ASSIGNMENT

1. Whole Foods Market positions itself as the best source for healthiest, natural
and organic foods among its competitors and is the first grocery store to be
“Certified Organic” in America. It has voluntarily certified all its stores and
operations and till date is the only food retailer that has all store departments
in all locations certified (Whole Foods Market, 2015). Whole Foods
differentiates itself from its competitors by relying on its stringent high quality
standards. It is also certified by California Certified Organic Farmers (“CCOF”),
an independent, USDA-accredited, third- party certifier. CCOF’s Organic
Certification Program verifies Whole Foods handles organic goods according to
stringent USDA guidelines (Whole Foods Market, 2015). One of the key
positioning strategy of Whole Foods is its supply chain. It procures its products
from local and global producers and ensures that its products are
manufactured without violating any labor laws, human rights or animal rights.
Whole Foods is perceived as a very expensive store and not many people are
aware of various discounts and sales that happen at store. Regular customers
of Trader Joes or Sprouts are not aware that some of the groceries are cheaper
at Whole Foods (Mohammed, 2015). It needs to do a better marketing of its
365 Everyday Value brand and also about it weekly sales. Since Whole Foods is
trying to target millennials, it can use social media to promote deals rather
than traditional media.
Whole Foods needs to rollout its loyalty cards across all the stores. Currently it
is being piloted only in few stores. Having loyalty cards and also showing how
much the customers saved on their food basket will increase customer loyalty
and also ensure that customers return for their weekly groceries. Whole Foods
can also send monthly marketing emails, send mobile notifications to these
customers of the current deals in stores. Without loyalty cards, sales and
discounts do not usually bring back the customers. Whole Foods could also use
its mobile app to increase the loyalty in its customers. Having a gamified app,
with mobile ordering and mobile payments will increase the revenues as shown
by Starbucks (Kell, 2015).

2. Whole Foods Market has been generally averse to run ads in either print or
visual media. They rely on their brand awareness to get customers to their
stores and ensure that the shopping experience will entice the customers to
come back. WFM’s marketing expenses has been less than 0.5% of sales for
over past 10 years (Bells, 2015). The company did not even have a loyalty
program until 2015 and still has developed a loyal customer following
everywhere (Horovitz, 2014). The company relies a lot on word of mouth and
 social media. They have active marketing team on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook
and Instagram with a combined reach of 11 million followers. The emphasis for
marketing investments has been on community non-profit partnerships that
help grow its business and local communities as well (Whole Foods Market,
2015). This was observed in stores too where focus of banners and on the
signage was how Whole Foods is serving the local communities and about its
partnerships with non-profits. Each store has its own promotion strategy.
Bigger store in more upscale neighborhoods have digital signage and also
weekend cooking classes with prominent chefs.In 2015, the company has
revised its marketing strategy after continuous losses and losing the customers
to other chains like Costco and Target. For the first time in its history it started
a national ad campaign with a budget of over $20 million to get new customers
and also to retain its existing customer base (Dobrow, 2014). The focus of the
ads is how values matter to Whole Foods and ethically it sources all its food for
the greater good of the planet.

3. Americans spend so little on food, relative to other expenses, partly because,

as a wealthy nation, we can afford to spend money on other things. But,
Vox notes, even in absolute dollar terms, we spend less on food eaten at home
than other wealthy nations do. Here in the U.S. of A., the average person
spends about $2,273 annually on food consumed at home, far less than people
in Germany ($2,481), France ($3,037) and Norway ($4,485). That disparity
may have to do with agricultural subsidies, technological innovation and a tax
system that, though it may not feel like it when we're at the supermarket
checkout counter, keeps consumer food prices down.