WAL-MART
Customer-driven marketing strategy
The company, based in Bentonville, Ark., has reached such enormous size that it has been compared to General Motors in the 1950s and Standard Oil in the early decades of the 20th century.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, told the New York Times recently that "Wal-Mart is the greatest thing that ever happened to low-income Americans. They can stretch their dollars and afford things they otherwise couldn't."
Wal-Mart ranked number one on the Fortune 500 list of America ’s largest companies because of its almost $259 billion in sales. The second-largest company on the list was oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. with $213 billion in revenues, followed by car makers General Motors and Ford, whose revenues totaled $196 billion and $164 billion, respectively.
Marketing concept is the marketing management philosophy that holds that achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfaction better than competitors do.
As a result of its latest growth spurt, the company with the “always low prices” market positioning has revenues that represent a stunning 2.3% of U.S. gross domestic product. It’s about operations. Wal-Mart has focused on driving costs down and giving money back to the customer rather than putting it in the bank. As for selling themselves, Wal-Mart has a very simple marketing strategy. Give people really cheap prices and have friendly employees.
All businesses are vulnerable to competitors and Wal-Mart is no different. At least 25 major chain stores, including F.W. Woolworth, have closed their doors since 1980. The forces that lead to trouble for retailers include: dramatic changes in customer buying tastes and ...