Walmart is an American retail corporation founded by Sam Walton in 1962. It operates in many countries that include the United States, Canada, Argentina, and Brazil. It is among the largest corporations in the world that employ a large number of employees.
Walmart has come under attack in past years for offering employees low wages, sexual discrimination at the workplace, and unfair treatment of employees. Despite criticism and attacks, the corporation has maintained its position as one of the leading retailers in America and the world.
Walmart is a relevant brand in the market because of several reasons that include its impact on economy of the U.S., influence on labor markets, and its sustainability efforts.
Walmart is one of the leading employers in the world with over 2 million employees spread across its branches around the world. Research has revealed that its economic impact is immense.
First, it provides wages to many people thus improving quality of people’s lives.
Second, it offers low prices that make merchandise affordable to low income earners. As such, it alleviates poverty and improves lives of many Americans. Low-income households benefit greatly from low prices, which have led to improved consumer well-being.
On the other hand, Walmart has immense influence on labor markets. Research has found out that presence of Walmart in the market increases employment opportunities even though it offers low wages. Its relevance regarding labor markets bases on menial treatment of employees.
It offers low wages, inadequate health cover, poor working conditions, and prevents employees from joining or forming unions. However, this is obscured by the fact that it offers employment opportunities to many people.
Brand positioning refers to a company’s or organization’s perception by customers. Effective brand positioning is one of the most effective ways used by businesses to create customer loyalty and increase customer satisfaction.
Walmart has positioned its brand as a low-price retailer that cares for the welfare of customers. As such, Walmart’s brand positioning as the low-price retailer promises customers that the corporation offers the lowest prices for goods in the market.
The focus of the corporation’s brand positioning is low prices. It does not offer any promises on quality of shopping experiences or customer affiliation. Therefore, Walmart’s customer base is sensitive to prices of goods compared to customers of its competitors in the market.
The main reason Walmart is a leader in the retail sector is because of its brand positioning. However, analysts have criticized Walmart’s brand positioning by attributing it to brand devaluation.
This has led to Walmart establishing itself as a brand of low-priced goods for low-income earners. They further argue that Walmart could improve its brand positioning by incorporating aspects such as customer affiliation and customer experience in its brand positioning strategy.
As a brand, Walmart is characterized by creativity, focus on customer needs, high turnover, low cost of production, and market dominance. Walmart’s high turnover and positive impact on economy could be attributed to its creativity.
It focuses on middle class and low-income earners who form the larger part of the population. As such, it offers low prices for its products. It is able to provide low prices because of its low cost of production and low wages.
However, the brand is losing its market dominance because of emergence of online shopping stores such as Amazon.com that have improved convenience of shopping. In addition, development of stores such as Dollar General is affecting the positioning of the brand.
Walmart is famous for its effective advertising that attracts more customers to its stores. In past years, it has used slogans such as we sell for less, and satisfaction guaranteed to reiterate its commitment to fulfilling needs of customers by offering affordable prices.
In addition, it uses different registered trademarks that include the spark, live better, and save money to represent the Walmart brand. Walmart also offers store brands that present low prices as alternatives to name brand products.
It offers numerous store brands such as Sam’s Choice, Dr Thunder, White Stag, George, Mainstays, great Value, and Equate. Additional brands include Apparel and Homeliness. These store brands are offered under the Walmart brand and have played a pivotal role in Walmart’s brand positioning.
To improve its brand, Walmart has created a campaign to reinvent its brand to counter criticisms by labor unions and media. The campaign is aimed at cleaning its tainted image and negative publicity.
Objectives of the campaign include digitization, reinvention of brand, development of solutions to existing problems, and restructuring retail store formats.
The reinvention campaign aims to advance Walmart’s philosophy of offering low prices to customers while maintaining its brand position as a low-price retailer. The value of Walmart’s brand was evident from nomination as one of the most valuable brands in the world in 2012.
This was attributed to its focus on fulfilling needs of digitally connected customers, improving operations to include online services, and offering customers a chance to order merchandise even without money when placing orders.
Its brand is worth $34.4 billion and is the most valued brand in the world.