Walmart's Strategic Analysis, Consumer Behavior, and Website Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Walmart, examining its resources and capabilities, including brand value, global supply chain, and technology, which contribute to its competitive advantage. It delves into Porter's strategies, specifically cost leadership, and how Walmart aims t...Read More

INDIVIDUAL REPORT

Table of Contents
SECTION-A....................................................................................................................................3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Walmart resources and capabilities.............................................................................................3
Porter's strategies:........................................................................................................................4
Walmart's aim..............................................................................................................................5
Strategic recommendations..........................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
SECTION B.....................................................................................................................................7
Any retailer website according to 10 attributes that influence consumer decision-making........7
Differentiate between high-involvement and low-involvement purchase along with example. .8
Cognitive Dissonance:...............................................................................................................10
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

SECTION-A
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This project will study about Walmart and its resources or capabilities which it uses to gain
customer satisfaction along with the discussion about the strategies which Walmart adopts. This
project also highlights about the main aim of Walmart along with some strategic
recommendations.
INTRODUCTION
Walmart is one of the biggest customer centric and consumer oriented multinational company of
US having global appearance due to its global business across the different countries. It was
founded in 1962 by Sam Walton. Doug McMillon is the current CEO and Brett Biggs is current
CFO of the Walmart. Headquarter of Walmart is in Bentonville, Arkansas, US. Walmart deals in
variety of product through different forms including the departmental stores, groceries store and
many other forms.
MAIN BODY
Walmart resources and capabilities
Since, every customer is very conscious about the price element, and they want to buy the best
product but by paying the lowest price, and keeping or considering this thinking of customers
Walmart made its policy as customer centric and now the main aim of Walmart is to gain
customer satisfaction by providing the best quality product at lowest cost as possible. For that
Walmart uses the best resources and its capabilities in such a way that the efficient and effective
utilization of resources take place and sustainability will be maintained so that the present need
of customers will be meet and enough resources will be available to meet the need of future
generation.
Resources and capabilities of Walmart:
The brand value of the Walmart, is also an important resource of Walmart which make it
different from other and helps it to win the market competition and beet the market competitors.
Also, the brand value of Walmart is very difficult to imitate by other companies which give the

Walmart the competitive capability to fight the market competition (Ermann and Hermanik,
2017).
The global supply chain of Walmart is also considered as the important resource of it which
enable the Walmart to reach the best and cheapest manufacturers so that the cost of production of
product by Walmart reduces and it will be able to sale the product at low price. Thus, the global
supply chain of Walmart act as an capability which helps it to win the market competition and
give competitive advantage because this resource of the company is very rare, valuable and very
difficult to be imitated by others.
Latest technology is also the main resource of Walmart which make it capable to produce the
best quality product for its customer. Also, using the latest technology Walmart is able to reduce
the cost of production and improve the quality of product (Windsor, 2016). So it also contributes
to improve the percentage of sale and profit for Walmart.
Human resources is also an important resource of Walmart which capable the Walmart to
produce the quality product and meet the customer need. However, the human resource which is
required in Walmart, does not require the presence of high level of skills and talent which make
it easy for Walmart to have easy access of human resource (Oke, 2016). But this resource of
Walmart is easily imitable by other companies which does not give any special or competitive
advantage to Walmart.
Porter's strategies:
Porter's strategies:
Porter divide his model or strategies into three parts which companies can adapt to win the
market competition and able to achieve its objective. Porter's strategies includes:
Cost leadership:
It is a practice under which company always try to reduce the cost of production and become the
cheapest manufacture of the product. This practice gives competitive advantage to the company
and help in winning the market competition.
Differentiation strategy:
Under this strategy, companies try to produce the different products as compared from the
products of its competitors so that it would be able to attract more and more customers towards it
and this would result in increase in the sale and profits of the company.

Focus strategy:
Under this strategy, companies focus a particular section of the market and provides the
specialized service or produce the products only to meet the needs of that section of the market
(Islami, Mustafa and Latkovikj, 2020). This strategy helps the company to attract and bind the
particular section of market for long term. The cost strategy is again further divided into two
parts:
Cost focus:
Cost focus strategy said that the focus of the companies should be to reduce the cost of product
for that particular focussed section of market.
Differentiation focus:
Differentiation focus strategy said that the companies will make their product identical or
different from other competitors in that particular focussed section of the market.
From the above four strategies Walmart have to use Cost leadership to gain the competitive
advantage in market because only by using this strategy Walmart would be able to achieve its
objective. Since, the main objective of Walmart is to provide the best quality products to its
customers but at minimum cost which could be possible only under this strategy which also
focuses on reducing the cost of product and availing the best products to its customers.
Walmart's aim
It is completely right to said that Walmart aims to achieve customer delight because for Walmart
its customers are its core. Walmart is a customer centric company and produce only customize
products so that it would be able to satisfy the needs of its customers. The strategies including
the cost leadership or the working procedure of Walmart all shows and directs only towards the
achievement of customer delight. In fact, the main objective of the Walmart is also to meet the
needs of the customers by providing the best quality product for its customers at lowest price
(Kanten and Darma, 2017). Thus, Walmart always works on achieving the customer delight by
providing them product at reasonable or low price in comparison of its competitors.
As, the needs and wants of the customers always changes so in order to meet those needs
Walmart on the basis of research and analysis of market made the required changes in its product
to gain more customer satisfaction. Walmart apart from spending cost, on production of product

also spend some cost over research and development so that it would be able to know more about
market and about its customers. And as per the result of that research it made and adopt the
required changes in its working to better serve the customer with more improved services.
Walmart not only provides the services or products for its customers but it also takes feedback
regarding their product so that customer's problem will be resolved. Sometimes it is seen that the
customers didn't agree regarding the particular product due to some inadequate content or
packaging of the product, and Walmart being a customer delight company never let go the
problem of its customers (Waheed, Khan and Ahmad, 2018). In that case Walmart reviews the
feedback of the customers and as per the need and wants of the customer it makes appropriate
changes in it so that the problems of the customers will be resolved.
From the above all discussion it is very right to said that Walmart is a customer delight company.
Strategic recommendations
There are various strategic recommendations which Walmart can adapt to more
improvise the level of satisfaction of its customers. Walmart can more improvise the quality of
its product and try to make its product unique in comparison of its competitors so that it can grab
more customers (Pelletier and Zendesk, 2017). As the business of Walmart is easily imitable by
other companies so it has to adopt the concept of branding regarding its special category of
products so that it won't be imitable by others. Making the distribution system more efficient and
perfect, Walmart would be able to reach all the customers across the globe and this will improve
its global presence apart from customer satisfaction.
By using its strength like best product at minimum cost, strong supply chain and many
more, Walmart would be able to more flourish its activities and able to improve the satisfaction
of its customers. It would also be recommended that Walmart have to more explore or expand its
business to achieve the global presence and high accessibility for customers which helps the
Walmart to improve its business as well as able to more satisfy its customers (Theocharous,
2020). Exploring more and readily activeness towards feedbacks or reviews of customers and
timely taking of actions are also proves to be very helpful for Walmart to raise customer
satisfaction.
Apart from being customer centric, Walmart also have to adopt customer driven changes
approach so that it would readily make changes in its product to further raise customer

satisfaction. Solving the customer grievances, listening the needs and wants of customers and
quickly takes the decisions as per the requirement and situations also helps the Walmart to raise
and gain customer satisfaction.
CONCLUSION
From the study of the above project it is concluded that customer satisfaction and customer
preference is the main aim of Walmart and for achieving its objective or aim it uses, various
resources and capabilities along with adopting cost leadership approach to meet the needs of the
customer at lowest possible cost. However, it would also be right to said that being more active
towards customer problems and grievances Walmart would be able to gain more customer
satisfaction along with great success.
SECTION B
INTRODUCTION
A group of world wide web pages that contains hyperlinks to each other and made
available online by educational institutes, Companies and others is known as website (Mathur
and et.al., 2018). This section of the study is going to discuss attributes that Walmart has on its
website and that makes it able in attracting customers for buying products. It will further discuss
some areas that should be focused by retailers for improving website and making them attractive.
High-involvement and low-involvement purchase has several differences that can impact on both
customers and companies as well. Cognitive dissonance or confusion for buying products can
influence buying decision of customers to the great extent.
Any retailer website according to 10 attributes that influence consumer decision-making
There are several factors that are being considered by customers while making buying
decisions and website is one of the main platforms via which, consumers make their buying
decisions. So, it is important for retailers to add all these factors on their websites for attracting
and grabbing attention of consumers for buying products. There are main attributes that are being
considered and can influence consumers include: customers support, products information,
trust, entertainment, currency, ease of use, reliability, speed, quality content, modern.

In regards to Walmart it is found that it consists of all these attributes and it is the main key that
makes it successful and help out it in attracting customers.
Customer support: It can be said that customers prefer to buy products from those
websites that are responsive and give quick response to customers query. While making buying
decisions, customers have some questions in their mind that need to be solved and customers
service of Walmart provide answers of all questions to customers (Islam and et.al., 2020).
Ease of use: There are several websites that customers cannot use and access easily. It
can demotivate customers and when customers have easy access to website then it leads to better
buying decision. Walmart retailer provides easy access to all of its customers and with its easy
access, customers can get all other important information from it.
Products information: It is the main key and attribute that all retailers should provide on
its website. When customers get all information related to products like ingredients used in it,
side effects, manufacturing, expiring date (Bleier, Harmeling and Palmatier, 2019). They do not
require going and visit stores and it saves their time and cost as well. It also makes them feel
valued.
Trust: While making buying decision and buying products, customers have to fill their
personal information but while filling information they have fear of breaching information. But
Walmart is trustable and customers can feel safe while providing information.
Entertainment: Website that promote enjoyment can also influence buying decision of
customers. In this regard, it is found that Walmart makes use of attractive colour, music, action
and interactivity that grab attention of customers.
Currency: Currency implies accuracy and it is more than updated data. It is found that
Walmart has flexibility and this ability helps it out in making its website effective and for that it
updates its inventory and their shopping environments (Huang and Chang, 2017).
Speed: While gathering information it is important for retailers to provide higher speed
for which customers do not have wait for going to new page. When they get information in a
timely manner then it increases their morale.
Quality content: All contents and images of products that have been uploaded on
websites should be clear and effective. It can help customers out in making effective decisions.

Reliability: Website should be reliable because nowadays for earning money, many
people create fraud website and by getting money they make fool to customers. Walmart has
reliable website and can be trusted by all.
Modern: It is important for retailers to make changes in website as per the changing
market needs. Old and traditional website cannot attract customers. Walmart makes changes as
per the changing needs of customers and make it updated (Toufaily and Pons, 2017).
Differentiate between high-involvement and low-involvement purchase along with example
While making buying decisions, consumers either show high involvement or low-
involvement. In regard to high involvement products it can be said that it includes all those
services and products that represent customers' personality, lifestyle and status. Such people buy
luxurious products and one example of such products is: home theatre (Sillanpää, 2020). On the
other hand, in regard to low involvement products it can be said that it refers all those products
and services that reflect routine purchase decision of customers. Examples of such products are:
ice cream and others.
Buying decisions: In regard to high-involvement products it can be said that decisions of
consumers are closely tied to their ego and self-image. Risks are also high in these products
because of high prices. So, it can be said that such products have social, financial and
psychological risks. Consumers are more likely to follow all; steps included in consumes buying
decision, and they spent time in research. Whereas, in low-involvement products have little risks
for customers. All financial, social and psychological risks are not nearly great so, they do not
spend time in research. As compared to high-involvement products such purchases involve an
abridged decision-making process. In information gathering, customers do not focus on research
and if they find any substitutes or alternatives then they can go for them. So, overall it can be
said that in this type, customers are diligent enough to get product they want.
Some effectiveness and features that refers high-involvement products are:
High price: All these products are highly priced where consumers display high
involvement. Home theatre and Mercedes car can be categorized in this type because they are
high priced. Washing machines, DVDs, music systems are all examples of high-involvement
products (Difference between High-involvement products and Low-involvement Products, 2018).
Technical features: Most of the high-involvement products are comes under electric
such as cars, music systems. So, may of these products have technical features.

Difference between alternatives: Such products can be differentiated by customers with
alternatives, and they can easily identify such products and it is its feature. For example: there is
huge difference between Swiss/Titan and other Chinese wrist watches (Hameed, Madhavan and
Arumugam, 2018).
Features and factors involved in low-involvement products
Availability of alternate brand: Customers can find several alternatives of low-
involvement products and the process of buying is not risky and time-consuming because it has
of lower price.
Effect on consumers' self-image: This situation can arise when consumers buy daily
consumptions items such as cookies and others. It neither reflects customers' image nor their
status (Kunamaneni, Jassi and Hoang, 2019).
Brand hopping: Due to lower prices, there are several alternatives are present and
substitutes are available so, consumers do not feel hesitate in switching brand. So, it can be said
that brand hopping is common in low-involvement products because differences between brands
are minimum.
Recommendations for improving retailer website
There are some effectiveness and factors have been identified that can help Walmart in
attracting customers but there are several retailers in the market that also has unique and
attractive website. So, for making Walmart able to grab attention of customers and taking
competitive advantages it can be recommended to this retailer that:
White space: It should focus on using white space because it is stated that customers find
easier in gathering information and focus on content when white space is being used in website.
It makes content more eligible and also make users able to focus on elements surroundings the
text. White space around text and titles increases around 20% of attention of users and also
makes website contents fresh, modern and open (Liu and Ko, 2017).
Using attractive calls to action: There are a lot of information given on website but
sometimes it is not possible for users to read all information due to lack of time. They just want
to read only important information related to each segment like product, price and others. So, in
this regard it can be recommended to this retailer that it should focus on making use of bullet
points for important information. Calls to actions that are being clearly marked with action word

can make website users more able to get exactly to navigate site and getting what they exactly
want in the location they expect to find it.
5 different organizational controls that can be utilized for ensuring that company's strategy in
being implemented according to the plan
Walmart makes use of several effective strategies for becoming successful and accomplishing
goals but it is important for it to make use of effective controlling tools. By making use of these
controlling tools they can know that whether it is going on the right tract or not.
Concurrent controls: It includes some tools that help company in knowing effectiveness
of employees and measuring their performance and activities as they are going as per the plan or
maintaining quality or not. As per the measurement and by knowing areas for improvements,
actions have been taken accordingly.
Feedback controls: These tools can be used for reviewing information to determine
whether performance meet established standard or not (Sihag and Rijsdijk, 2019). For example:
if company wants to increase profit by 12-15% within a year then by measuring profits each
month it can measure whether its plan are effective or not.
Feed forward controls: Such preliminary controls help company in identifying as well
as preventing deviation in standards.
Just in time: It is other main tool and approach that can also help company in
maintaining a balance between demand and supply of products and preventing additional
inventories.
For measuring quality and taking control in this regard, company can make use of TQM
and others KPI tools for knowing the difference between the expected and the actual quality of
products.
Cognitive Dissonance:
Cognitive dissonance means difference of thoughts, behaviours, beliefs, attitudes among
the various people which leads to resisting the changes or affecting the decisions making. Since
every person is different from other person and this difference can be seen among their
behaviour, and actions which sometimes creates an uneasy situation in the company or
environment. This situation creates stress in the company or the environment.

Cognitive dissonance is an important element which affects the behaviour of the customers
because every customer and their way of thinking and actions differs from one other which
means that some customer shows a positive impact towards the particular product while some
customers resist the particular product. It is also to be considered that the cognitive dissonance
plays an important role in deciding the overall behaviour of the customers because due to the
contradictory thoughts of some person regarding the product may also change the behaviour of
other related person regarding that product and as a result they also start resisting the product or
develops a negative thought or image regarding that products in their mind.
Thus, cognitive dissonance becomes very important element which every company have to
consider before launching any new product or dealing in the existing product because this
element can affect the sales and the profits of the company (Zentall, 2016).This could be easily
understood with this example: if some customer wants to buy the products of Walmart through
online mode but if in that particular location Walmart didn't provide online facility of purchase
and due to this they have to buy the product from offline mode against going their thoughts then
this would be considered as cognitive dissonance.
CONCLUSION
It has been summarized from the above study that Website plays a vital role as it helps
companies or retailers in grabbing their attention. It has discussed some features of website that
can influence buying decision of customers along with some recommendations for improving
website. It has also shown differences between low-involvement and high-involvement purchase
and their effects on customers. Controlling tools also play a vital role in making companies able
bout effectiveness of their developed strategies.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Bleier, A., Harmeling, C.M. and Palmatier, R.W., 2019. Creating effective online customer
experiences. Journal of marketing. 83(2). pp.98-119.
Ermann, U. and Hermanik, K.J. eds., 2017. Branding the nation, the place, the product.
Routledge.
Hameed, S.S., Madhavan, S. and Arumugam, T., Is Consumer Behaviour Varying Towards Low
And High Involvement Products Even Sports Celebrity Endorsed?.
Huang, S.L. and Chang, Y.C., 2017, January. Factors that impact consumers' intention to shop on
foreign online stores. In Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii international conference on
system sciences.
Islam, J.U. and et.al., 2020. Impact of website attributes on customer engagement in banking: a
solicitation of stimulus-organism-response theory. International Journal of Bank
Marketing.
Islami, X., Mustafa, N. and Latkovikj, M.T., 2020. Linking Porter’s generic strategies to firm
performance. Future Business Journal.6(1). p.3.
Kanten, I.K. and Darma, G.S., 2017. Consumer Behaviour, Marketing Strategy, Customer
Satisfaction, and Business Performance. Jurnal Manajemen Bisnis.14(2). pp.143-165.
Kunamaneni, S., Jassi, S. and Hoang, D., 2019. Promoting reuse behaviour: Challenges and
strategies for repeat purchase, low-involvement products. Sustainable Production and
Consumption. 20. pp.253-272.
Liu, Y.C. and Ko, C.H., 2017, July. The Effects of Website White Space on Middle-Aged Users.
In International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (pp. 538-546).
Springer, Cham.
Mathur, M.B. and et.al., 2018. Website and R package for computing E-values. Epidemiology
(Cambridge, Mass.), 29(5), p.e45.
Oke, L., 2016. Human resources management. International Journal of Humanities and Cultural
Studies (IJHCS) ISSN 2356-5926.1(4). pp.376-387.
Pelletier, T., Zendesk Inc, 2017. Answer-suggestion system for automatically resolving customer
requests. U.S. Patent Application 15/087,755.
Sihag, V. and Rijsdijk, S.A., 2019. Organizational controls and performance outcomes: A meta‐
analytic assessment and extension. Journal of Management Studies. 56(1). pp.91-133.
Sillanpää, T., 2020. Building customer engagement in traditional media versus social media
platforms: Focus group study with high and low involvement products.
Theocharous, and et.al., 2020. Reinforcement learning for strategic recommendations. arXiv
preprint arXiv:2009.07346.
Toufaily, E. and Pons, F., 2017. Impact of customers' assessment of website attributes on e-
relationship in the securities brokerage industry: A multichannel perspective. Journal of
Retailing and Consumer Services. 34. pp.58-69.
Waheed, S., Khan, M.M. and Ahmad, N., 2018. Product packaging and consumer purchase
intentions. Market Forces.13(2).
Windsor, S., 2016. The importance of technology. British Journal of Midwifery.24(12). pp.886-
886.
Zentall, T.R., 2016. Cognitive dissonance or contrast?. Animal sentience: An interdisciplinary
journal on animal feeling.1(12). p.1.
1

Difference between High-involvement products and Low-involvement Products. 2018. Online
Available thorough. <https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/marketing/high-involvement-
products-and-low-involvement-products-involvement-difference/32299>
2