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Sears

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Submitted By ivysong223
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Sears is a mid-range department store chain of America. It sells clothing, shoes, furniture, jewelry, books and so on. Sears story is about how Sears manage their business successfully. Sears success is based on its smart response to the changing market and its wise adjustments because of the need for expansion. One of the main achievements Sears made is that Sears invented mail-order plant for reaching its first target consumer group: the farmer. Mail-order method is still used by a lot of companies now and it is improved a lot. These companies have the warehouses locally, the orders will be automatically chosen from the warehouse that’s close to customers, which is very efficient.

Another move I’d like to talk about Sears is the change of target consumer. In the mid-twenties, Sears switched its target focus from “only the farmer” to “both the farmer and city population”. The reason is that the low-income groups desired to buy the same goods as the middle and upper class. The country was becoming one big homogeneous market. And Sears noticed the trend and was aware of the consumer shopping habits, so they made changes accordingly. This strategy made me think of Starbucks in China. The consumer of Starbucks in America is almost for everyone, but in China, the target consumer is mostly for the wealthy upper and middle class. College students won’t pay 30 yuan for a cup of coffee because they can buy 6 bottles of CocaCola instead. Starbucks was really smart when they decided their target consumer in China. Since coffee is still not a common drink for Chinese, carrying a cup of expensive Starbucks is seen as a symbol of success or some little personal luxury for the middle class. Starbucks premium pricing strategy fits the market demand very well because the middle class and affluent consumers are growing, which means the market of Starbucks in China will be huge in

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