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Target vs walmart competitive advantage
Target vs walmart competitive analysis
Target vs walmart competitive analysis
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TARGET HISTORY
In 1902, George Draper Dayton decided that the Midwest market was booming, moreover, Minneapolis was the best location to achieve the strongest growth opportunities to form Dayton Dry Goods Company, which is presently known as Target Corporation. In 1962 the iconic bullseye logo was created. The reasoning behind the choice was, "As a marksman's goal is to hit the center bullseye, and Target would do much the same in terms of retail goods, services, commitment to the community, price, value and overall experience." Target differentiates itself from other retail stores by combining many of the best department store features — fashion, quality and service — with everyday low prices. By 1969, Target saw the need for a distribution
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center which was opened in Fridley, Minnesota to serve as a warehouse to store and ship trailer loads to all their stores.
In 1988, Target introduced UPC bar-code packaging. By doing this, Target positioned itself as a retail leader and gained a competitive edge by becoming the first mass merchandiser to introduce UPC scanning at its stores and distribution centers. This strategy provided better inventory management, and a reduction of checkout lane wait times. This new technology provided Target customers with a more enjoyable shopping experience. In 1994, Target differentiated itself with its Brand Promise “Expect More. Pay Less to offer shoppers value, quality items and service in a store that provided a fun shopping experience. Over the years, Target continued to be innovative such as becoming the first mass retailer to offer social network connectivity at Kodak picture kiosks. Target further added to this social networking by launching Target.com in 1999 to allow guests to shop from their homes. 2012 gave way to the development of mobile apps that enhanced the shopping experience by giving shoppers the opportunity to shop from …show more content…
practically anywhere. 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Target is an invaluable company in the world of retail, nevertheless, they can sometimes lag behind in terms of efficiency when compared to their main competitors, Walmart and Amazon. In order for Target to gain the competitive advantage, we have meticulously analyzed different areas of Target’s operations in order to develop new strategies and solutions to give them a competitive edge in the marketplace. By analyzing Target’s profit leverage effect, conducting a SWOT analysis, moreover, thinking outside the box for new strategies, we were able to come up with a variety of solutions. The solutions we came up with include but are not limited to: more efficient customer forecasting to reduce stockouts and reduce logistics costs, utilizing technology to improve communication as well as stay up to date on current trends, developing new systems to attract more customers to Target, and partnering with Amazon in order to increase customer base as well as sales. The highest recommended courses of action include the areas of technology as well as partnering with other businesses/entities. By implementing these strategies, we believe that Target will have a much better chance at emerging into a more profitable and sustainable corporation. 2.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Target Corporation is among one of three big box retailers seeking to enhance its supply chain and find collaborative strategies to effectively and efficiently increases its online and traditional in store experience for customers. Target’s challenge is to keep prices low and conversely offer high-quality items moreover, the internet allows shoppers to do comparison shopping and reduce sales opportunities.
However, Target’s current strategy based on benchmark analysis with its core competitors reveal that their metrics lag the competitors.
In 2016, Target’s profit leverage effect was $13.99, accordingly a dollar saved in logistics is comparable to $13.99 in new sales. This was a slight increase from 2015 amount of $13.34. The opportunity exists for Target to manage their logistics costs to increase profits. Lower logistics costs can lead to lower prices and can help Target to increase their market share potential to compete with retailers such as Walmart and Amazon. These two companies reported a profit leverage effect of $20.30 and $32.49 for the same period. Evidently it is hard not to conclude that Walmart and Amazon have the advantage when it comes to lower logistics
costs. Now that we have identified the problem, we will provide options for Target to boost omnichannel capacity, enhance the experience for shoppers, and increase online sales capacity by providing cost effective solutions to integrate in its supply chain. 1. Forecast customer demand to ensure that we reduce instances of stock-outs, avoid having excess inventory to reduce logistics costs. 2. With the utilization of existing technology and data analysis to improve communication throughout the supply chain can add new business, improve product offering, stay ahead of trends, changes in consumers demand and spending habits and adjust inventory to capture the changing trends. 3. Develop processes and systems to continuously protect shoppers and supply chain partners data to regain trust and attract more shoppers to Target.com. 4. Partner with Amazon in a variety of ways in order to increase customer base as well as sales.
Compared to its rivals Target has not diversified in the retail industry, which makes the company vulnerable to changing shopping patterns and economic downturns.
Target has many competitors in the market, and the level of competition is highly intense. Some of its main rivals are Wal-Mart stores, Home Depot and Costco Wholesale Corp. All of them produce similar products as well as offer almost the same services to their consumers. Naturally, the organization would need a strategy that helps it to stand out and to distinguish it from its competitors, thus, Target 's positioning was based on more than just pricing; it combined quality and style. This was the differentiation strategy that have always been applied since the launch of the organization.
Target stores, inc.is a sister company of Dayton Hudson Corporation and started in the year 1962 the same year as two other large retail stores Wal-mart and Kmart. Target has always operated with the motto “ Expect More and Pay Less” target is the third in the big three in U.S. falling behind Wal-Mart and Kmart.a major part of target's success comes from its ability to bundle bargain prices with fashionable name brand merchandise with excellent customer service. Dayton’s department store started looking into Target as a discount chain in the year of 1962 when the company saw a rising in public demand for lower priced merchandise in a family friendly and convenient environment. The name target along with the bulls eye logo were selected for the company's visual impact also to show that target aims at offering
For example in the economic forces they work to provide higher end discounted items to keep the profits up by allowing shoppers to have quality and cost savings. In the technological forces, Target has used the increase use of mobile platforms to allow their customers to shop online and pick up in the store by saving time. With the political-legal forces Target works to provide a safe and non-discriminating environment for all customers. Environmental forces are taken in to effect by looking at better waste recycling management to decrease their carbon footprint. Target works hard to represent the values and mores of their customer base, by being actively involved within the community and addressing current social
According to www.targetcorp.com, Target is an upscale discount retail chain that sells quality products at attractive prices, and prides itself on clean, spacious, and guest-friendly stores. Target is the second largest "general merchandise" retailer (behind Wal-Mart); selling almost anything one would need to complete the "one stop shop", especially with the addition of the SuperTarget stores. The first Target opened in Roseville, Minnesota in 1962. Since then, 1,330 stores located in forty-seven different states, which includes the 141 SuperTarget stores, have opened nationwide. Target also has twenty-two distribution centers located in nineteen states. In addition to the vast number of store locations, Target also has other businesses that include: Target.com, Target Financial Services, Associated Merchandising Corporation, and Target commercial Interiors. Through all the key businesses, Target employs nearly 300,000 people from diverse backgrounds. The current Chairman and CEO of Target is Bob Ulrich.
Target is also a company that is built on ethics. With integrity instilled in all of their team members, everyone helps to uphold Target’s great reputation and maintain their morals of honesty and family. Another big part of Target’s company culture is their focus on community service. After working for Target, one is truly able to understand the meaning of giving back. At Target, team members dedicate their volunteer hours to work with schools, nonprofit organizations, charities etc. to make a difference in the world.
Target Corporation being a retail industry, the structure by product grouped to a functional level practices works the best. This is necessary for the other functional levels to collaborate as a single team to produce a positive customer shopping experience. Target Corporation further divided the functional level into a geographic area to exercise management tasks effectively with the given authority. Each structure of the management at the geographic level has a strategy discussion, a line of communication, growth, and progress reporting according to the corporate reporting plan. Jana Potts who manages Target Corporation store has closer to 300, 000 employees working for her and the effective can be improved if the role is broken within domestic into channels, stores into broader segments and a separate global position. The rapidly growing online channel and global expansion are necessary to support Target Corporation's strategy of internal growth and sustain it for long term sustainability. These structural changes will allow Target Corporation to connect with its employee at a functional level and bring changes faster, track and monitor the
In December 2013, Target was attacked by a cyber-attack due to a data breach. Target is a widely known retailer that has millions of consumers flocking every day to the retailer to partake in the stores wonders. The Target Data Breach is now known as the largest data breach/attack surpassing the TJX data breach in 2007. “The second-biggest attack struck TJX Companies, the parent company of TJMaxx and Marshall’s, which said in 2007 that about 45 million credit cards and debit cards had been compromised.” (Timberg, Yang, & Tsukayama, 2013) The data breach occurred to Target was a strong swift kick to the guts to not only the retailer/corporation, but to employees and consumers. The December 2013 data breach, exposed Target in a way that many would not expect to see and happen to any major retailer/corporation.
Target’s collection and possible sale of private information could go against basic principles of confidentiality since people trust that they are not revealing information that is confidential. One expects that their personal information is protected and not just provided to anyone who is willing to pay for it. At the same time, people expect Target not to be buying influence ...
Target Corporation is the biggest discount retailing business in the US which comes just after Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The headquarters are located in Minneapolis in Minnesota in the USA. George Dayton founded it. It initially started as a family business with a regional retailer shop and later grew into a national full retailer store. The company’s main aim is to offer retail services at friendly rates and, its main attracting feature is discount rates offed on different products in the business. The company has indicated tremendous growth in the retail business. It has a target to outgrow its market and achieve competitive advantage over its competitors. This essay seeks to discuss the competitive analysis and
The author of this website, which would be the National Council on Public History, is specifically looking at what exactly is public history and what exactly is meant by public history. Public History can be defined as history in the field. It is the use of history in real life situations. It is history applied and goes outside the realm of academic history. The author does mention that while there used to be clear definitions between public and academic history with public history being more multi-disciplinary, history as an academic subject has also increasingly become multi-disciplinary. Public historians have many different names such as archivists, museum professionals, and local historians. The author’s main argument surrounding these definitions of public history is that there are different forms of history with public history being the kind that the average person sees. Public historians can deeply impact their local communities and many collaborate with local community members on projects to ensure that the history they’re detailing is that of the community who is affected by it. The author does note that while many public history projects can be educational, the purpose might be more for an intellectual history like for a business’s archives. Public history projects could also be used to promote the local town or for the town’s own economic development.
1. The Discount Department Store. Target prefers to be called as the latter instead of just department store. Expect more, pay less. With this tagline, the customers expect to purchase more items and pay the least amount possible. Not like other retail industries like its competitor Kmart and Wal-Mart, Target maintains retail value in terms of product offerings. They are known in their designer’s items in clothes, exclusive beauty products, categorized and functional goods, and seasonal offerings. It also sells the greatest number of gift cards among its rival business.
The Target Corporation formerly known as “The Dayton Dry Goods Company” is a major retailing company that was founded in 1902 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by George Draper Dayton. It is ranked the second largest discount retailer in the United States and ranked thirty- sixth on the Fortune 500 as of 2013. The Target Corporation has been serving this nation with the best price possible goods since their expansion from “Dayton” and is continuously winning the hearts of consumers with their dedication and service. A phenomenal merchandising strategy and cross channeling has enabled this upscale discounter to serve their purpose of customer loyalty and fulfill their promise of “Expect more and Pay less”.
In 1995, Target began offering credit which was known as the Target Guest Card (Target Through the Years). This was a big step for the company in establishing customer loyalty and relations through the use of technology. By 2004, the cards were renamed REDcards and were able to create data portfolios to help Target figure out product demands and create different routes to satisfy their customers even more (Target through the Years). This was a huge step for Target and their use of technology to better their
On the Target website, it is stated that their mission is to, ”…fulfill the needs and fuel the potential of our guests. That means making Target your preferred shopping destination in all channels by delivering outstanding value, continuous innovation and exceptional experiences—consistently fulfilling our Expect More. Pay Less.® brand promise” (Target Corp). It has 1,799 stores in the United States alone and has locations in India. In 2014, they made $72.6 Billion. Similar to Wal-Mart, Target sells household essentials, apparel, groceries, pet supplies. health, beauty items, home furnishing, entertainment, and electronics. Both also have their own branded items to sell at a lower price than the commercial brands, and each corporation also has a