New Entry in Tablet Wars, Article Review Example

A recent WSJ article reports that toys retailer Toys ‘R’ Us has also entered the tablet market by announcing it will start selling a proprietary tablet aimed at children. Toys ‘R’ Us will exclusively sell the tablets at its retail establishments. While the company has aggressively priced its tablet, the competitors such as Meep and Lexibook have already matched Toys ‘R’ Us price even though Toys ‘R’ Us tablet has yet to be sold. Toys ‘R’ Us will also be facing competition from Amazon’s similarly priced Kindle Fire as parents pass their old Kindle devices to their children. In addition, online toys market has been expanding at the expense of physical retail establishments like Toys ‘R’ Us. Toys ‘R’ Us has been forced to enter the tablet market in order to boost sales and reverse falling profitability trend (Zimmerman, Ann).

This article touches upon several concepts that have been covered in the course. One of them is 4Ps. Toys ‘R’ Us priced its product aggressively in order to induce consumers to purchase it and the competitors matched the price immediately in order to defend their territory. Toys ‘R’ Us has also chosen its retail establishments as the only distribution channel in order to lower competitive pressure and attract consumers to its stores. The company realized that tablet devices are gaining popularity, thus, it decided to offer a new product in order to take advantage of the trend. This article also reflects the importance of differentiation. The company only chose a single distribution channel so that it could be the only place to offer a product that no one else offers. The company has also developed an apps store to differentiate itself from the competition who offer limited apps for tablet devices aimed at children.

This article is a great practical example for students of beginning marketing course because it touches upon several basic marketing concepts including 4Ps and differentiation. It also confirms that differentiation is a valuable strategy when competition is intense and differentiation helps companies secure some pricing power over their products. In addition, we have also seen that competitors do watch each others’ actions closely and respond accordingly, thus, we cannot ignore the external environment.

Toys ‘R’ Us actions may also be noticed by Apple and Android tablet device manufacturers and they may respond by introducing more apps for children. Toys ‘R’ Us is aiming at a relatively unexploited market segment. Apple and Android tablet manufacturers may try to take advantage of the fact that their devices are already popular and they could target children by simply adding more children apps.

I chose this article because it discusses a popular current trend which is adoption of tablets devices by the mass market. In addition, this article discusses several marketing concepts which are easy to understand for most readers.

Reference

Zimmerman, Ann. New Entry in Tablet Wars: Toys ‘R’ Us. 10 September 2012. 10 September 2012 <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443779404577641582484693296.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_RightMostPopular>.