International expansion is considered as one the main Walmart’s key growth opportunities in 2005. According to the company’s 2005 annual report, Walmart’s plan was to open as many as 165 new locations internationally. These new stores will represent more than an eight percent square footage growth. The report also illustrated the huge growth potential for the company. For example, even with the size and success the company have achieved, Wal-Mart earned less than three percent of the global retail market share (Walmart, 2005)
Domestic growth prospects In the domestic market, in 2005, Walmart was planning for adding new supercenters and stores to strengthen its position as a leader in the discount merchandise in the …show more content…
Walmart has been known for approaching new technologies with big investments. Indeed, in 2004 – 2005, Walmart was looking for leading the retail world into a new technology. The new RFID chips were believed to reduce the shrinkage and other form of loss by up to 6% with its superior fast tracking capabilities.
The e-commerce website is believed to be a key growth opportunities for many businesses. In the case of Walmart, Walmart added thousands of new office supply items online at samsclub.com along with thousands of other new business items and personal needs items. The web sales accounted for approximately 6% of the Walmart sales domestically. The market potential is huge. For instance, the figure 1 shows the retail e-commerce sales figures in the US during the holiday shopping season alone in 2005 which were approximately $19.6 billion in the US only. …show more content…
In the past, retail was dominated by small, local mom-and-pop store. Shopping malls, and traditional department stores. Even though we still have plenty of malls, and department stores around, yet, those businesses are dominated in the market by mass merchandisers such as Wal-Mart and Target, Home Depot, Barnes & Noble, and Staples.
The interesting evolution in the mass merchandise market would be the introduction of online retailers such Amazon.com (DePillis, 2015). the internet have contributed in the changing consumer preference. Consumers have the ability to satisfy their wants and needs through one click. The increase usage of internet have created a demand for ecommerce websites that can satisfy those needs. In our case study, Walmart did initiated some strategies to come up with ecommerce options for consumers, but it turns out that Amazon was the business that took advantage of the internet, understood the consumer changing preferences and acted up on