Strategic marketing is aimed to define the target audience, long-term policy in pricing and assortment formation, style in negotiations with suppliers and customers – the threat of competition develops this phenomenon of strategic marketing. The main problem and purpose of the report is the possible threat of entry into the retail market for Amazon Go, which will have a significant competitive advantage. It lies in the fact that stores will be equipped with modern technology avoiding queues at the checkout, simply collecting products in the basket and leaving the store. The purpose of this work will offer various recommendations for small businesses to create and maintain competitiveness in this situation.
Marketing Planning Process
The marketing planning process depends entirely on the chosen concept. First, it should be determined that we are talking about everyday goods with constant high demand. Price is a relatively strong indicator of competition but is often not decisive (Fadavi, Jolai and Taleizadeh, 2021). Much more important is the geographic proximity to the consumer’s home of such stores. Retail itself constantly deals with a mass of suppliers, so the uniqueness of the products sold is determined only by the aggregate range of available goods (Yu, Rothenberg & Moore, 2020; Martín-Herrán and Sigué, 2021). At the same time, a weak differentiation of these products remains, since many products of daily use must be fresh and, accordingly, their availability depends on the capabilities and remoteness of suppliers (Dellino et al., 2018; Nagurney, Besik and Yu, 2018; Liu, Zhang and Zhao, 2021). In all these situations, a small business with experience will have an advantage over a new player whose capabilities are pretty significant.
Marketing Concepts
A large company Amazon can lure regular customers of small businesses at the expense of reduced prices at the opening, but in the long term, for the reasons stated above, prices will be at the same level. Products in one geographic region will also be exhibited by several suppliers represented in all other grocery stores. The main problem lies in the advertising and technological support of the brand. Skip-the-line shopping is a very compelling argument for people who value time (An, 2018). Best of all, this plane of reasoning reflects the 4C model: value, cost, information exchange, and convenience (Tan and He, 2019). According to this model, a possible recommendation is to increase the possibilities of channels for communicating with direct consumers, the development of technological and other innovations that are understandable to the customer for the convenience of shopping, and the study of the main determinants of purchase in a given store in addition to price (Huijing et al., 2020). Within a single location and price, the main factors in which activity will need to be intensified are technology and communication channels with end-users.
The PESO model can be used to implement the communication with end users. Reputation depends on earned channels and their content, which represents authority for the end consumer (Dakouan and Benabdelouahed, 2019). Amazon has an influential loyal audience familiar with the brand, for example, through online shopping (Aćimović, Mijušković and Milošević, 2020; Varghese and Chitra, 2019). In this regard, another recommendation will be a more elaborate system or the introduction of loyalty programs in the activities of retailers. Finally, the most in-depth analysis can be provided by the RFM model, which estimates the purchasing power and frequency of purchases of each customer. It is much easier to carry out such an analysis thanks to loyalty programs, registering the list and date of the customer’s purchases through the card (Heldt, Silveira and Luce, 2019). As a result, valuable information will be obtained that can influence the understanding of market segmentation, assess audience loyalty and adjust the further marketing plan through various communication channels.
Branding
The degree of company’s differentiation in the market is always determined by the distinctions from competitors, which is an essential feature of customers’ attractiveness. Amazon has established itself for a long time, and therefore the strength of brand awareness is extremely high. At least out of interest, customers who have had a positive experience working with this company will familiarize themselves with its powerful marketing statement for purchase without queuing. Another thing small businesses can take advantage of is customer preference differentiation, as there may not be enough food on the premises of one Amazon store for everyone in one particular area. This kind of recognition, like Amazon’s, is difficult to achieve in a reasonable amount of time, but in any given area, small businesses can meet the requirements of social and environmental responsibility in favor of that region.
Branding Concepts
Firstly, the brand pyramid is the primary tool for understanding the brand’s mission, purpose, and goals. In a small business focused on retail, this toolkit allows one to think about the tasks at each pyramid stage, which management may not have thought (Lithopoulos et al., 2018). Starting from identifying itself as a retail store, understanding the need to convey products of daily use to end consumers, and collecting reviews using various communication channels, a company can understand how to maintain the loyalty of each customer. Creating a loyal audience in retail is one of the most critical tasks; therefore, this fact is found at the top of the pyramid shown in Figure 1.
Brand positioning, in this case, is strongly tied to the infrastructure aspect and where and when. If purpose and values were partly voiced in the pyramid model above, the process is the crucial aspect in this situation (Fayvishenko, 2018). It is the buying process that sets out to speed up Amazon dramatically. Small businesses cannot integrate computer vision technologies into store premises and therefore need to work in a different direction that requires less cost. Naturally, achieving the same effect as Amazon will almost certainly not work, but inaction, in this case, will be the worst enemy. Brand positioning is shown in Figure 2. Brand management is another concept which shows the management of a system, the critical elements of positioning, identity, meaning, and relationships.
Reference List
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