Chapter 1: The Changing roles of funeral homes

Mike Fallon had looked forward to going home for Christmas. He was about to
graduate from a large state university with a degree in accounting and a minor in
information technology. Since he wanted to work in a CPA firms tax division, he had
even taken a retailing class. After all, he would be dealing with retail customers with
his tax work. Still, the last thing he wanted to do at Christmas was discuss school
subjects. However, that is just what happened when the family got together for
Christmas dinner at his uncles home.
Mikes mothers youngest brother was a church deacon, and somehow he
changed the subject to the fact that so many nonparishioners wanted to use his
church for weddings. Most of these requests were declined because of the demand
by his current members. Somebody mentioned that with the number of people
without church affiliation increasing across the country, she had seen a number of
wedding chapels being built in middle- to large size cities. Thats when Uncle Bob
took you back to your school work, especially that retailing class.
Uncle Bob was the familys funeral director. He and his two sons owned and
operated the only locally owned mortuary in a city of 75,000. Over the past decade,
he pointed out, his business had been radically changed. No longer do folks want a
traditional funeral, complete with casket and burial at the local cemetery. Now, a
third of all funerals involved a no-frills cremation and maybe a social event
instead of a religious service. Since he is planning to remodel, he wants to know
what you think about his scrambled merchandising idea.
Bob then explains that he is thinking of eliminating the chapel with its stained
glass and pews and using the space for a multipurpose family center complete
with a catering kitchen in the back where the flower room used to be and adding a
12-foot screen for multimedia memorial presentations. In addition, he wants to
partner with a law firm to assist families with estate planning and making wills.
Finally, he questions whether he should just remodel the chapel with its current drab
entranceway into something brighter and cheerful, complete with an entryway
removed from the funeral home. By doing so, he could use the chapel for weddings
for the couples who were unable to locate a church.
Questions
1. Do you think coules would mind being married in a chapel located near a
funeral home, even if it had a separate entrance and was beautifully
decorated?
2. What would happen to those families who want a traditional funeral in a
chapel? Would your uncles lose their business?
3. What other creative ideas would you suggest your uncle?
4. What other data would you suggest that your uncle consider before making
any decision?
5. What should your uncle do?

Chapter 2: The Missed Opportunity: The Sears Takeover of Lands End

When Sears bought Lands End in 2001, many retail observers hailed the purchase.
Sears, the troubled department store, had a loyal, more affluent customer for its
hard goods lines, but had difficulty sparking interest in its soft goods. In contrast,
Lands End was the #1 specialty apparel catalog. Lands Ends traditional, casually
styled merchandise matched Sears all- American, good value image, and would
attract a more upmarket customer to Sears apparel. Further, Sears could tap Lands
Ends expertise in direct marketing, and its loyal customer database. Lands End
could broaden its customer audience through wider distribution through Scars with
its 2,300 stores.
The results fell short of expectations. By 2005, Lands End was a relatively
small presence in 370 Sears stores. Further, Sears seemed more interested in (or
distracted by) its new owner, Kmart; in other private label brand names such as
Lucy Pereda; and in developing new store concepts such as Sears Grand, The Great
Indoors, and Orchard Supply Hardware.
Most conclude that the Lands End brand did not live up to its potential in
stores, largely due to mismanagement of a well respected brand. At first, Sears s-lo-w-l-y rolled out Lands End merchandise into selected stores. Loyal Lands End
customers who heard about the acquisition ran to their local Sears store for the first
time in years, but were often disappointed when the brand was not yet in stock.
When Lands End finally arrived in local Sears stores, it was poorly publicized. Often,
no mention was made in local newspapers except in tiny print at the bottom of a
Sears ad, Sears credit card customers received few promotional announcements,
even in their bills. In-store Lands End signage and displays could easily be
overlooked. Even today, Lands End merchandise is buried within the Sears online
Web page rather than promoted as a flagship brand.
Sears seems to have underestimated the potential for Lands End to drive
new customers to its stores. Loyal Lands End customers who decided to revisit
Sears in search of their favored brand were often disappointed with the limited
selection. Rather than driving differentiation between the brands, Lands End
merchandise often looked mundane and very similar to Sears basics. Infighting
between Sears and Lands End resulted in many missed opportunities, leading
observers to think that fear of cannibalization of Sears existing brands was a
driving issue. Sears claimed that the best-selling Lands End golf jackets were priced
too high for the typical Sears customer-forgetting that Sears wanted to attract
more than the typical Sears clothing customer! In addition, many of the Sears
stores did not stock Lands End sweater sets so popular at holiday time, but stuck
with cotton turtlenecks, khakis, and jeans, i.e., what every other mall retailer sold,
usually more stylish.

Sears and Lands End also seemed at odds in their pricing strategies, and
ignored the differences in behavior among catalog shoppers and instore customers.
While the Lands End catalog places only limited amounts of merchandise on sale at
any given time, bricks & mortar stores have to observe local conditions and sales
seasons more carefully. For example, Sears stores in Sunbelt states maintained full
price on Lands End winter coats through March- when temperature easily hit the
70s and 80s. One executive stated that Lands End should not go on sale right
now. This was fine for the upper Midwest but not the Southern stores!
Recently when Sears executive examined the tepid sales of Lands End
merchandise in many stores, they concluded that an upscale customer was not
ready to shop at Sears, and that Lands End merchandise in stores should be scaled
back.
Unfortunately, this action will lead to further disappointment for the Lands End
customer base.
Questions:
1. Based on your knowledge of the two retailers, prepare a SWOT analysis for
each of them prior to the Sears takeover. Based on your SWOT analysis, what
are the pros and cons of the takeover?
2. What is the best strategy for Sears to use with Lands End?
3. Can a retailer seek to satisfy two different target markers, as Sears tried to do
with Lands End?
4. Should Sear sell off Lands End?

Chapter 3: The Malls New Marketing Manager

As she had done for the past 11 years, Pat Snyder, the maanger of South Park
Malls largest anchor store, attended the malls monthly meeting of store
managers. She was especially eager to attend this mornings meeting because
Pam Donnelly, the malls new marketing manager, was going to be introducted.
Despite the fact that Snyders 220,000 square foot department store had annual
sales over $50 million, she was not involved in the selection process. Thus, this
would be the first meeting between two of the malls most prominent individuals.
Like other malls nationwide, the stores in South Park Mall had been
experiencing a constant rate of sales over the last three years, not a steady
increase of 2 percent to 5 percent annually as the stores had been accustomed
to. Some store managers blamed these weaker sales on the economy, while
others claimed it was the result of a failure to replace the department store that
had served as the malls other major anchor and which had gone bankrupt two
years earlier. Instead, Snyder believed the lack of sales growth resulted from the
previous marketing managers failure to aggressively promote the mall. He was
near retirement and didnt want to change the way things had always been
done.

On entering the meeting, Pam Donnelly went directly to the point. She had
spent the past two weeks, before anyone knew who she was, roaming
throughout the mall and asking questions. Now she was proposing answers. Her
major task was to generate an increase in the traffic of buyers, not just visitors
who used the mall for social gatherings. To achieve this, she proposed the
following:
1. Remove half of the benches in the malls common area so that the mall could
rent this space to various seasonal vendors, such as costume jewelry over
Halloween. After all, during her tours of the mall she noticed that only the
elderly appeared to be using the benches, and she felt their prime purchasing
days where likely behind them. Besides, the vendors would not only attract
additional customers but also provide the mall with incremental revenue to
fund various new promotions.
2. Since it was doubtful that another large department store would move into
the current vacant space, she proposed subdividing half that space into
smaller stores that would feature products that would appeal to minority
groups, such as the trade areas large Latino population. The remaining space
would be used for some type of amusement area or park where mothers
could leave their children while they shopped.
3. Starting the next month, Ms. Donelly said that she wanted all shoppers
younger than 17 to have adult supervision on Friday and Saturday nights. She
claimed the policy was an attempt to create family- oriented atmosphere.
Donnelly said other malls, including the Mall of America, had already adopted
this idea, and it was the result of feedback from shoppers, retailers, and
community leaders. She added that she planned to beef up security to
enforce this policy.
4. Finally, since she felt the mall should be attracting a younger customer, she
was going to discontinue the policy of opening the common area at 6 A.M.
each morning for senior walks. She pointed out that this in no way
communicated that seniors were not welcomed at the mall but that it would
reinforce that malls image of having a family-oriented atmosphere.
Questions:
1. Based on Chapters discussions of both the creative and analytical approach,
are Pam Donnellys ideas sufficiently creative to attract new business (sales),
and what analysis should have undertaken before making these
recommendations?
2. What do you think of each of Pam Donnellys ideas? What population and
social or economic trends support your conclusion(s)? why?
3. Because she is the manager of the malls largest store, not only will other
managers look to Pat Snyder for advice but also she carries considerable
influence with Ms. Donnelly. What should Pat Snyder do? Why?

Chapter 4: Madison Bike Wars

Madison, Wisconsin, is home of the University of Wisconsin, where many of the

more than 30,000 students and thousands of faculty and staff members find
bicycling an easy way to get around the crowded campus, which borders Lake
Mendota. Less than a mile up State Street from the university campus is the state
capital, where even state employees often bike to work. Except for perhaps the
coldest days of the year, you will always see cyclists in this university and state
capital community.
Perhaps its not surprising therefore that Madison has been designated a goldlevel Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists; as such, ,it
is also one of the best specialty bicycle retail markets in the country. Around the
campus and capital and outward to the suburbs and outlying farms are hundreds of
miles of paved bicycle pathways. This very proactive and bicycle friendly
community is the home for Waterloo, Wisconsin- based Trek Bicycles two companyowned stores, with the one located on the east side of the city being identified as
the companys flagship store.
Eriks Bike Shop is as successful multistore retailer headquartered in
Minneapolis- St. Paul market; it carries Specialized as its marquee brand. A few
years ago, Eriks opened a store in Madison. Recently, Specialized announced to its
dealers in Madison that Eriks planned to open a second store, reportedly within a
block or so from the Trek flagship store on the citys east side. By the way, about a
mile away from both the Trek flagship and the new Eriks, which will carry
Specialized, is an established bicycle dealer that has carried both the Trek and
Specialized brands for many years. To make matters worse, thousands of students
each spring put up for sale their used bicycles as they graduate. Many of these
bikes are high-performance Trek and Specialized brands. It seems like everyone is
competing with everyone to sell bicycles in Madison.
To further complicate this situation, the Trek flagship and new Eriks store are
located almost within site of a large new Dicks Sporting Goods and a Target store. It
is expected that these four retailers will beat on each other and will seek to become
more efficient in order to survive. As a result, prices in Madison will be kept
suppressed. In fact, consumers, particularly adult enthusiast cyclists, will be the
clear beneficiaries of this most competitive of markets.
Questions:
1. What market structure best describes the current market conditions for these
four retailers- Trek, Eriks, Dick, and Target? Give the market structure you
have chosen, in what manner do the current retailers compete?
2. What could happen to change the current market structure?
3. What about the current independent bicycle retailer that has been in the
market the longers? Is the retailer in a dangerous place?
4. Can the independent retailer breakaway from the other four retailers? How?
5. If you were the independent retailer, what would you do? Why?