lose their receipt and are still able to return their item which is another demonstration of the flexibility of the return policy. Firm’s steps to meet challenges Ross Stores may have many challenges that can result in loss of profit, but this can ultimately be changed when following the correct steps for each individual situation. Although the challenges are affecting the company to the point that sales are being lost, implementing the suggested solutions will increase sales and efficiency of the company. Following the solutions to each of the challenges will only improve the organization and make their success even bigger and thus allow for more expansion not only with the U.S. but also in other countries. The first solution will require Ross Stores acquire or develop an electronic inventory system. …show more content…
Regarding Ross Stores Inc.’s first issue, this organization needs to develop an electronic system to store their entire inventory. The inventory should be sorted by how much of a certain product each store has and which store has what item and by the category of each product. By having an electronic system for inventory in place, this will then reduce time for employees when giving information to customers on whether or not they have a certain product because they will not have to go physically to view the product. Not only will this create better customer satisfaction but it will also increase
Facts of the Case: In 2008, Samantha Elauf applied for a job at Abercrombie & Fitch, Inc., who as part of their “Look Policy” prohibit the use of caps. Elauf, as part of her religious practice, wore a headscarf to the interview. She was interviewed by assistant manager Heather Cooke, who gave her a score that qualified her to be hired. Cooke, however, was worried that Elauf’s headscarf was against the store’s policy and called her district manager Randall Johnson. She informed Johnson of her belief that Elauf wore her headscarf because of her religion, and Johnson replied that headwear whether it was religious or not violated the “Look Policy” of the store. Elauf with the help of the EEOC sued Abercrombie on the grounds of religious discrimination. The U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is an agency established by the government of the United States that imposes federal laws that make it
My company of choice for this report is Macy 's. 'The Magic of Macy 's ', as the company advertises it, has inspired me to shop there, take advantage of their incomparable discounts and great online shopping experience. Macy 's, Inc. is one of the largest department store chains in the United States of America. Macy 's manages stores under the Macy 's and Bloomingdale 's brands. I enjoy shopping at both of the company 's store brands, Macy 's and Bloomingdales. Bloomingdales provides a more personalized experience
A firm 's competitive advantage is achieved through offering customers a greater value, either by way of lower prices or by providing greater benefits and service that justifies a higher price. Nordstrom strengthens its competitive advantage and generic strategy through cost leadership and differentiation in order to differentiate themselves from other high end retailers. Nordstrom has consistently maintained a unique reputation from their establishment in 1901 to the today. Since developing a strong competitive advantage from inception, Nordstrom has been able to adapt to changing environments and market conditions to maintain their success. Nordstrom has set the bench mark in the retail sector through customer service and product quality.
What core competencies do you think the company has and what is needed to exploit opportunity and counter threats.
The purpose of this report is to understand the evolution of the inventory management of Amazon and how it has affected the company’s growth. This case study is both a practice case and a problem solving case, so the first section of this report focuses on the practices used by Amazon in the 4 stages and then in the second section we will solve the problem regarding their product returns problem and provide recommendations.
Happy Hat, a U.S. national chain of frozen yogurt stores with about 500 stores in 40 states is asking for assistance with its business processes. The average number of visitors per store has held constant over the past several years, but revenues per store are down by an average of 10%, and many stores are no longer profitable. The client suspects that a large amount of inventory is being thrown away unused at the end of each day. At the same time, customer polling suggests that the yogurt flavor customers want is often not available, even when the flavor is posted on the menu. People also complain about stores being closed when they visit. Now, the chain is facing increased competition from frozen yogurt sold in 24-hour grocery stores. Happy
How does managerial planning for Project Impact take place at different levels within the organization?
Analysis & Recommendation: Zara’s main strategy is the ability to respond very quickly to the demands of target customers which called for identifying trends of the customer in advance. The company has been able to identify the trends and meet the demand with the help of its autonomously organized structure and its effective value chain systems. The present system followed by Zara has been very effective and very easy to maintain, which as a result has persuaded the company to continue without any change in the present system so far. The problem that Zara faces right now is that the system that they use, P-O-S (Point of Sale terminals), runs on DOS which Microsoft does not support anymore and any hardware change in the POS terminal will not be compatible with the current POS software. Although the sense of urgency for the change may not be that high, investing in IT infrastructure is a must as MS Dos is an obsolete technology and there is no contract or guarantee from their POS terminal vendor that they will continue supplying the same terminal with out much changes in the hardware for any specific period of time, therefore change is unavoidable. The other main issue that Zara faces is that the stores don’t share inventory information electronically and hence inventory management becomes highly difficult and manual. The decision making process is based on the judgment of employees throughout the company instead of relying on a small set of decision makers; the majority of the decisions were made by store managers and as a result they placed orders for the items rather than simply accepting and displaying what headquarters decided to send them.
It is undeniable that Inventory Management is an important key to success at Walmart this paper will discuss the two main methods of Inventory Management used by Wal-Mart: Material Requirements Planning and Just-in Time. Next we write about the technical means of keeping track of inventories like RFID tags. We conclude with discussing how
On the other hand, most factors prove otherwise. The retail industry does not have high Economies of Scale to be exploited in general . Yet, it is impossible to run department stores like Metro on a small scale . A large retail space, inventory, and warehouse are necessary to host a specialized portfolio of brands and products to better attract both customers and suppliers. Heavy capital requirements and operational expen...
This paper describes the various aspects of the Zappos case. The objective is to evaluate the depth analysis of the Zappos strategy. It enables to determine the Zappos strategy, business model & marketing strategy, and smartness of the Zappos acquisition.
With so many options, accessibility, and knowledge it has become a challenge for large retail chains to maintain and grow in this modern era. Since the formation of the Sears Holding Corporation the firm as struggled to remain afloat. As the cost of capital continues to increase the executive decisions have become even more
Over the past couple of years, Walmart has boosted its e-commerce operations and bringing in a large portion of revenues from online sales (Aronow & Burkett, 2015, p. 20). Gartner Inc. describes Walmart as a “supply chain pioneer” that has continued its push into e-commerce and has expanded investment in multichannel drive-thru pick-up centers and a ‘click-and-collect’ grocery service offered at some of its stores (Aronow & Burkett, 2015, p. 20). One of the components of Walmart’s supply chain in which their success is heavily relied on is the continuous improvement of their supply management as a whole, particularly within their e-commerce division. According to an article on the website logistics company Cerasis, “Not only has Walmart excelled over the decades in traditional supply chain management but… is also focused on continuous improvement by investing more into emerging technologies to capture more of the e-commerce market…” (University of San Francisco, 2015). A concept that our class had discussed time and time again throughout the semester was the concept of continuous improvement. Any given organization or business is constantly focused on continuously improving their business for the better. For Walmart, they believe that the anticipatory action of investing in emerging technologies will help differentiate themselves from the competition
As a small grocery chain we are currently struggling to maintain our revenue stream and profitability against the competitive threats of the global warehouse chains (Costco, Wal-Mart, etc). We continue to find ourselves behind the curve in this competitive situation. These larger retailers have been able to use their greater resources and economies of scale to not only beat us on cost but also industry innovation. According to the electronic periodical Baseline, “Several dozen retailers and suppliers, including Unilever, Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, and Wal-Mart have signed on to the next generation UPC called the Electronic Product Code (EPC)”, (Mullin, 2002). With the implementation of this technology a customer will be able to virtually walk through a store, collect all their groceries, and walk out without ever having to stop for a cashier or checkout procedure. The electronic retail chain Best Buy, which sells electronic devices along with household appliances, implemented this technology in many of its stores and has increased revenue, along with customer satisfaction due to always having proper stock on hand. We believe that this innovation will have a profound effect on our customer base, especially the highly desired, short attention span, and technically astute demographic of the 20-45 year olds. There are many other large retailers looking at this technology for the same reason (increased revenue) and studies show that smaller retailers would be willing to implement this same technology if initial installation costs decreased (2002). Our groc...
The addition of a computerized register would make the flow of goods in and out of the Style Shop easier. By adding a computer to the store each Merchandising Society member would h...