The Swot Analysis Of Waitrose

But the social factor is affecting on the supermarket and because of its customers. People who shop in Waitrose are people middle age or older. It is fact that the population in UK is ageing and `this trend is projected to continue`. The increase in the number of old people is increase in the number of the Waitrose`s customers. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=949 accessed 21/03/2011

Every retail location carries a variety of products that distinguishes it from other stores in the same chain. Not surprisingly, it is difficult to achieve economies of scale. Supply Chain Mackey describes his consumers as being “part of a cult”. Whole Foods believes that the company’s emphasis on perishables and locally-sourced produce differentiates their stores from run-of-the-mill supermarkets and attracts loyal and devoted customers. However, “fresh produce” is one of the most challenging product categories to operate due to limited product shelf life and high cost of spoilage. Whole Foods has tried to circumvent most of the problems inherent in supplying fresh produce to its stores by sourcing locally and having short and flexible supply chains. In the case of fruits and vegetables, Whole Foods has buying relationships with local farmers who supply the store with seasonal produce. Thus, if one farmer is unable to produce a sufficient amount of yellow corn or heirloom tomatoes, the shortfall can be made up by another farmer. Although challenging to perfect, these short supply chains are agile and difficult for other big retailers to duplicate.

The threat of substitutes in the food retail industry can be high among the ‘Big Four’ as switching costs are relatively low and products can be similar. However, most have their own private labels and also target slightly different markets, such as Sainsbury’s having more upmarket positioning and Tesco’s cost leadership. Waitrose offers unique and differentiated products, which are, in the eyes of the consumer, significantly superior. No other supermarket offers such premium quality products with great service and such a large range of organic products as Waitrose, so this makes them extremely difficult to substitute. (Euromonitor, 2008).

The objective of this report is to analyse the UK supermarkets industry for John Lewis in order to seek their competitive advantage in the market. This report is to be presented to the Board of Directors of John Lewis Partnership.

Larger stores also offer people the convenience of additional services along with their shopping, for example post office, pharmacy and opticians. By addressing consumer’s expectations and using their buyer power they can offer a choice of products to reflect consumer’s diverse budgetary, dietary, ethical and environmental requirements. Furthermore their global buyer power enables consumers to benefit from choosing exotic produce all year round. With 30,000,000 customers (Bevan cited in Allen, 2009) choosing to use the big four supermarkets on a weekly basis it would suggest that they provide a format that consumers want.

The grocery retail industry worldwide has grown in recent years to become one of the most intensely competitive industries due to the continuous amounts of new entrants. A grocery retailer is one that sells food and other general household items. Hypermarkets, supermarkets, discounters and small grocery retailers are all under the grocery retail umbrella. Between 2003 and 2008, the grocery retailing industry accounted for 45% of store-based retail values sales over the world. The figures

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)

The UK supermarket industry resembles an oligopolistic industry, with several characteristics. Oligopolistic markets tend to be characterised by high concentration ratios, barriers to entry and…Since the turn of the century, the industry has been scrutinised by both the Office of Fair Trading and has been referred to the Competition Commission on two occasions. (Seely, 2012)

EU LAW (COMPETITION): The recent expansion of the European Union can effect Waitrose e.g. Entry of new competitors or products, which they may offer at cheap price (the minimum wage is some EU countries have low wage compare to U.K)

There are 92,796 grocery stores in the UK and the market value increase by 19.5% in the last 5 years and according to IGD forecast the UK grocery market should reach £203bn by 2019. But what we can see in the figure 1 that from 2009 to 2014 annual grow in the grocery market start decreasing from 4.9% in 2009 to 2.8% in 2014. One of the reason for this is difficult economic conditions which had an effect for consumer spending. Consumers choose to spend less money on food by buying less food or by looking for cheaper places. Retail market is diversified into three main sectors: Hypermarket and superstores which accounts for 42.3% of retail market, convenience stores 21.4% and small supermarkets 20.3% (Figure 3). So about 84% of sales are done in these three sectors. The biggest 4 retail chains in UK are: Tesco which takes 28.7% market share, Asda has 17.3%, Sainsbury’s 16.6% and Morrison’s 11%. (Figure 2) So, if we will sum up 4 biggest retail market chains we will have about ¾ of market share. Finally, a strong characteristic of this sector is competition with price wars and a

Supermarkets are well thought out establishments that a majority of Americans rely on. A certain science contributes to every product, end cap, and shelf being placed in every store across the entire world. Supermarkets prey upon customers’ attractiveness to sales. Extensive research has been compiled to show what a person will buy and why. Stores tend to place high profit products on end capes. Supermarkets’ try to influence customers to buy the products that will earn the store the most money. There is no coincidence the products we mostly buy are located in the back of the store. Large stores offer deals and sales on the products they want, so a customer will most likely purchase more. Stores offer thousands of different

supermarkets like Tesco offering the biggest discounts in the UK and Sainsbury 's offering of substitute products too (Mintel, 2010). This shows the responsiveness and flexibility towards consumer needs in the supermarket industry.

It was a key decision to feature partners in the campaign, which uses them as a point of difference, distinguishing us from our rivals (www.guardian.co.uk ). The targeted customers of their products are richer class. The most important reason that they have loyal customers is because of the quality they provide. The customers of Waitrose believe in the company, such that even if they get the same goods cheaper in other stores (Tesco, Azda) they will still stick to Waitrose. In the product line the fruits and vegetables they put on the market are priced at a premium. “For anyone who enjoys food and can afford to pay a bit extra, it is easy to understand why the chain has built a following”. (www.guardian.co.uk )

* External Context of Sainsbury’s belongs to the biggest supermarket leaders in UK. In other words, Sainsbury’s is part of big four ‘Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrison’s. The biggest rival today in UK market is Morrison’s, they booth fighting for a market but Sainsbury’s ram in a higher place. In Appendix 3, we can find concept of retail and types of functioning.

Waitrose has established an influential position in the UK’s retail food industry and it is extensively acknowledged as the prominent supermarket wine merchant and as a pioneer in the area of food traceability and organic products. Newspapers as like The Telegraph and The Guardian has been describing Waitrose, as having an