Products and Services
Through both its online and retail centers, Walmart offers its consumers both products ad services. With the company operating three primary store formats in the United States, every store format is custom-tailored to the surrounding neighborhood (Walmart, 2022). Therefore, in every neighborhood, the organization provides bakery and deli items, meat and dairy products, and fresh produce (Walmart, 2022). The neighborhoods’ services comprise pharmacy and health and beauty aids.
Products and Services Description
Walmart Neighborhood Markets has grown into a one-stop shopping convenience that provides various products to its consumers. Walmart offers a range of products to its consumers, from entertainment and grocery to sporting crafts and goods. For example, at Walmart’s supercenter, the organization’s one-stop shopping experience for its consumers includes the provision of apparel, bakery, dairy and deli, electronics, fresh produce, home furnishings, restaurant, and toys (Walmart, 2022). Moreover, the company also offers its consumers pickup and home delivery services through the scan & go services in the market section. Other services offered by the organization are provided under Sam Club membership. Customers are provided with traveling, auto buying, hearing aid centers, battery and tire centers, optical, pharmacy, and a portfolio for business operation support services (Walmart, 2022). In most supercenters, Walmart offers a bank, nail and hair salon, and vision centers.
Brand Strength
Walmart rates among the leading retail brands worldwide, ranking it among the top most valuable brands globally. During the first quarter of 2022, Statista (2022) showed the Walmart brand was approximated at $111.9 billion, an increase on the prior year’s valuation, which the firm evaluated at $93.2 billion. According to Brand Finance (2022), Walmart’s brand valuation has appeared in 34 brand rankings. In the 16 times, Brand Finance has calculated Walmart’s brand value, between 2007 and 2022, Walmart is ranked among the most valuable and strongest U.S. brands, the largest retail brands, and the best international brands (Brand Finance, 2022). The spark logo associated with Walmart, which was rebranded in 2008, constitutes six spark parts that communicate integrity, respect, associates, customer, excellence, and service (Piper, 2022). Each spark symbolizes the ideas that make the organization successful and reminds the people of its founder, Sam Walton, success and faith in himself.
Pricing Strategy
Walmart’s pricing is established on Everyday Low Price (EDLP), which forms the cornerstone of the company’s pricing strategy. Through this strategy, Walmart offers low product and service prices to its consumers all year round instead of only providing low prices during sales events (Walmart, 2022). The strategy has helped the company retain consumer loyalty among its customers while increasing corporate sales (Walmart, 2022). The strategy’s effectiveness is founded on Walmart’s traditional advertising, which means the firm incurs less per advertisement costs.
The pricing strategy has been employed since the organization was founded. Therefore, its philosophy has effectively appealed to both prices and quality buyers. On the latter, the price strategy has been improved to achieve high operational efficiency levels by dealing directly with manufacturers, having warehouse locations close to outlets, and through electronic product information (Walmart, 2022). With the measures, Walmart understands how to provide products and services that appeal to its consumers and comprehend what consumers need and the quality attributed to their preferences.
Approaching Walmart’s Pricing Strategy
Walmart’s strategy of keeping prices low has long been hinged on minimizing operation costs while maintaining large scales. The low-price model has enabled the firm to gain momentum over the years, allowing Walmart to incur fewer costs and provide even lower prices (Walmart, 2022). I would approach a pricing strategy for the company by comparing its pricing strategy to others available in the market. I would use a comparative pricing strategy model to approach Walmart’s pricing strategy: the high-low pricing strategy. The strategy is used by many rival companies, which allows them to offer low prices for their products and services only during sales events (Walle, 2017). The strategy is effective for more frequent shoppers who tend to exploit sales promotions. However, by comparing the shopping frequencies of the two pricing strategies, Walmart’s pricing strategy appears more effective since it offers low product and service prices anytime its consumers visit its retail and online stores. That gives Walmart’s strategy a competitive advantage over the high-low pricing strategy is founded on the knowledge that customers are shopping less frequently.
Effectiveness of Walmart’s Pricing Strategy
Walmart’s pricing strategy is attributed to the competitive advantage it gives the company over its rivals. Relying on consumers’ shopping frequency is only possible when they exploit sales promotions, which means consumers will only visit retail stores to maximize the offers. However, through the EDLP, Walmart ensures that every time its consumers’ shop, they enjoy the same prices. The convenience the company provides to its consumers is significant to its success since it has enabled it to maximize consumer loyalty, underpinned by sales increases. Over the years, the strategy has enabled the company to have momentum in how it keeps its prices low. Walmart attributes this to minimized operation costs and a large scale, which have made the strategy more effective.
References
Brand Finance. (2022). Walmart Brand Profile on Brandirectory.com.
Piper, D. (2022). Turns out the Walmart logo isn’t what you think it is.
Statista. (2022). Global brand value Walmart 2022 | Statista.
Walle, A. H. (2017). Rethinking business anthropology: Cultural strategies in marketing and management. 1st ed. Taylor and Francis.
Walmart. (2022). About.