Mr Matheko

QUESTION 1 1. ACKERMANS 2.1 Ackermans was founded in 1916 by Gus Ackermans, the father of Raymond Ackermans. By the end of 1970s the Ackermans chain was sold to Edgars who maintained its highly successful price –discounter position until the chain of 34 was acquired by Pepkor (owner of Pep stores) in 1986. At the end of 2009, Ackermans had over 450 stores in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana and employed over 3600 staff and was set to exceed R4-billion in turnover. As part of Pepkor group, Ackermans positioned itself as a family store targeting the LSM 4-7 middle market with a price and value driven product range of clothing, footwear and home textiles, with the stores traditional competitive strength being in baby wear, children’s wear and hometaxtiles. Since Ackermans is focused on the middle market segment, it is concentrates on conducting business on a cash only basis which has enabled Ackermans to operate as low cost business that is equipped to flourish in good times and survive in difficult times. Dealing with cash only policy, has had disadvantages since many consumers are attracted to competitors since competitors often provide credit to consumers. Ackermans competes in the mass retail market where its competitors are the large scale retailers including Edgars, Jet, (Ackerman’s’ closest competitor), Mr Price Home, Sales House, Sheet Street and @Home. 2.2 DESCRIPTION OF THE TREND | IMPACT ON INDUSTRY | MARKETING IMPLICATIONS | 1. consumers are unemployed | Negative impact(maximize profit at a long-run) | | 2. consumers beliefs Ackermans brand is strongly associated with having a large range of children’ wear | This lead to 34% of customers who are regularly shopping at Ackermans being loyal shoppers | | 3.high growth in numbers of people over 65years | | | | |