Overview of the company
Sam Walton, who had the philosophy of low costs and high-quality services, started the corporation that is now known as Walmart. Competitors attacked Sam's ideas, yet they ended up working better than Sam had anticipated. In 1970, the corporation gained popularity. Walton also recognized the contribution his employees made to the company's growth by sharing their customers' experiences with the globe. Walton's ambitions were expanding, which pushed him work harder to improve the company. Walton was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his dedication to helping people, other businesses, and the US economy. Despite the fact that Walton passed away, Walmart now operates locations in 15 countries. Walmart Company has stores in Africa, China, India, Chile, Brazil, and Mexico to mention a few.
Types of products and services that the company offers
Walmart Company has never thought of increasing their prices because their primary strategy is to sell large volumes at low prices (Key and Sell 67). The company sells a broad range of product and services. The products include groceries, sporting materials, and crafts, clothing, shoes, jewelry. Moreover, the company also offers entertainment services, home improvement and patio, health and beauty services and many others. Walmart has divided its centers in a particular way. They have the supercenters that offer household material products and other diverse services. However, the neighboring centers mainly provide food supplies like dry groceries. Walmart Company aims at ensuring all the customers are satisfied by making sure that the groceries they offer are fresh and nutritious. The corporate has enough fleet to transport goods from the distribution centers to clubs and stores. Customers can either shop physically or online using Walmart.com website. The company also takes part in social responsibility by contributing towards the elimination of hunger in the US.
Rank in particular industry that it operates
Walmart has achieved many awards since it was founded. The awards include; 100 best companies to work with, 100 fastest growing companies, the Best place to work, America’s ten greenest brands, the Best ranking’s food company, Best companies for leadership and many others to mention a few. The company won the award Best place to work because it caters for the needs of its employees (Maher and Kris 42). Employees work in a favorable environment, and the salary they earn is worth the duties they conduct. Furthermore, the company produces environmentally friendly products, and this is the reason it won America’s ten greenest brands. Most organizations do not adhere to environmental conservation rules because of their personal interests. Walmart ensures that it produces safe materials and food to sustain a green environment. Just as we mentioned earlier, Walmart sales strategy is one of a kind because it offers quality products at low prices which most companies are incapable. Companies always rely on price inflation to gain production costs and earn profits, but this is not the case for Walmart Company. Hence, the company attracts many consumers making it win the award for fastest growing companies.
Discussion of the competition
The business world is increasing rapidly, and big business like Walmart may face stiff competition. Walmart is still in a good position as compared to its rivals like the Kroger and Costco Company. Costco has been giving Sams Club sleepless nights since rapidly grew to 26.1% by 2012 which was the double of what Sam’s Club did. Small retailing companies also found an opportunity to outperform Walmart in selling household materials. However, Walmart still has an overall competitive advantage over its competitors. One of the reasons for the competitive advantage is that Walmart produces quality products and services at affordable prices (Ferrell, Odies and Michael 88). While other companies are inflating their prices to gain more profits, Walmart has a standard price that attracts many customers. Additionally, Walmart chose to deal with groceries. It is hard to disrupt groceries, and many rivals like the Amazon could not afford to deliver fresh groceries conveniently to the consumers. Another factor that is giving Walmart a competitive advantage is the opening of neighborhood markets in urban areas. Most people living in urban areas have little access to fresh food. This segmentation strategy has made the company unique hence acquiring huge profits. The company also has strong overall cost leadership that improves efficiency and effectiveness in its operations.
New potential products of the company
In terms of services, Walmart wanted to save consumers time and improve convenience. Therefore, they introduced the pay with iOS or with your smartphone. Walmart, therefore, becomes the first company to launch their payment system. The payment application has made customers at Walmart purchase faster and efficiently. Additionally, it has built the reputation of the company. Reputation entices more clients and retains existing customers to the enterprise (Key and Sell 67). Furthermore, Walmart is trying free shipping of items and services to outshine Amazon. Free shipping is a good marketing strategy Walmart because many consumers face high costs of transportation and this will be a benefit to them. At some point, a consumer prefers products at Walmart centers, but when they think of the transportation cost, they will end up purchasing from Amazon to benefit from the free shipping services. They fear to buy because of expensive shipping. Offering free shipping may make consumers at Amazon shift to Walmart.
Work Cited
Ferrell, Odies C., and Michael Hartline. Marketing strategy, text and cases. Nelson Education, 2012.
Key, Stephen, and Colleen Sell. One Simple Idea for Startups and Entrepreneurs: Live Your Dreams and Create Your Own Profitable Company. McGraw-Hill, 2013.
Maher, Kris. “WalMart seeks new flexibility in worker shifts.” The Wall Street Journal January 3.2007 (2007): A1.
