Retail

Ciara Stockeland started her retail career with a little maternity boutique in her hometown of Fargo, N.D.

In 2006, about a year after she opened, a trucking company reached out for help: It had accrued a couple of semitrailers full of overstocked merchandise and needed to offload it. “I rarely say no to an opportunity,” says Stockeland, who promptly set up a pop-up shop next to her fancier store to sell this random assortment of goods: shoes, clothing, accessories and household items. She put it all out in cardboard boxes on folding tables.

And then an unexpected thing happened: People ransacked the bins. “Consumers loved getting these outlet deals. I took a step back and said, ‘This works and makes money — it’s probably a smarter way to go,’” she says. So she ditched her boutique and, because pulling random goods off semitrucks isn’t a solid business model for anyone, began purchasing extras directly from designers and manufacturers. Her new concept, which she called , offered 70 to 75 percent off designer retail. It resonated with customers, and by 2010, she began . Now MODE has 10 stores in the upper Midwest and one in South Carolina, with plans to reach 75 units by 2024.

MODE is reminiscent of an outlet mall. What’s different?
Consumers are really disappointed with outlet malls; they’re not what they used to be. Companies are manufacturing cheaper products just for the outlets. Our consumers are getting real designer products — the same denim jeans designed for the high-end shelf that were supposed to be $180 but are $40 at our store.

So, is this returned merchandise? Or last year’s styles?
No; everything we have is brand-new. There are several ways we find . Retailers buy their clothes months ahead and project what they need, but sometimes they have a slower season than anticipated and cancel shipments, which we buy from the . Sometimes there are overruns from brands that did well last year but aren’t as big a deal this year. There are also designers that go out of business or rebrand and need to sell off inventory. I’m adding to the list of designers and manufacturers we work with weekly.

Who are your primary customers?
We’re targeting the people along the I-29 corridor from Fargo down to Texas. We feel our really fits the Midwest consumer. These are people who want to be stylish but are very thrifty or economically savvy. I think we’ll find MODE shoppers everywhere — consumers who can afford $180 jeans but are very practical people and conservative spenders.

Related Book:

Jeans, jeans, jeans. What’s with the denim obsession?
I wanted to develop something that set the brand apart. And I knew we were going to have a lot of denim at a price point no one else did, so I trademarked the phrase “Home of the $40 designer jean.” Denim shopping is like swimsuit shopping; women hate it. Unlike boutiques, which carry only small sizes, we have sizes 0 to 22. We always have 300 pairs on the floor at every store — in Fargo, we have 500. I like to think of it as our $5 footlong; everyone knows we have it, even if they decide to buy something else.

The term marketing mix describes the main marketing tools and strategies used by the company to reach the defined marketing objectives. This term may include the rule of four Ps which refer to pricing, products, promoting, and placing.

The amway is the one of the company in the world who is selling the products which are helpful to the people in home in commercical foe personal and many other factor. But in the india ther are so many person who are very poor and he has no house but some person who are rich and his income per month is 14000 they are using the amway products but the others are donot use the amway bproducts because they are satisfy with the other products because they all are using last some years ago so amway products are not very much using in the india if amway some change for his product place and price so ther is possible to increase in the profit.

There are the 4 ps of the company these are as follows Price Place Product and Promotion These are the 4ps of the amway these are common for all the marketing maix for the company. In the amway company 4ps are give the advice for the nutrition food and many other products .

Product

In the amway there are the different types of the products these are as follows.

• Nutrition and wellness.
• Consulates.
• Home care.
• Personal care.
• Commercial products.

As I am setting up a video and DVD hire/retail shop, market niches can easily appear to new competition. Film hire and retail is a service that is equally used by each of the segments of the market, therefore my questionnaire will be aimed at a random sample of people. However, the different market segments have different tastes in film and spend different amounts of money over different periods of time, and I am hoping to find out what these habits are so that I can comply with demands which are attractive to the different sectors of the market. The sample that I aimed for was a random but representative sample, meaning that I chose to ask people of as many different ages and a similar amount from each gender. Everyone in the public had an equal chance of being chosen to answer the questions.

There are many limitations that I have to my market research. For instance, Mintel reports and Keynote reports would be very useful for me to seek information on my market, however they cost hundreds of pounds each and we cannot afford them. I therefore used the internet to get hold of brief summaries of my required market. I can also use special business libraries to get a look at the full versions of these reports. I have also used the website ‘www.yell.com’ to seek what competition I have in my local area is. I can then use competitor analysis to get ideas about how to run the business well.

I expect my results from my market research to be relatively accurate because I used both primary and secondary data. The questionnaire results should be accurate because it was a fair and random sample of people, however the results could easily be accidentally biased and that we do not know the views of everyone, just a sample. The Mintel and Keynote reports will be accurate because they are detailed reports of factual events using factual and accurate statistics of the general market.

Analysis & Evaluation of Market Research Findings Secondary Data  he first piece of secondary research that I found was at the website www.yell.com. I used the search engine to find business’ with the description “VIDEO & DVD – HIRE AND RETAIL” in the area of “HA5”. A list of the seven companies, complete with address and telephone numbers that I must compete with within Harrow (Pinner) came up on screen. In conjunction with this, I used www.multimap.com to find a map of the Pinner area, and located these businesses on the map and then located where I am planning to locate my business. This makes it easy to see visually how close I am to competition, and I will also now know where to go to carry out competitor analysis. (See appendix 3).

The second piece of secondary data that I found was at www.mindbranch.com, and it is a market report on the “Video Retail & Hire”. It is relatively recent (published in November 2000) and tells us that the market is growing, especially in the DVD sector. Between 1998 and 1999 the UK market for retail and hire fell by 5.7% to the value of �1.44billion. Due to the release of the digital versatile disc (DVD) in 1998, the market grew by 11.3%, which shows me that the market is growing.

I am also told that ‘Titanic’ and ‘The Full Monty’ are popular films. I have also found out that video retail is the largest sector of the market, with a share of around 61.5% in 1999. This piece of research also suggests to me that using the internet may be a good way to sell videos, advertise and promote the business. The main information which gives me confidence that my business should do well is the market is forecasted to increase by 94% within five years from 1999. (See appendix 4).

The second piece of secondary data that I have found is an executive summary of a keynote report from www.keynote.co.uk. This is more recent than the last – published in June 2002. This report also shows an increase in the market, of 60% to 69.6% between 1998 and 2001. A drawback is that film piracy might limit the success of firms in the future. I am told that competition in the market has increased, and that much competition will come from online retail. A positive sign though is that the market is forecasted to continue increasing until 2008, however by 2006, the growth is expected to slow down. The DVD market is expected to increase for many more years; however the VHS market is expected to slow more dramatically. This suggests to me that I should concentrate more on the DVD sector than on the video sector.

(See appendix 5 Primary Data – Questionnaire results I have chosen graphs rather than tables to show my data because it shows the data more clearly and one can see the necessary information at a quick glance, without having to do any working out or difficult comparison. The fact that my questions are multiple choice questions means that I have used pie charts and bar charts to show the data.

This pie chart shows the percentage of the people asked in each age group. It shows us that in the questionnaire, more than half the people that I asked were aged under 18. Aged between 25 and 40 is next highest, and then the other 3 age groups are similar in amount. This means that the. Results of the questionnaire might be biased towards the views of under 18s. I used a pie. Chart to show this information because it allows us to not only easily see the relationships between each of the age groups easily, but also it allows us to see how many people there are for each of the age groups in comparison to the overall number of people surveyed…

Primary Data – Competitor analysis Blockbuster entertainment Business: Sale and Rental of videos, DVDs and console games. Also basic refreshment for sale (drinks, popcorn and sweets). Film sale and rental shops tend to provide films of all genres and all of the new releases, with the exception of some outlets which only specialise in films from a certain country, ethnic group, or language. This means that market niches do not appear and everyone in the area will be happy to use the service. This also means that they maximise their revenues, however not always their profit margins.

My business will be no different in the sense that I hope to provide all of the new release films for my customers, and not concentrate on certain film genres. This is because all of the genres are popular; however different genres are more popular with different segments of the market. Before, there may have been a risk to this method when it comes to knowing how many copies of each film to purchase for rental; however a new method of distribution introduced in 2000 may benefit larger businesses in the market, and possibly businesses like mine in the near future.

The keynote report (see appendix 5) relays information that rather than paying the film studio for a certain number of copies of each film (meaning the business risks not being able to cover the costs of the purchase), the rental company shares the revenue on each film hiring with the film studio. This means that no matter how many copies of each film you purchase, you only pay a certain amount of the rental price each time the film is rented out. Therefore the business does not run the risk of not covering the purchasing costs. This service will obviously only be available to businesses that the film studios see as being successful enough.

Although my business will provide sale and rental of films of all genres to all people, there are main segments of my market that seem to stand out. The market seems to be mostly attracted to people aged under 18 and without children. Therefore to maximise the number of people entering the store, the store layout and appearance will be slightly more orientated towards their likes than the likes of the people in the other segments.

These people seem to rent out between 1 and 4 films per month and are mostly willing to pay 2.50 per night for each rental. This means that from one person in this market segment, I could get a payment of between 10 per month. These people seem to particularly like action, war, comedy, animated and spoof films. Video players, DVD players, and PCs seem to be quite popularly owned by these people.

Q1

The first global location that Walmart entered was Mexico. In Mexico Walmart joined hands with a Mexican company named Cifra and spent $20million on a joint venture. Wal-Mart also opened foreign trade zone in Arizona where it built a huge distribution centre. Cifra was later acquired by Wal-Mart

            Shortly after Mexico, Walmart entered into Puerto Rico where a number of other big players were already operating in Mexico. By the end of expansion Walmart had around 190 operating stores in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico did not only attracted tourist but also the upper middle or the strong class where a Puerto Rican shopping trip is more like a family outing with long to do or in other words to buy lists.

            Soon after, in 1993 Walmart also expanded its operations to Canada where it bought 120 Canadian Woolworth’s stores. By 2002, Walmart held 40% market share of all the department stores in Canada alone. These Canadian stores were more profitable then the US stores.

            A year later Walmart entered Brazil by partnering with the Brazilian retailer Lojas Americana with a controlling stake of 60-40. The company got mixed results from. The reason for mixed results was the competitive environment due to deep market penetration of Carrefour (Mead, 2003).

            Again in a year’s time after entering into Brazil the company entered into Argentina where it started with its wholly owned subsidiary. Walmart managed to sell stocks amounting to $1million on the very first day and still more and more people flocked the newly opened store rather then the old ones.

            In 1996 Walmart entered into china in a mainland and populated city of Shenzhen. Walmart opened 22 super centre stores in china by the end of 2002. In 2002 it also joined hands with CITIC group in order to overcome the competitor Carrefour which had deep presence in china as well. It is expected that 2002’s 22 Chinese stores can become 3000 in 2028 if the growth accelerates at the current rate. 2008 sales are expected to hit a mark of $579.5 billion (Mead, 2003).

            Walmart also entered in Germany which was quite a difficult market then the previous ones. Although Walmart opened a number of stores without looking at the gross margins, still it did have to close two of its stores for the first time in international expansion history.

            It took four years of planning for Walmart to enter into Mexico when it purchased four sites from Makro. Walmart was successful in Korea because it complied with the tight family structure facilities that other competitors did not provide. Moreover it was expected that the company would open 50 more stores by the end of 2007.

            By 2002 Walmart was thriving in great Britain after its entrance in 1999 by striking a deal of $10.7 billion by acquiring major players in the market. The stores that were taken over by Walmart operated on the same lines as Walmart for example low pricing and employee involvement in business (Mead, 2003).

            With an initial investment of $46 million and having a 6% share in ownership interest Walmart joined hands with Seiyu limited a Japanese chain of 400 stores. Walmart faced a lot of difficulties in Japan and had many problems in competing with the notorious competitors (Mead, 2003).

            Walmart entered in Russia in 2002 with its first ever visit under the strategic planning department head. The representatives of the company visited departmental stores namely Ram store and seventh continent and it was evident that Walmart was planning to start its operation there as well.

Q2.

 Walmart faced a number of threats in all of the geographical locations where it expanded its operations. Starting from Mexico, Walmart violated a code that all the labels must be in Spanish. Then when we look at Puerto Rico, Walmart was suited due to the fact that it was trying to take over a local department store chain which was against the anti monopoly laws. In Canada, Walmart earned criticism when it distributed only English flyers rather then both English and French. Also extra un-paid working hours also generated bad publicity for the company. In brazil the two challenges that the company faced was the Carrefour which had deep roots in the market and the second one being congestion and traffic in the densely populated country where distribution was not easy because the company depended on local distributors as it did not had its own by then. Refusing to take post dated cheques, book keeping differences in computer systems rising inflation were also some of the other challenges that the company faced in Brazil (Mead, 2003). Coming on to Argentina, the major problem that Walmart faced in the country was that it couldn’t practice its low price methodology where it bared loss on one item to be competitive and same happened in the case of a beer company which refused to supply to Walmart. In Germany, Metro was the biggest threat to Walmart because it had deep roots in one of the most developed and competitive markets as compared to the rest of the markets on the globe. Harsh German regulation prevented price wars from their roots and also it prevented the store to remain open 24 hours a day along with Sundays. The company could not offer bags to customers because it was against the regulation of least use of plastic. Although the company tried to compete with Metro AG, it is still struggling. In Korea, the ongoing tension between the north and south did not allow the retail giant to use its name in the market initially. When the company first entered Japan in 1992, it was rejected by the consumers by grading its quality of products as inferior. After its entrance in 2002, the notorious competitors were aggressive in fighting and eschewed Walmart’s tradition of bypassing wholesalers because of old relationships. Financial slump in Japan led to complex distribution.

Q3

            The implementation strategy of Walmart is quite simple as it is designed with respect to specific market characteristics. The company does not believe in an overall strategic plan, but it solely emphasizes on opportunities and getting the most out of them whenever they are discovered. This is what we saw in every market where the company penetrated with its operations and every time the company penetrated with a different policy. At times it took over market leaders, at times it took over weaker players and it also opened its own subsidiaries whenever needed. Although the company faced losses at many geographical locations, still it did not stop its operations and invested more and more in the country in order to first weaken the competitor or get to the level of the competitor and then compete (Mead, 2003).

             The strategy adopted by Walmart would not justify the quality test for many analysts because it seems a lot more inconsistent and can lead to uncertainties, however in my analysis, the strategy adopted by Walmart is justified because of the fact that not every market has the same characteristics and different strategies need to implemented in order to penetrate into a new international market. The challenges that the company faced in each of the markets was different thus the strategy did seem to work otherwise the company would not have any scope in the international arena.

 Reference

Mead, J (2003). Wal-Mart in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. University of Virginia

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Monday said it has completed the acquisition of internet retailer Jet.com after agreeing to pay about $3 billion for the ecommerce startup last month.

Wal-Mart Chief Executive Doug McMillon announced the closing of the deal, which was pending regulatory approval, in a blog post on the retailer’s website.

The acquisition will impact Wal-Mart’s 2017 fiscal year earnings marginally more than the retailer’s initial estimate of a 5 cents per share impact as the transaction closed ahead of time, Wal-Mart said.

The deal, which was the largest for an online startup, will give Wal-Mart access to Jet.com’s innovative pricing software and will help the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer to better compete with online rival Amazon.com Inc.

“A lot of folks ask me ‘Why Jet.com?,” McMillon said in a blog post. The answer he said was in the savings both Wal-Mart and Jet can together offer shoppers.

Jet, with its ability to lower prices as customers add more items to their shopping carts, will help the world’s largest retailer reach more customers such as millennial shoppers. The deal would also strengthen Wal-Mart’s existing ecommerce infrastructure, McMillon said.

Wal-Mart has built its website into the second largest online retailer by traffic in the U.S. in the past six months, the blog post said. It has also expanded the assortment of products on its website from 7 million to 15 million items and is adding a million more each month.

Jet’s founder Marc Lore will join Wal-Mart as the president and chief executive of Wal-Mart’s U.S. ecommerce business and will report to McMillon, the company said in a separate statement.

“I’ll be spending a lot of time with the team in the coming weeks and months focused on scaling Walmart.com and Jet.com,” Lore said.

Over a five-year period Lore will receive stock units that involve the issuance of 3.55 million shares of Wal-Mart’s common stock valued at 10 cents per share, the statement said. This is a part of the $300 million of Wal-Mart shares that would be paid over time as part of the original transaction.

The Jet deal follows a five-year e-commerce acquisition spree in which Wal-Mart has bought 15 startups, seeking the talent and technology to make it a dominant player online and narrow the gap with Amazon.

(By Nandita Bose; Editing by Grant McCool and James Dalgleish)

Wal-Mart is a multinational retailing store chain that is present in more than one country. Since 1999, ASDA’s is fully owned by the owners of Wal-Mart and is, therefore, a chain of Wal-Mart in the United Kingdom [1]. By value, Wal-Mart is the biggest company by value and owns ASDA, which is the second biggest store in the whole of the United Kingdom after it took over Sainsbury’s in July 2003. ASDA is spread all over England and Scotland with more than 122,000 employees working for it.

ASDA states that “The story begins with the great entrepreneurial vision and drive of the founding fathers who pioneered the concept of one-stop shopping in the UK” [3]. Wal-Mart has recently in July 2006, pulled itself out from Germany leaving ASDA to be its only European chain. Pulling itself out cost Wal-Mart a huge amount of money as “Wal-Mart said it would sell its 85 German stores to the rival supermarket chain Metro and would book a pre-tax loss of about $1 billion (£536 million) on the failed venture” [2]. Wal-Mart has done a lot to help the environment as well as “Through Wal-Mart Argentina’s “Eco Action”, children are learning about problems facing their environment and what they can do to help” [4]. Spreading business to more than one country is a very profitable business but requires high expertise and strong financial backing. The United Kingdom and Germany are the two most established markets, which Wal-Mart decided to enter.

Due to the financial backing and stability of the retail store in America and its developed goodwill over the years made the governments of the two countries allow the chain to enter and issued a permission notice or license to it. Along with that, the flow of Foreign Direct Investment is always good for another country. There are some advantages as well as disadvantages of buying an already established business in a foreign land as well as domestically.

The advantages are that the goodwill of the business comes with it along with the lessening of establishing cost. While the disadvantages are that it is hard for the new company to develop its separate identity and any bad publicity in the past has to be faced by the newly taken over organization.

Bibliography:

1. ASDA/Wal-Mart. (2004). By Corporate Watch UK. Retrieved on 31st January 2007 from http://www. corporatewatch. org. uk/? lid=800
2. Hall, A., Bawden, T.; Butler, S. (2006).Wal-Mart pulls out of Germany at the cost of $1bn. Retrieved on 31st January 2007 from http://business. timesonline. co. uk/article/0,,13129-2290398,00.html
3. The ASDA Story – Introduction. (n. d. ). Welcome to our All About ASDA Site. Retrieved on 31st January 2007 from http://asdacares. gpalm. co. uk/the_asda_story/the_asda_story_load.html
4. Sustainability. (n. d. ). Wal-Mart. Retrieved on 31st January 2007 from http://walmartstores. com/GlobalWMStoresWeb/navigate. doc