In this report we will first be focusing on the macro environment of the UK supermarket industry where we will review external issues such as politics, economy, technological, social/demographic and environmental factors. From this analysis we can gain insight into how supermarkets react to changes that are beyond their control and how they can often turn these…
The company I choose was Publix Supermarket, Inc. this company began in 1930 in Winter Have, FL by the late George Jenkins. Mr. Jenkins soon went from having two stores to opening a warehouse along with 19 more store sites. As Jenkins continued to add more Publix Supermarket stores he also added on the extra small details the stores now have such as the bakery and pharmacy. Mr. Jenkins always believed the customer was first and held these values to the highest standard, which is why to this day Publix holds the number 1 spot in customer…
Loblaw Company Limited is currently Canadian’s market leader in the grocery sector including holding the 24th spot of the world’s top grocery retailer. While Loblaw seems to be doing very well due to the fact that they have a big portion of the market share, but it may not be for long when Wal-Mart becomes one its major competitors. Wal-Mart has decided to expand its business by entering the grocery sector in the Canadian market. Loblaw’s current issue is the affect that the entrance of Wal-Mart in the grocery sector will have on their current position and if they can remain in business with their presence. Loblaw needs to decide what their next move will be in order to stay competitive with its newest competitor,…
Bob’s Supermarket faced a lot of economic challenges. One of those economic challenges was when the United States was hit with a recession. As a result, the recession left many businesses like Bob’s Supermarket with a decline in sales, because many consumers had started to retrench from spending. In fact, the tight economy left many consumers to look for cheaper options when it came to spending (Parnell, 2014). For instance, places like Wal-Mart and Aldi manage to profit from those consumers because of their low prices. The second challenge for Bob’s Supermarket was the mandated increases. The mandate increases in the minimum wage was a major cost component for Bob’s Supermarket. Therefore, it would have impacted the store because of its smaller size. The third challenge facing Bob’s Supermarket was their higher prices. According to…
When Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s died in 2002 the company was in a series of disappointing earnings and became overshadowed by competitors in the same industry. Wendy’s earnings report only reinforced the image of an underperforming brand. Results were hurt by higher breakfast costs, lower-than-expected sales and rising commodity costs. Wendy’s has been struggling for several years because the company failed to keep up with the trends in the industry, such as boosting growth by focusing on breakfast and value menus. This left the company vulnerable to either closing down or a hostile take over from other interested parties (Levisohn, Ben, 2008).…
For decades The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) had dominated the US food and grocery market. However, with its size had come increasing managerial inefficiencies and an inability to respond to demands of changing market. A very crucial error was made in the 1950’s when A&P failed to follow customers in their move to suburbs. The result, which plagued the supermarket chain into the 1980’s , was a large number of small and inefficient stores serving declining urban neighbourhoods.…
This case involves a mid-sized, regional grocery store chain called Reed Supermarkets. Reed has 192 retail stores, two regional distribution centers and 21,000 employees in five states in the Midwest of the United States. This case discusses Reed’s market strategy for the Columbus, Ohio, market in particular, which is one of Reed’s largest markets. The Columbus market has grown slightly over the past five years, while Reed’s market share has dwindled slightly in the market. Reed has watched their market share stagnate with the entrance of new competitors (10% growth in stores) and a dramatic shift in customer preferences to value or quality. Reed’s CEO has tasked his executives to come up with a strategy that will growth revenues by 2% in the coming year. The main problem Reed faces is how do they grow revenues without compromising their customers’ perception of them as a high-end brand.…
In the case regarding Bob’s Supermarket, several key facts and critical issues were observed. Bob’s Supermarket was co-owned by Bob and Sam Thompson. Also, they had a third silent party that provided capital for the stores. Eventually, Bob and Sam brought out the third party and they became the sole owners. The brothers in 1998 formed a subchapter-S corporation to purchase an existing supermarket into Hanover, Indiana. Five years later, they decided to expand by purchasing a store in Westport, Indiana. However, due to low profits, the store closed two years later. The next year expansion occurred again in Hope, Indiana by acquiring an existing store.…
Case Study Report: WEGMANS Read the following case and answer the questions in an individual report. Apply concepts learnt in the course and do additional library search to analyze the case. Your report should not exceed 800 words (state number of words at the end of the report. This assignment carries 10% of your total course marks and is due in Week 9ʼs tutorial. Submit a hard copy to your tutor and a soft copy to Blackboard (under Assignments; this is a SafeAssign-enabled dropbox, which checks plagiarism automatically. Please observe universityʼs plagiarism rules.) Picture this scenario: You’re about to go home for the day and your spouse or roommate asks you to stop by the grocery on the way home. “OK,” you say, though the errand doesn’t exactly fill you with anticipation or excitement. It might if you had a Wegmans on your way home, however. Shopping at Wegmans, a privately held chain of 67 grocery stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia, is viewed as a fun event—so much so that the company received over 3000 letters from around the country trying to persuade the chain to expand to new cities. Wegmans understands that successful grocery stores must combat this sobering statistic: 84% of consumers believe that all grocery stores are alike. Why travel an extra two blocks to go to a different store? Wegmans has created its own unique identity by offering more of virtually everything, including 500 varieties of cheese and bookstores, child play centers, and dry cleaners within its stores. It also stops at nothing to make customers happy, including sending a chef to a customer’s home to correct a food order mistake, or cooking a family’s Thanksgiving turkey at the store because Mom bought one that was too big for the oven. How does Wegmans create a shopping experience like no other? By being an employer like no other, as Wegmans finished first on the list of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2005 and third in 2007. The smiles customers…
Nowadays, it is extremely competitive for companies survive in the close to full capacity grocery retail industry. Thus, we choose to compare Wal-Mart and ALDI’s operation strategies in order to justify both of their operational advantages and clarify why ALDI can stand still in German market.…
Seth, A. and Randall, G. (1999): The Grocers: the rise and rise of the supermarket chains,…
After Banco Velox purchased Disco, the supermarket subsidiary became a very successful operation in Argentina. Its net sales increased by 220.4% from 1991 to 1997. Although Disco suffered a loss of $29.3 M before the restructuring, it is now earning profits of $24.0 M. Disco is not only profitable but it is also managing its risks well enough to walk away from the Argentinian “tequila crisis” relatively unscathed suffering only 0.2% less gross profit margin than the year before. The company also has a solid operating strategy with focuses on location of its supermarkets, assortment of its products, great customer services, and competitive pricing. Disco also stands out in its product concentration in the food category having “over 85%” (1) of the product mix being food. What differentiates Disco from its competitor is its 4th pillar: customer services. In addition to membership cards, and store credit cards, Disco offers free same-day home delivery from its stores, Discoflash (checkout counter where customers could leave their full carts to be checked out by employees and delivered to their homes for a small fee), purchasing using telephone, and the internet, in addition to other customer convenience perks like childcare centers, photo shops, environmentally friendly cleaning service. The company has a very organized model where the company’s procedures “with respect to billing, purchase orders, storage” (4) and even architectural guidelines are standardized. The standardization of the organization extends to its supply chain…
My motivation for this article is the analysis of commercially successful and commercially failing online grocery retailers. I have experience as wholesale supplier of two well managed but failing online grocery businesses.…
Weaknesses - Although the company has a strong brand value, as a customer it is difficult to slot them in a specific category. The differentiating competitive advantages are clearly missing. The company lacks on this front since they have not been able to create a market, which helps differentiate them from other supermarkets with regards to price, quality, customer service, access to inventory or variety. Successful business strategies are those that use the capabilities of the firm to address customer needs in a way that leads to a sustainable competitive advantage; the features of competitive advantage is that it is highly desirable, hard to define or measure and may even be imaginary. [Macmillan Hugh and Tampoe Mahen (2000), p 85 - 87] In their weak attempts to overcome the weak situation they tried bringing changes to the shelf space and inventory display, which was disastrous. It only ended up making the customers more confused while shopping.…
ANSWER: The customers judge the quality of a supermarket from different aspects and in varied ways. They judge a supermarket in terms of their own wants 、 necessities and how they feel when they are in the supermarket. On my own mind, most of the customers will judge the quality of a supermarket in the following ways:…