Marketing Strategy Analysis Of Coles Supermarket

Existing Marketing Strategies of Coles Supermarket

In increasingly competitive environment, an effective marketing strategy must be developed from effective market research and through focussing on product mix for attaining maximum profit and for business sustenance. Coles Supermarket is positioned as an Australian retail market that is a part of Wesfarmers Company and has around 741 stores (Coles, 2017). The objective of the paper is to evaluate the marketing strategies of Coles Supermarket long with recognising the primary and secondary target market of the company. Moreover, market segmentation along with consumer behaviour of Coles Supermarket is analysed in order to develop effective store layout and promotional mix.

Effective marketing strategy focus on all the aspects of selling conducts and facilitates all the aspects supports the next. Generation of integrated marketing strategy will facilitate a company in making better personal decisions considering particular marketing tactics. The effective marketing strategies that have facilitated Coles Supermarket in attaining competitive advantages are explained under:

• The marketing strategy of Coles Supermarket has facilitated the company in developing effective consumer relationships through retransforming marketing strategy. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) serves as an effective marketing strategy developed by the company in order to sustain its recent consumers and attain competitive edge (Ananda, Hernández-García & Lamberti, 2014). The company seems it important to acknowledge that the management and human resource management as vital drivers in generating more business for the company.
• For gaining competitive advantages, Coles Supermarket has developed innovative inventory programs that consider providing discount card for shopping for its target consumers. This serves as most effective strategy for attracting consumers even from its competitor.
• Coles Supermarkets has developed effective strategies in order to enhance supply chain processes that focussed on offering superior consumer services. Process streamlining is ensured by the company for decreasing expenses along with adding value to its target consumers (Hajar, 2014). The company has also considered simplifying purchasing process through employing only supermarket.

Coles Supermarket considers employing very marketing strategy based on the needs of the target consumers. This strategy is the effective strategy in order to ignore market segment differences along with targeting overall market along with market along with single offer. Coles Supermarkets will focus on the common needs of the target consumers devoid of the things that are different. This indicates that Coles Supermarket differentiates the target consumer to serve. The company serves as many target consumers from all segments as they can (Hollensen, 2015). Most of the consumer market segment visits Coles Supermarket for a common need. The target consumer market of the company also includes the individuals that demands low price product. For this reason, Coles Supermarket serves as a discounted store and it makes great attempt to serve more and more target consumers that has a common need in order to differentiate themselves from its competitors. Coles Supermarket offers quality services and products to its target consumers in order to attain competitive edge. Target consumer segment of the company is focussed on selecting mass, local and niche market demands in order to develop effective marketing and advertising strategies that will in turn increase the sales of fair-trade products through enhancing consumer satisfaction in a better manner (Keegan & Green, 2015).

Cole’s supermarket has considered segmenting its consumer market based on geographic segmentation in order to segment its consumer market. From the location of Coles Supermarket, it can observe that all its stores are situated within urban and sub urban location in order to serve consumers relied on population. Coles Supermarket segmentation is based on certain criteria that are explained under:

Accessible- The market segment of the company is observed to be reached and served effectively. The company can easily attain its target consumers through employing TV commercial, brochure, and direct mail along with segmenting its target market through sums (Kotler et al., 2015).

Measurable- The purchasing power, size along with profiles on the consumer segment might be measured. Market segment of Coles Supermarkets has more than 500,000 citizens along with its average income higher tan several rural or suburban regions (Venter, Wright & Dibb, 2015).

Primary and Secondary Target Market of Coles Supermarket

Differentiable- The segment are distinguishable along with responding in a distinct manner and based on the needs on the consumer segment marketing mix elements and Coles Supermarket develops programs. Marketing mix developed by the company employs just one marketing mix in order to reach total market that is focussed on offering lower price and it location is placed within densely populated region hic is surrounded by residential complexes.

Actionable- Efficient marketing programs might be developed in order to attract and serve the consumer market segment. Positioning strategy for the segmented consumers is “Cheapest price everyday” that attracts several consumers who looks for low priced retail products.

In order to increase the consumer value, consumer behaviour is analysed by Coles Supermarket that indicates the taste and preferences along with attitude and purchasing behaviour of the target consumers of the company. From analysing consumer behaviour, Coles Supermarket has realised that its target consumer prefers purchasing products of affordable prices. Based on the consumer behaviour of purchasing low priced products, Coles Supermarket attempts to maintain low pres for all its offerings without decreasing quality of all its products. The company focuses on maintaining cost advantages in order to address the tastes and preferences of all its target consumers (Lantos, 2015).

From evaluating the consumer behaviour, it has been gathered that, the consumers prefer using fair-trade products that includes youngsters, children and the middle-income group people. Considering the needs of the consumers, Coles Supermarkets considered implementation of targeting strategy. Based on the consumer behaviour, the company developed its positioning strategy (Pesonen, 2015). The company focussed on advertising all its fair-trade products among its middle aged and young people. Based on the tastes and preferences of its target consumers, the company focused on maintaining product quality and design. Pricing strategy of the products offered by Coles Supermarkets is set based on the behaviour of target consumer of purchasing affordable and superior quality products. Most of the offerings of Coles Supermarket was set in order to compete with other companies, cost plus pricing was set in order to develop effective pricing strategy for all its consumers. Cost based pricing is associated with setting prices relied on producing, distributing, selling offerings with a fair rate of return in order to offer quality products at an affordable price (Schiffman et al., 2013).

Conclusion

The objective of the paper is to evaluate the marketing strategies of Coles Supermarket long with recognising the primary and secondary target market of the company. Moreover, market segmentation along with consumer behaviour of Coles Supermarket is analysed in order to develop effective store layout and promotional mix. The paper has also revealed that from the location of Coles Supermarket, it can observe that all its stores are situated within urban and sub urban location in order to serve consumers relied on population. The company seems it important to acknowledge that the management and human resource management as vital drivers in generating more business for the company. Moreover, cost based pricing is associated with setting prices relied on producing, distributing, selling offerings with a fair rate of return in order to offer quality products at an affordable price.

References

Ananda, A. S., Hernández-García, Á., & Lamberti, L. (2014, June). RENL: A framework for social media marketing strategy. In 1st Annual EDIM PhD Conference, Milan, Italy (pp. 11-12).

Coles, 2017. [online] Available at: https://www.coles.com.au/about-coles/annual-reports [Accessed 14 Jun. 2017].

Hajar, I. (2014). Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning and Strategy of Radio Company in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention.

Hollensen, S. (2015). Marketing management: A relationship approach. Pearson Education.

Keegan, W. J., & Green, M. C. (2015). Global marketing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Kotler, P., Keller, K. L., Manceau, D., & Hémonnet-Goujot, A. (2015). Marketing management (Vol. 14). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Lantos, G. P. (2015). Consumer behavior in action: Real-life applications for marketing managers. Routledge.

Pesonen, J. A. (2015). Targeting Rural Tourists in the Internet: Comparing Travel Motivation and Activity-Based Segments. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 32(3), 211-226.

Schiffman, L., O’Cass, A., Paladino, A., & Carlson, J. (2013). Consumer behaviour. Pearson Higher Education AU.

Venter, P., Wright, A., & Dibb, S. (2015). Performing market segmentation: a performative perspective. Journal of Marketing Management, 31(1-2), 62-83.