Value Chain Analysis: Walmart, Amazon, And Ebay

Item 1 reveals a lot of interesting information about their business strategies. Financial statement analysis will reveal the extent to which the strategies are working. In fact, one of the objectives of financial statement analysis is to assess how the managers of a company are performing given the stated objectives of the corporation. We will see below how the differences in strategy are reflected in profitability, operating efficiency, and financial

The two companies have great deals and unbeatable prices. In this case is Walmart, Walmart has the cheapest prices in the market. Walmart is known to have the “lowest prices” that is why it is rare to see items

3) Product: What are the competitive advantages of the firm? Competitive advantage is anything that a company has, or does better, that customers value but the competition cannot match. This is usually manifested in terms of a lower cost or a differentiated product or service. With 3960 stores in the US and more than $209 billion in annual sales, Wal-Mart stands top in its position and it is an incessantly profit-driven company.

The article “Labouring the Walmart Way,” author Deenu Parmar talks about how Walmart is able to achieve selling goods at a lower price then any average superstore. The author goes on to explain that Walmart’s antiunion efforts, employee selection, low prices and high retention rate all contribute to their major success. Walmart’s stance on ant unionism allows them to keep wage cost down and keep all their profits up. Not allowing a union keeps Walmart with the power to keep low wages and force unpaid overtime.

Aligning themselves be more competitive in the grocery store market share, Wal-Mart began offering organic foods in their stores, cheaper than their nearest competitor Whole Foods was doing (Ferrell, Hirt, Ferrell, 2009). When the economy experienced a downturn, more consumers were spending their money on the daily necessities and no longer buying luxury items that were not necessarily needed. Wal-Mart saw their profits increase because of their low price guarantee, low prices on prescriptions and a new focus on becoming

Consumer Reports magazine reports that Costco is the leader and is the preferred retailer in the opinion of the readers based on factors such as product quality, value, friendliness of store and staff, ease of returning items, and overall service. Costco was also considered the value leader by providing the best bang for the buck. Walmart, Sam’s Club, and Target fell below Costco’s ranking in terms of popularity and value for consumers (Keshner, 2010). Psychographic characteristics typically go beyond the external focus and are not as easy to quantify but do identify why consumers buy a particular product or service (All Business,

The components of this marketing mix enable competitiveness and international growth while Amazon.com Inc. innovates its services. Amazon.com Inc.’s Products (Product Mix) In this component of the marketing mix, Amazon’s products or product mix is considered. As the top player in the online retail industry, the company offers a wide selection of products. Such a product mix supports Amazon.com Inc.’s mission statement and vision statement.

Amazon’s competitive strategy is cost leadership. Amazon has achieved a lot on a great scale that it gets the best prices from its vendors so they can operate in very flexible and thin margins and sell their items easily at retail prices and make money. They also provide shipping products for a reasonable cheap price. They also have improved their warehouses by giving some space to other sellers who want to sell their items through Amazon. They differentiate and provide better quality than their competitors across the industry.

Hence we assume this to be a situation of duopoly. The 2 companies sell products which are very close substitutes and are constantly fighting for greater market share. A person may buy a Coke product instead of a Pepsi one, and vice versa. The objective of both is to maximize their profit.

Along with its product variety supported by its return policy, Blue Nile is able to secure a lower pricing model due to its low inventory and warehouse expense. One of the main reasons that Blue Nile was able to lower warehouse expense is due to its responsive and prompt delivery through FedEx. This kind of responsive shipping enables Blue Nile to centralize its inventory and discard any installation of expensive flagship stores. Unlike Tiffany and Co. where it holds multiple stores in high-priced areas, Blue Nile has a single warehouse in the United States where it stores all of its inventory. Product variety from vast inventory and low pricing through single warehousing enabled Blue Nile to achieve competitive advantage over other competing

In addition, according to Business Insider (Ashley, 2014), Costco’s revenue percentage change is 127.8% which is significantly higher than Walmart (70.24%) and Target (60.94%)