Bob's Supermarket Business Analysis

Bob’s Supermarket was founded by Bob and Sam Thompson in 1988 located in Hanover, Indiana. The previous owner had operated the business for 19 years, but lost interest in the store (Parnell, 2014). There was also a third partner that financed most aspects of the business. Bob Thompson had a MBA and took care of the accounting and finances side of the business. Sam was hands on and worked inside the store. Neither one of the owners were very good with marketing and human resources( Parnell, 2014). Bob’s Supermarket prided themselves for their meat department as they cut their own meat fresh everyday. Bob Thompson thought that the fresh meat brought customers from different towns to their store (Parnell, 2014). To add to their fresh food products,

This store was closed after two years. They attempted expansion again by purchasing a store in Columbus, Indiana in 1994. Wal-Mart opened a Supercenter in Columbus the next year, which forced Bob’s to close their Columbus location. With Bob’s only having one store open, human resources was not a key focus of theirs. Other than Bob and Sam, there were only three full time employees and the remaining were part-time. There were no written policies or procedures, there was also no official training programs, and there were a handful of employees that were eligible for benefits. This is the reason why Bob did not feel the need to concentrate on human

Wal-Mart was the greatest competition when they opened their Supercenters in 1995 (Parnell, 2014). Their prices were considerably lower than Bob’s, customers could shop for their groceries as well as their clothing and other items in the same store, and had very convenient store hours of 24 hours. Kroger was also opened 24 hours and was priced slightly higher than Wal-Mart, but provided an array of grocery items. The customers could earn additional discounts and coupons with the customer loyalty card. Aldi’s prices are far lower than Bob’s Supermarket and Wal-Mart. They focused on cost savings providing limited grocery items and requiring customers to bring their own bags for their groceries. The also rented their shopping carts for 25 cents until returned back to the store. Dollar General is compared to an updated general store (Parnell, 2014). They offered a very limited selection of food items, but their prices were outstanding. All of these competitors affected the sales of Bob’s, essentially because they were able to beat Bob’s