Pricing Strategy
Wal-Mart’s primary competition in US includes department stores of the likes of Target and Kmart. Costco offers competition to Sam Club format of Wal-Mart. In niche small markets, dollar stores are offering strong competition to Wal-Mart.
Kroger competes with Neighbor market and supercenters of Wal-Mart especially on the grocery product line. Target competes with Discount stores and supercenter shopping formats of Wal-Mart with Target commanding a small premium on prices as it follows fashion trend. Market segment of Target is the high-income customers leading to higher margin realization. ($ 50,000 of target vs. EDLP strategy of Wal-Mart by leveraging purchasing scale has pushed down prices compared to other retailers.
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The same trend is displayed in its operating income also(Walmart Analysis. (2008).)
Operating profit/ Sales: Wal-Mart has shown high growth in operating profit/ sales ratio majorly owning to its innovative supply chain cutting down operating expenses.
Operating expense/Sales:
Distribution cost/Sales: Wal-Mart maintains lowest distribution cost/ sales of 1.7% while their distribution cost of their competitors namely Kmart and Sears was 3.5% and 5% of the cost of sales.
Inventory turnover (Net sales/ Inventory): Wal-Mart had reasonably high inventory turnover ratio of 11.5 which is significantly higher than their competitors namely Target Co, Amazon.com and Sears which had inventory turnover of 8.7, 6.2, and 4.7 respectively. However Kroger was the industry leader in inventory turnover attributed to their focus on highly perishable food items.
Gross Margin (Total Revenue-COGS/ Total Revenue): Wal-Mart has attained 24.74% gross margin compared with competitor average of 17%. This shows that Wal-Mart is able to achieve significant scale economics and translate some of its benefit to the customers(Walmart's Keys to Successful Supply Chain Management. (2013).)
Asset Utilization (Total sales/ Total assets): Wal-Mart has attained an asset utilization of 2.4 which is significantly higher than the industry average
The purpose of this business report is to gain familiarity with Wal-Mart and to learn about the different aspects that make Wal-Mart a successful company. This report gives an in-depth analysis of the company history, services and products provided, the company philosophy, business methods, organizational structure, and financial and competitive analysis.
Global competition has a direct impact on Wal-Mart. Global companies offer competition for consumer business and companies within the United States and other countries who compete with Wal-Mart. The global competition for consumer business primarily takes place in the e-commerce domain that Wal-Mart dominates. Wal-Mart offers their consumers a convenient one-stop website with all the merchandise and products offered in the store, and some that are not. The exchange is significantly sped up by the convenience and availability of the internet. The internet allows transactions to take place at a faster pace than the standard face-to-face or telephone method. Target, a major competitor of Wal-Mart, also has a Website that is reached by consumers all over the world. This added competition, especially from a competitor in the same industry, forces Wal-Mart to keep their prices low while offering
The retail industry is one of the largest industries in the world, by business numbers and employees. Plunkett Research Ltd. As of 2011 Wal-Mart was still the giant of the retail market. As Wal-Mart nearest competitor Target heats up the market, Target seems to be gaining in customer loyalty and has picked up on Wal-Marts grocery strategy. According to the Plunkett report, recession ravaged consumers not only want dry goods at a discount, but they also want groceries discounted (PlunkettResearch.Com, 2012). Target also has been gaining customers who want stylish well organized stores that appeal to their senses.
Wal-Mart and Target are both discount BIG BOX retailers which have made the most of their strengths and have drawn upon the differences in their customer bases, product mix and business strategy. Even though both
With Wal-Mart being the leader in retail stores, it is obvious that they must be doing something right. While I was unable to figure out the profitability of space, I was able to find out that their grocery section is the least profitable and that their electronics section is the most profitable.
Walmart has been able to climb to the top because of the ways the business is run. Walmart uses a sort of pull production compared to most companies that run off of a push production. A pull production allows retailers to tell manufacturers to provide
The rivalry among existing competitors is high because there is a large number of domestic and international discount retails, internet based retails and magazine competing with Wal-Mart (Soni, 2015). Target, Kohl’s, Dollar group, Kroger, and Costco are some of the national chain competing with the company. For example, in 2015, Wal-Mart’s grocery sales slowdown compared to its rival Kroger, which sales rise to 5.3 %. Also, in 2015 Wal-Mart e-commerce sales rose 17%, while its rival Amazon’s sales rose 25%. Furthermore, Sam’s Club (Wal-Mart chain) and its rival Costco gets a lot of revenue by selling gas. In 2015 Sam’s Club reported a gas sale increase of 0.4% while its rival Costco reported a gas sale increase of 7% ( Wahba, 2015). Despite
Evidently, Wal-Mart is not doing anything to differentiate itself from rivals. It gives no frills to self-service outlets always providing the cheapest prices. Through a well-built influence with suppliers, the company has gained the power to manipulate prices and amend manufacturing procedures thus wringing out more savings for its customers. All that the company does from the frequent calls to suppliers to doubling up execs in hotel rooms aimed at saving the
The competition to a chain retail grocery store, such as Kroger, is not limited to other
The organization that I have chosen for the purpose of this corporate finance analysis is Wal-Mart. As is well known, Wal-Mart is the global market leader of
Wal-Mart is the world's largest retail and departmental store chain. Having business operations in 27 countries with 69 different brand names, Wal-Mart is able to serve a huge number of customers per day. Wal-Mart is the fastest growing and the most successful retail brand in the world. The factors which make it the strongest brand in its industry include large customer base, sound financial strength, strong brand image, and huge supply chain network. Wal-Mart has certain weaknesses in its operations and business setup like low acceptability of certain products, high employee turnover, and less recognition of newly introduced brands. These weaknesses can be overcome by availing attractive opportunities from the market and investing more in the most profitable areas. Wal-Mart faces the biggest threat from its competitors and ever-changing customer preferences.
Wal-Mart spent only 0.5 percent of every sales dollar on advertising, compared to 2.5 percent for Kmart. The savings further helped the company to reduce prices on its merchandise.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. helps individuals around the globe spare cash and live better - at whatever time and anyplace - in retail locations, online and through their cell phones. Every week, more than 245 million clients and individuals visit our almost 11,000 stores under 65 flags in 28 nations and e-trade sites in 11 nations. With financial year 2015 net offers of $482.2 billion, Wal-Mart utilizes 2.2 million partners around the world. (Wal-Mart Corporate) Wal-Mart is a superpower in the business world and has been that way for 50+ years. Understanding how it got to this point and how it has maintained its successful business model starts with its
In addition Wal*Mart possesses over 27 distribution centers who support the strategy and ship about 80% of the whole purchases.
The global player Wal-Mart operates in 14 different markets all around the world, serving 176 million customers every week. Today, the second biggest company of the world, concerning turnover which amounts to 312,427 million US-$, categorizes its operational facilities into five divisions. Among those divisions are the Wal-Mart discount stores, offering convenience and low-priced goods. Wal-Mart supercenters are the biggest stores, being open 24/7 hours and employing a workforce of 350 people, selling all kinds of groceries and general merchandise at the lowest possible price. Wal-Mart neighborhood markets are specified in