Wal-Mart's services

Wal-Mart recently opened a new store in Pullman. I went to look around, and took some pictures for my blog. Some of the pictures show the service of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is a retailer, but its service is critically important to the business especially when they have many competitors on the Market. In Pullman, Wal-mart's competitors are Dismores, Safe-way and ShopKo. Safe-way and ShopKo are even located right next the Wal-Mart. However, People are attracted to go to Wal-Mart because of its variety of products, cheaper price for goods, and better services. I have never been rejected when I went to Wal-Mart for returning goods. So what kind of services do Wal-Mart offer? First of all, Wal-Mart has customer service center for each store. It helps any customer with general questions or returning and refunding goods. It says they offer "Money services, returns and gift registry" service. There are some machines to help customers to help. Some tags are gone from products while moving or placing products. Wherever these machines are located, there is a sign says "Can't find a price? you can check it right here". Wal-mart sells shopping bags that are usable for customers. Speedy checkout serve customers buying less than 10 items for quicker process. Self-checkout is for convenience and quicker process of checkout. All these services attract customers to Wal-Mart, the king of retailers.

Chap 12. Services

Apple Cup Special Promotion

I went to Wal-Mart, and I saw lots of promotions including holiday promotion and Apple cup promotion. Apple Cup occured this weekend, and, thank to the bad call, Cougars lost by 7 points. Beer industry is always excited for big sports games. I guess it is a part of American culture that people drink beer while watching a sports game. Miller Lite placed their products with an advertisement supporting cougars for the apple cup. This is very localized strategy. I never thought a beer industry would support a college sports team because it never happens in Korea. This is also very localized promotion, and this promotion is target marketing people in Pullman or related to Washington State University. Generally American marketers do well on localizing promotions or at least do better than Korean Marketers. By the way, Miller Lite says it is a "Proud sponsor of cougar athletics", and I think they are supporting our football team too much. =P I hope cougars do well next year.

Chap 11. Promotion

Customer Relationship Management

I already made a post about CRM, but I just wanted to add these pics. Therefore, I am not going to add much information in this post. I have been a customer of State Farm for more than 4 years. This year, they sent me this calendar. They want me to put this calendar on my desk, so it reminds me of State Farm every time I look at the date on the calendar. This is a great example of CRM. For each month, there is a picture, and they put my last name "PARK" in the pictures. I feel loyal =)

Chap 1. Customer Relationship Management

It's Turkey day! oh wait, it's Christmas!?

Holiday special promotion is a big issue every end of a year : Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas Sales, and new year's clearance and more and more. Promotion is the coordination of a marketer’s communication efforts to influence attitudes or behavior. I went to Wal-Mart two days after the thanksgiving, and marketers of Wal-Mart tries to attract customer with this holiday special promotions. They put a sign saying "Merry Christmas" while I am still in thanksgiving mood, and they also created special shelves with Candies and Christmas gifts. Promotions do attract customers to buy more stuff if the marketers understand well about how the promotions work. What I wonder is that are the gifts and candies cheaper than usual? I'm sure some of them are, but I think they are exaggerating the products with packaging. Those green and red packaging makes look everything in the product good. I think, One day, I am going to find out the actual price of the products when not promoting and that of the products while promoting for holidays, and compare them.

Special promotions for batteries. "Power your Holidays for Less". I think it's a pretty good slogan, but I wonder why does Wal-Mart have special promotion for batteries in Christmas days. It would be more understandable if Wal-Mart was promoting one specific brand's batteries, but this promotion actually includes Duracel, Energizer and Rayovac. Why?

Chap 11. Promotion

My thought about distribution

In my definition, Distribution is the flow of products, information and "MONEY". (I did say this during class for an extra credit, and he said he is going to put this on the slides. I mean I'm just proud of myself) Distributions is critically important for suppliers and consumers. Distributions is a huge influencer of the price that consumers buy and placing which is one of the concepts of Marketing mix. Price of the product depends on how many distribution channels are there, how much money distributors want to charge for their work, and what distributions channels a producer uses. According to Mr. Featherman, a distribution channel is the series of firms or individuals that facilitates the movement of a product from the producer to the final customer. This is the end. This post is written based on my thought about distribution after learning about this distribution, so there could be some wrong information. Please, Feel free to correct it by commenting. By the way, I added a very funny video that shows some distribution can fail in the process.

Pricing for international products

We learn about pricing in Marketing class. The pricing we are learning in the class only focuses on general and broad concept of pricing. Since I am an international student, and I want to do international business when i grow up, I decided to find out about how to price for each product for each country. I found this video on Youtube (the greatest source I call). He specifically explains how to apply expanded pricing strategy used in the United States to Indian Market. Generally, Marketer must know how cultural variables will affect sales. Marketers must know what aspect worked in this country while it did not work in the other country. Also, They should know what aspects work in both countries. According to him, People tend to actually believe advertisements in India, so there should be less cost for promotion and advertisement. Like India's case there are many cultural variables existing out there. Marketer must consider those variables when setting price for a product.







Chap 9. Pricing

Wal-mart's own brand "Great Value"

In these days, Retailers not only deliveres final products made by suppliers and producers, but also produce their own brand products. According to Pearson's Marketing Principle, Brand is a name, a term, a symbol, or any other unique element of a product that identifies one firm's product(s) and sets it apart from the competition. "Great Value" is a brand owned by Wal-Mart, and it is known for its cheap price. From detergent to peanut butter, Various products are produced with the mark of Great Value. Great Value brands are usually cheapest among each product category. I guess it has advantage of low cost of retails since Wal-Mart owns the brand, and the products of Great Value brand definitely do not go for good quality but for favorable price by consumers. Product line is a firm’s total product offering designed to satisfy a single need or desire of target customers (ex: all the different types of Starbucks Roasted Whole Bean Coffee). Product mix is the total set of all product lines a firm offers for sale. The product mix can be one product line or many (referred to as narrow or wide).Great Value is just one brand, but it has a wide product mix. It keeps increasing product line every year.

Chap 8. Brand and product mix

Impulse products

Well this post is not about producing an innovation, but I am going to use a vocabulary that is included in the innovation chapter. According to Pearson's Marketing Principle, impulse product is a product people often buy on the spur of the moment. Most of these products are located on the checkout desk of markets. Some of the impulse products are magazines, gums, mints, chips, candies, lighters, gift cards, phone cards, soft drinks, energy drinks and even hand sanitizers. The common fact among these products are they are packed in small quantity, and they are usually cheap products less than $5 dollars. (except for gift cards) According to the book, Marketers have two challenges with impulse products. First, they have to create a product or package design that enticing that "reaches out and grabs the customer," Second, they have to make sure their product is highly visible which means they want the products to be located by securing prime end-aisle or checkout-lane space. I usually grab a pack of gums when I go to checkout lanes without planning to buy eat. I usually think "It's a bit more than a dollar. No big deal". Does everyone think like I do? then the strategy of these impulse product marketers is really working well.

Chap 7. Innovation

Packaging

Package is the covering or container for a product that provides product protection, facilitates product use and storage, and supplies important marketing communication (such as usages, benefits, instructions for usage, etc.). I bought some Macaroni and Cheese (Yea, I am a poor college student) and looked up the package. Packaging itself can be Marketing. It not only contains the advertising slogan on the box like "Cheesiest ever" or the picture of delicious looking Macaroni and Cheese, but also some important information about the product such as nutrient fact and warning messages. Using the box or package wisely can be a good way of managing products.

Chap 8. Package

Product Line Extensions Strategy

According to the Pearson's Marketing Principle, Product Line is a firm's total product offering designed to satisfy a single need or desire of target customers. Product Line Extensions have three strategies : 1)Stretching is adding new items to line 2) Filling is adding sizes or styles 3) Contracting a product line is dropping items. Yoplait uses all these strategies well. There are more than 20 different flavors of yogurt in yoplait. They also play with non-fat and low-fat stuff too. They add new flavor or less fat product in the line, but also remove some products that are not popular. They do not add new items, but flavors which I assume its a style. Therefore, I do not think that they use the Stretching strategy.

Chap 8. Managing product line

Trialability

Creating an innovation and a quality product is very important. A manufacturer produces an innovative product with great quality. However, what if people do not know how to use the product? or never even heard of the product? That is where trialability comes into the game. It is important to create an innovative product and let consumers know your product exists. What's also important is to make consumers try your product. Let them try a small portion of your product and know the greatness in using of your product. I will never buy a clone that I never smelled before. I will buy a clone that I already know how it smells. I have a subscription of a magazine, and this magazine has advertisements of clones. I think it is brilliant that they let me smell the clone with a paper. I think this way of advertising for clones itself is innovative. Great trialability is offered by clone industry

Chap 7. Innovation

Mocha Frappucino Ice Cream

Starbucks coffee Ice Cream. In these days, people do not get surprised when I tell them that Starbucks produce Ice cream. However, when Starbucks started to produce ice cream, it was such a big issue (especially among the girls who likes to tend to be like a New-Yorker). I would say this product is an innovation. Innovation is a product that consumers perceive to be new and different from existing products. I am not saying Starbucks coffee is an innovation. I am also not saying that an ice cream is an innovation. The innovations is the idea of combining Starbucks coffee flavor with ice cream. Innovation does not have to be whole lot different from normal life like time machines or teleporters. It can be just general home appliance or supplies. Turning Starbucks coffee into Ice cream is an innovative thinking, and I think it actually turned out to be very good. The ice cream tastes good. Some people who are bored of regular Starbucks coffee like this ice cream. So innovation. Boom

Chap 7. Innovation

Youtube Ad Target Marketing?

I think this falls more into Data Mining category, but it applies a bit more of Target Marketing concept. I play Bass Guitar, and I am interested in Jazz and Funk music. Bass Guitar and Saxophone take big parts of Jazz Music. I was bored on this Friday morning, so I was web surfing. I typed "How to play saxophone" in Google, and the results from Youtube and many websites came out. What attracted me though, the advertisements on the side. Saxophone Lessons. This is a combination of Data Mining and Target Marketing. Marker or Google must know what the customer is looking for by Data Mining, and they find whatever products fit in to this customer's need. One who is looking for a Car is not going to click on this advertisement, but I am truly interested in this ad. (I actually clicked on it) Great strategy that Google ad people use.

Chap 6 Target Marketing

Target Marketing

I am an international student from South Korea. Growing up in Korea for 15 years, I tend to like Korean food way more than American food. I came to American when I was 15 years old, and I lived with American host family. Thank to my host family, I was able to accept American culture and learn English well. However, I had some problems. The biggest problem I had was that I missed my parents (of course). Having parents far away while I'm still growing was a good thing. I had freedom, but I had no one that could support me as much as my parents and give me good advices like my parents do. The second biggest problem was the food. American food is greasier than Korean food, and Korean food is way more spicy. I missed Korean food, and I started to look for some way to get Korean food. This website called "Hmart.com" was a solution. Hmart sells Korean food, books and any products that are sold in Korea, but not in the states. Hmart is a true target marketing business. Target Market is the market segments on which an organization focuses its marketing plan and toward which it directs its marketing efforts. Target market of Hmart is Korean Americans, American Koreans, and any people interested in Korean food and culture. I am happy that such a business exists, and they are doing actually pretty well in America. There are several Hmart stores in Seattle, Federal way, Los Angeles, New York, and other big cities with many Korean populations, and they are still expanding.

Chap 6. Target Marketing

B2B Marketing "DOBE.Ind"

For B2B Marketing, I could not think of anything to post since I do not have much contact in real life with B2B marketing. My Dad called yesterday, and we talked about life as usual. After I hung up the phone, I realize that my Dad works in a company that only deals with B2B marketing. According to Mr. Featherman, B2B marketing is the marketing of goods and services to business customers that need them to enable their production of goods and services. A business my purchase goods and services that are: 1) part of the products/services they make and sale (i.e., BMW buying auto engines), or raw materials such as shoe leather 2) resold such as when Ford purchases Nissan cars and puts their name plate on them. Value-added resellers take a product and modify it for a customer (i.e., IT consultants buy software then modify it for resale, such as Protiviti buying SAP software and customizing it for resale 3) in support of their operations (i.e., consumables such as copy paper and hand soap). My Dad's business will fall into the first category. The business name is DOBE industry. It produces food addtives and natural coloring. Consumers do not eat food additives and coloring materials. They eat products that contain these materials. The price of the products vary, and mostly depends on the quantity the client is buying. The website does not contain information about price of the products. They will have to negotiate it. Unfixed price can be either advantage or disadvantage of B2B Marketing. One company can sell products really expensive or really cheap.

As you already noticed, there is no specific price set for the products. They only have information about the product and list of the products.






Chap 5. B2B Marketing

Green Marketing

According the Pearson's Marketing Principle, Green Marketing is a marketing strategy that supports environmental stewardship by creating a differential benefits in the minds of consumers. Greenwashing is an environmentally-friendly claim that is exaggerated or nurture. "Go Green" is a good example of both Green Marketing and Greenwashing. Washington State University also has slogans like "Be Crimson, Go Green" and "Think Green". Green Marketing is everywhere in these days since people in the world started to give more care about environment, pollution and sustainability. I am a sprint user, and I have been getting paper bills monthly. However, Sprint sent me this promotion paper. Sprint began a Green Marketing too. Sprint promotes people to use e-bill instead of paper bills. This gives mutual benefits for consumers and sprint too because sprint does not need to spend money on buying papers and printing them out if everyone uses e-bill. Using e-bill not only saves money, but also saves the environment. So Go Green !

Chap 4. Green Marketing

Data Mining

According to Mr. Featherman, Data Mining(DM) is a sophisticated data analysis technique that is used to make knowledge discoveries in a mountain of data. The business intelligence DM software can automatically locate patterns (key influencers, or clusters) in large amounts of data. Marketers and businesses track you. They know what you are interested in, what products you bought in the past, what brands you like to buy, and even what you are doing online. Cards are one way to track them. I have a Safe way club card and Starbucks membership card (that i got for my birthday). Safeway receipt always encourages me to buy more of products that they think I like by giving me a coupon or something. I am not sure what Starbucks card would do. I think it can only track what beverages and food I eat at Starbucks unless I register for an account online. 

Chap 3. Data Mining

Coupons

Coupons always sound good. You get discounts for bringing a piece of paper. However, do you really think giving customers discounts is the only purpose? Coupons have several functions. Giving discounts is only one of the functions. Coupons not only promote a specific product or the store, but also helps marketers do researching. Questions like "how many people would come to our store from a specific location?" can simply be solved by handing coupons away around the location, and watch how many coupons you gets back. Researching is critically important in marketing, and I have a lot of coupons at home. I get "Student Survival Kit" every semester, and I actually do use a lot of the coupons.

From pizza to tires, there is a lot of products that I can get discounted. There are some interesting coupons out there too. Like the one I get one from Chase. "Get $100 on us." HOW ATTRACTIVE IS THAT? It sounds like I can get $100 for making an account? I do not know how they use this coupon in marketing, but This actually stimulates me. I feel like I should go to Chase tomorrow.

 I have been a customer for Jerry's auto repair for about two years. I usually change my engine oil there and spent almost $400 for replacing stuff and repairing. They gave me this coupon that My friend gets a free oil change, and I get a "Mystery gift" according to them. I wonder what I would get. This coupon uses me to research and bring other customers to their store.

Chap 3. Marketing Research