Coles Marketing Strategy & Marketing Mix (4Ps)
Marketing Strategy of Coles analyzes the brand with the marketing mix framework which covers the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). These business strategies, based on Coles marketing mix, help the brand succeed in the market. Let us start the Coles Marketing Strategy & Mix to understand its product, pricing, advertising & distribution strategies:
Quick Glance:
Coles Product Strategy:
The product strategy and mix in Coles marketing strategy can be explained as follows:
Coles offers fresh food, groceries, liquor, general merchandise, fuel and financial services. The various offerings form the marketing mix product strategy of the brand.
The business segments of Coles are-
Coles supermarket, Coles online, Coles liquor, Coles express, Coles Financial Services, Spirit Hotels
The products sold at the supermarket include- Baby products, Bakery, Dairy, Deli, Fresh fruit & veg, Coles Mobile, Gift cards, Heston, Liquor, Meat, Gluten free, Kosher
Coles also offers its own brands such as Graze Grass-Fed Beef and BonSucro sugar. Coles has exclusive contracts with Shell and offers fuel at its Coles express convenience stores.
Coles Liquor offers hundreds of liquor brands. They have a wide variety of local as well as imported wine, beer and spirits. Coles financial services offers insurance which includes home, car, life and landlord insurance and credit cards.
Coles Financial Services more than 1 million customers. Coles operates hotels under the brand name Spirit hotels. Coles sells fashionable on trend apparel at its Target stores.
Image: Wikimedia
Coles Price/Pricing Strategy:
Below is the pricing strategy in Coles marketing strategy:
Coles is a cost leader. Coles offers customers lower prices while at the same time providing high quality of products.
Coles aims to continuously lower the cost of the weekly basket of goods whereas the cost of living in Australia remains high thereby being a competitive advantage for Coles. Coles has been lowering prices for 6 years and Australian households can save an average of $640 a year by shopping at Coles according to their annual report. Coles invests in store network, simplifying processes, training, retaining the best talent, refurbishing stores to maintain low prices and provide a very good customer experience. Coles Liquor is dedicated to delivering lower prices, an improved range and a better store network. Coles express introduced Every Day Value pricing to its convenience stores which include lower priced food-to-go and 80 cent coffee. Coles express also had with price capped discounts for Christmas and new year enabling customers to save more. There are many discounts, loyalty programmes and promotions by Coles which customers can use to their benefit and get even better prices. Flybuy is one such loyalty programme in which one feature is such that a customer saves $10 when 2,000 flybuys points are redeemed while buying a Coles Insurance policy online.
Read more about Coles
Coles Place & Distribution Strategy:
Following is the distribution strategy in the Coles marketing mix:
Coles has a total of 2,300+ outlets and reaches out to millions of users as a part of its marketing mix distribution strategy. Coles strives to build a better store network and has an objective to target supermarket net space growth of 2-3% per year. In 2015 Coles opened a new state-of-the-art Coles supermarket which offers the latest supermarket features. The supermarket has an open market-style fresh produce section and an in-store bakery, butcher and deli. Coles opened 20 new supermarkets in 2015. Coles online is an online supermarket where customers can view the products offered by Cole and place an order anytime. Orders of fresh food are delivered within a specified time by Coles Online drivers in temperature-controlled vans. Coles Online achieved on a weekly average more than 25 per cent growth.
Many new Coles express stores were opened with improved range of convenience and food to go offers.
Coles Liquor operates under three brands 1st Choice Liquor superstore, the Liquorland convenience offer and the specialist chain, Vintage Cellars.
Coles Promotion & Advertising Strategy:
The promotional and advertising strategy in the Coles marketing strategy is as follows:
Coles marketing strategy and advertising revolves around lower prices that the supermarket offers. It used taglines such as “why pay more” “Extra Value for You — and Me" and "Cheap Groceries" highlighting the lower prices and the value customers get from shopping at Coles. Coles had an interactive campaign wherein customers were asked why they shopped at Coles and their responses were recorded. Coles has loyalty, discount and promotion schemes. Its flybuys loyalty and rewards program is one of Australia’s largest with over 5.5 million Australian active users. It was judged Australia’s most popular rewards and loyalty programme by an independent research agency. Customers can get up to 6x more points on all Coles Supermarket shops when they take up a Coles Credit Card and Coles Insurance products. Coles also has promotional schemes during Christmas and new year.
Since this is a service marketing brand, here are the other three Ps to make it the 7Ps marketing mix of Coles.
Physical Evidence:
Coles 2,300+ outlets serve as physical evidence. Coles works towards building bigger and better stores. The stores are refurbished to improve customer experience. The products are arranged in such a way that it is easy and efficient for customers.
People:
Coles being a superstore customer relations are very important. The employees are continuously trained to interact and enhance customer service. Coles gives freedom for its employees to be proactive and find ways to increase value to customers. Coles is committed in providing market leading customer service. Coles also has various programmes for its employees such as Retail Leaders Program and The First Steps Program.
Process:
Coles seeks to improve its processes in the supply chain to deliver better to customers. Streamlining of processes is used to cut cost which add value to its customers. Coles has simplified process of buying by using online supermarket. Hence, this covers the marketing mix of Coles.
About Coles:
Coles is a chain of supermarkets based in Australia. Coles opened its first store in 1914 and completed 100 years in 2014. The chain has 1,00,000 employees working in 2,300+ outlets. Coles had a total revenue of $38 billion in 2014-15.
Coles provide a wide range of products such as groceries, liquor and meat. Coles also sells its own brands.
This article has been researched & authored by the Content & Research Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.
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