Publix, Aldi, And Walmart: A Case Study

Publix Supermarkets, Inc. is the largest employee supermarket chain and fastest growing company in the United States. It was founded in 1930 by George W. Jenkins and opened the first Publix store in Winter Haven Florida is a employee- owned privately held corporation. Publix is has over more than 1,061 supermarket stores, eight grocery distribution centers, twelve brand manufacturing facilities, and 820 Publix Pharmacies. The manufacturing facilities produce its dairy, deli, bakery, and other food products. Our stores are located in Florida- 752, Alabama-51, Georgia- 180, South Carolina- 45, and Tennessee- 33. Publix built its first distribution in Lakeland, Florida and moved its headquarters there from Winter

According to Publix website http://corporate.publix.com/about-publix, Publix Supermarket is a premier food retailer founded and opened in 1930 by George W. Jenkins. Mr. Jenkins opened a store that operated on a set of values, respect and dignity of individuals, and that the doors of communication would be opened for his associates to their managers. Along with a mutual respect and engagement, and diversity. This philosophy still continues to be a part of the decision making process even today. The same respect would be given to the customers upon entering the doors of Publix. As part of their commitment, Publix makes it a priority to employ, service people and vendors from many backgrounds, cultures, abilities, and ethnicities. Publix also gives back to the community by participating and providing different services to people in campaign events, sports, and special events. Publix was voted in the top 100 companies to work in Fortune Magazine for 2011

Operating on very thin profit margins, players in the supermarket industry traditionally either focus on a premium segment or follow a discounter strategy at the low end. Premium players address educated and more price elastic consumers who value healthy, natural and organic food; the share of perishable items for these players is normally distinctly higher. Players that focus on a discounter strategy offer a higher share of simple necessity items and value price competitiveness over premium features like healthiness or organic origin. Independently of the focused customer group it is imperative for players in the supermarket industry to be cost efficient and optimize operations

Grocery shopping is more diversified and evolved than ever before. Individuals across the nation have access to everything from exotic products to unique delivery services. Often, specialty stores have limited locations whereas specialty services have a limited reach. However, two retailers have expanded to hundreds of locations while adhering to unexpected market positioning for previously untargeted market segments. Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s have become household names while also innovating beyond regional and national traditional chains. Despite comparable size in

In 1975, Hi-Value Supermarkets became a division of Hall Consolidated, a privately owned wholesale and retail food distributor. In 2002, Hi-Value had sales of $192.2 million, which was the smallest out of the three supermarket chains owned by Hall Consolidated. Although Hi-Value is considered small against industry standards, they were the number one or two ranked supermarket chain in each of its trade markets measured through market share. The primary problem that Hi-Value has developed is that they are the highest priced compared to the competitors within the region. The Hi-Value Supermarket Shopper Interview Results (Exhibit 7 in case) demonstrates this through the question “Liked most about other regular store,” the most popular answer across the board was “Price.” So what is Hi-Value supposed to do?

Publix is an employee-owned supermarket chain that is said to be the largest of its kind in the United States. Its operations span throughout the southeast region, with locations in Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina; with Florida having nearly half of the company’s operating base. George W Jerkins founded the corporation as an employee-owned private entity. The company has managed to create over 168,000 jobs in its numerous branches now totaling to a tune of 1098 stores. Moreover, it has invested in cooking schools and grocery distribution. The company’s turnover in the previous year, 2014, was 28.92 billion US dollars to 1.74 billion as its net profit ranking it to be the thirteenth largest private retail company in the United States (Forbes.com, 2014). Currently, the price of its stock share is around 39 US dollars per share capital. The company has managed to build a niche for itself competing with the likes of Costco, Whole Foods, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Sam’s Club and even Wal-Mart.

The ALDI brand has many strengths including sales volumes, providing nutritional products, discounts are passed on to consumers, and fast efficient shopping. “ALDI is the world’s largest discount store operator by sales and has flourished for more than 40 years without stocking major brands,” ( news.yahoo.com) The fact that ALDI is the world’s largest discounter without having to pay the price of carrying major brands is an impressive feat. The brand capitalizes on this in the United States with “ about $8 billion in annual sales and is growing from 15 to 20 percent per year,” ( bloomberg.com) .

For instance, I find that the best cold cuts can be bought at Shoprite. The meats are much higher in quality and they also provide a larger variety of brands. Despite this, Shoprite has many other marketing strategies that pertain to the quality of their food. In this case, it is evident that having a higher quality of food can appeal to the customer’s senses. To emphasize on this, Shoprite showcases their bakery in front of the entrance to the store.

We are pleased to announce that Bich Nguyen has accepted the position of Merchandising/Drug Manager for District 6. In her new role, Bich will report to Cecilia Sarabia, District 6 Manager.

With the sole philosophy of providing top quality products at low cost, Aldi’s stocks are very limited, in which about 95% are own brands and the rest are from the national brands. They also has “surprise buys” program that offers limited stocks that are changed weekly and only available while they last. Besides, acting very differently from other rivals in the industry, customers are not considered as the king (Dannhaeuser 1996, p.95) that reflects in the encouragement of bringing own bags or buying environmentally friendly shopping bags instead of giving free shopping bags as other competitors.

Publix Supermarkets were born of a dream from a 30 year old man named George Jenkins. After five years of work at Piggly Wiggly, he decided to strike out on his own and in 1930 opened the first Publix Food Store in Winter Haven, Florida. The second store came in 1940, but his real dream was a store filled with innovation like air condition, fluorescent lights, and terrazzo floors. This was the top of the line grocery store focused on fast and friendly service. During this time, Mr. Jenkins was devoted to his employees and ensured that they were well trained and well compensated for their work. Surviving through the Great Depression proved the company strong, then came expansion and new marketing plans to draw in new customers. The 50’s brought new warehousing to safely and effectively distribute food goods across the state of Florida thus expanding the company in the northern and southern reaches of the

Publix serves over 1 million customers every day. This consists of individuals being influenced by others, organizations, society, and the subcultures, which they identify with. Publix is based in the United States, initially being founded in Florida. In places such as Atlanta,

A solution, universally favored by each, to distinguish themselves from one another and thus attempt to assert a level of dominance within the marketplace, has been the development of their own premium range of food. A brand within a brand. This is seen, with obvious success, in Sainsbury’s ‘Taste the Difference’. The ‘Taste the Difference’ range is competing very well with even the higher end companies like Waitrose and Marks & Spencer’s. To go one step further each supermarket also has a more economic range, marketed towards the thrifty shopper. Once again using Sainsbury’s as an example we can see that the value brand within a brand would be the ‘Sainsbury’s Basics’ which successfully competes with discount chains such as Aldi and Lidl. Many of the products in both the higher end and more value targeted end of each range from all

As a Fortune Global 500 List highest performing company (Wikipedia, sourced Nov 11, 2017), Walmart’s choices in strategies provide an important case study with significant impact to the economy and the lives of thousands of people; employees and customers. The Fortune Global 500 list in 2016 listed Walmart as the “world’s largest company by revenue […] as well as the largest private employers in the world with 2.3 million employees” (Wikipedia, sourced Nov 11, 2017). The company started with a single store with the purpose of providing low cost products to customers. In its 55 years of existence, Walmart has worked to refine its logistics network and scale this business model resulting in operations in 28 countries. Walmart has additionally expanded on its offerings now including super centers, neighborhood markets, and on-line offerings. These are some examples of how Walmart has continued to evolve. Other initiatives that are in pilot phases include a home delivery system called Walmart To Go, the acquisition of Jet.Com and a “same-day and last-mile delivery company” Parcel (Wikipedia, sourced Nov 11, 2017). Continued exploration and testing of new services including free grocery pick up, two-day shipping services, and last-mile grocery delivery (Wikipedia, sourced Nov 11, 2017).

My neighborhood shopping center is Walmart. Wal-Mart is one of the company that his culture is based on many factors such as cost efficiency, its leading-edge logistics, commitment to customers and the ability to install commitment and loyalty within employees. There are a number of organizational behaviors that are responsible for the success of Walmart, some of them would be communication, motivation and decision making. Walmart tends to be market oriented based on open policy which includes open communication with is critical for understanding and meeting customer needs. Walmart core values are service to customers, respect for the individual, striving for excellence and acting with integrity.