In the recent years Walmart has been far our performing its top two competitors; Costco and Target. With a market cap of 212,195,024, Walmart had beaten its competitors who remain at 65,969,279 for Costco and 43,701,237 Target (NASDAQ, Competitors). This means that for Walmart, the total market of all of their goods and services far surpasses its top two market competitors. As investors, you may ask why Costco is second to Walmart’s regarding sales. Well when we take a closer look, we see that “Walmart’s treatment of its customers and employees has not always been then best. Yet, in comparison to Costco, who is using a membership based program to turn Walmart in its head; providing industry-leading benefits to employees and satisfying customers
Costco and Sam's Club Introduction There are so many stores where people can get their groceries and basic needs. Where do you get your groceries from? Out of all the stores Costco and Sam's Club are the mainstream ones with a variety of products. Costco and Sam's Club share many similarities and differences when it comes to their membership, environment/food court, and customer service/experience. Membership Costco and Sam's Club both offer memberships and to shop in the stores or online you must have a membership.
Since the company was founded as a corner store, the company’s business plan has always emphasized on expect more, pay less brand promise that sets it apart from its chief rival, Walmart. Although, Walmart is known for its low prices and offers a large selection to its customers; it’s customer service is often found to be nonexistent. This
The article “Labouring the Walmart Way,” author Deenu Parmar talks about how Walmart is able to achieve selling goods at a lower price then any average superstore. The author goes on to explain that Walmart’s antiunion efforts, employee selection, low prices and high retention rate all contribute to their major success. Walmart’s stance on ant unionism allows them to keep wage cost down and keep all their profits up. Not allowing a union keeps Walmart with the power to keep low wages and force unpaid overtime.
1. Differences in Costco’s business model compared with competitors such as Walmart, Sam’s Club, and other retailers are quite significant. Most revealing of all would be their treatment of their hardworking employees, setting an example for other retailers. According to the article, “The company pays its employees on average 40 percent higher than competitors and offers health care insurance to all employees who work more than 20 hours per week.” This results in a lower job turnover rate in the company.
Walmart was founded in the summer of 1962 by Kingfisher, Oklahoma native Sam Walton. Although Walton’s original vision for the store was relatively modest, the half century since its founding has seen Walmart morph into one of the biggest companies in the world. Today headed by one Doug McMillon, Walmart boasts more than 5000 stores in the United States of America alone and employs more than 1.5 million people. Walmart is undoubtedly an American institution, yet each Walmart store feels like its own little country. Walmart seems to have its own laws and customs and the people who shop their on a regular basis appear almost primitive in their behavior as they go about raiding the store’s shelves and wrestling with fellow customers for discount flat screen televisions and bulk packages of two-ply toilet paper.
Market Segmentation: To be of value market segments must be measurable, substantial, accessible, differentiable, and actionable (Kotler & Keller, 2012). Segmentation of demographics for Costco is vast as the current product offerings include all genders, ethnicities, incomes. age groups, and social classes. When considering demographics, it is important to consider the average or typical characteristics of the target market. As mentioned earlier the target market or focus for this company is supplying the small- to medium-sized business and targets the middle- to high-end consumer with its private label brand Kirkland Signature.
Key Trends – Globalisation One of the main opportunities Costco has is more global expansion to specific targeted countries. Although operating in many countries, Costco is heavily dependent on the U.S. and Canadian markets. It still has the opportunity to expand into the Asian and Australian markets where it has a limited presence. Costco has the capability to operate about 100 stores in Taiwan, Korea and Japan combined and about 20 stores in Australia. It currently has 41 stores in Taiwan, Korea and Japan combined and 6 stores in Australia.
There is no denying that the well established company, Wal-Mart, is currently conquering the retail industry, but as the saying goes, every rose has its thorn. As the daughter of a business owner, I have heard a fair amount of company challenges and obstacles, and moreover, solutions to such disadvantages. When it comes to a company as sizable as Wal-Mart, I can only imagine how difficult it is to thoroughly monitor individual day-to-day operations. From my own experiences from shopping at Wal-Mart, I can say that I have encountered courteous and attentive employees, as well as uninformed and impolite employees; it’s circumstantial. Looking back on the times I was confronted with impertinent workers, although there could be a million reasons
Thanks to the restrictions of a socialist-capitalism, Walmart cannot run every company out of business. The corporation succeeded in many other countries aside from America because of its stable supply chain and desirable prices. The countries it failed in either already had a cheaper all-purpose super center, it’s supply was weakened by small business suppliers, consumers did not want or need all the additional products, or there were just cultural barriers between customers and the employee codes of
As can be seen in the 5 year stock chart below (Figure 5), Wal-Mart’s stock started off stronger than the Dow Jones if we compare it in 2012. Towards the rest of the year, one begins to see that percentage wise, Wal-Mart begins to flirt with the rest of the market as it enters a slight downward trend. In the beginning of 2013, the markets take off, bypassing Wal-Mart and never looking back. Comparing Wal-Mart to it’s competitors like Target and Costco in 2012, one may see that all three stocks were relatively competitive. Once they entered 2013, Costco begins to pull away from the rest of the companies because of great PR and strong numbers in inventory sales and membership registrations (The Montley Fool).
What are the two types of core competencies that drive a firm’s competitive advantage? Which firms demonstrate a clear competitive advantage because of (a) major value-creating skills/core capabilities and/or (b) superior assets or resources? Which firms have demonstrated sustainable sources of competitive advantage? The two core competencies that drive a firm’s competitive advantage are cost leadership and differentiation.
These other products may not be better priced than Wal-Mart’s competitors. 4. How did Wal-Mart address its falling sales in profits in the early 1990s? What specifically did it
Walmart has succeeded in achieving the leading position in the retail industry. Walmart now stands as the biggest retailer in the world. However, the external factors constitute pressure on the company that must be address carefully. By analyzing the five forces of external factors we will define the nature and power of our rival power in the market. The five factors are competitors from rival, potential new entrants, substitute products, supplier bargaining power and customer bargaining power all of these competitive forces affecting Walmart position.
Mid-Term Exam Your Mele P Tuifua American Public University (Charles Town, West Virginia) Abstract This paper analyzes and compares the companies Walmart and Amazon. After explaining a brief overview of each company, we will look at how Walmart stays profitable by having a good relationship with suppliers, and how they keep their competitive position in the global market.
I. Introduction Walmart Stores, Inc. - the American corporation which was established in 1962, is well-know for the globe’s largest multinational retailer (Walmart 2016). Walmart owns a chain of grocery stores, discount department stores and hypermarkets with about 11,500 retail stores over 28 countries. In 1998, Walmart entered Germany with the acquisition of Wertkauf and Interspar chain (Louisa 2006). Despite having the strongest economy in Europe and the third largest retail market in the world, Germany was not an ideal place for Walmart to achieve its ambition (Knorr and Andt 2003). After nearly a decade struggling to grow, Walmart decided to pull out of German market in 2006 with the loss of one billion dollars (Mark 2006).