The Marketing Strategy Of Nick 's Retail Chain Store

Shopping can and should be about more than just price or convenience. Moreover, for high street and main street retailer, concentrating only on price means losing the opportunity to build genuine brand loyalty or give shoppers a reason to enjoy their visit.

In a day of, “I want it now and I’m willing to pay for it,” a shopping center has to offer a variety of stores, and also have several options. The shoe shopper will go to the place with 5 shoe stores before they go to the place with only 1. They may not realize that of the 5 available shoe stores; only 1 is in their price range, but satisfying a wider variety of consumers will help the mall broaden the shopper’s experience. But it is important to remember that shoppers are price sensitive, so not only do you need a variety of stores offering a variety of products, but you also need to be able to provide a variety of price points so you don’t limit your shopper demographics.

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

Identify the type of retailer that Nordstrom’s is classified as. Describe the characteristics it shares with other retailers of this type..

Comparative shopping is done in the industry constantly. But the point of the task is to identify strengths and weaknesses of your store’s merchandise mix in comparison to the competitors’. Are you offering the customer something unique in one segment of your business, but not in others? Are you just a poor second in comparison to a strong competitor? Are you under- or over-developed in certain classifications? Are your prices in line with the rest of your store? In relation to your

Over the last few decades, American culture has been forever changed by the huge amount of advertisement the people are subjected to. Advertising has become such an integral part of society, many people will choose whether or not they want to buy a product based only on their familiarity with it rather than the product’s price or effectiveness. Do to that fact, companies must provide the very best and most convincing advertisements as possible. Those companies have, in fact, done

The sales composition is split into 37% from grocery stores, 20% from drug stores, 35% from mass merchants and 8% from miscellaneous sources. 70% of their total sales value is derived from 10% of their important customers. The company has foreseen valuable increase in their demand and is about to face some problems due to their traditional distribution network and their competitors. To focus these issues, they have decided to improvise on certain issues by collaboration with suppliers and customers which are discussed below.

Target Corporation has recognized itself as one of the top retailers in the United States market on the basis of excellent service quality, customer experiences, operational excellence, strong financial position, and a wide array of product offerings. Through its high degree of service orientation at physical outlets and adoption of fair business practices, Target Corporation has become the most distinctive retailer in the eyes of its potential customers. Being one of the top-notch retailers in the United States, Target Corporation has to carefully strategize on its business operations and marketing tactics so as to keep itself in the row of competitive brands of the industry.

The use of 4 P’s, on the other hand, ensures maximizing the resources of the company. When considering price, place, product, and promotion, all aspects of the product/service are considered. Both distributors and customers are emphasized. Equally important, the company’s perspective is taken into account, especially in finding cost-effective ways to make, distribute, and promote products and services. The sales philosophy, which “engages an organization to seek out customers aggressively and persuade them to consume existing offerings,” is part only of the promotion part (Morgan 1996, p.20). This sales philosophy must be combined with cost philosophy, “The only way to improve our profits is to reduce our marketing and production costs,” to safeguard the profitability of products also.

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).

Best Buy, a familiar retailer in the technology world, is struggling to stay on top. Online and mass stores have cornered the market in terms of convenience, customer service and price matching. The recent closing of over two hundred stores alongside falling sales has experts predicting that the giant won’t be in business long. Using a results-only work environment (ROWE), Best Buy has removed the customer from the equation and forced many employees out. A marketing disaster, Best Buy must change its marketing strategy from sales-based to a customer-based to stay afloat.

The bargaining power of customers is high. First of all, the customer size is tremendous globally, which also has an accelerating growth rate in recent years. Customers’ leverage is strengthening as a result of this. Another inevitable factor is that with countless retailors online, there is low switching cost for customers to find other alternative companies that suits their desire to conduct purchases. Moreover, consumers today are more sophisticated. Consumers are less commit to impulsive-buying, yet are more willing to study about product features and evaluate their options before purchasing online. Their purchase pattern can also be hard to learn too.

Today’s customers are more aware and empowered, and have more bargaining power due to the exponential increase in competition – direct, indirect or substitute. In retailing, they want hassle-free shopping, have less time at their disposal to locate the shop and the merchandise and are reluctant to keep waiting. The modern format retail stores are doing their best to anticipate the customer’s demands and are going all out to redesign their store interiors, offer more choices in varieties and assortments, and are giving as many services as feasible.

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.