Wal-Mart does business in a number of segments: food and beverage, consumer staples, and pharmacy products. Wal-Mart’s largest opportunity comes from the food and beverage segment as it is the largest food retailer in the U.S. Over the past several years, it has expanded its share of the market while the three largest grocery retailers have lost market share. Wal-Mart’s success in the grocery segment is the result of its incredibly low cost structure. This success allows Wal-Mart to sell grocery products at prices significantly lower than those of other grocery stores. On average, Wal-Mart is able to offer groceries at prices 20% lower than traditional grocery chains. By passing these grocery savings onto its customers, Wal-Mart essentially boosts the purchasing power of its customers. This is an especially important benefit to families with either fixed or limited incomes. …show more content…
Most family members hold hourly-wage jobs and therefore have a direct correlation between their time spent working and their take-home income. What this means is that the number of non-working hours they have available for quality time with their families is inversely related to the amount of money they are able to take home to their families. In this way, Wal-Mart is able to benefit working-class families over traditional grocery chains by offering a dependable everyday low price. Traditional grocers may be able to offer lower prices at certain points in time through double-coupon and special weekly offerings. However, in general, Wal-Mart’s everyday low prices on groceries offer working-class families in Southeast Raleigh an easy alternative to spending time researching weekly circulars for deals and