as a leading retailer of food and non-food items in the US. Americans ranked Trader Joe’s overall as No. 1 retailer in 2013 (Ager & Roberto, 2014). Trader Joe's offered unique and high-quality products from different countries which attract customers to try new items and stocks of 4,000 items, 80% of which bear one of its own brand names. Trader Joe's describes itself as "your neighborhood grocery store" (Wikipedia, Trader Joe’s). Trader Joe’s claimed that 80% of its customers had attended college. The company described its target market as “intelligent, educated, inquisitive individuals” and they reach this customer by opening store among well-educated residents (Ager & Roberto, 2014). Their customers are too loyal towards their brand image so they keep coming back. Instead of targeting all customers, they need to target new customers in order to grow their business and to keep being a leader in the retail industry in the US. And also, their employee are valuable assets of the company, who led them towards the further growth of the company, therefore they are treated fairly and trained to provide the nice and friendly service to Trader Joe’s customers. Almost most of the people want to work at Trader Joe’s because they pay more than minimum wage and higher compare to other retail stores. New part-time hires earned $12 per hour and full-time employees earned approximately $50,000 per year which is above minimum wages. Plus, they contribute 15.4% of employee's salary towards retirement Saving. Furthermore, they offer good health and others benefits even to part-time employees (Ager & Roberto, 2014).

Knowing the importance of a strategic vision, every company undertakes a complete analysis periodically. In order to create a strategic plan the parties involved must know every aspect of the industry and the company at hand. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the retail drugstore industry and then focus on Walgreens, the industry leader in terms of sales. As part of the in-depth analysis of Walgreens, its major competitors will also be described and analyzed. The retail drugstore industry consists of all those stores that contain a pharmacy and sell prescription drugs. It also includes businesses that sell prescription drugs online and through the mail. Most retail drugstores also offer other

Walgreens headquarters is located on 200 Wilmot Road in Deerfield Illinois (Walgreens Corp. Office), they currently operate 8,173 stores in all fifty states, district of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands (Facts & FAQ). With this many locations they have a large workforce, employing over 240,000 people (Facts &FAQ). About 30% of employees are healthcare providers which include pharmacy technicians, pharmacists and other heath-related professions (Facts & FAQ).

A strength in a SWOT analysis is something beneficial to the company while being an internal factor that they control. Two strengths of Bed Bath & Beyond are their registry service and personalized products. Bed Bath & Beyond offers their customers wedding, commitment ceremonies, baby, housewarming, anniversary, college, and birthday registry services. A registry is a listing of items, or a “wish-list”, of specific products that other people can purchase for you. An advantage of a registry is that it can be done electronically and is efficient for both the buyer and receiver. It is efficient because it is one central location people can go to purchase specific desired items. Bed Bath & Beyond’s most popular registry service is its wedding registry. It is regarded as the best registry by Kristi Kellog, in her article, “Where to Register: The 50 Best Wedding Registry Sites & Stores”. Kellog states, “When it comes to one-stop shopping convenience, few retailers can beat Bed Bath & Beyond. It’s the perfect place to scan all of your essentials, like housewares, linens, and appliances. And since they offer tons of different brands, you can select must-haves at a range of different price points. Plus, with free announcement cards to tell friends and family where you’ve registered, expert consultant to help you decide which items to pick, and a competition program that lets you purchase your remaining gifts at a discounted price after the big day, the retailer is a

JC Penney is an American department store chain with 1,095 locations throughout the United States. In the latter half of the 20th century, shopping malls became very popular and most of the company’s stores were situated in the downtown areas, they followed the trend of developing more stores in the shopping malls to attract customers and increase the financial profitability of the company. Conversely, JC Penney had freestanding stores, and was able to get consumer traffic which helped the company earn a profit and increase its market share.

During this paper we will analyze how the department store industry has evolved and more important how companies are managing new strategies to remain competitive. Moreover we will use the case of JCPenney as a main focus to see how successful their strategies are. To provide a good analysis, we first need to understand how the industry has evolving and what the major companies like JCPenney are doing to continue in the industry.

For the past 5 years, Kroger is making profits every year; however, compared to Publix and Safeway’s 5-year-average figures, Kroger has the lowest profit ratios based on the gross profit margin, operating profit margin and net profit margin. Gross profit margin figures are relatively stable for the past 5 years while operating profit margin shows improvements: 1.4% in 2010 and 2011 while the figure has jumped to 2.8% to 2.9% during the year, 2012 to 2014. The net profit margin shows relatively stable making 1.4% to 1.6% range except for the year, 2011 of 0.7% which is more than half less than the other yearsFor the past 5 years, Kroger is making profits every year; however, compared to Publix and Safeway’s 5-year-average figures, Kroger has

Macy's was established by Rowland Hussey Macy, who in the vicinity of 1843 and 1855 opened four retail dry merchandise stores, including the first Macy's store in downtown Haverhill, Massachusetts, set up in 1851 to serve the factory business workers of the zone. Macy moved to New York City in 1858 and set up another store named "R. H. Macy and Co.". As the business developed, Macy's ventured into neighboring structures, opening an ever increasing number of departments. From the earliest starting point, Macy's logo has incorporated a star, which originates from a tattoo that Macy got as a young person when he took a shot at a Nantucket whaling ship. Macy died in 1877, responsibility for organization

The Kroger brand was born in 1883, Bernard 'Barney ' Kroger took his life savings of $372 to open his first store in downtown Cincinnati. This location is by I-71 that passes the Great American Ballpark. Barney Kroger, the son of a merchant, had a simple "Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself." This was the credo that would serve The Kroger Co. well over the next 130 years as the supermarket business evolved into a variety of formats aimed towards satisfying the needs of their shoppers in as many aspects as possible. With nearly 3,619 stores in 34 states under 24 different names, such as Kroger, Dillons, Turkey Hill Minit Markets, Ralphs, Tom Thumb Food Stores, QuikStop, Fred Meyer Jewelers, and Littman Jewelers with an annual revenue of more than $70 billion. Kroger today ranks as one of the nation’s largest retailers.

In the retail market, data record inaccuracies forms one of the most important causes of out-of stock situation. This leads to decrease in revenue for the retailers. Again, the organizations have to bear significant labor costs due to the manual system of data transfer regarding product information. This leads to indirect effects on poor data quality on the supply and demand chain (Legner & Schemm 2008, p.21). Coles Supermarkets have been using barcoding since early nineties. One of the challenges they have been facing was with the manual entries and increased labor costs if a barcode fails to scan. Secondly, barcodes lacked real-time product tracking and this is extremely important for them, as the supply chain is vast in terms of the intermediaries and the locations from which the goods are supplied and delivered. Coles have suppliers within Australia as well as from countries like India, China and Bangladesh. Due to this, they were lacking best practice opportunities of factory gate pricing and reverse logistics (Coles Centenary 2015)

Walmart, which is a multinational retail company is based in the US. It majorly deals with selling groceries and general merchandise. The company has developed a well organized planning method that is used to analyze and evaluate the opportunities and threats, strengths and weaknesses detected in a particular business venture. The method is known as Swot analysis. Despite the strengths approved, there is an existence of certain weaknesses which have been found to be existing in the Swot analysis of the company. Some of the weaknesses include; (1) employee turnover, which is high, (2) negative publicity, (3) little differentiation (4) labor related lawsuits, and (5) inappropriate marketing aspects (Dess, 2012).

Target Corporation main competitors are Walmart and Sears. While Walmart is leading their industry of major retail chains, Target is not far behind as they are currently ranked second amongst the major retail chains. In order to maintain their growth and competitive advantage, Target needs to pay close attention to their competitor’s market share, product quality and the unique selling proposition in comparison to their own. In order to maintain their position in the market, Target should be analyzing the external factors of their competition using metrics that will allow them to use that information to set objectives, rate their own performance, and plan for future success for the organization.

Wal-Mart’s founder Sam Walton had an idea to save customer’s money by keeping sales prices lower than many of his competitors. Mr. Walton’s goal was accomplished by reducing his profit margin and now, Wal-Mart has become the world’s largest company, in terms of returns. According to Datamonitor (2012) recorded revenues of $421,849 million was Wal-Mart’s income in 2011, an increase of 3.4% over 2010. The operating profit of the company was $25,542 million in 2011, an increase of 6.4% over 2010 (Datamonitor 2012). Wal-Mart’s mission statement was to “help people save money, so they can live better”. (Wal-Mart’s