Walmart Marketing Mix (4Ps) & Marketing Strategy
Marketing strategy of Walmart through marketing mix framework which covers the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion).
Walmart Product Strategy:
Walmart is multi-brand retail store; hence, it has a combination of all departments. The various kinds of departments in Walmart include Electronics & Office, Movies, Music & Books, Home, Furniture & Patio, Home Improvement, Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry, Baby & Toddler, Toys & Video Games, Food, Household & Pets, Pharmacy, Health & Beauty, Sports, Fitness & Outdoors, Auto & Tires, Photo, gifts & personalized shop, Halloween, Party & Sewing. Walmart also have special departments based on season such as Halloween Party costumes. Each individual department has variety of products such as Wearable Tech, Cell phones, Tablets, Computers, Home automation, Office supplies under Electronics & office, Music videos, TV Shows, songs, and books under Music & Books, Bedding, Home décor, furniture, Kitchen & Dining, Vacuum & Floor care, Patio& Garden, Storage & Organization under Home, Furniture & Patio. Under Home Improvement there are products like Heating & cooling equipment, Paints, Wall Papers, Garage equipment, etc. Hence this gives an insight on the marketing mix product strategy of Walmart. While its business has flourished in countries like USA, UK, Canada, it hasn't been able to prosper a lot in Japan, China, Germany etc. The company has also invested in fintech services, online marketing etc.
Image: Wikimedia
This concludes the product strategy in Walmart marketing mix & strategy.
Walmart Price/Pricing Strategy:
Below is the pricing strategy in Walmart marketing mix strategy:
Walmart is a market leader but it prices its product very competitively. Walmart sets records in its marketing mix pricing strategy by pricing its product the least.
It procures products in very large quantities across the world and hence can easily price its products lower than its competitors can, thereby enjoy the benefits of economies of scale. Walmart charges the products approximately 15% lower than its competitors do. They use different pricing strategies depending on the buying behaviours of the customers. Special terms such as “Always low prices” and “Everyday low prices” have been coined to signify that every product is priced differently every hour based on the demand and time. Their tagline, ‘Save money. Live better’, itself depicts the tremendous importance the company gives to pricing of its products. Thus, ‘Every Day Low Price’ (EDLP) is the cornerstone of Walmart’s strategy.
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Walmart Place & Distribution Strategy:
Following is the distribution strategy in the Walmart marketing mix:
Walmart has 10,000+ retail units across the world in 20+ countries, which include Walmart US, Sam’s club and Walmart International outlets. The distribution strategy includes direct delivery to stores by vendors who are the suppliers of the retail stores. The products are delivered in huge volumes to the stores. There are over 150 distribution centres of Walmart which use cross docking method. The hub & spoke method is used by Walmart wherein the goods are centrally ordered and then sent to individual stores. The transportation is achieved through a fleet of 6,100 tractors, 61,000 trailers and more than 7,800 drivers. They majorly stress upon reduction costs of transportation and supply chain and make greener transportation. The items are placed in rural and urban stores on shelves.
It has various types of stores that include Walmart discount stores, Walmart super centers, Walmart neighborhood markets, Walmart express stores.
Walmart Promotion & Advertising Strategy:
The promotional and advertising strategy in the Walmart marketing mix is as follows:
Walmart promotes through a plethora of sales promotions such as product bundling and its competitive pricing strategies. As a part of its marketing mix promotional strategy, Walmart adopts an aggressive brand promotion strategy. The e-commerce website attracts customers by gifting its customers. Walmart uses pricing strategies that contribute to the maximum turnover of the company. The websites uses slogans like ‘Grab it before it’s done’ to attract its customers so that they buy their product without thinking much just so that the offer does not expire. But, regardless of every other promotional strategies, “ Every Day Low Price” happens to be the most important strategies of Walmart to promote itself.
Since this is a service marketing brand, here are the other three Ps to make it the 7Ps marketing mix of Walmart.
People:
Walmart is a global organization with a huge focus on people. The employees and staff are an asset for Walmart as they are ones who handle all the customer queries at the stores. Walmart has an extremely well trained staff and are highly motivated to serve their customers. Walmart has more than 2 million employees worldwide and close to 1.5 million are present in USA. Walmart reaches out to close to 200 million customers.
Process:
Processes at stores at Walmart are extremely efficient and help the customers to shop with ease. The process include having easily available trolleys, systematic product placement & categorization, multiple payment counters, various modes of payments etc. Also, the backend processes like procurement, warehousing, distribution etc of Walmart are also a benchmark for the retailing industry. Due to the pandemic, the company changed some processes which has improved the overall efficiency of processes & profits for the company.
Physical Evidence:
The physical evidence of Walmart is seen by more than 11000+ stores spread across the world. Each and every store has got multiple category of products, efficient product placement etc. Also Walmart has several offices spread across the world, which adds to the value of the brand. Hence, this concludes the entire Walmart marketing mix.
About Walmart:
Walmart is the leading Multinational retail corporation founded in 1962, and incorporated in 1969, it is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. The company is a family business because it is mainly controlled by the Walton family. Walmart company operates across the globe with over 11,500 retail units in 28 countries and as e-retailers in 11 countries. The company operates in hyper markets, discount departmental stores, e-retail and groceries. It delivers high quality merchandise at the cheapest prices. Walmart always maintains its highest position with its efficiency, strong logistics and supply chain management. Initially started with only physical retail outlets, Walmart later also moved to e-retail in 2000. The company boasts "Always Low Prices" and thus uses highly customer-centric approach to continue to be the market leader.
Walmart was declared as largest company by revenue according to Fortune Global 500 list. Walmart has plans of rooting its operations across the globe and continuing to become the biggest retailer since it has planned to invest up to $1Bn in Flipkart which an Indian e-commerce giant.
Browse marketing strategy and 4Ps analysis of more brands similar to Walmart. The Marketing Mix & Strategy section covers 4Ps and 7Ps of more than 800 brands in 2 categories.
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