Overview
Retail establishments must have a firm understanding of their industries, their marketplaces, and the forces that impact their success or failure.
Additionally, they must establish solid retail strategies for current conditions and for future growth and stability. The final project for this course is the creation of a retail analysis paper.
This project will enable you to examine these factors through a detailed analysis of a retailer of your choice.
This project is divided into three milestones, which will be submitted at various points throughout the course to scaffold learning and ensure quality final submissions. These milestones will be submitted in Modules Two, Three, and Five.
Please use the Shapiro Library Summon database and other reputable sites as sources of information.
Outcomes
In this assignment, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following course outcomes:
• Identify the strategies for generating profit using various pricing, merchandise assortment, visual merchandising, customer service, and store management tactics
• Understand and describe consumer shopping behavior, including consumer motivations and decision-making processes, in the context of retail business
• Describe retail objectives and competitive strategies
• Describe the segmentation-based strategies and products offering differentiation strategies
Preparation
• Be sure to read this entire document. Note that the executive summary, recommendations, and conclusions elements are not part of the milestones. However, these elements are graded requirements of the final project. More information about each element is outlined below.
• When selecting a company, be sure to choose a public company. This means that the organization is one where shares are traded on a stock exchange. As such, you will be able to access the company's annual report, which you will use to complete your section about the company's financial activities.
• You should also conduct additional research about the company using trade and industry publications, newspapers, magazines, and other scholarly sources to uncover information that is relevant to the assignment.
• After reviewing the assignment requirements, be sure to consider all of the concepts learned throughout the course and incorporate these concepts into your project.
• The final sections of the project (recommendations and conclusions) ask for your analysis based on the knowledge you have gained while conducting your research. Once again, consider the concepts learned throughout the course and offer a professional perspective.
• As you work through the milestones, keep in mind the most relevant aspects of those sections. This will be the information that you will include in your
executive summary. Therefore, while the executive summary will appear first in your final project, it will be the last part of the assignment that you will write. Simply take the first and most important parts of each section and use them to write your executive summary.
Prompt
The focus of this project is to conduct a thorough retail analysis of a major retailer of your choice, analyze the retailer's business strategy in depth, and make recommendations for the retailer's short-term and long-term strategies.
You will also evaluate the retailer's potential growth in relation to a major competitor in the same retail sector. The retailer must be a public company so that you will be able to access financial information about the organization.
The completed retail analysis paper must include (in order) all of the critical elements listed below.
1. Executive Summary
The executive summary includes all of the major elements in your report. This one- to two-page summary is designed to give readers the essence of what they will read in the complete report. While this appears at the beginning of your report, you will write this part of the project last, when you have completed the entire assignment.
2. History and Background
a. Research the industry in which this retailer competes.
i. What is the size of this industry in terms of sales?
ii. Is there one major retailer that dominates the field?
iii. What factors are impacting this industry?
iv. Consider technology, culture, legislation, demographics, and the economy.
v. What other factors are impacting the upward or downward trend?
b. Report on a chronology of important events that have helped shape the current state of your retailer.
c. What is your retailer's corporate mission?
d. Describe your retailer and discuss the range of merchandise sold.
i. What pricing strategies are utilized?
ii. What position does this retailer hold in the marketplace?
e. Discuss the sales and profit trends of your retailer. How has the retailer's level of sales changed over the past five years? Discuss these factors.
f. Who is the prime customer/target market for this retailer? Describe the target audience.
g. Describe some of the major advertising and promotional methods being used by this retailer.
3. SWOT Analysis
Conduct a SWOT analysis for your chosen retailer. Discuss the retailer's strengths and weaknesses (internal) and opportunities and threats (external).
Internal
Strengths Weaknesses
External
Opportunities Threats
4. Competitive Analysis
Discuss the strategies of a key competitor to your chosen retailer and compare the strategies to those of your retailer.
Note that your retailer's competitor may not necessarily be the market leader in the industry. Discuss important differences and similarities in strategy. What does the competitor's future look like?
5. Recommendations
Discuss recommendations for making general improvements to this retailer. Differentiate between short-term, intermediate-term, and long-term strategies.
Develop strategies that are feasible and affordable to implement.
6. Conclusions
a. What are your final thoughts about this retailer?
b. What market factors do you think might impact the retailer in the future?
c. Do you think the retailer has the potential to maintain or grow its position in the marketplace?
Milestone One: History and Background
Milestones
In task 2-2, you will discuss the history and background of a retailer of your choice. This milestone will be graded with the Milestone One Rubric.
Milestone Two: SWOT Analysis
In task 3-1, you will conduct a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) for your chosen retailer. This milestone will be graded with the Milestone Two Rubric.
Milestone Three: Competitive Analysis
In task 5-1, you will discuss the strategies of a key competitor to your chosen retailer and compare the strategies to those of your retailer. This milestone will be graded with the Milestone Three Rubric.
Final Project Rubric
Requirements of Submission: Your retail analysis paper should be approximately 7-10 pages in length (not counting the cover page, reference list, and any supporting material) and should use double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, and one-inch margins. The paper should conform to APA style.