Whole Foods

In what ways does Trader Joe's demonstrate the importance of each responsibility in the management process—planning, organizing, leading, and controlling?

Stiff competition within the industry would be one of the key threats that Whole Foods will face. Strong competitors, coupled with grocery stores that have incorporated natural food sections into the stores, have made it more challenging for Whole Foods to maintain its pole position in the market. As the market for organic foods expands rapidly, mainstream supermarkets are also competing for a slice of the pie. Strict government regulations and the lack of prime locations have made it more

e) You would like to compare Whole Foods Market 's operations to those of one of its competitors. The competitor uses the FIFO method of inventory costing. Use the information from the notes to the financial statements to restate Whole Foods Market 's fiscal 2001 net income assuming that Whole Foods Market had always used the FIFO method of inventory costing.

Whole Foods, just like any other retailer right now, has been struggling with the economy. The external environment has been changing in uphill and downhill motions daily, something that Whole Foods has never experienced before. Not only is there pressure on the financials of the corporation, but also there is the pressure to go green.

The Whole Foods (WF) annual report for 2010 states “Our growth strategy is to expand primarily through new store openings. We have a disciplined, opportunistic real estate strategy, opening stores in existing trade areas as well as new areas, including international locations. Our new stores typically are located on premium real estate sites and range in size between 35,000 and 50,000 square feet which we believe is appropriate in most circumstances to maximize return on invested capital and Economic Value Added (“EVA®”). Our growth strategy includes opening new stores in existing and new areas and operating those stores successfully.” (Flanagan, G. 2010). This means they are growing and spreading their wings out into a large variety of regions. The report also stated in order to meet those goals “many of our competitors went back and forth on their pricing strategies, we stayed true to our goal of offering a clear value choice in every department through compelling prices on known value items, as well as targeted pricing and promotional strategies” (Flanagan, G. 2010).

I agree with Whole Foods Market’s CEO about no business staying undefeated and on top forever. Every business will go through a period of expansion and a period of contraction, this is known as the business cycle. There’s many times a business will get big and expand and then begin to lose profit and must close stores and reconsider their strategies to not go out of business. An example can be Macys, the store is popular for selling high brand and luxury perfumes, brand clothing as well as clothes designed by celebrities. They’ve been on top for many years, but there are many stores that now sell perfumes, such as a specific perfume store or even a retail store like Walgreens. There gets to a point that consumers take notice and even

As with other superstores, Whole Foods offers a variety of products to their customers. These products include organic and natural foods of all sorts, body care items, and household care items (“Grocery”, n.d.). As with other grocery stores, these products are organized based on the category they fall into, as well as if they fit a certain dietary requirement (e.g. dairy, meat, cleaning products, vegan, gluten-free, etc.). The output efficiency is measured as with most companies by the profit brought in by each division. This past year (2013), sales improved to $1.29B from $1.17B in 2012, net profit improved from $466K to $551K with the net profit ratio improving from 3.98% to 4.26% (Yahoo! Finance, 2014). Additionally, Whole Foods’ return on assets improved to 4.26% from 3.98% in 2012 (Yahoo! Finance, 2014). All of these numbers show that Whole Foods is capitalizing on its momentum and continuing the success they’ve had in previous years. Another performance

While the foods retail industry is highly competitive, Whole Foods has established a reputation and maintains a brand loyalty with its customers. Increased rivalry will occur in the larger grocery chains like Wal-Mart and Kroger, because of their flexibility in the products they can offer, and the pressures they can put on the sales growth and overall profits of Whole Foods. They have a larger cash and customer base, and the ability to better advertise their products, while Whole Foods still generates most of their

In technological factor and sociocultural factor, as grocery delivery should become a new trend, Whole Foods also respond to this by applying online grocery shopping even though they are a little slow responder compared to their competitors. Whole Foods appears to have the ideal customer base which can benefit from such a service as its shoppers tend to be high-income, urban, and willing to spend a few extra dollars to save time. This could benefit Whole Foods if they can figure the aggressive and effective way to develop this. The most successful new promotion may be its digital coupons, a program that was launched on January 28th. Daily downloads of the Whole Foods app jumped up to 5 times in the period after the coupons were introduced.

Whole Foods Market is considered the most “green” of companies in supermarket retail by consumers. The supermarket mostly attracts a young, trendy demographic and has started to move into smaller suburban cities. Whole Foods has worked hard to get rid of its nickname “Whole Paycheck” that branded the store as out of price range for most consumers. To oppose claims of being too expensive, Whole Foods Market began offering promotions, discounts, and has a flat prices on groceries despite it costing them more. The idea is for customers to find plenty of deals to make up for certain products price inflation. Expanding the stores appeal to new customers has brought a few setbacks. Loyal customers spend almost three times more than what new customers do. (Gasparro, 2012)

In the textbook, the author added the case about Trader Joe’s. I would like to mention that I have never been inside of a Trader Joe’s and I have only ever seen one. Until I read this case I didn’t even know it was a food store, but apparently it is very popular so I might just have to go visit one. The thing that shocked me the most was that Trader Joe’s only stocks 4,000 products. The case author says more than 80 percent of the store’s brands are private-label goods, sold exclusively by Trader Joe’s.

Whole Foods has been adaptive in fitting its competitive strategy to its situation. The store first grew to prominence by being a stylish antithesis to the crunchy mom-and-pop organic grocery stores, providing a relatively normal but

Also, unlike most Trader Joe’s stores which are smaller in space, a supermarket can carry more types of goods. It would be beneficial for competing supermarkets to expand to a new market segment of health conscious people and have a section of organic products. In addition, a traditional supermarket can also offer a wider variety of private label products. In that way the store can achieve greater store loyalty while reducing costs (they buy in bigger bulk). They are also advantageous for having the benefit of one stop shopping with a wide assortment of goods that many people like to take advantage of. Lastly, being bigger in size, it is necessary for them to allocate more money for advertising, thus getting their name in more places.

Whole Foods Market has expanded by a mixture of opening its own new stores and acquiring already existing stores. Today WFM does not follow this strategy, instead their motivation is to open its own large stores. This is due to noticeable sales differences in larger stores as opposed to smaller stores. WFM locates these newer stores in upscale areas of urban metropolitan centers and high-traffic shopping locations. Not all WFMs are isolated structures; some are located in strip malls. WFM offers a larger selection of natural and organic foods than any other grocery store. WFMs marketing expenditure is extremely small. They spend a measly 0.5% of their revenues on advertising. Their chief marketing strategy relies on word-of-mouth. WFM strives to meet or exceed customer expectations. This is so customers receive competent, knowledgeable, and friendly service and become advocates of WFM. The employees here have a decentralized team approach for store operations. This is so some personnel, merchandising, and operating

Whole Foods Market began in 1970 as a local supermarket. Over the past 31 years, Whole Foods Market has grown from a single store in Austin, Texas, to becoming one of the worldwide leaders in providing consumers with natural and organic foods. They have grown to over 300 stores in both North America and the United Kingdom. (Whole Foods Market, Inc., 2011) This report examines the chief elements of the strategy that Whole Foods Market has put into place. Also, it uses past financial data to provide an assessment of the condition of the company going forward. Those assessments include recommendations of future actions, along with concerns I have about the way the company is currently operating and some difficulties that may be on the way.