Introduction
Wal-Mart is a global retail store operating around 4150 retail facilities worldwide. In Canada, the UK, and Mexico, Wal-Mart is among the leading retail facilities, and among the most powerful and wealthy retail stores. The store deals in household goods, aesthetic goods, jewelry, electronics and even groceries, both fresh and frozen. The corporation is defined by specific and long-standing goals including; customer service, striving for excellence and personal respect. Wal-Mart’s Canadian competitors include the Costco, the Sears Inc. and the Canadian Tire Corporation among others.
Wal-Mart’s Objectives
The two primary objectives of Wal-Mart retail stores include offering the consumers what they need at the time they need it, and at a very fair price. The other objective include treating the clients in a dignified way and appropriately acknowledging the company’s complete dependency on its associate partners to maintain its success.
Marketing Strategies at Wal-Mart
One of the core success factors at the Canadian retail store is its marketing strategy. The elements encompassed in the Wal-Mart’s retail facility marketing mix include; place, product, promotion and pricing strategies.
The outstanding value offered by the enterprise is its service. The corporation lures its potential clients by offering services which are both effective and convenient. The store attains convenience since it offers a wide assortment of goods. The consumers are, therefore, assisted to carry out a one-stop shopping. This particular element of the store’s marketing mix impact on the store since it is capable of defining the clients’ experiences. The store’s sales personnel positively impact on the view of the consumer upon entering the store (Lee, Hayden, Mcmahon & Pereira, 2002).
Wal-Mart utilizes the EDLP pricing technique. This particular pricing strategy attracts magnitudes of consumers and improves cost leadership, which is the store’s generic business technique. The corporation has low prices and costs. Moreover, the store can record large volumes of sales, therefore recording significant profits. Within the marketing mix, the pricing element mainly contributes to the store's competitiveness.
Wal-Mart enterprise’s promotional techniques constitute of public relations, advertisements, one-on-one selling and most importantly, online and offline promotion of sales. The retail facility uses websites and even newspapers to reach out to clients. Additionally, it employs discounts and attractive deals to conduct the sales promotions. At the store, the sales personnel convince the clients to try the package deals and even new products brought in occasionally. Regarding, public relations, the retail store informs potential stockholders and clients about the adopted techniques, schemes and policies through the use of press releases. The store also sponsors charity projects periodically as one of the techniques to promote itself. Therefore, the element of promotion in the corporation’s marketing mix enables the development of brand recall and consumer attractions (Lee, Hayden, Mcmahon & Pereira, 2002).
The Wal-Mart store employs the intensive distribution method. In this approach to distribution, the retail store provides the same range of goods. However, the same responsibilities and roles of the store’s personnel apply to each branch. Moreover, the corporation consistently establishes new stores to enable the company to gain access to even more consumers in different parts of Canada. Therefore, the element of distribution in the marketing approach ensures convenient shopping for clients from different locations.
Wal-Mart’s SWOT Analysis
This segment analyzes the strengths, opportunities, threats and even the weaknesses facing the Wal-Mart Corporation, and their impact on the firm’s operations.
The strength of the retail store relies on its ability to represent fully quality and value. The store ensures complete convenience to its clients and one stop shopping due to its wide assortment of products. The corporation has also collaborated with its partners to formulate a policy regarding one-stop shopping. The store additionally has an ability to lure and maintain clients hence a fast international expansion. Moreover, the store can utilize information technology systems to sustain local and even international business operations. Integration of technological innovations by the company into its system has, therefore, given it an advantage over its opponents since it can efficiently track real-time transactions and make necessary adjustments. Other technological innovations like the Scan & Go application has increased convenience on the clients’ side and enabled the corporation save resources (Mun & Yazdanifard, 2012).
The Wal-Mart store also has some weaknesses. The store serves thousands of clients and manages large product lines, thus resulting in wide control spans, giving it a very hard time monitoring and assessing, even with the technological assistance the facility has incorporated into its operations. Additionally, the diversification of products hinders the store’s flexibility, since it has to accommodate its many suppliers hence a more complex supply chain. The supply chain complexity occasionally leads to hitches. Employees’ turnover due to averagely poor conditions in some segments of the store makes the corporation lose some excellent personnel who go after better salaries and conditions. Finally, the corporation has not fully exploited its expansion capability in Canada.
The retail store has several significant opportunities attributed to its massive resources. The corporation has the opportunity of forming business alliances with other competitive international retailers. Currently, the stores are in just a small number of regions, presenting a huge chance for the expansion of consumer market. The facility also has an opportunity of exploiting the e-commerce option to effectively promote shopping and even serve more clients. Research indicates that the e-commerce marketing has grown by approximately 4.7%. Moreover, e-commerce will ensure complete convenience to the clients who reside in locations where Wal-Mart branches have not been established. Also, due to the widespread concern for health, the retail store has the chance of increasing and maintaining healthy and fresh grocery, depending on the consumers’ tastes, to make even more profits.
Regardless of the customer loyalty, efficient operational techniques, and huge sales, the retail store is faced with some threats. First and foremost, the retail store is targeted by fast growing and developing competitors, within and outside Canada. This threat places extreme pressure on this store especially while trying to maintain clients and financiers, and also coming up with effective business tactics. Other threats include market saturation, regional barriers, communities’ resistance and conflict of interest (Mun & Yazdanifard, 2012).
Evaluation and Recommendations
Wal-Mart's strategy is averagely successful. This is because the facility has managed to expand, lure customers and operate a large product line. The strategies have assisted the retail facility record profits despite the threats and challenges (Mun & Yazdanifard, 2012). To record improvements, the corporations should enhance the component of distribution in the marketing strategy, and open up new stores in Canada, to serve those in remote regions. The company can gain entry into the new market and use joint ventures and direct investments to access current markets. In conclusion, the retail store must execute stable strategies for its sustained success and competitive advantage in the international market.
References
Lee, S., Hayden, P., Mcmahon, K., & Pereira, M. (2002). Wal-Mart: Staying on Top of the Fortune 500 A Case Study on Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Corporate Strategy And Public Affairs Lecture, 8-30.
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Mun, L., & Yazdanifard, R. (2012). WALMART SUCCESS IN MEXICO, CANADA AND CHINA: GLOBAL EXPANSION, STRATEGIES, ENTRY MODES, THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES. ResearchGate. Retrieved 13 March 2016, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234167019_WALMART_SUCCESS_IN_MEXICO_CANADA_AND_CHINA_GLOBAL_EXPANSION_STRATEGIES_ENTRY_MODES_THREATS_AND_OPPORTUNITIES
