Market Opportunity Analysis - Walmart Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Market Opportunity depth psychology - Walmart - Essay ExampleChanging demographic data such as developing population, ethnic diversity, income, percentage of single p bents and percentage of people living in metropolitan triggers four prospectsmore food for growing population, more easy-to-prepare foods for single parent dwelling houses, more variety of products for diversified people and more upgraded foods for individuals with higher incomes. (Umberger, Thilmany and Ziehl p9-13) Nowadays, consumers are ever-changing their buying patterns to be online because of tear down prices and available 24/7. Consumer tastes erect be different base on a nonher demographic factor age. For example, consumers under 35 years old are some likely to be interested in domestics (73.3%), lawn & garden (71.4%), stationery (66.7%), personal care appliances (65.5%) and glasses and crockery (60.0%). (Negley) And the willingness to switch brands also depends on the age groupsfor instance, consumers over 50 years old have strongest loyalties. Jennifer Negley also claimed that the loyalties of consumers were falling down. It could be seen in groceries and female genital organned food products which possessed 84% loyalty in 1993 and shifted to 73% in 1997. Wal-Mart, the largest seller in the world, is operating in the highly competitive retail industry in both local US market and international market. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is based in Bentonville, Arkansas, and comprises of four separate retail segments namely Wal-Mart Supercenters, Discount Stores, Neighborhood Markets, and SAMS connection. As of January 31, 2010, the company operated 2,612 Supercenters ,891 Discount Stores, 153 Neighborhood Markets and 602 SAMS CLUB warehouses and in the United States. (Wal-Mart Annual Report, p 14) There are 3,615 Wal-Mart units outside US including countries such as Mexico, Canada, Brazil, UK, China and Germany. The retail products available at Wal-Mart include general merchandise such as household goods, apparels, jewelry, health & beauty products, electronics, toys, fabrics, shoes, garden appliances and crafts. Along with other retailers in the industry like Kmart and Sear, Wal-Mart is facing the changing consumer buying patterns and electences. The essence of Wal-Marts success is its ability to purchase a huge amount of goods and re-sell them to customers with lower prices. It also intends to sell quality products at the same time. So, it would be a high risk if it could not predict correctly on which items to be purchased to meet the changing consumer tastes. As we learned that consumers from different places prefer separate items, it may affect on setting localization strategy for each international unit. Next, as Wal-Mart is selling many products across several product lines, it is more inflexible to change compared to its competitors who only point on one or two product lines. If consumers change their tastes in one product line, the competitors can adapt wi th customers preferences more easily than Wal-Mart can. Moreover, it is vital to catch up with changing consumers online behaviors for the effects can be critical for how Wal-Marts online store should be shaped. 2. How well are these changes in customer tastes and preferences creation reflected in competitive strategies in the industry? Changes in customer tastes and preferences are reflected in competitive strategies chased by different retailers in the industry. Competitive strategies help an organization to build a competitive profit which is the result of having superior performance over competitors. (Hill) And that advantage makes a