Wal-Mart Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Retailing and Wholesaling

Individual Assignment

1. Read the opening vignette to the chapter. Think about the answers to the following questions:
1. What is Wal-Mart’s overall strategy?
2. Describe Wal-Mart based on the types of retailers described in the text—via service, product line, prices, and organizational approach.
3. Describe Wal-Mart’s decisions they have made for each of the 4 Ps.
4. If you were a wholesaler, who would you approach Wal-Mart to carry your products? How would you position your company?

Share your findings with the class.

Think-Pair-Share

1. Consider the following questions, formulate an answer, pair with the student on your right, share your thoughts with one another, and respond to questions from the instructor.
1. What is retailing?
2. How is retailing different from wholesaling?
3. How can retailers be classified?
4. What are the three levels of service? How are they different?
5. Briefly characterize the various retail forms found in Table 13.1.
6. What is a category killer? What is a hypermarket?
7. Explain how a franchise works.
8. What are the benefits and drawbacks of a franchise?
9. How do retailers target a market?
10. How do retailers establish a position in the marketplace?
11. What is meant by “a shortening retail life cycle”?
12. Briefly characterize each of the wholesale forms mentioned in Table 13.3.


13. What are the functions of wholesalers? Can these be replaced? If so, how?
14. What do you think is the most dramatic trend in wholesaling?

Outside Example

Both Barnes & Noble and Borders have been described as category killers. These very large book stores are fairly ubiquitous in shopping malls, strip malls, and downtown locations in major cities. In addition to books, they carry music, newspapers and magazines, and generally will have small cafes within them to encourage customers to hang around for a while.

Barnes & Noble established a major online presence in response to the early success of Amazon.com. Borders has taken another tack for its online sales, teaming up with the enemy, Amazon.com itself. So these two giants have presence virtually everywhere you go, even cyberspace, and they have both largely squeezed out independent bookstores. Even the movie You’ve Got Mail! discusses the impact of this specific kind of category killer.

1.      Discuss the kind of service you get at the stores. Are they self-service, limited-service, or full-service retailers? How about their online stores?

2.      If you have never visited one of these stores, visit one. What is the atmosphere? What do you like about the store? What do you dislike?

3.      Describe their targeting efforts for their physical store locations. What type of customer is likely to go to a store versus buy on the Internet?

4.      How do these two stores compete with Amazon.com when it comes to product assortment? Can you differentiate them at all? If so, how?

5.      Do you find these retailers comfortable as “hang outs”? Do you use them that way yourself? Why or why not? Do they instill a sense of community?