Differentiating Between Market Structures Essay

Kudler Fine Foods is the brain child of Kathy Kudler. She envisioned a one stop gourmet food store and has grown to three locations to date. She continues to maintain direct control over large bulk purchase order items, stringent customer service policies, and hiring. This paper discusses how the organization competes in the marketplace and the strengths and weaknesses of the company according to the marketing surveys their customers completed. The following also discusses which market structure best applies to the organization and how that structure positively and negatively affects the firm, how the effectiveness of the competitive strategies in the market structure affect the

The success of Wal-Mart is due in large part to its ability to consistently produce high quality products at a low cost. This is very critical to the future success of Wal-Mart because it provides consistency to customers who are price sensitive. By committing themselves to "Everyday low prices," Wal-Mart assures customers that the products sold within their stores are competitive in reference to its retail competition. This low price strategy also provides Wal-Mart with a

Wal-Mart is arguably the most dynamic corporation in the last 50 years in the United States, if not the world. Arising from its beginnings in Bentonville, Arkansas, it has grown to over 4,400 discount stores, super centers and corner markets worldwide. Wal-Mart continues to expand despite public criticism of its labor practices as well as complaints about their treatment of competitors. The many strengths of Wal-Mart, like their low cost production and marketing practices, will aid Wal-Mart as it continues to grow in the retail

Like all departmental and/or discount stores, Wal-Mart's strategies are focused around achieving the goals such as building a large and strong customer base, under-cutting competitors, and organization of its supply chain in the most efficient and effective manner and above all, market growth.

Using the virtual organization of Kudler Fine Foods, evaluations will be made to determine market structure and competitiveness. Kudler Fine Foods current strategic plan for 2003, marketing overview, and market surveys will provide information to evaluate how Kudler competes in its market and where its strengths and weaknesses are located. Based on the evaluation of Kudler Fine Foods an applicable market structure will be determined and the structures effects on the organization and its long-term profitability. Recommendations will be made for Kudler Fine Foods while comparing real-world organizations.

A monopolistic competition describes a common market structure in which firms have many competitors or sellers, but each one sells a vaguely distinctive product or service. One of this market structure’s characteristics is that each individual firm makes independent decisions about price and output, based on its product, its market, and its costs of production (Economics Online, 2015). Another characteristic is there is freedom to enter or leave the market, since there are no major barriers to entry or exit. The opposite of this market structure is an oligopoly. Oligopoly means few sellers. Oligopoly is the market structure in which there are only a few firms or a few firms dominate the market (Amacher & Pate, 2013). In an oligopolistic market, each seller supplies a large

Walmart has been the largest American employer, with a workforce of nearly 2.2 million people and in 25 separate U.S states and it is also the single largest importer from China that was worth an estimated $12 billion in 2002. Its marketing strategy always has been to emphasize low prices with marketing campaign “everyday low prices”. Walmart is able to achieve the strategy by leveraging its buyer power and controlling its labor costs. Walmart holds on its own values in order to keep its strategy in line or stable. These values are to promise financial benefits to its stockholders by giving low prices to the customers, offering jobs to the employees, other businesses have the benefits from supplying goods and services, and communities benefit

* In the past two decades Wal-Mart has been the leading domestic retailer. In 2002, Wal-Mart stood atop the Fortune 500 for the first time. Wal-Mart’s top ranking reflects the rise of retailing as one of the most important global industries, as well as the company’s individual excellence and consistent performance. In 2001 the company had higher sales than the next four largest global retailers combined. The sales differential against U.S. based retailers is even more pronounced, as Wal-Mart top line in 2001 was more than four times that of the second largest retailer Home Depot. Its primary success has come from its excellence in customer service, supply chain management, and ability

Price has always been the key strategy in Wal-Mart’s marketing strategy. The success of Wal-Mart’s low price philosophy and marketing campaigns has been instrumental to the company’s success in the past half century. It is clear that from Sam Walton’s first store in Bentonville, Arkansas in 1950 to the 6200 stores worldwide as of 2006, Wal-Mart has utilized the price strategy of the marketing mix to become one of the most successful companies in

By reading all the articles, there are facts that Wal-Mart does and does not have effects on small mom-and-pop shops. The articles I read about Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowes has forced the mom-and-pop shops to close. For example the two big hardware stores have not put Ace, or even True Value out of business, they still exist throughout the United States. The only thing I can see is that people are misled; Wal-Mart has low prices. I believe it has to do with our economy. Also remember Bradlees, Building Square, Ames, Anne Hope, all based in New England. They are like Wal-Mart and Target, but they are

As a result of Wal-Mart’s core drive to dominate every market, it has come under criticism from the majority of its stakeholders. One such criticism has been that local retailers are pushed out wherever Wal-Mart opens up one its retail stores. I have been

Unlike the theoretical perfect competition market, Oligopolies exist in real life. A market structure that is dominated by two companies is known as a duopoly. An example of an oligopoly is the soft drinks market that is dominated by Coca-Cola and Pepsi (Zheng, 2013). Oligopolies can be categorized according to the type of product they produce. The products may be either homogeneous or differentiated. On the one hand, Homogeneous products are produced by a standardized or a pure oligopoly. On the other hand, a differentiated oligopoly produces different products (William & Allan, 2011).

Being such a large company with many stores and employees Wal-Mart faces many issues. Some of the issues the retail giant faces are; wages, gender discrimination, and health benefits. It seems too many that Wal-Marts has lost its way. When the recession hit Wal-Mart laid off many of its employees and because of that consumers feel the shelves are not being restock and they can’t find what they are looking for. According to Bloomberg Business Week Wal-Mart went from having 343 employees in a store in 2008 to 301 employees in a store in 2013. Even though the employee cut seems logical it is costing the retail giant business. There is no man power to keep the shelves stock and give customers the great customer service that Sam Walton envisioned. (Bloomberbusinessweek)

This is also an appropriate strategy because of the increased competition that the retail/discount industry is facing. While Wal-Mart is at the top, they are increasingly seeing their competition move closer to dethroning their position.

Wal-Mart’s core value - delivering low prices - has proved successful in creating the largest and most powerful company in history. From 2001-2006, Wal-Mart opened an average of sixteen new supercenters per month, one every business day in 2005 (Fishman, 2006). Ghemawat (2004, cited by Lichtenstein, (2006))