Walmart 32nd St.: Case Analysis

Wal-Mart 32nd St. is located in the maturity phase of the life cycle industry. (See Table 1). The retail store sales has been slowly growing over the past years, in the last three years the store sales has been growing a steadily rate with no much difference. According to Porter’s theory, this phase causes some trends to the company: “1) slower growth means more competition for market share. Managerial attention is turning towards attacking of competitors; 2) Product is no longer new. Consumer focus moves from whether to buy the product to deciding on different brands; 3) As a result of low growth, increasing consumer knowledge and greater technological maturity, competition is becoming more focused on prices and service quality; 4) Rise of
Wal-Mart 32nd St has customers from all different nationalities, including winter visitors from Canada, Alaska, and Northern U.S. Customers tastes and preferences vary all the time year through year; for example, some years they will prefer a certain brand of snacks and wine, and the next year they would not buy it anymore. Change of preferences make it difficult for the store to demand forecast the winter products.
The economic climate of customers affect their shopping budget, especially for Canadians where currently the American dollar is worth it more than the Canadian dollar, which means less money for the Canadian’s budget. Since 2014, the American dollar has been increasing more than the Canadian dollar leading to less money for Canadians to spend in the United States. As July 8, 2017 the American dollar is worth $1.29 Canadian dollar. (See table
sales depends on the season of the year. From April to September, the store sales are slow, the stores shelves are full of merchandise, and it is very enjoyable shopping at the store. On the other hand, during winter time (October to March) the store sales high rocket and the number of costumers double the store. The winter months have an average profit of $5 million per week comparing to summer sales of $1 to 1.5 million per week. During winter time, the store has an average of 48,000 customers per week in comparison to an average of only 24,000 customers per week in the summer. The winter season makes very challenging for the store to keep up with the inventory to meet the demand of products being purchased. It is difficult to demand forecast in advance because the number of winter visitors changes every year as well as their product preferences and