Walmart stores, Inc.

CSR (customer relationship management)

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) helps people around the world save money and live better –
anytime and anywhere – in retail stores, online, and through their mobile devices. Each week, more
than 200 million customers and members visit our 10,700 stores under 69 banners in 27 countries
and e-commerce websites in 10 countries. With fiscal year 2013 sales of approximately $466 billion,
Walmart employs more than 2.2 million associates worldwide. Walmart continues to be a leader in
sustainability, corporate philanthropy and employment opportunity. It also operates under its own
name in Puerto Rico. Wal-Mart operates in Mexico as Walmex, in the United Kingdom as Asda
("Asda Wal-Mart" in some branches), in Japan as Seiyu, and in India as Best Price. It has wholly
owned operations in Argentina, Brazil, and Canada. Wal-Mart's investments outside North America
have had mixed results: its operations in the United Kingdom, South America and China are highly
successful, while it was forced to pull out of Germany and South Korea when ventures there were
unsuccessful.
Relationship Marketing has four Key Components:

1) It has to be personalized. Personalization can come in the form of a highly targeted direct mail
piece, a phone call or email. Obviously the handshake and a smile illustrated by Wal-Mart greeters
also work well in personalizing the relationship.
2) It has to be targeted. Wal-Mart invests money in maintaining relationships with existing
customers. By targeting this group, Wal-Mart establishes long-term relationships with their most
loyal shoppers. Targeting customers through programs that reward loyalty can result in big returns
over the life of the customer.
3) It has to be meaningful. Your marketing message has to connect in an emotional way to establish
a lasting relationship. If the Wal-Mart greeter did not look you in the eye while saying "hello," the
greeting would not have a lasting impact.
4) It should be interactive. Many Wal-Mart greeters learn the names of frequent shoppers.
Walmart.com, a subsidiary of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., does a great job of asking for the relationship
online by providing special offers to those who supply their email address. It is important to make
relationship marketing interactive so you can hear feedback, determine what is working and what is
not.

Walmart stores, Inc. CSR(customer social responsibility)

* Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) helps people around the world save money and live better –
anytime and anywhere – in retail stores, online, and through their mobile devices. Each week, more
than 200 million customers and members visit our 10,700 stores under 69 banners in 27 countries
and e-commerce websites in 10 countries. With fiscal year 2013 sales of approximately $466 billion,
Walmart employs more than 2.2 million associates worldwide. Walmart continues to be a leader in
sustainability, corporate philanthropy and employment opportunity.

* It also operates under its own name in Puerto Rico. Wal-Mart operates in Mexico as Walmex, in
the United Kingdom as Asda ("Asda Wal-Mart" in some branches), in Japan as Seiyu, and in India as
Best Price. It has wholly owned operations in Argentina, Brazil, and Canada. Wal-Mart's investments
outside North America have had mixed results: its operations in the United Kingdom, South America
and China are highly successful, while it was forced to pull out of Germany and South Korea when
ventures there were unsuccessful.
*The Wal-Mart Corporation is a multi-billion dollar low-cost retail organization, consisting of 6400
stores and 1.8 million sales associates worldwide. Wal-Mart’s influence on the retail world and the
enormity of their corporate size is unparalleled.

* Wal-Mart promises her customers "Always low prices. Always!" and upholds this motto by
providing low prices to her customers and high return on investment to her stockholders.

*One way that Wal-Mart has managed to maintain a competitive edge over other low cost retail
giants and provide low prices is by cutting wages and by not offering too many company benefits to
their employees. Full-time employee working at Wal-Mart only make $8 an hour, while only 45% of
the workers can afford to be covered by health insurance. Wal-Mart also increase part time
employees from 20 percent to 40 percent so that they do not have to cover all of their employees
for health insurance .

*Although Wal-Mart may not provide excellent benefits to her employees, it successfully performs
as a legitimate business operating in a capitalistic society. In a free market Wal-Mart has a direct
responsibility to her primary stockholders rather than the employees of a company.

Wal-Mart’s target market

A target market refers to a section of customers that a business establishment plans to sell its
products or services to. The main aim or goal of every business establishment is to sell its products
or services to the target market at a profit. Every marketing strategy of any company must begin
with a well-defined target market. The performance or success of any product in the market is
mainly determined by the four variables of marketing mix namely product, promotion, place, and
price. A target market can be grouped or classified based on five main aspects namely product,
demographics, geography, customer behavior, and customer attitudes or psychograph. Since its
inception, the main marketing strategy for Wal-Mart has remained as offering products to customers
at low prices with an aim of achieving volume sales at a reduced profit margin. This strategy proved
very popular with consumers because it appeared like a crusade for the poor and the middle class in
the society.

As stated earlier in the paper, a company’s target market comprises of a group of potential
customers that it plans to sell its products to. For any company to be successful in today’s
competitive environment, it should anticipate the needs of its potential customer and work towards
meeting those needs. There is a huge difference between identifying the needs of the target
customers and putting in effort to make sure that those needs are met. Wal-Mart’s main policy is to
help its customers to save money by ensuring that it offers the best prices in the market. Wal-Mart
reaches out to the lower, middle class and the poor in the society who strive to meet their daily
needs. This category of the market is the largest in the US and many other countries where it
operates. This policy has made it a very popular name in the US. It also confirms why the company
has a retail outlet in every city in the country (Ferrell & Hartline, 2008). The poor and the middle
class in the society forms a large part of the American population, thus enabling the company to
perform reasonably well even in places where its competitors find hard to base their operations. This
has helped it to claim a huge market share regions where it has dominated. Many shoppers in
America rank Wal-Mart as the retail outlet with the lowest prices on any item. This has helped it win
the confidence and loyalty of many customers overtime. For example, Wal-Mart sells Aveeno body
wash at less than $5 while other stores sell it for more that $5.

Wal-Mart Market Segmentation

Market segmentation refers to the manner in which a accompany groups or divides its customers
into several homogenous groups. This is mainly achieved through carrying out a thorough research
aimed at identifying trends and preferences of among certain homogenous groups of customers. To
Wal-Mart, market segmentation is applied to determine where to open a retail outlet and the kind
of items to stock in the store. Wal-Mart uses two main types of market segmentation. The first type
is geographical, which is ranked as one of the oldest method of segmentation. Geographical
segmentation involves grouping customers based on their physical location. For example, Wal-Mart
does not stock snow shovels in its cities like San Diego because there is hardly snowfall in that side of
the country (Capon, Noel, & James, 2011). The second type of segmentation is based on the age of
customers in a certain region. In this type of segmentation, the company stocks its outlets to meet
the tastes of its customers depending on their age.

Target Market Selection Process

As a company, Wal-Mart employs five major processes to identify its target market as well as the
type of segmentation variables to use.

1) The first step used by the company in identifying its target market is identifying the most
applicable targeting strategy. This involves analysing characteristics like the company’s resources,
market characteristics, objectives of the organization and product attributes. It includes
undifferentiated strategy, differentiated strategy and concentrated strategy.

2) The second step involves determining the segmentation strategy to use. Segmentation variables
involve the behaviours of the target customers that are used to divide them into groups. Some of
the variables that Wal-Mart uses in segmenting its customers are demographic, geographic,
psychographic and behaviouristic variables.

3) The third step of the Target Market Selection Process at Wal-Mart is developing profiles of market
segments. This is important because it helps in describing similarities in a certain segment as well as
explaining the differences between people in different segments. Developing market segment
profiles is important because its helps a company understand how it can use the available resources
to serve its target customers.

4) The fourth step involved in the Target Market Selection Process is the evaluation of the relevant
market segments. This step involves sales estimates, competitive assessments and cost estimates
(Gitman & McDaniel, 2009).

5) The final step of the Target Market Selection Process is identifying a specific target market. The
first and key consideration in this stage is determining whether there exist enough differences in the
needs of target customers to neceIncase the needs of the identified customers are homogenous, the
best approach that a company should use is the undifferentiated approach.

In case the needs of the target customers are heterogeneous, then the company needs to consider
using one or more markets. It is worth noting that a company should consider whether it has the
necessary financial resources, employee expertise, managerial skills, and facilities to enter and
compete effectively in the identified market segments. This is because every market segment has its
unique advantages and challenges that require certain resources to ensure that the company
succeed.

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