The bid is for ten articles of 500 words. A sample of my work is enclosed. This is only a part of the article.
Target Corporation
Introduction
The discount store is only a fifth in terms of sales when compared to Wal-Mart and has 1,330 retail stores in 47 states, yet it still has a loyal base of customers who are interested in trendy and yet affordable range of merchandise. The point to note is that the customers of Target are younger and more affluent than the customers at Wal-Mart.
Thesis
In marketing, it is not enough to have a large number of customers, and they should have the capacity to purchase goods which provide a good return to the seller.
Analysis
Problem Statement
They had also grown to 46 stores in the period to 1973 and this was also resulting in management difficulties. This resulted in problems of high inventory and old merchandise in the store due to the overstocking that it had. This led to drops in sales and decrease of operating income. The major problem was the inventory which was cleaned out by the management through high markdowns on the old stock. (Target Stores, 2006)
History of Target
As a retail store, Target was opened by the Dayton Company in 1962 in Roseville which is a suburb in the twin cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul in Minnesota. In 1972, the operating income and profits of the stores had started declining due to the limited experience of its executives in the discount retail stores business. (Target Stores, 2006)
Update
The organization still maintains its dynamism and on March 10, 2004, it appointed Goldman Sachs Group was for analyzing the results of its sale of Marshall Field’s and Mervyn’s chains of department stores. The action was completed in three months time – on June 9, 2004. Target announced the sales of these stores to May Department Stores Company. (Target Corporation, 2006) Thus one can say that dynamism still remains in the company.
The stock market is now showing Target to be more favored than Wal-Mart as Wal-Mart had an increase in sales by 1.3 percent over March 2005 and this is the lowest of expectations. On the other side, Target showed a growth of 2 percent which was the estimated figure. The reasons for this were the changes in its bath and body unit through the introduction of soap and fragrance products imported from many countries. These replaced American products which were growing slowly. (Riper, 2006)
The point to note is that the pricing used by Target now is not to make it the least expensive store in America but it provides quality, style and trend. From the period that the store was launched, this strategy has been followed. In a way it can be viewed as an upscale discount chain which provides its merchandise to customers as affordable prices. (Target Stores, 2006)
Let us now look at Target, Kmart and Wal-Mart competitively. One of the major strengths of Target has been in merchandising brands like Mossimo, Issac Mizrahi, Cherokee, Todd Oldham, Honors and Archer Farms. The result of this is that Target has more upscale customers than Kmart and Wal-Mart who can be sold higher margin products including apparel. (Helfat, 2004)
This can be seen in an analysis of the shopper in Target stores and he is 46 years old and the youngest among all three major retailers. The median household income of its customers is around $55,000. Around eighty percent of its customers are women and 38 percent have children at home. The education levels are high and eighty percent had started attending college with 43 percent having completed it. (Target Corporation, 2006)