Sears Marketing Strategy & Marketing Mix (4Ps)
Marketing Strategy of Sears analyzes the brand with the marketing mix framework which covers the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). These business strategies, based on Sears marketing mix, help the brand succeed in the market. Let us start the Sears Marketing Strategy & Mix to understand its product, pricing, advertising & distribution strategies:
Quick Glance:
Sears Product Strategy:
The product strategy and mix in Sears marketing strategy can be explained as follows:
Sears sells a variety of products. They sell everything that a supermarket and departmental stores sell except for food. Some of the products include the following as a part of their marketing mix product strategy. Apparel (Men’s, Women’s, Children’s, Kids), shoes, jewellery, Painting equipment, Bedding and Bath accessories, Appliances, Athletic wear and shoes etc.
Sears also sell Electronic accessories, Tools, Tape Players and Radio, Machinery etc. They have also partnered with Fandango, a mobile ticketing service which provides freebies and mobile coupons to shoppers at Sears. The app aims at providing ease of shopping to the customers by proving an app which lets the customer use the app to scan the barcodes and receive information about the product.
Image: Wikimedia
Sears Price/Pricing Strategy:
Below is the pricing strategy in Sears marketing strategy:
As Sears has many competitors, it has to follow target pricing strategies and has to follow competitive pricing strategies so that it fares well amongst its competitors in the physical and digital arena. Sears sells good and high-quality products and low prices so that it could gain customers from its competing brands and stay in the market.
It is aimed at serving affordable products to its customers and the products are targeted towards lower middle and middle-class customers who are very price sensitive and their buying decisions are based on it.
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Sears Place & Distribution Strategy:
Following is the distribution strategy in the Sears marketing mix:
Sears have huge departmental stores. There are over 2300 stores in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. They are very widely spread and there is always a store in the vicinity. In addition to the physical retail stores, its products and services are available online as well. When you order something online you can choose two types of deliveries: Home delivery and In-store pickup. Apart from these, Sears manages its own shipping company which takes care of the logistics and distribution.
This is how they manage their supply chain.
Sears Promotion & Advertising Strategy:
The promotional and advertising strategy in the Sears marketing strategy is as follows:
Sears runs various offers throughout the year. There are many offers the biggest being the Black Friday and Boxing Day sales. Apart from that, it has in-store sales, online sales, promotional offers, discount coupons, gift cards aimed at attracting more customers and be in competition against big players like Walmart, Macy’s, JCPenney, etc. Apart from physical stores, it also has competition from these players in the digital world in addition to e-commerce sites like amazon.com, ebay.com,lowes.com, etc. Fandango ran promotional offers for the customers at Sears who were asked to text a code to them and they would receive free movie tickets, online coupons, and goodies. Although Fandango’s app was successful amongst the users because of the popularity and ease of use of mobile phones, there were also chances of fraud. Sears also runs TV advertisement featuring celebrities to influence the public and gain more brand visibility.
Since this is a service marketing brand, here are the other three Ps to make it the 7Ps marketing mix of Sears.
Physical Evidence:
Sears operates over 2000 stores in the world with its presence in North America. Apart from Sears store as a whole, it manages several other specialized stores. Some of them include: Sears outlet(departmental stores), Sears Appliances & Hardware (hardware stores), Sears Hometown Stores (Authorized dealer stores), Sears Home Appliance Showrooms, Sears Brand Central (electronic store), Sears Catalog Sales Stores (Electronic store), Sears Rent-a-Car, Sears HomeLife (chain of furniture stores), Sears Neighborhood (like Sears Hometown but for the urban market).
People:
Sears employs over 350,000 employees throughout its stores. All of their stores are managed by managers and his/her subordinates who leverage the smooth running of the stores. Prior to 1992, they used to employ workers on an hourly basis. Post that, they have adopted the policy of providing base fares and commission over and above that. The commission rate ranged from 0.5% to 11%, which was later reduced to only 4% with normalizing the base wages. This was done to sustain in the competitive market.
Process:
When a customer enters the Sears store, they go through the range of products that they carry and choose the products that they like. Their in-store support staff guides them through the aisles and the customer care staff takes care of all the queries. An app helps them to scan the products, which provides information about them which is very helpful while shopping. The customers head to the checkout counter and bills their products and they pay for their purchase. This concludes the marketing mix of Sears.
About Sears:
Sears is a retail store which originated in USA by Richard Waren Sears and Alvah Curtis in 1892 in Chicago. At first, it started as a mail order catalog company, which later went on to become a retail store in 1925. In 2005, Sears was merged with Kmart which changed to “Sears Holdings”. Sears is one of the largest retail store brand in the U.S.
with its operations in other countries like Canada and Mexico and its headquarters in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Sears also has a branch of Sears Holdings in India which provides IT services to the Sears Holdings Corporation in the U.S.
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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