I heart Tar-jay! Who doesn't? Even if you shop at Walmart, you still find yourself in there wondering what cool new designer they brought out (as of late, Jean Paul Gaultier and Liberty of London) or cool new marketing push they've rolled out (the last one I was head over heels for was the Target gift card that doubled as a digital camera). So it was not so surprising to hear that Walmart is losing ground to Target. Why say you? Well because it comes down to experiences. This is a great example of branding 101, yes everyone will run to the retailer who offers the best price but its only a short term strategy at best. With all things being equal, in this case price, giving people a thrilling experience, an added benefit, making their life easier (no matter how big or small - see Target gift card) they'll be back for more.
The interesting thing about Walmart is that its now considered being the middle ground for higher end retailers (a la Target) or bottom discounters (think 99¢ stores). While Walmart's core positioning as the low price leader rang true to everyone regardless of class level, retailers at both ends didn't have a hard time attacking it. Actually Target did so well it has under priced Walmart, according to Kantar Retail's Management Ventures competitive pricing-tracking survey, while Walmart has actually raised prices. Walmart is also increasingly losing out in pricing battles to conventional supermarket operators in addition to dollar stores, hard discounters and discount clubs. What do you do when you've strayed away from you're core positioning that you've spent your entire brand life building? Not sure where to begin with this one but I will tell you what Target is doing which brings me to reason 3,845,241 of why I love Target.
Maybe I'm late to the game on this one but nonetheless I'm in love with Target even more because of it. Target Text Alerts are my new favorite thing! It's mobile coupons for you're phone that Target texts* you every week No more printing out coupons (but Target has that option too), placing them in a "I hope I don't throw these out by accident but actually remember them when I'm at the store" spot and putting them in your purse if you do remember just to dig around the bottom of it to realize you left them in your other purse. Now all I have to remember is to carry my cellphone which is permanently attached to my hand and find it in my text msg folder. EAAAAAAAAASSSSY! And everyone loves easy regardless of income class.
*standard text rates apply of course
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