For the week 4 lecture, we first reviewed the breakdown of the Final Exam which is going to be a similar breakdown as the Midterm exam. Then, the focus of the class was going over more practical aspects of marketing. The lecture was focused on the three case studies about Costco, Dove, and L’Oreal which was very interesting. First off in discussing Costco and after reviewing the case study their mission is to always provide great quality goods and services at the lowest prices possible. Costco, over the years has continued to provide quality manufacturers together to give great products to their customers. According to the reading, in comparison to stores such as Wal-Mart that has up to 150,000 SKUs, Costco has 4,000 SKUs that they focus on because they only provide the fastest –selling flavors, sizes, models and colors. Overall, their business model focuses on a high volume of sales, rapid inventory turnover, very low prices, and better product manageability. Costco has such a great business model because they work with manufacturers directly which cuts out the middle man and also creates a more efficient process. It also eliminates many additional costs having to use a distributor. I found it very interesting that of Costco’s 4,000 SKUs, 3,000 of them come from Staples and the rest from the the Costco “Treasure Hunt” of special temporarily offered items. I did not realize that this was the case for Costco but it has proven to be very successful because Costco is able to provide the best quality items that are in demand at the time which will always keep Costco relevant because they are selling what people want at the best price which undercuts everyone else. Furthermore in the case studies, we discuss Dove’s personal marketing strategies and how it markets AXE and Dove’s products. Overall, especially Dove products, it focuses on speaking to the consumers