Discuss about the Marketing Mix Strategies of Woolworths.
The retail sector is growing rapidly in today’s business world and it has gradually become more complex with the emergence of multiple stores, micro-apps, micro-suits and commercial networks, which are covering several different geographies (Iyadurai & Subramanian). For creating frequently refreshed products, the local markets have developed in such a way that to they could accurately tailor the merchandise offerings to the demands of the market. This report will shed light on one of the notable Australian retail company, the Woolworths. It will elaborate on describing the eight marketing mix concepts theoretically and will each of the components to one of the product offerings of Woolworths. It will further evaluate on overall marketing strategies, the competition market and the contemporary issues that the company is facing in the current era. Moreover, it will also provide some recommendations for the organization in order to move forward successfully.
Woolworths is one of the leading retail companies in Australia. It was founded on 22 September 1924 and is still the substantial retailing chain in the Australia, but the growth rate of the company has slowed down in the last years. They main founders of the company are Ernest Williams, Cecil Scott Waine, Percy Christmas, George Creed and Stanley Chatterton (“Woolworths.com.au”, 2018). The main headquarter of Woolworths is based in Bella Vista, New South Wales. It operates in several different regions including Australia, India and New Zealand with near about 900 stores all over. In the 2017, the company gained total revenue of about 55 billion Australian dollars. The company performs more than 29 million customers each week. The major competitors of Woolworths are Coles, TESCO, ALDI, Dan Murphy’s, Wal-Mart, Wesfarmers and Macro Whole foods (Booth & Coveney, 2015).
The Woolworths stores are located in several different regions in Australia including Subiaco, Newman, Casuarina, Kalgoorlie, Melbourne, Derby, Riverton, Cloverdale and Ellenbrook. However, this report will examine the operation of Woolworth’s business especially in the Sunshine Marketplace, which is based in Sunshine, Melbourne, and the various risks and threats that it is facing from its market competitors. Woolworths is one of the major sources of diverse consumer products. It supplies various retail products to its customers. The products that its supplies include a large range of things including bakery, fresh vegetables, jewelries, stationery items, baby items, pet items, cosmetics, liquor, food and many other products of daily use. This retail chain manges the most recognized and trusted brands like the Macro, Fresh etc in order to deliver world class experience to its consumers at every level (Nhedzi, 2015).
According to the data of 2016, Sunshine is an exurb with a total population of nine thousand seven hundred sixty eight (Couch, 2016). Vietnamese, English, Australian, Chinese and Irish are th most dominantnt groups that are dwelling in this multicultural suburb. Near about 60 percent of the total dwellers in this place are in mature stage of life i.e., 25 to 55 years and they live as a family. Both the Woolworths and ALDI have store in the Sunshine marketplace. ALDI is the major competitor of Woodworths and therefore, they compete for customers every now and then. The Sunshine demographics consist of veteran soldiers. They refuse those who favor to buy higest quality products of Australia. This report shall discuss elaborately on the industry and the market analysis of the Woolworths in the Sunshine marketplace.
Product
As a part of the marketing mix, Woolworths supplies every type of grocery items to its customers. With the same, it also supplies fruits, meats, vegetables, and other packaged products. Recently, they have also started selling DVDs, magazines and stationery items. It provides a wide range of choice to their customers related to the brands, international cuisine and local produce. Hence, it is true to say that Woolworths never leave its customers unsatisfied, when it comes to the question of choice. In addition to that, it maintains lower productivity cost than others (Al-Deb & Ashraf, 2014). Furthermore, this retailer diversified variety of products, ranging from bangs, furniture, jewelries, bedding to clothing and accessories. Such a wide portfolio has helped the company in catering all the customer needs like a one stop store where they will find everything they want.
Price
Woolworths tries to maintain a similar or a bit higher product prices in comparison to the market. As mentioned above, it offers a large variety of products to the customers and it offers a large range of premium brands in the food chain. Therefore, Woolworths first examine the buying pattern of the targeted customers then implements its effective pricing strategy. The prices of the products are kept ruthless in market (Mintz & Currim, 2013). In addition, it serves both the customer segments that prefer low prices as well as the high ones. It also offers various reward to its customers, for example, it conducts frequent shopper club reward program at the Tasmania store that offers 20 dollars voucher for the customers who gathers 2000 points. However, the products in the online store of Woolworths have somewhat higher prices than that of in the physical stores. Woolworths shopping cards are also provided by them that automatically track the purchases and with the same, offers the fuel discounts that are applicable so that the need to retain the paper receipts gets lessens.
Place
At present, Woolworths operates in about 1000 stores all over Australia (Luo, Roach & Jiratchot, 2015). Among these, more than 950 are the supermarkets and the rest others are convenience stores. Few of these stores operate as the Safeway stores in Melbourne. They also sell their products online and at the same time, they have also developed a smart phone application for operating their business and purchasing. Woolworth Select, Woolworth Home brand, Woolworths Fresh and Woolworths gold, are some of the private label brands supplied by Woolworths. In New Zealand, its stores are located in Austria, Mexico, United Kingdom and Germany. While in South Africa, it runs stores such as the Marks N Spencer. It comprises of outlets in these regions and have a wide range of distribution network.
Promotion
Substantial promotional channel aid a company to attain its target customers and earn more profit from the market (Gordon, 2012). Promotion has always been the anxious importance for the Woolworths and they have always been innovating in this area (Armstrong et al., 2014). As it is discussed earlier that, the Woolworths offers wide number of loyalty schemes for its customers that include the fuel discount as well. In the year 1987, it has launched a campaign called Fresh Food People that continued until the year 2012. It also offers extensive deals and gift cards for the Woolworths shoppers. In addition to that, they also operate through online stores and offer discounts to the buyers there as well. They make the use of both media and magazines or newsletters in order to promote their business. Easy availability and accessibility have helped Woolworths to gather a large number of loyal customers. An extensive promotion of the company is done through online media.
Processes
Woolworths is equipped with tremendously customer friendly processes and emphasis on its customer satisfaction. It gives a wide variety of services and products to its customers that include high priced as well as cheap priced products. However, the process aspects in the supermarkets refers to the fast billing services and gaining of the products bought, online as well as offline (Huang and Sarigollu, 2014). The company ensures that these processes are faster and it carefully takes the feedback from the customers on the same in order to continuously innovate this process and make it more easy (Flax, Bick & Abratt, 2016). This in turn will help the company to maintain its place and also to compete with its other competitors in the market.
Physical Evidence
Each of the Woolworths stores is neat, clean and attractive. With the same, they are customer friendly so that it gets easy for them to navigate through every category of products. Various offers that are provided to customers are planned in such a way that they attract more and more customers towards the brand. The website of the Woolworths is also very catchy and attractive and at the same time, it is simple and easy for the visitors to operate. In addition to that, Woolworths make use of different billboards in order to create visibility. The retail stores of Woolworths that it has in itself is the major physical prove of its presence. Various different hoardings and billboards that are present all over the city are also the evidence that shows that it is present in the market. With the same, the company also distribute bags with its own brand name and logo to the product buyers in the shop. They also publish financial reports that are made public. These factors together cover the Woolworths marketing mix.
People
At present, Woolworths operates with a total workforce of about 2000 and it tends to increase the same by 1600 more in the near future. The excellent sales assistants of Woolworths play a major role after its success and fame to great extent. The main objective of the company is customer satisfaction (Jahanshani et al., 2014). In Woolworths, each of its employees is well competent, efficient and they contribute equally. It ensures that its business team bonds well with its customers. With the same, it also follows the destination zero policy in which the zero harm to the employees as well as the environment is assured. The key people of this company are Mr. F.W Woolworth and Mr. Charles Woolworth, who are the CEO and founder of Woolworths respectively.
Partnerships
Woolworth is one of the principal partners of the Jamie’s Ministry of Food in Australia. It began its partnership with Jamie’s Ministry of Food in the year 2014 and this partnership has continued to develop further with Woolworths becoming its principal partner in 2015. It is committed towards serving the entire Australia with freshest products and ingredients. It has also entered into a partnership with the Worldwide Fund for Nature South Africa (WWF-SA) in the year 2013. At present the WWF and Woolworths are collaborating on life cycle assessment of beef production in South Africa (Stausebach, 2016). It has also entered into a partnership with the BP company for sale of its state network of about 527 sites of service stations.
Product
One of the Woolworths’ powerful points in order to maintain its customer segment has been its liquor and food products. Hence, these products are to be a major point to begin its improvements with. The products perform to be the foremost and the most important aspect in a business for improving a business (Mitra, 2016). Good product adds to be one, which is universally used as well as suggested to the friends and family members by the customers. Woolworths is already having various facilities as well as entertainment options such as marketing cards and value cards concerning their food or grocery products, and the Woolworths’ customers has received them well and therefore, for the corporation, the food products must be the strongest point in order to make on the further improvements. The product quality of Woolworths is not that good. There are several cases, where it is seen that the company was failed to supply fresh foods to its customers. Therefore, it is suggested that Woolworths should ensure that it is providing good and fresh quality foods and products to its customer on a daily basis.
Price
Price is the other vital sector for implementing improvements as well as to attract more customers towards the firm (Lin, Tan & Geng, 2013). Woolworths is already having various discount options. With the same, it also has comparatively lower price rates than that of the average market value. Still, there is a need for improvement in the product prices too in order to overcome the negative impacts that Woolworths currently has invited upon itself. To mild or eradicate the issue of wages and slavery from its customers and local people, it is important for the company to develop a strong and powerful base. Beside this, the online prices of the Woolworths products are very costly in comaprison with in store prices of the same products. However, it is nominal, but compute to be a burly amount when they are calculated altogether. The company needs to resolve this issue and upgrade the online prices as well. Thus, it is suggested that it should introduce new discount offers since; discounts are major tools for attracting public. This will help Woolworths to enhance its customer base.
Place
There is a need for more improvements in the availability of the products in Woolworth’s stores. Though Woolworths has a large range of products available for each of its customer segments, still, it needs improvements in the same. Its online retail store is serving its customers with verities of products but there is lacking in availability of the products in its physical stores, especially of the petrol and beverages, as they are some of the most popular products of the organization. For the online market, improvement is needed in the product prices as the company has faced few negative criticisms in the last years for its product prices and the discrepancy in between the store prices and online prices.
Promotion
Woolworths has taken up various Public Relation and marketing strategies for increasing its customer base. There is no doubt that Woolworths is one of the most famous retail stores in the world but it does have several issues in its marketing strategies (McCarthy, 2016). In current situation, improvement is needed and promotional strategies must be revived. Most importantly, in the current era, with the vacillated business for the destructive criticism of various issues, Woolworths has gained increasing threats on its business from the Coles and Aldi. However, these companies too have faced serious criticism for child labor and slaver. As Woolworths is the bad sufferer, it is in acute need in current times to upgrade and renew its promotional strategies. With the same, it needs to be more focused and inclined towards serving its customers. It can establish more PR strategies in order to maximize its potential customer base. Also, it should not make use of child labors in its work force.
Processes
Processes are the another fundamental area, which needs development and improvement in conduct of Woolworths. As the company has already confronted severe criticism concerning its ethical conduct. It has also faced serious loss in the revenue and marketing segment. Hence, processes should be renewed in order to prevent the stagnation and criticism. Along with that, the transparency in between the suppliers and the company needs to be improved. Furthermore, the company has faced many criticisms from the part of its suppliers for sending them invalid bills of improper amount. It has been found that the bills that the company used to give to the suppliers were dated 9 to 10 years back and for this, Woolworths could not provide valid reasons as well. Therefore, along with making further improvements the company must improve its communication or relation with its suppliers and at the same time, with its customers too.
Physical evidence
Elements such as product location, tidiness and appearance of a product play a major role in determining the physical strategy of a company (Kssenia, 2013). These factors influence the satisfaction level of the customers. Hence, Woolworths must focus more on these factors as well. These elements of the marketing mix will address the tactile components of the company’s image.
People
In current days, it is very important for Woolworths to develop its ethical conduct and the behavior and treatment of its employees towards its customers. Woolworths needs more and more customers in recent days and for this purpose, it is bound to improve its attitude towards its customers so that more public could get attracted towards this corporation. Woolworths has received several negative criticisms from the part of its customers for the treatment and behavior of its employees in its stores as well as for the arrogance of higher authority members. In current times, such type of grievances and complaints need to be avoided from the part of the employees and authorities in order to develop the relationship of the company with its customers (Eichom, 2017). With the same, improvements should be done along with employing new people and for attending the customers. Furthermore, improvements are also needed in employee’s codes of conduct.
Partnerships
Woolworths is in healthy partnership with many famous companies including BP and WWF. It should ensure that each of its partner’s expectation and needs are addressed carefully and it must start by creating a shared mission & vision. Furthermore, it must utilize and identify the strengths of each of its partners. This will make a great difference in the long-term commitment, motivation and success.
Conclusion
From the above analysis, it can be said that the service marketing mix strategies are the integral aspect of every business. It is recognized from the above discussion that the strategies of the service marketing mix of Woolworths are very nicely managed and well-structured. It is one of the most popular as well as best supermarket chains in the Australian region. These strategies are helping Woolworths to maximize its customer base and help getting more number of peoples. However, there are few problems that are identified in its marketing mix strategies that are needed to be addressed as soon as possible in order to maintain its reputation in the market in the near future as well but by the well-structured marketing strategies of the corporation; it is not that difficult to overcome these identified issues. Hence, it can be concluded that with the help of a suitable marketing strategy, Woolworths could easily overcome the gaps in its overall operation and that the successful service marketing mix strategies are the fundamental in order to get organizational success
References
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