ID : 006001519
Course : Retail Marketing
Wal Mart VS Target
Battle of the Retailers
Over the last 15 years, Wal-Mart has become a retail giant, changing forever the retail landscape in the US. Wal-Mart is a national leader in virtually every retail category in which they compete. However, at about the same time, Target has emerged as a major competitor and with an almost equal presence in the American Market.
Before I start talking about both in more details, and on how they utilize the retail marketing mix in either their benefit or loss, let’s take a look at the result of my survey.
The survey has been given to a hundred subject all over the world who has either lived or travelled to the States, whether from an American background or not, to a diverse age group and different sexes. Please not that any survey that answered NO to the question “Are you familiar with both Wal Mart and Target stores?” has been discarded. Most of my surveys were distributed via email, some by hard copy and others over the phone.
The result are portrayed below.
Out of the 100 shoppers, 40 chose that they shop at both Target and Wal Mart, 17 chose they shop at neither, 31 chose they were Wal Mart exclusive shoppers and 12 were Target exclusive. Figure [ 1 ] Shoppers preference
By studying the exclusive shoppers of each retailer, I found the following
The 12 exclusive target shoppers had the following demographics:
* 4 aged 18-34, 3 aged 35 to 49 and 5 aged above 50 * 9 were female and 3 were male * 7 earned 80-90 thousand dollars per year, 2 earned 70-80, 1 earned 60-70 and 1 earned 50-60.
The 31 exclusive Wal Mart shoppers had the following demographics:
* 9 aged 18-34, 8 aged 35 to 49 and 14 aged above 50 * 14 were female and 17 were male * 1 earned 80-90
References: http://recomparison.com/comparisons/100217/wal-mart-vs-target/ http://www.licensemag.com/licensemag/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=302972 http://reclaimdemocracy.org/walmart/2005/target_better.php http://www.scarborough.com/press_releases/Retail%20Study%20Final.pdf