Marketing Analysis of Walmart Canada

This report provides a detailed market analysis of Walmart Canada, including its current market position, client problems, and situational analysis using different marketing models such as PESTLE, 7P's, SWOT, and more.

Running head: MARKETING ANALYSIS
Marketing Analysis
(Walmart Canada)
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author Note

1MARKETING ANALYSIS
Executive summary
The following report has demonstrated the market analysis of Walmart Canada. It is one of the
popular divisions of Canadian Walmart. Firstly, the background of the company is discussed
here. Then its present position in terms of financials, positioning and market share is analyzed.
Next, the client problems are identified with related issues for the research. Moreover, the client
problems are identified as per poor service of customers, obsolete product offerings and a
reduction in sales. Further, different external and internal case of Walmart is analyzed through
different marketing models. They are SWOT, 7P’s, 7S’s, SPICC and PESTLE. At last, an
additional model of Porter’s 5 is included here, to understand the situation of the company better.

2MARKETING ANALYSIS
Table of Contents
1. Introduction:......................................................................................................................................
1.1. Background of the company:................................................................................................3
1.2. Walmart Canada’s current market position:.........................................................................4
1.2.1. Market share:..................................................................................................................4
1.2.2. Positioning:....................................................................................................................5
1.2.3. Financials:......................................................................................................................6
1.3. Identification of client problems:..........................................................................................7
1.4. Issues related to current research:.........................................................................................8
1.5. Summary:..............................................................................................................................9
1.6. Conclusion:.........................................................................................................................10
2. Situational analysis:.........................................................................................................................
2.1. PESTLE:.............................................................................................................................10
2.3. SPICC:.................................................................................................................................13
2.4. 7S’s:.....................................................................................................................................14
2.5. 7P’s:.....................................................................................................................................16
2.6. SWOT:................................................................................................................................16
2.7. Additional model to understand the market place of Walmart Canada:.............................17
2.8. Summary:............................................................................................................................19
2.9. Conclusion:.........................................................................................................................19
3. References:......................................................................................................................................

3MARKETING ANALYSIS
1. Introduction:
1.1. Background of the company:
The “Walmart Canada” is one of the divisions of Canadian Walmart. The main
headquarter likes in Mississauga in Ontario. The organization started its journey at 1994 with the
intention of purchasing the chain of Woolco Canada from F.W. Woolworth Company. It mainly
comprised of discount stores. Besides, it has competed in various sectors such as Dollarama,
Canadian tire and Home Hardware (Wynne 2016). Further, on the basis of its success of US
format, the organization was found to be focusing on widening its Supercentres, originating from
converted and new locations. This is done by providing groceries putting them to a similar
market, parallel to other supermarket chains. Then the company hold a grand opening of 15
centers in 2016, as they completed their expansion plan for the fiscal year (Alam 2017). During
April 2018, the overall count was 410 stores. This included 334 supercentres with 76 discount
stores at most of the nation’s territory and provinces. Their main landlord and principal are
SmartCentres along with First Capital Reality and Riocan.

4MARKETING ANALYSIS
Figure 1: “Front store of Walmart Canada”
(Source: O.w.n news network 2016)
1.2. Walmart Canada’s current market position:
1.2.1. Market share:
It is seen that the total sales in Canada have increased by about 2% for Walmart. Here, the
sales at the stories are open till more than a year that grew by 1.0%. Here both of these
decelerated as the net sales rose about 3.4 % and computable sales rose to about 2.5%. At
Canada, the customers have reacted to the investments that they have made in price and
contributing to various market-share gains in different primary categories of traffic-driving
(Bushnell et al. 2015). Moreover, they have expanded to multiple locations where they have
offered online grocery pickups ad launched e-commerce marketplace. This has doubled their
online assortment and continued to concentrate on primary categories such as apparel and home.

5MARKETING ANALYSIS
Further, the overall online sales have soared 50% during the initial quarter that has exceeded the
rate of growths in the retail industry. However, it has been slower than the past quarters 60%
increment. This has added 8% basis points to various third quarters as compatible to the gain in
sales (Konur and Geunes 2018).
Figure 2: “Growth of market share at Walmart Canada”
(Source: Lawrence 2016)
1.2.2. Positioning:
The above statistics have highlighted that the amount of retail stores of Walmart in
Canada from the year of 2012 and 2018. It is seen that there are 410 retail stores till 2018. This is
same as the number of stores as the prior year.

6MARKETING ANALYSIS
Figure 3: “Current market position of Walmart Canada”
(Source: The statistics portal 2018)
1.2.3. Financials:
Walmart Canada has underscored their distinct resources, strong innovation and
execution in October 2018. This is done at the Investment Community meeting. At the same
place, Walmart was to Webcast 2018 at October 2018. On August 18, in this year Walmart
announced their completion of Walmart Investment on one of the leading marketplace
ecommerce Platform. Wal-Mart Canada has tightened their levels of inventory in common
categories of merchandizes (Myers et al. 2017). Their inventory has increased at a slower pace
than its sales. Here, the retailers have never broken out their real Canadian sales, though they
have been estimated to be more than 25 billion dollars. They entire fourth-quarter has fallen to

7MARKETING ANALYSIS
about 3.70 dollars U.S. dollars and about 4.57 billion one year earlier. This has reflected the
effect from various discounted real estate severance and projects. It has excluded items, and the
earnings at every share of about 1.30 dollars have exceeded the average estimations of 1.29
dollars of analysts (Joseph 2015). Here, the revenue has risen about 1 percent to 130.9 billion.
This is the depreciation of Mexican peso to U.S. dollar curbing growths. It has excluded the
fluctuations in currency and the sales reached about 133 billion dollars.
1.3. Identification of client problems:
The issues of the clients are identified with relevant issues around the current research.
Reduced sales Adding huge end-products at low costs, relative to others, is a smart
strategy for Walmart Canada. The activity has taken them out of
deeper discounter or cheap employee positioning with reduced price or
choosing a quality position. However, failing to maintain the idea to be
less expensive than the rest has hindered their success. Their base
customers and digital clients, who are of a different group than the ones
visiting physical stores have seen Walmart breaking faith. This is done
with their core principles of the promise of the brand. Thus they have
commenced a vital mistake (Diehl and Bishop 2017). However,
Walmart Canada should attract slightly distinct demographics,
publicized by them as they move on. As the new shopper demographic
support higher priced products, lower than the others, then the strategy
would take time. However, this is time consuming.
Poor customer
service
Walmart being the low-price leader has not always been winning on prices.
Competitors of Walmart Canada has been offering lesser process on similar
items. Hence it is hated by various customers. Further, it is also found that
customers have disliked shopping at Walmart, as they have been facing

8MARKETING ANALYSIS
trouble in seeing what they have needed. Customers have been facing
doubts to get in and out of the stores easily that they have liked to do (Pesch
and Bennett 2015). Moreover, many of them have left instead of grabbling
every item on the lists. Furthermore, Walmart Canada has also involved
long waits at checkouts and their return lines. Further, merchandize of
Walmart Canada has not always been up to that snuff.
Outdated
product
offerings
Walmart has not designed products and product lines for maximizing
benefits. Here, out of every available potential, Walmart has been unable to
decide which one to offer. Further, Walmart Canada has lacked in
developing a framework to balance costs to develop and provide an
important line of services and products against demands of customers for
extra choice (Pesch and Bennett 2015).
1.4. Issues related to current research:
The various problems of Walmart Canada are determined through the following aspects.
Spiraling
problem
For example, the sales for Levi for Walmart Canada peaked in 1996 at
an amount of 7.1 billion dollars. However, it is seen in the previous years
that the organization spiraled down in consecutive six years in a row, to
the cost of 4.1 billion dollars. Moreover, through the first six months of
the year 2003, their sales declined with another 3% (Greco, Figueira and
Ehrgott 2016). Hence, Walmart has not brought mew products needed by
consumers. Thus Walmart never has benchmarks for driving the people
down in prices.
Competition This can be explained by an example. The retailers of Canada has witnessed
stiff competition from organizations like Amazon. This has pushed a lot to
invest in terms of home delivery and online sales.

9MARKETING ANALYSIS
Loss of
customers
This can be highlighted by the case where the company has accidentally
provided their customers with 21k dollars. However, they have pleas to take
that back as not considered seriously. This type of negligence has lead
Walmart Canada to lose their customers.
A decline in
market share
due to low
sales
The marketing team of Walmart Canada has a disproportionate quantity of
advertising spend on various items with low of price point. Here, the
merchandizing team has not been prepared for a surge in demand (Burger,
Combs and Bauer 2015). This has led to stock outs and various loss of sales.
Hence, they have faced a decrease in market share.
Frustration
and morale
of employees
It is seen that within 2016 to till date, about 12% of employees are found to
leave their job due to technology frustrations. About 45% of office workers
complained that their greatest disappointment from technology at the
workplace had been too many emails and different email downtimes (Du,
Deng and Qian 2018).
Bankruptcy Walmart Canada has witnessed pretax losses of about 5.4 billion dollars on
various discounted operations during 2014. Again there has been projected
pretax losses of about 275 billion dollars over cut activities during fiscal 2015
(Santos and Laczniak 2015).
1.5. Summary:
Walmart Canada is the world’s one the popular retailers have faced various challenges.
This is happening in the present situation when low prices and different one-stop shopping are
just some clicks away from over mobile phone and tablet computers. Similar to multiple retail
chains catering to various working class people, they are victim to uneven financial recovery.
Further, the shoppers have been no longer intending to spend times in huge supercenters. Thus
they have been moving towards various online competitors such as pharmacies, dollar stores and
Amazon.com.

10MARKETING ANALYSIS
1.6. Conclusion:
The above study shows that Walmart Canada has been failing because of lack of use of
demographics to their advantage. The current issues with supply chain have denoted that the
retailers struggled to put their primary predicts on the shelves. At other cases, they have gone too
far away to “Canadianize” their merchandizes they have in their stock. Their employees have
been mismatching data systems that have led to employee frustrations like confusion and delays
as sorting products are concerned.
2. Situational analysis:
The “situational analysis” indicates method collections, used by managers for examining
various external and internal factors. Here, it is used to study the business scenario of customers
and capabilities of Walmart Canada. This is done through the following models.
2.1. PESTLE:
Political Factors:
The potential external elements in a remote or macro environment of Walmart includes
the following
 Political pressure for higher wages which is a threat.
 Political support for globalization, which is an opportunity.
 High stability of politics, which is an opportunity.
These indicate that Walmart Canada must denote the threats of greater wages. It is a threat since
it has been going against cost minimizations important for generic strategic of cost leadership of
Walmart Canada (Santos and Laczniak 2015).
Economic Factors:

11MARKETING ANALYSIS
This includes the following.
 A decline of unemployment a Canada.
 Continuous growth of developing nations’
 Stability of important economies.
All of the above factors are opportunities. These indicate that Walmart Canada must exploit
their scopes across the world. They must focus on the fast-growing economies of developing
nations (Rashid 2017).
Sociocultural or social factors:
This includes the following.
 Urban migrations
 Trends in cultural diversity
 Trends in health lifestyle
These are all opportunities for Walmart Canada. They must adjust their strategies for
exploiting the rise in consumer demands in various areas (Myers et al. 2017).
Technological Factors:
They are the following.
 Rise in mobile device usages among various consumers.
 Big data ad business analytics.
 A rise in business automation.
Again, the factors are opportunities for the company. It is seen that online marketing and
selling has risen their revenues (Wang, Fan and Wang 2018).
Environmental and ecological factors:

12MARKETING ANALYSIS
These factors are highlighted below.
 Different environment friendly products that are opportunities for Walmart Canada.
 Trends in business sustainability that are also scopes for the company.
 Improved standards and policies on various products sold at the retail stores have
strengthened the organization to address the above ecological factors.
Legal factors:
The various elements, also bringing opportunities and threats for Walmart Canada are
listed below.
 Tax law reforms which are a kind of threat.
 Regulations of employments or opportunities.
 Regulations for food safety or opportunities.
Here, developing human resource management practices of Walmart has exploited scopes
regarding employment regulations (Muda and Windari 2018).

13MARKETING ANALYSIS
SPICC Analysis of Walmart Canada
Suppliers:
Walmart Canada has liked to treat
their suppliers as customers.
For gaining competitive advantages,
Walmart has used local knowledge
and skills of suppliers in the current
market.
They are able to purchase and fund
products are fitting the local needs
Competition:
It is seen that for many years, Walmart
Canada has depended on their
competitors.
This is helpful to adapt and improvise
changes in the industry. They are able to
adapt to the challenges of competitors and
decrease their price lower and not the
lowest
This to make the products more attractive
to customers as compared to their
competitors.
Intermediaries:
Canada’s Walmart has been
able to use their distributors
for delivering products to
the homes of customers.
Publics:
Walmart Canada has always
committed to maintaining and
effective conversation with their
shareholders.
This is to assure what has been
expected from tem to react to a
broad range of enquiries.
Customers:
Walmart Canada has held the central purpose
of creating value for customers.
They have decided to concentrate more on
strategies of competitive pricing of products
and decrease promotions.
2.3. SPICC:
The analysis is done through the following illustration.
Figure 4: “SPICC Analysis of Walmart Canada’s market”
(Source: Created by Author).

14MARKETING ANALYSIS
7S Analysis of Walmart Canada
Strategy:
n be specified here are access price and assortment.
pursuit of financial leadership strategy, they have attracted criticism to pay their employees with low wages having a consequent negative effect over customer service quality.
Structure:
Conventionally, their organizational structure is largely hierarchical because of huge scope and size to business, comprising more than about 11,000 stores in more than 25 co
Systems:
There is a broad range of systems of various levels of complexities facilitated by busine
Skills:
This includes capabilities and competencies of Walmart Canada
Staff:
This determines how staffs will be motivated and trained.
Shared values:
This has guided shared values and customer behavior for Wa
Style:
This indicates how Walmart Canada has been interacting and adding values
2.4. 7S’s:
While analyzing the business of Walmart Canada and the 7S framework, they have
mainly employed three hard elements. These are systems, structure and strategy. Because if their
strength is these sections, they have been successful.
Figure 4: “7S Analysis for Walmart Canada”
(Source: Created by Author)
Strategy:
Their CEO had addressed those problems by introducing particular modifications in their
business strategy (Myers et al. 2017). The organization announced USD1 billion investment in

15MARKETING ANALYSIS
February 2015, with hourly associates for providing greater wages and more training and rise in
scopes to create a career with Walmart.
Structure:
This has served about 250 million clients every week within 70 banners.
Systems:
It has included and not restricted to staff recruitment and selection, finance, IT, employee
performance appraisals and many more (Park and Chung 2018).

16MARKETING ANALYSIS
Product:
The company has been selling a widerange of products.
usehold appliance, home furnishing, and apparel, hardware, hardlines like accessories, auto spares and stationaries.
r prices, they have attempted to put their products as quality and messages are integrated into their marketing strategy.
Place:
Having more than 1000 stores, mobile apps, websites, their customers are able to access them through various channels.
They have planned to widen theirs approximately from 15 to 16 million of the overall net retail square feet. This has represented 240 and 270 units.
Their stores are operated in various formats. They are neighborhood markets, supercenters, express stores and discount stores
Price:
They have based their competitive advantage over cost leadership. They have been committed to deli
Anyone can find a lesser price from the online retailer over identical and in-stock products or any item purchased from their site is listed
Promotion:
l mix has been composed of various sales promotions, personal selling, public relations and advertisements.
e used promotions as special discounts and deals.
People:
Through taking care of their employees, Walmart Canada has been taking better care of about 250 million customers every week. They have been strengthening their loPhysical evidence:
Their physical evidence has witnessed about more than 11000 stores around the globe. Here every store has possessed var
7P Analysis of Walmart
2.5. 7P’s:
Marketing of Canada’s Walmart is analyzed through the following marketing mixes.
Figure 5: “7P Analysis of Walmart Canada”
(Source: Created by Author).
2.6. SWOT:
Strengths: Weakness:
This is an internal force for Walmart Canada.
These are all related to their size of business.
These are
 High efficiency of a supply chain
These are related directly to their generic
strategy. These are listed below.
 Model, that can be copied easily
 Highly thin margins of profits.

17MARKETING ANALYSIS
 Global supply chain
 Global organizational size
Opportunities: Threats:
These are primarily related to the
development and expansion of business
practices. They involve the following
 Development in quality standards
 Development of different human
resource practices
 Expansion in different developing
nations.
These are external forces and related to
conditions of retail markets and changes to
consumer perceptions. They are highlighted
below.
 Small-scale or individual online
selling
 Healthy trends in lifestyles
 Aggressive competitions.
2.7. Additional model to understand the market place of Walmart Canada:
For this, Porter’s 5 model is chosen to be suitable for the present analysis.
The Five forces of Porter analysis implemented on Walmart Canada highlights the
implications of their competitive rivalry and intensity of their competition over their retail sector
and business. Here, this situation of the industry scenario has pushed them in exploring various
strategic measures in managing adverse impacts of competition (Heng and House 2016).
Through considering where this retail market has been saturated, the organization has a constant
process of development for counteracting the effect of string competitions.
1. The intensities of competitive rivalry or competition:
This is a strong force. It involves:

18MARKETING ANALYSIS
 The huge aggressiveness of the retail firms
 Huge varieties of retail firms
 A huge amount of firms in retail markets
2. Bargaining power of customers and buyers:
This is a weal force and includes:
 Individual purchases of small sizes
 Huge diversity of the consumers
 Huge population of consumers
3. Bargaining Power of Suppliers:
This is a weak force. It includes:
 Huge availability of supply
 Tough competition taking place among suppliers
 Huge population of suppliers
4. Threat of substitutions or substitutes:
This is a weak force and comprises of:
 Huge expense of substitutes
 Lowe varieties of substitutes
 Moderate availability of substitutes
5. Threat of new entry or entrance:
This is strong force and includes the following.
 Moderate costs of capitals
 Less cost to perform business

19MARKETING ANALYSIS
 Moderate to huge cost of various brand developments (moderate force)
2.8. Summary:
It is seen from the above study that Walmart Canada has held immense potentials to
develop its business. They have also be fetching lots of financial growths. The new CEO of
Walmart Canada has included initiative degrading delayer of organizational structure. Moreover,
Walmart Canada announced in 2015 that they would be eradicating a layer of management
within 45,000 stores. This is to decrease the bureaucracy, develop service of customers and
provide front-line staffs with more input regarding how the section of that store is been run.
Walmart Canada has pursued the business strategy of cost leadership as per their brand promise
of day to day low prices. They have been sustaining their strategy. This is because of their
economies of scale and exercising of huge bargaining power for securing lesser price from the
suppliers and then paying the employees with low wages.
2.9. Conclusion:
The study helps in understanding that Walmart Canada must be focusing on their
infrastructures to gain benefits from their core competencies in Canadian market. They should be
focusing on e-commerce and e-retail for growing their brand quicker. Moreover, they must be
investing more in terms of technologies and must raise their presence through extending their
distribution networks. It must be reminded that the lifestyles of consumers are changing. Hence,
more and more millennial have been shopping online. Hence Walmart Canada should focus on
catering to the necessities of the present generation through investing over the latest innovations.
This must make their shopping a more convenient one.

20MARKETING ANALYSIS
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