Coles And Woolworths: Marketing Strategies And Competitive Advantage (Essay).

Section 1: Coles Supermarket

Discuss about the Case Study of Coles and Woolworths.

Australia has distinction in supermarket retail sector of being one of the most intensive in the world. Marketing plays a major role to enhance the productivity of the employees. It includes product, place, promotional strategy and price. In this report all information about marketing of Coles and Woolworth will be covered. Marketing process and competitive gain of both companies will be discussed in this report separately which will be helpful for the further study. Coles is a supermarket which is situated in Australia. It is the company which is owned by Wesfarmers. On the other hand Woolworth is a grocery supermarket of Australia. These are the wide supermarkets which have number of supermarkets in all over the world (Ahmed, 2016)

Coles Supermarket

Coles Supermarket is the wide super market in Australia which has more than 11,000 staffs. In the fiercely competitive Australian retail marketplace, Cole market offers outstanding services to their customers. It is the aim of the company to provide the better services and quality to the customers so that the best memory of the quality and services will keep in their mind. “To give people of Australia a shop they trust, delivering quality, service and value is the goal of Coles. Coles is conscious regarding hygienist within the supermarket like checking for smooth trolleys, decreasing the time of queue for customers, enhance the marketing technology so that manual work can be reduced and opening the entrances (Turner and Mortimer, 2014). These marketing strategieshave been accepted by every store Of Coles which will be helpful to enhance the sales of supermarket. There are some key motivators of the company that covered the area of flexibility, opportunities, money and security. The market process of Coles is covering into 5 parts. Firstly, Coles understand the needs and demand of customer after that design a marketing strategy on the basis of demand. After designing it construct an integrated program to grab the customer. In the fourth step, it creates a profitable relationship with customer and make them feel delight after that it maintain the relationship with customers for a long time by providing delighting services.

Woolworth supermarket

The first store of Wools worth was opened in 1924 in Sydney as a bargain basement outlet. By acquisition and expansion, Woolworth has become the wider supermarket chain in Australia which have 31% market share. The marketing strategy of Woolworth is different from another and it is the key strength of Woolworths that make differentiate its strategy and products and secure its place in the largest supermarket of Australia (Lawley, Birch and Craig, 2016). Woolworth focuses on advertising through newspaper, magazines, televisions and leaflets. The focus of Woolworth is on meeting customers. It is the main aim of the supermarket to deliver right products with lower price and effective shopping experiences across all over brands. The key process of Woolworths is to stop need less work so that extra time cannot consume anywhere and provide high quality of services to the customers (Arli, Dylke, Burgess, Campus and Soldo, 2013)

Section 2: Woolworths Supermarket

Evidence of marketing success Coles supermarket

Coles is successful supermarket in Australia and it has more than 720 branches in which approximately 90,000 employees are working. The present market strategy of Coles is geared towards the food and fuel customers. Coles is successful grocery supermarket because it improved the experience of customer shopping by reducing the queue system and adapting the new technology. Coles expanded its market share such as lower price of Coles supermarkets helped to enhance food and liquor sales by 4.8 percent to $7.6 billion during the first fourth month of 2016 financial year. Coles is the supermarket which has been evaluated that the market share of Coles has been enhanced in the first quarter which is an effective outcome in this competitive advantage (Akkizidis and Stagars, 2015).

Figure 1: Marketing success circle of Coles

Source: (Akkizidis and Stagars, 2015

The buyer power of Coles is significant in the fresh produce market, which affects not only to the supplier but also the quality of the end product. Coles is a demand oriented supermarket which is able to satisfy the needs of the customers appropriately. For instance seasonable produces such as apple, grapes and other fruits is being kept at the atmosphere which is controlled and artificially has been ripened by Coles supermarket to satisfy the constant demand of customers (Mortimer, 2016). Competitive advantages of Coles are low price, well treated employees, wide variety of products and good communication network.

Woolworth supermarket

Woolworth is successful because it has long term and short term marketing strategy. In the short term marketing strategy Woolworth mainly focus on to offer organic and GM free foods. Wool worth has participated in CSR activities which will be helpful to enhance the goodwill of the company appropriately. Woolworth is successful supermarket company because in the long term marketing strategy the main focus of Woolworth is to increase the R & D finance for evaluating the reason of alcoholic related diseases. Despite the intensive competition, Woolworth was able to take growth by 10.7% in its sales. The market success of Woolworth is done due to efficient human resource management, partnership and alliance management, brand image and quality of fresh food. Woolworth had a major investment on cutting prices and the comparison of last year Woolworth has grown by 4.9 percent (Competition  and Consumer Commission, 2014). Woolworth believes in acquisition and expansion to attain a profit and due to this the market share of this supermarket is 31% in Australia. To gain a market success, the main aim of Woolworth is to satisfy the need of the employees so that they could be able to handle the customers gently.

Section 3: Evidence of Marketing success - Coles Supermarket

Analysis and Explanation

To analyze the Coles and Woolworths supermarket, porter’s five models will be taken which describe the external environmental analysis of both companies. With the help of five factor of porter, company would be able to understand the structure of the field in which it is working and stake out an action that is more beneficial and less vulnerable to attack (Sutton-Brady, Kamvounias and Taylor, 2015).

Woolworths

Bargaining power of buyers: The supermarket of Woolworth mostly offers homogenous products which are at lower cost in comparison of other stores. Thus, the buyer of Woolworths has extremely high bargaining power.

Bargaining power of Suppliers:  the bargaining power of suppliers of Woolworths is totally depending upon the brand name of the suppliers. The bargaining power of suppliers is high moderate.

Industry substitute: the availability of the supermarket or grocery store in Australia is high to moderate because there are so many stores such as online stores, grocery stores. Customers are willing to pay high amount for no queues, easy availability and closer to home.

Threat of new entrants: it has been evaluated that to make supermarket, it is required to huge land and investment which is not possible to everyone so the barriers to entry in supermarket is considered as moderate (Coles, Xhelili and Kessler, 2016).

Rivalry among competitors: the rivalry between competitors is considered as an intensive.

Conclusion of Woolworths

It has been concluded thatWoolworths has understood the business of supermarket and expand its market in all over the world. It added value to its activities to make its customers satisfied from its services. It has been seen that Woolworths is dominant player in the market of retail.

Coles

Bargaining power of buyers: the range of products and services of Coles is lower due to homogenous products which enhance the bargaining power of buyers due to price sensitivity and number of buyers.

Bargaining power of Suppliers:   the bargaining power of suppliers of Coles is high moderate but it decide it range based on  number of suppliers, size of suppliers and cost of changing.

Industry Substitute:As a supermarket it has to face this challenge because there are so many stores which are able to fulfill the demand of customers at lower rate.

Threat of new entrants: Coles is a largest supermarket of Australia as it has number of branches of its store in all over Australia. The threat of new entrants is lesser for Coles Supermarket and it is moderate.

Section 4: Analysis and Explanation

Rivalry among competitors: customer loyally, number of competitors, switching cost are some of the reason of rivalry among competitors. In the case of Coles Supermarket the rivalry between competitors is considered as an intensive.

Conclusion of Coles

It has been concluded that Coles is a supermarket which has the largest impact on supermarkets of Australia. In spite of competitor of Woolworths, Coles play a major role in the industry of supermarkets in Australia. The bargaining power of buyers is extremely high of Coles Supermarket.

Conclusion

It has been concluded that Australia is a country who has number of supermarkets which is largest in all over the Australia. Coles and Woolworths are example of them which has largest impact on supermarket industry of Australia. In this report the journal articles of Coles and Woolworths has been taken to describe the company goals and the way of success. In the section of evidence of success the description of success strategy of both companies has been elaborated. There are so many branches of both supermarkets in the Australia in which more than 90,000 employees are working. To analyze the companies, porter’s five models has been taken which described the bargaining power of buyers, suppliers, industry substitute, threats of new entrant and rivalry among competitors of both companies.  The retail industry in Australia is efficient and mature enough which has intensely competitive with a low profit so it is recommended that it is not an attractive industry to enter.

References

Ahmed, F., 2016. Online grocery shopping in Jyväskylä: Business models & Demand.

Akkizidis, I. and Stagars, M., 2015. Marketplace lending, Financial Analysis, and the Future of credit: Integration, Profitability, and risk management. John Wiley & Sons.

Arli, V., Dylke, S., Burgess, R., Campus, R. and Soldo, E., 2013. Woolworths Australia and Walmart US: Best practices in supply chain collaboration. Journal of Economics, Business & Accountancy Ventura, 16(1).

Coles, N., Xhelili, A. and Kessler, A., 2016. SUPPLY CHA! NGE in European Food Chains.In Business Forum Report. Wuppertal. This report can be downloaded at www. supplychainge. org/the-business-forum Forum organized by Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP) HagenauerStrasse (Vol. 30, p. 42107).

Competition, A. and Consumer Commission, 2014. ACCC takes action against Coles and Woolworths for allegedly breaching fuel shopper docket undertakings. Canberra (AUST): ACCC.

Johnston, R., Stafford, J., Pierce, H. and Daube, M., 2017.Alcohol promotions in Australian supermarket catalogues. Drug and alcohol review, 36(4), pp.456-463.

Lawley, M., Birch, D. and Craig, J., 2016. 20 Managing sustainability in the seafood supply chain. A Stakeholder Approach to Managing Food: Local, National, and Global Issues, 4, p.284.

Mortimer, G., 2016. ALDI gives suppliers, as well as shoppers, greater choice: Retail expert. Journal of the Home Economics Institute of Australia, 23(2), p.39.

Sutton-Brady, C., Kamvounias, P. and Taylor, T., 2015.A model of supplier–retailer power asymmetry in the Australian retail industry.Industrial marketing management, 51, pp.122-130.

Turner, K. and Mortimer, G., 2014. How your shopping choices will help Coles and Woolworths take on the banks. The Conversatio