QVC Inc Analysis of the company. Strategic business plan

The retail market for home décor is very competitive. There are a variety of stores and catalog retailers that offer similar merchandise. Major players in the industry include Bed, Bath & Beyond, Cost Plus, World Market, and Williams-Sonoma. Specialty sections of large department stores also provide competition. Opportunities in retail home décor include attracting viewers from television networks, specializing in home décor. Home & Garden (HGTV) and the Do it Yourself (DIY) network are two examples of networks that encourage interior home design by the novice. Retail home décor products are often featured on television networks which provide a way to market their merchandise to consumers. Threats to the industry include an increasing number of home décor retailers that provide competition. In addition, wholesale clubs contain home décor departments which have a tendency towards lower prices. The current energy crisis, sub-prime mortgage debacle, and increasing unemployment rates also pose a threat to the industry.

Low product differentiation and economies of scale: There isn’t much product differentiation at play in the retail industry as there are well known manufacturers whose products are offered for sale, which leaves price to compete on. Current well established retailers with thousands of stores enjoy the economies of scale to control their cost that a new entrant might not be able to replicate after immediately entering the industry.

This industry, although more attractive than the lumber industry, has its own inherent flaws . The Canadian retail hardware and home improvement industry can be characterized by high degree of rivalry, mainly due to a large number of players competing over products of low differentiation and incurring high fixed costs. Furthermore, due to low switching costs, high information, and price sensitivity, buyers are not loyal and have high bargaining power relative to retailers. Additionally, the medium threat and power of large new entrants and suppliers adds to the industry's unattractiveness.

Qvc is a shopping channel where sellers are able to get the chance of addressing consumers through television. Through Qvc, sellers get the chance of choosing the best television channel to use in order to meet large market coverage. This means that the sellers choose television channels that have a wide coverage area and which most consumers watch. One of the advantages of Qvc is that it has managed to gain a significant number of customers since its development in 1986. Qvc.com is also an advertisement tool that reaches its customers through a website. However, the main problem that tends to affect the operations of the Qvc.com is that shopping on television seems to offer more competition on its operations. This means that many of the consumers tend to get several of the advertisement on shopping channels rather than Qvc.

The pressure that Target is placing on the vendors to create unique products exclusive to the in-store only purchase will put a strain on the supplier and retailer relationship. This can create a dilemma for the vendor because it is putting limitations on the selling potential for their products (Kinicki, 2013). The vendors are more applicable to follow the trend and make the goods and services available to wherever the consumer is shopping.

Today’s consumer has multiple options to fill their shopping needs. They have the option to shop at online retailers, big box and mass merchant stores, department stores, smaller chain stores, individual kiosk, and other local or international convenient stores to fill their shopping needs. Regardless of the retailer that a consumer chooses, all retailers aim to satisfy their shoppers’ needs and strive to be the best in the business. In order to adequately and successfully do this, retailers must develop a firm mission, vision, and have core values for how they will operate as a retailer to meet the frequently changing demands of its consumer base.

The company selected for analysis was Target Inc. It was measured against the benchmark company, Walmart, its largest competitor. Both companies are in the discount retail industry, which is rapidly changing due to competition from Amazon. Walmart has been last, of the three, to engage in online selling (Kline, 2017). Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, benefits from economies of scale and market power over its suppliers and competitors operating 6,363 retail stores in 27 countries outside of the US (Jurevicius, 2017).

The retail industry is highly competitive, with few barriers to entry. Each Company competes with many other local, regional and national retailers for customers, associates, locations, merchandise, services and other important aspects of the Company’s business. Those competitors include other department stores, discounters, home furnishing stores, specialty retailers, wholesale clubs, direct-to-consumer businesses and other forms of retail commerce. Some competitors are larger than JCPenney, have greater financial resources available to them, and, as a result, may be able to devote greater resources to sourcing, promoting and selling their products.” There are many factors that characterize competition, including advertising, service,

“…Are the factors that need to be overcome by new entrants if they are to compete in an industry…” Home retail in the UK is very big, developed and competitive industry. It has well-known companies that are recognized for style, price, and costumer services. A new competitor can get easily to the market competing with better services, design products and price. But economic and legal aspects may be a reason for potential entrants to refrain to enter into the UK market as it represents a fairly large investment. Potential entrants need to penetrate into the market with a new kind of service or product. Example: Argos use catalogues to make sales through the market. IKEA, is known for selling ready-to-ensemble products.

STRATEGIC PROFILE QVC: The Beginning In 1986, an entrepreneur, Joseph Segel, recognized an opportunity to enter the televised shopping network market. Unimpressed with the business scheme of the leading shopping network at that time, Home Shopping Network, Segel believed that he could create an improved televised shopping network.

QVC was launched in 1986 by Jason Segel to rival the existing Home Shopping Network (Dess, McNamara, & Eisner, 2016). Segel strived to create a family friendly network that sold sophisticated goods. Within the first year of business, QVC was televised in over 13 million homes and served 700,000 customers. As a result, 300 million products were shipped from the West Chester, Pennsylvania headquarters and produced over $100 million in sales. By 2014, QVC surpassed its competitors and served over 300 million homes around the world (Dess, McNamara, & Eisner, 2016). QVC is now the world’s largest home shopping firm followed by the Home Shopping Network (Dess, McNamara, & Eisner, 2016). Through research, development, and marketing, QVC successfully sells “over 170 million products annually” (Dess, McNamara, & Eisner, 2016, p.C179). QVC uses a variety of strategies to grow and expand the company be selling a variety of products such as: name brand jewelry, kitchen gadgets, celebrity endorsed products, home goods, personal products and novelty items (Dess, McNamara, & Eisner, 2016).

A critical way to compete for customers within the industry greatly depends on the quality of merchandise, presentation and

The recent recession has hurt the entire retail market and regaining profits will be a constant challenge for the entire industry. In order to remain competitive, Ann Krill states,” value and versatility have become very important. She needs an incentive to shop.” (Hymowitz, 2012) Ms. Krill goes on to say,” I think in uncertain economic times, value becomes more important...” (Hymowitz, 2012)

The furniture retailing industry in UK is very competitive, so the extent of competitive rivalry of the five forces is the most significant to IKEA. (See appendices Ⅳ) Except IKEA, there are several big furniture retailers such as Galiform Plc, and DFS

Their business models have led to low prices and good quality products. This is also the outcome of supply strategy of high volume purchases, and in the process developing strong supply community.