Bus 610: Managerial Marketing
Instructor: Dr. Susan Sasiadek
Assignment 3: Marketing Assessment
Templeton C. Crawford
January 23, 2012

Marketing Strategy of Wal-Mart

The marketing strategy of the Wal-Mart is one of that is generic marketing within the retail discounters industry however; since Wal-Mart has changed their target audience it is doing segmentation marketing to capture the refined customer and moved into metropolitan areas instead of rural areas the design of the store has changed to attract the new upscale customer. Targeting marketing, as popular marketing strategy, refers to the concentrated marketing of a product to a segment of consumers due to the attractiveness of the group in terms of such factors size and growth. (Cui, Choudhury, Pravat, 2003, pg.367) The marketing mix 4P’s framework of Wal-Mart product, price, promotion and place. Some critics believe that the Wal-Mart brand can no longer be considered to be a discount store because of the changes which have affected prices. The product has not changed but the packaging of the product has been revamped the great value logo of Wal-Mart by changing the font on packaging. The displays of the products are similar in the new model of Wal-Mart which is to appeal to the new target audience. The old policy of Wal-Mart was to accept any item from any Wal-Mart to replace an item or exchange the item. Now the policy is to buy a replacement plan to cover the items bought from Wal-Mart. The store is now offering a replacement plan for electronics, vacuum cleaners, cell phones and other mechanical items for a price.
The huge selection and low prices appealed to everyone and the supply chain efficiencies Sears had developed for mail order allowed the company to offer unprecedented selection in retail stores, too helping to lay the groundwork for what would eventually become the Wal-Mart