Marketing Management: International Markets, Essay Example

Carrefour and Wal-Mart have international operations. Carrefour has managed to establish over 15,000 retail outlets through out Europe for the 49 years the company has been in operation. The retail company is the second largest retail company in the worlds after Wal-Mart and the largest in Europe. Its outlets include company operated stores or franchisees. The company runs hypermarkets and supermarkets under its burner and ensures convenience according to customers’ needs and hard discounts or law prices through out the year (Carrefour, 2009). The company also provides its services to customers through e-commerce.

The company has established its presence in 18 Asian countries including China, Japan, United Arab Emirates and many more. In Africa it has dealings in five countries: Tunisia, Seychelles, Egypt, Algerian and Morocco. While in Europe it has its dealings in fifteen countries. Also, the company has managed to establish its presence in Brazil Argentina, Dominican Republic and Colombia in South America.  Most of these establishments are hypermarkets.  Such expansiveness gives the company a Multinational status and therefore would be a suitable outlet partner with for the purposes of marketing and selling our products world wide.  Compared to Wal-Mart which has worldwide coverage of only fifteen countries, Carrefour’s widespread coverage of the worlds market makes it the most suitable retail partner for capturing new markets in the international arena. Such partnership can help our company stand completion from other food products manufacturing outlets (Oodoc, 2008).

To operate and sell its commodities, Carrefour employs it hypermarket strategy invented in 1963. In fact, most of its retail outlets are hypermarkets. The company also employs aggressive price reduction strategies to attract new buyers to its new stores worldwide. To uncrease its sales the company also has also invested in aggressive opening of new outlets in many countries across the world. According to Oodoc (2008) some of the new hypermarkets opened by the chain store are situated in the emerging markets such as Chain and Asia Pacific. Clearly, the chain store’s expansion strategy focuses on emerging markets because this markets offer great growth opportunities. Furthermore, the emerging markets have a characteristic need for retail outlets to distribute commodities.

The main aim of increasing it hypermarkets worldwide and cutting down on its prices is to develop a Carrefour brand and strengthen its relevance and position in the global market. The company is able to sell products at reduced prices or throw away prices because it buys cheaply in bulk. These cheap prices help to develop a royal customer base and create a shopping tradition in them. In addition, the company’s advertisements revolve around generous bargains and offers that seem to attract multitudes.

Another marketing strategy that facilitates these stores to penetrate and succeed in new market is identifying with the culture of people in the new locations. The company learns the culture of the people in their new markets in order to be able to satisfy their demands. As such it is able to glide into new markets with ease. Also the companies outlets are designed to yield a family experience-parents bring their kids along, shoppers can sit and have coffee before, after or in between shopping-giving shoppers an exciting experience.

These strategies have helped the company withstand competition from other multinationals such as Wal-Mart and Tesco. Though, this has been aided by the development of strategies geared at upholding the chin stores’ leadership role in the European, Asian and Latin markets, the chain store seems to be successful in traversing different geographiccal regions than its competitors including Wal-Mart which is the world flag bearer.

References

Carrefour.  (2009). Carrefour. Retrieved 25, October 2005 from http://www.carrefour.com/

Oodoc.  (2008). A marketing critic of Carrefour’s international expansion. Retrieved 26 October 2009 from http://www.oodoc.com/16497-marketing-carrefour.php