After an analysis of both Metro Inc., and Loblaws Companies Limited, we have come to the conclusion that Metro poses the better investment opportunity. Metro, Inc., is one of the leading retailers and distributors of food and pharmaceutical products in Quebec and Ontario. It currently pays a quarterly dividend of $0.1625 per share, equating to $0.65 per share on an annualized basis. Its dividend yield is only 1.26%, but Metro is consistent with its payout as it hasn’t fallen below 1.20% in the past five years. Although it’s yield is lower than Loblaws, Metro has raised its annual dividend payment for 22 consecutive years.
MARKET ANALYSIS CUSTOMERS Company Country Products offered Art Pol Poland Hobby Lobby United States Multicraft Canada Raffia Pacini Trade Italy Craftime Unlimited Corporation is a Philippine-based company which specializes on making handicrafts such as holiday décorations, Angel figurines, Burlap, Sinamay, Raffia, Abaca scrunch, Shells, Placemats, baskets, easter decorations, Halloween decors, capiz and sisal. From these product offerings it was discovered that the handicrafts that are of high demand are Raffia, Sinamay, Abaca Scrunch, Angel Figurines, and Paper Mache.
Financial Analysis The Home Depot has consistently produced excellent financial numbers, especially over the past few years. These results solidify them as the leader in the industry. Strong financials and pure size of the company are two contributing factors to success. As importantly, statistical analysis show The Home Depot to be an extremely well managed corporation. Total sales from Q3 2016 totaled $22.15 billion, an increase of 6.1% from the year prior.
Back in 1984, GameStop was not initially a video game retailer. The original name was called Babbage Inc. from Dallas, Texas. With the rise of video games becoming a popular past time hobby for Americans, the company grew financially well. The name GameStop did not appear until 1996, where they expanded across the United States and even have a few stores in Buffalo, New York.
Companies all over the globe will experience some sales and profit decrease. Home Depot in the growing housing industry benefited greatly from the houses being built. The accounting concept portrayed in this situation for home depot is called operating leverage. Operation leverage is when managers view a small change in revenue and magnify it to dramatic changes in revenue (Edmonds, Tsay, & Olds, 2011). With a decrease in the market for construction materials, Home Depot is experiencing a 3% decrease revenue and a 21% decrease in profitability.
In her essay, “In Praise of Chain Stores”, Virginia Postrel hails the progressiveness of chain stores and counters arguments made against them. As a frequent shopper in my city, I have experienced the benefits of chain stores and how they affect the locals that shop in them. I believe that chain stores have not turned Augusta into a boring city because they are familiar even to those new to the area, they have a high standard of quality and service, and provide fair fixed prices. First, Postrel quotes Thomas Friedman in her essay, stating that “…America is mind numbingly monotonous- the most boring country to tour; because ‘everywhere looks like everwhere else…’ the familiarity of a Walmart to someone new to Augusta may be a relief,
The article that I chose to relate to class, is about Office Max and Office Depot merging into one company. In this process to merge they have to strategically decide what they’re going to do. Each company will keep their own name, websites, and loyal customers. They will eventually add a “combined loyalty program,” for their customers, sometime in the near future. The only thing that is different is the CEO of the newly merged company.
Meaning they will supply them with their products, while having their own section of the store only for their supplies. Sony Corp.
The dual brand strategy of Best Buy as it initiated its expansion into Canada was the first of its kind in the consumer electronic industry. The concept has been used in the Agricultural world with two different seed products (Bisschoff, 2013) and with the hotel industry with different branded hotels (Serlen, 2013) as well. Best Buy leadership recognized the significant fragmentation of the consumer electronic market found in Canada. They felt they could use such as a marketing advantage for their profitability (Ferrell & Hartline, 2010). The first aspect was the availability of market share for multiple companies.
These limitations come from consumer and market behavior, some of which Best Buy cannot control. One elemental market factor that is out of the control of businesses is competition. Competitors aim to take away market share from other firms. For Best Buy, the main competition is against the Apple Company, Wal-Mart, and Amazon.com. Apple currently has student discount rates of 8% on all products.
Best Buy is a retailer of consumer electronics with 1,363 stores in the US, 187 stores in Canada and 25 stores in Mexico as of January 2017. The company employs about 125,000 people and its sales staff are non-commissioned, which is unusual for retail industry. The company was founded by Richard M. Shulze in Minnesota in 1966 as Sound of Music, retailer of audio equipment (stereos). Initially, it’s target customers were teenagers. The store was successful, and owners quickly expanded.
Market Segmentation: To be of value market segments must be measurable, substantial, accessible, differentiable, and actionable (Kotler & Keller, 2012). Segmentation of demographics for Costco is vast as the current product offerings include all genders, ethnicities, incomes. age groups, and social classes. When considering demographics, it is important to consider the average or typical characteristics of the target market. As mentioned earlier the target market or focus for this company is supplying the small- to medium-sized business and targets the middle- to high-end consumer with its private label brand Kirkland Signature.
Walmart, Amazon, and EBay 1. Analyse each of these companies using the value chain and competitive forces models. The value chain model of Amazon in itself is internally and operationally the best that adds value and maintains competitive advantage. The primary activities include Inbound logistics for example quality control, receiving, raw materials, control and supply schedules; Operations for example packaging , maintenance, quality control; Outbound Logistics for example
I. Introduction Walmart Stores, Inc. - the American corporation which was established in 1962, is well-know for the globe’s largest multinational retailer (Walmart 2016). Walmart owns a chain of grocery stores, discount department stores and hypermarkets with about 11,500 retail stores over 28 countries. In 1998, Walmart entered Germany with the acquisition of Wertkauf and Interspar chain (Louisa 2006). Despite having the strongest economy in Europe and the third largest retail market in the world, Germany was not an ideal place for Walmart to achieve its ambition (Knorr and Andt 2003). After nearly a decade struggling to grow, Walmart decided to pull out of German market in 2006 with the loss of one billion dollars (Mark 2006).
In terms of controlling, the management of Marks and Spencer has frequent reporting of expenditures with costs to provide a form of feedback. The reactions of managers to such type of data rely on the expectations or the formal budget or planned targets. The management believes in collecting and assigning cost data that is being shifted away from control. There is a recognition related to the repetitive exercise of planning and re-planning for creating a full time job for accountants. The assessment and evaluation of cost data in the aspects of launching new product by Marks and Spencer is about gaining insights and learning ways for achieving the goals of organisation in most effective manner.
