Whole Foods Case

Whole Foods will need to research and figure out marketing strategies to keep the customers loyal to Whole Foods. One of the main reasons customers will go to different supermarkets that have organic foods is because of the different department stores inside the grocery market. For instance, some grocery stores sell organic vegetables, but also have regular vegetables. Some of the larger grocery stores have banks, photo stores, insurance companies that make your stop at the larger grocery store

Whole Foods is a retailer that specializes in organic foods and it has done an excellent job of determining its target market and how to position itself. Instead of going head to head with large food retailers such as Wal-Mart, Whole Foods has found a niche market that works perfectly for itself. This niche market is one that prides itself on being health conscious and environmentally responsible and Whole Foods has done a great job of positioning itself in the same way through its environmentally safe actions and its use of the local community to stock its stores. However, as Whole Foods grows and expands, a person has to wonder if the company will be able to maintain this same position or will have to make

On averaged their stores are roughly 38,000 square feet and their locations typically carried 21,000 SKUs. They make two-thirds of its revenue by selling bakery, perishable items, and prepared foods. (Ager & Roberto, 2014). Peoples tend to shop at Whole Food Market because of their high-quality natural and organic food. In today’s world peoples are more concern about health concise and effect of pesticide products, more people choose to have organic fruits and vegetables. Whole Foods get most of their produces from local people which are natural and organic, which will help them gain more customer than other company because of increasing demand of organic food (Whole Foods Market History, n.d). They also have a strong brand image and they were the first supermarket who commit to completely eliminating disposable plastic grocery bags to help protect the environment. They also sell many USDA-certified organic

The natural and organic food industry are in no doubt the most dynamic and diverse in recent years; traditional supermarket chains such as Kroger Company, Costco, and Wal-Mart have also begun undertaking in the natural and organic food market offering competitive prices (Sonya Bells, Whole Foods Market after Fiscal 2015: the Whole Story, marketrealist.com). However, to me, the two brands that resonate the most in this service sector, at least locally here in Columbus, Ohio are Whole Foods Market, Inc and Trader Joe's.

The intensity of competition is high as Whole Food and Kroger are trying imitate what Trader Joe’s are doing, and since they already have brand name achieved, it is not hard to get their prices down by negotiating with suppliers and making their own brand name organic food.

Whole Foods has been adaptive in fitting its competitive strategy to its situation. The store first grew to prominence by being a stylish antithesis to the crunchy mom-and-pop organic grocery stores, providing a relatively normal but

Within the foods retail industry Whole Foods largest competitors are Wal-Mart, and Kroger. Within the organic foods retail industry, the competition is Trader Joe 's and smaller localized organic grocery stores. Whole Foods also competes with GNC 's dietary products and nutritional supplements. Most of the relationships are not equally balanced but industry growth in the organic market is increasing and this will raise the strategic stakes. There are no significant exit barriers so a moderately intense rivalry among the larger competitors will exist.

Recommendation Whole Foods Market was the pioneer and leader of the organic and natural food sector for many years. The company had established their initial success due to a broad differentiation strategy. Unfortunately, large conglomerates consisting of Kroger “a best-cost provider” and Wal-Mart “a low-cost provider” have been able to provide the same unique goods and service as Whole Foods Market, while staying true to their respective competitive strategies. In result, making the organic and natural food sector a possibility for people of all socioeconomic classes. Due to the emergence of competition, Whole Foods Market is under extreme pressure from outside forces and will seemingly never return to their once prominent position.

The organic food industry has seen a huge spike in growth that is expected to continue into the future due to an increase in consumption. This will provide Whole Foods Market with huge opportunities. In addition, a wave of ethical and responsible consumption has swept across America. Whole Foods’ decision to pursue sustainable activities will certainly give consumers an added incentive to purchase its organic products.

There are also technological and ecological factors. Thompson makes it clear that Whole Foods Market must work to keep up with the advancements in technology that are rapidly cropping up in the food production industry. They’ve done well to adopt green energy, but Thompson believes they must do more to build more automated services for inventory and delivery, cutting down on certain types of manual labor jobs and creating more tech-based jobs, and ultimately leading to improved reliability and efficiency of their company as a whole. The main ecological factor that impacts Whole Foods Market is climate change. Climate change has the potential

One of the biggest external environmental threats against Whole Foods is increases in domestic competition. At its inception Whole Foods was one of the only providers of organic foods. However now there are many rivals who have taken apart of this ever going interest in our society for better living. Stores such as Wal-Mart and Target have joined the bandwagon of providing their customers with organic foods. With many stores now offering organic foods this has put a dent in the availability of organic foods in other words has shorten the supply of organic foods to Whole Foods. Another external environmental threat was the economy. When the economy went down during the recession many people had to make tough choices when it came to their finances and one of the biggest things that were changed was the amount that they spent on groceries. Many people just simply deemed natural organic foods as being expensive and not a necessity. A major opportunity that Whole Foods have embraced was that during the recession Whole Foods recognized that they need to make adjustments decrease the overall prices. Another major opportunity that they need to embrace is marketing the necessity of whole organic foods. Letting people know that eating right is vital to

Marketed as ‘America’s healthiest grocery store’ the company has successfully grown to 408 stores across the world with sales of $14 billion in 2014 (Whole Foods Market, 2015). The firm is positioned as an upmarket grocery due to the emphasis on natural, organic origins, and as a result are able to charge a premium for their products. Through efficiently running its operations and stores, Whole Foods are able to maintain healthy 4.02% profit margins (Financial Times, 2015) and operating margins well above the American grocery store industry average at 6.58% (Bloomberg, 2015). Looking at 2015’s quarter 1 figures it is clear to see that Whole Foods have had a hugely successful year with sales of $4.7 billion, up 10% from the same period last year. Furthermore, they opened 9 new stores and have signed a further 11 new leases.

Whole Foods Market has expanded by a mixture of opening its own new stores and acquiring already existing stores. Today WFM does not follow this strategy, instead their motivation is to open its own large stores. This is due to noticeable sales differences in larger stores as opposed to smaller stores. WFM locates these newer stores in upscale areas of urban metropolitan centers and high-traffic shopping locations. Not all WFMs are isolated structures; some are located in strip malls. WFM offers a larger selection of natural and organic foods than any other grocery store. WFMs marketing expenditure is extremely small. They spend a measly 0.5% of their revenues on advertising. Their chief marketing strategy relies on word-of-mouth. WFM strives to meet or exceed customer expectations. This is so customers receive competent, knowledgeable, and friendly service and become advocates of WFM. The employees here have a decentralized team approach for store operations. This is so some personnel, merchandising, and operating

Whole Foods Market Introduction In today’s world of technology people are doing things through the web such as errands, business, and socialization more and more. This has changed the face of business for many. And completely restructure the customer experience and interaction. We now live in an age where ice cream can be delivered to your front porch within an hour from the same company you order things like socks, appliances, electronics, and car parts among other things.

Whole Foods Market began in 1970 as a local supermarket. Over the past 31 years, Whole Foods Market has grown from a single store in Austin, Texas, to becoming one of the worldwide leaders in providing consumers with natural and organic foods. They have grown to over 300 stores in both North America and the United Kingdom. (Whole Foods Market, Inc., 2011) This report examines the chief elements of the strategy that Whole Foods Market has put into place. Also, it uses past financial data to provide an assessment of the condition of the company going forward. Those assessments include recommendations of future actions, along with concerns I have about the way the company is currently operating and some difficulties that may be on the way.