Oliver's Market Case Study

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Steve Oliver Maass purchased a grocery store that was in bankruptcy back in 1988, in Cotati, CA, mortgaging his house to come up with the payment of $200,000. Although he had no grocery store experience besides working in the produce department of one, he felt he could not do any worse than the previous owner did. The store was run down and a mess requiring a lot of cleaning. With limited funds, he was only able to paint instead of doing much remodeling, as he wanted to do. Maass renamed the store Oliver’s Market after his middle name, and he and his wife worked the store for the first four years. During those years, Oliver’s added a Service deli and a Health foods section. Following the format of Whole Foods, Oliver’s carried a section of organic health foods and included conventional items as well.

Oliver’s hires local workers and buys many locally produced goods, providing the local economy with more jobs and income. The key strategy of Oliver’s Market is to help sustain Sonoma County and encourage others to do so as well. Oliver’s bought 22.2 percent of its goods from within Sonoma County (Napa-Marin-Sonoma). The atmosphere within Oliver’s Markets is a casual and relaxed style with the employees wearing jeans and T-shirts and/or baseball caps with the Oliver’s logo.

Oliver’s opened its second store in April of 2000 in Santa Rosa, CA fashioning it after Woodlands Market, another Organic Health food store. Unfortunately, in the early 2000’s with the increase of discount superstores, club stores, dollar stores and drugstores, there was a decline in the traditional retailers’ market share from 82.3 percent down to 69.2 percent. Increases in giant retailers will be one of Oliver’s biggest competitive pressur...

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... has increased in Santa Rosa according to the U.S, Census Statistics. Although Oliver’s does not cater to them, their policy is to bring into the store items that customers wish to buy. Should Oliver’s consider expanding? I believe that they show the funds and the personal needed to open another store. With Steve not wishing to put in the hours that he has in the past, expanding beyond the three stores would be too much.

Works Cited

Napa-Marin-Sonoma, Northbay Biz. The Economics of Going Local . February 2012. 2 January 2014 .

Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, Strickland. "Oliver's Market." Business Policy and Strategy . McGraw-Hill, 2013. 367-386.

"The Economics of Going Local: Oliver’s Market as a Case Study"

http://www.oliversmarket.com/assets/files/goLocal-042111.pdf

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