Target will achieve prominence with its differentiation factors like importance to cleanliness, quality of products and the competitive pricing it has to offer. The following paper has described in more detail the marketing framework including their pricing strategy, placement, product and promotion used to differentiate themselves from the competition and the way Target has aligned itself to the current marketing trends. Target Corporation is one of the largest American retailing store, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota and was founded in the year 1902.
It is a Fortune 500 company and was placed at the 36th position in 2014. Target Corporation has stores with in the United States, it expanded to Canada in March 2013 and operated 127 locations. It had 133 stores in Canada by the end of 2014. Target stores carry shoes, clothing, health products, electronics, DVD's, bedding, kitchen supplies, furniture, sporting goods, toys, automotive supplies and some amount of groceries.
It started off as The Dayton Dry Goods Company when Mr.. George Draper Dayton decided to take advantage of the growth opportunities in Minneapolis.The store became well known for its merchandise and fair business practices [3]. As years go y, successive presidents of Dayton started expanding to newer avenues and finally in the year of 1962, the first Target store opened in Roseville, MN.
With this, Target entered into the world of discount retailing. Target came up with their trademark symbol and expanded to every corner of America. "Expect More Pay Less" is the tagging Target has adopted and respects core values including maintaining diversity in the work place, designing the workplace to provide simpler and more efficient service to guests.The current CEO of Target Corporation is John Mulligan. A huge data breach of Targets systems in December 2013 harmed the growth of the company. This has forced target to close down all its 133 stores in Canada.
It ranks Just after Walter when it comes to discount retailing. Target has approximately 370,000 employees and due to its liquidation of the Canadian subsidiary, 17,000 employees might lose their jobs. MARKETING FRAMEWORK Marketing is closely associated with the ups namely Pricing, Promotion, Product and Placement.We consider the ups to address the marketing framework of Target Corporation to see how best they have executed and offered the brands and products to the market. Pricing Ben Franklin famously said, "A penny saved is a penny earned.
" 0 Former Target CEO Gregg Assistance has adopted that philosophy as the retailer's pricing strategy. Targets overall pricing strategy is to keep the prices of the commodities and products as low as possible so as to be a fierce competitor to Walter.Even with lower prices, Target believes in providing quality products to the market to achieve better customer satisfaction. As part of a new pricing strategy, Target has also launched an online - price matching program to match prices with its online competitors including Amazon. Mom, Best Buy Target has used pricing strategies by providing payment options called Redcap which consists credit and debit services, which can help avail discounted products and free shipping.Product Target has tried to provide better quality products at affordable prices to customers.
Designed the aesthetics and targeted the cleanliness of the store to provide better customer shopping experience and satisfaction Products range from essentials including groceries, clothing to hardware and furniture. They are trying to differentiate by involving designers to design clothing to attract a larger base of market. Promotion Their traditional ways to market their brand have been TV with ads featuring "Bullets" the dog, newspapers and billboards.Social media, where they have leveraged platforms like Faceable, Mainstream, Linked, Tumbler, Pinsetters etc.
Target promotes its products to customer looking for low cost products with better quality. This describes typical middle class families. Their customers also include young children teens and adults. Typically, Target is a store that every demographic can relate to. Placement Target has been expanding to places other than the United States and more recently expanded to Canada.
They have 1917 Stores in USA as of today.There are 2 ways by which Target distributes its products to the customers: 1) Stores 2) Online Markets MARKETING TRENDS Target has tried to keep up with the ongoing trends in the Social, Economic, Environmental and Political space. Here is a list of some of their undertakings: 1) Social Responsibilities Target has given a lot of time to the community through volunteering for making the environment a safer and a healthier place to live. Target has encouraged their employees to volunteer where their interest lies and has devoted time in renovating school libraries and food donation to the hungry, to helping areas affected by natural disasters.
Target has collaborated and volunteered with the United Way since 1962 [5]. A total donation of $14. 6 million, and volunteering of 250,000 hours was achieved as part of Target's annual United Way campaign. 2) Creating an impact on the community Target has tried to serve the community through local communities and programs.
Target stores provide education grants to local K-12 schools so it can help the schools aka the kids on educational field trips, provide early childhood reading programs and art participation.Since 1997, Target has donated $418 million to local K-12 schools through Take Charge of Education program. Target has tried to provide public safety grants to organizations across the country. 3) Encourage a healthy Community Target has supported community health objectives including food security, fitness and child support with the help of their local and national nonprofit partner organizations. Target supports the encouragement of physical activities like biking, inning so as to maintain a strong physical and mental state to live a happy and active life.
Target has supported the work of SST. Jude Children's Research Hospital to help find cure to many diseases. [7] 4) Financial Trends. Corporate responsibility "Here for good" is one of the ideas that Target follows and have in many instances abided by the principle. They have shown their commitment in providing education to children and have continuously followed their tradition of giving back 5% of their profits to the customers back in the form of tuition reimbursements etc.
5) Going Green Target has always tried to be kind to the environment and have shown that in their actions.
