Why Has Loblaw's Strategy Been Successful?

 Why has Loblaw’s strategy been successful?
Loblaw success can be attributed to its efficient operations, its customer loyalty programs, the popularity of its private label brands, and large-scale purchasing efficiencies. Loblaw has showed a good understanding of the Canadian grocery market due to its time-tested strategy. The company has presence in virtually all Canadian provinces with a tailored value chain that helps them achieve high revenue and standards. Additionally Loblaw offers competitive wages and benefits. Loblaw effective use of the 4+2 strategy had made it the market leader. The excellent execution of its strategy has allowed the company to be a differentiator among other Canadian grocers (especially with its President’s choice brand) and capturing about 32% of the Canadian grocery market shares. See Loblaw’s SWOT analysis below.
Table 1. Loblaw SWOT Analysis

 Should

Although the Loblaw has majority market share holds, the company faces intense competition from many types of grocers such as Sobeys Inc., Metro Inc., Walmart; and many types of non-traditional competitors, such as drug stores, warehouse clubs and specialty stores (organics & ethnics). High rivalry intensity makes an industry more competitive and potentially decrease profit margins.
Entry Barriers: As there are fierce rivalry between competitors, the barriers to entry in the Canadian grocery market is high. The large food retailers account for the majority of the market revenue in Canada. Thus, smaller interdependent retailers can’t really compete with such-alike Loblaw or Sobeys or Walmart. The price of raw materials is high with low consumer switching cost. However, the increasing demand for healthy and organic food is creating openings for smaller competitors to enter and hide from the pricing