3. Describe the competitive strategies used by each of Williams-Sonoma's competitors. Which of these strategies are the most effective? Support your answer.
The competitive strategies of Crate & Barrel directly match the strategies of Williams-Sonoma, especially in the retail outlets, use of catalogs and website. It however focused on cheaper products that customers could afford. This price strategy could be effective in capturing the price sensitive market, of which Williams-Sonoma was not too much entrenched.
On the other hand, Restoration Hardware was noted to compete directly with William-Sonoma’s Pottery Barn, especially in targeting the wealthiest clientele. Likewise, they have similarities in terms of sharing a person who managed Pottery Barn’s growth allegedly in the 1990s, Gary Friedman, who was identified to have been named the CEO of Restoration Hardware. As such, Friedman is immensely familiar with Pottery Barn’s strategy which could have been implemented to steer its remarkable growth and could also be innovatively used for the benefit of Restoration Hardware.
Pier 1 Imports is a competitor that directly faces William-Sonoma’s retail outlets. It could be deduced that Pier 1 is more widely spread and located in significantly more locations than William-Sonoma due to the greater number of retail outlets than William-Sonoma overall. Thus the place strategy could be evaluated as more effective for Pier 1 Imports.
Bombay Company used retail stores as their strategy to market a variety of products, which have similar lines as Williams-Sonoma. However, Williams-Sonoma is more advantageous in terms of applying other marketing strategies including catalogs and websites which Bombay Company does not pursue.
Door Store was noted to compete directly with Pottery Barn and Hold Everything through retail outlets strategy. However, due to the limited number of outlets as compared to Williams-Sonoma, it could be deduced that the latter applies more effective strategies, even if they both use the website, in addition to retail stores.
Finally, the Rolling Pin was a direct competitor to William-Sonoma in terms of using retail store strategies, catalogs, and the web. However, their significantly limited store locations in identified areas render them less effective in terms of ability to reach wider clientele than William-Sonoma.
4. How is Williams-Sonoma using the Internet as a distribution channel now, and how would you recommend that they use the Internet in the future?
Williams-Sonoma had been using the Internet as a distribution channel since 1999, initially through a wedding and gift business model and further expanded to their different retail stores brands: Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, West Elm, PB Teen, and Williams-Sonoma. As initially conceptualized, instead of maintaining warehouses for centralized distribution facilities that contains vast amounts of inventories, Williams-Sonoma could utilize the Internet as the most effective tool to gauge the reception of clientele through the comprehensive assessment of goods or products that are mostly preferred to be ordered online. As such, slow moving items could be ultimately dropped or could only be sourced through their supplies once orders from customers have been placed.
As such, the Internet could be used not only as a distribution channel, but more so, an information generating medium that provide appropriate information on their customers’ purchase behavior and buying patterns. The Internet could also be effectively used to evaluate the strategies applied by competitors who use e-commerce as the medium. As such, Williams-Sonoma could collect much needed information of customers’ preferences, in styles and products. to their advantage. They could eventually lessen retail outlets, catalogs, or warehouse facilities, especially slow moving or performing ones and concentrate on selling their products online, as deemed necessary. The Internet could be effectively utilized as an information generating tool, a promotional tool, a distribution channel, and as an instrument to design more sophisticated strategies that would capture the needs and demands of their expanding clientele, possibly catering to other international locations.
Reference
Rouse, M.M. (2005). “Internet Mini-Case #6: Williams-Sonoma.” Web Mini Cases: Pearson
Higher Education. Retrieved 15 March 2013,
< http://www.pearsonhighered.com/wheelen/cases.html>
