History Of The Product And Branding Of JB Hi-Fi

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3. Product and branding of JB Hi-Fi’s home theatres
If we refer to products, people often take them as the things we get from suppliers with a price. Apparently, this is a definition from the perspective of exchanges and does not quite catch the essence of the meaning of product in the marketing discipline. In this regard, Rothschild (2009) offered a probably better definition for products as a bundle of benefits for customers. This definition also offers an important perspective for JB Hi-Fi to understand its products. Because after all, JB Hi-Fi is only a retailer and all its home theatre products are sourced from their manufacturers. If JB Hi-Fi only sees its products as the tangible parts, it may miss out the very important parts of the competition. However, if JB Hi-Fi sees the product as a bundle of benefits it can offer to its customers, the tangible part is only part of this bundle. There is much more for JB Hi-Fi to offer to improve the benefits to customers, and at the same time differentiate itself from its competitors.
Product life cycle is an important marketing concept which divides the sales history of a product into distinctive stages (Vashisht, 2005). These different stages would present their own opportunities and opportunities and thus call for different strategies for marketing practitioners. Generally, a product would goes through four stages including introduction, growth, maturity and decline. Home theatre products seem to head towards its declining stage with its sales dropped by about 10% in 2012 in Australia (Euromonitor International, 2013). Its profit is also dropping with more generous pricing competition in this market. However, there is a new trend emerging that could transform the competition landsc...

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...ck and mortar stores and online stores. All these products flow through the same supply chain before they gets customers. However, JB Hi-Fi’s distribution is not thoroughly horizontally integrated. For example, customers could not order a product online and pick it up in a brick and mortar store. Even though JB Hi-Fi did not try to vertically integrate its distribution channel since it is only a retailer, it still tried to offer its customers with best services and efficiency by strengthening its cooperation with its suppliers. For example, customers could check the status of their order through the website of JB Hi-Fi which has integrated information from delivery companies. Customers could also order products that are not in stock since JB Hi-Fi could quickly place an order to its suppliers and have it quickly delivered after it reaches the warehouse of JB Hi-Fi.

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