Fortune 500 Company: Wal-Mart Is Known As Essay

Fortune 500 Company: Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart is known as a "super store" and a place to engage in one-stop shopping for the home and individual. For example, the store sells groceries and pet supplies, health and beauty items, crafts and school supplies, home repair tools and products, electronics, furniture for the home and yard, health and beauty supplies and has an in-store pharmacy, among many other products. However, the perspective of Sam Walton might be slightly different. Sam Walton might feel as though the goal and overall objective of Wal-Mart is to give the customer exactly what they want. As Walton said, "The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want. And really, if you think about it from your point-of-view as a customer, you want everything: a wide assortment of good-quality merchandise; the lowest possible prices; guaranteed satisfaction with what you buy; friendly, knowledgeable service; convenient hours; free parking; a pleasant shopping experience" (Walmart.com, 2012). Essentially, Wal-mart could argue that aside from selling home/life goods in a one stop shopping environment, they also provide a pleasant shopping experience for the customer.

Aside from being open for business in all fifty states, Wal-Mart operates in 27 other countries such as close neighbors like Canada and Mexico to slightly further away neighbors like the United Kingdom, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and El Salvador, to distant areas like India, Japan, and South Africa.

4 P's Marketing Mix: Product

Wal-Mart's use of product in their marketing mix is very precise in the sense that they have everything: they are able to offer and sell the customer nearly everything that he or she might need. Some might argue that their products fall under the category of "general use" meaning they carry things you would find in a home, from dog food to TVs to basketball hoops.Aside from appealing to a large section of the needs of the general market, they also appeal to the bulk of the middle class: they invite people to enjoy savings.

Wal-Mart urges customers to purchase the products that customers love to buy -- the beloved and trusted brands that all customers have bought for years under one roof. This brings up another aspect of the product strategy that Wal-Mart has employed: it generally does not carry specialty items. Wal-Mart is not the place to look for hard to find, or terribly unique items. Wal-Mart is a store which appeals to mass interests and the middle of the road population: Wal-Mart uses its products, the wide array of products and the familiarity of their products as a means of creating mass appeal. This is a critical, strategic decision.

"Culture varies but human nature is the same everywhere. While it does not dictate the behavior of individuals, human nature does make them more inclined to act in one way or another… Rooting the brand promise in some aspect of human nature is likely to maximize the chance that it will work across countries, provided you can do so in a way that differentiates the brand from its competitors" (Hollis, 2008, p.34). This is precisely what Wal-Mart is doing in offering such a wide array of mid-level products for every household need: they're making their products appeal to some of the most fundamental needs of human nature, something which will transcend the various differences of the cultural backgrounds of people from their market.

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