Retail business analysis and strategic frameworks

Marketing at Wal-Mart

Known for their prowess and expertise in supply chain management and retailing, Weal-Mart is also becoming exceptionally strong at generic marketing and segmentation strategies. A recent trip to a Wal-Mart was used as the basis of this analysis.

Analyzing the Wal-Mart Value Proposition

At the center of how Wal-Mart can effectively manage to drop prices so quickly across a myriad of products, while still keeping profitability synchronized across the entire product line illustrate how strong its logistics functions are (Mottner, Smith, 2009). The low price everyday value proposition, a generic strategy that has continued to resonate across many different demographic customer segments, has also been used successfully for creating the foundation for a branded retail experience within specific stores as well (Duff, 2009). The low price value proposition is used to bring in the most price-value driven shoppers, while the brands are used for selling the higher-end specialized clothing lines that generate greater margins (White, 2010).

Wal-Mart is known for their ability to quickly assimilate, analyze and use data to gain a competitive advantage in their retail operations as well (Mottner, Smith, 2009). This is one of the foundational elements of their pricing strategy and ability to move on pricing decisions literally overnight, as pricing elasticity are determined on products nightly after data uploads on sales and prices are completed via satellite links from stores globally. The inner workings of the Wal-Mart model concentrate on understanding how pricing interacts in a given product category so that the retailing and marketing strategies can be aimed at the price-value shoppers that have the highest potential interest in the product (Mottner, Smith, 2009). This strategy has led to Wal-Mart concentrating on a core 16% of its customer base, the price-value shopper, who generates a disproportionately high level of sales for the company. The generic strategy has solidified this market for the company.

The branding strategy that includes name designers and celebrities including Jaclyn Smith clothing is a branching out strategy that seeks to expand on the price leadership the company has created (Duff, 2009). This strategy is working only in a smaller audience of the total price value segment however.

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