Waitrose’s differentiation strategy

Waitrose has been known as the main supermarket chain to sell huge range of organic and free range of products to the customers. This organization was also identified as Best Food and Grocery Retailer in the Verdict Consumer Satisfaction Awards in the year 2016. Waitrose has near about 352 branches including 30 little convenience stores across the UK, Scotland, Wales and England. In the year 2015, this company recorded 5.1% share of the UK market, which ranked them in the sixth position in the supermarket. The aim of this company is to merge ease of the supermarket with specialist and facility of high quality shop. This enterprise is mainly known for their differentiation approach that aims upper market with widespread variety of fresh product and quality (Makadok and Ross 2013). They even offer value promise for making sure that their clients gets best value for money when shopping at their store. Besides this, they have high status for retailing high quality product but this led them to awareness of being costly.

The present logo of this firm was designed by Monotype Interbrand as well as Imaging. Advertising for this enterprise generally emphasizes chain’s selling points. The recent marketing by Waitrose has endeavored to depict the chain highly ethical than several other supermarkets. They also introduced premium food brand named as ‘Waitrose 1’ in the year 2016. This brand mainly offers best of Waitrose food items. In addition, another brand of this company is ‘Heston’ that includes goods innovated by Heston (UKEssays 2018). This supermarket also introduced their loyalty card scheme known as “ my Waitrose”, which varied from other loyalty card such as Tesco Clubcard, Nectar etc. This in turn gives their cardholders admittance to huge competitions and also permits them to gather points. This supermarket also has foundation, which provides funds for employee’s facilities, health services and education. Some of the major competitors of Waitrose are Sainsbury, Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury and so on, those who also target the upper section of market. This supermarket also performs huge range of conducts in order to uphold their green image that involves Bag for Life , Environmental Report etc.

This company captured near about 5.3% of the grocery market in the UK over the last few years. Their share in the UK market has increased from 3.17% to 3.7% against huge competition from biggest supermarket chains. This increase in their market share, rise in sales growth and built consumers loyalty has been attained by this company through their adoption of strategic design as well as advertising creativity (Wells-Burr 2016). However, one of the key success benchmarks of Waitrose has been their growth in market share in this nation.

Marketing strategies and market positioning

This company attains higher position in the UK market similar to that of other mainstream players including Tesco, Morrison’s, Asda etc. In fact, they presently ramped up campaign relating to the Price Match in which they promise to match with Tesco. This Supermarket attained huge success in the UK market due to launch of their essentials range, customer service, ethical sourcing and acquisition of store. In addition, the segmentation in the UK market also permits this enterprise to identify different kinds of purchasers who allocate homogenous requirements as well as behaviors, which in turn helped them to attain upper position in the market.  In the present years, this firm is considered as the fastest developing supermarket in the UK marketplace. Moreover, their positioning in the UK market leverages the growth in their retail internet sales. From the positioning map, it can be viewed that this Supermarket has been placed moderately higher price lines as well as quality, featuring segmentation in relation to high revenue gainers. 

Is there any association between past purchase frequency of organic produce and customer’s gender?

Is there any association between past purchase frequency of free-rangeproduce and customer’s gender?

Is there any significant association between organic and free-range produce?

How participants’ intention is related to organic purchase and free purchase?

How participants’ view is related with organic produce and free-range produce?

The table above shows gender distribution between vegetarian and non-vegetarian group. Out of total 58 male surveyed only 3 find out as vegetarian while 55 males are non-vegetarian. Out of 142 female surveyed 15 females are vegetarian and 127 are non-vegetarian. For both groups though proportion of vegetarian is very lower as compared to meat eater for females the percentage of vegetarian is higher than males. 

Among the total 200 sample surveyed 42 is found to be single, 135 are either married or living with partners and 23 are separated, divorced or widows.

The sample populationis divided under different age group. Maximum participants belong to the age group of 35 to 44 years and 45-54 years. These are the targeted population as people under these two age group.

As shown from the above chart for lower income group proportion of females are greater than proportion of male while for higher income group, income exceeding 25,000 male proportion is greater than female.

The figure above shows Vegetarians are more likely to purchase organic produce than meat eater is.

Customer purchasing behaviors towards organic and free-range produce

The non-vegetarian group purchase free-range produce rarely, sometimes or often while most vegetarian always purchase free-range produce.

Among the total 58 male surveyed 24 males s purchase organic product sometimes. There is only two men who always purchase organic produce and 9 men who never purchase such produce. For females, 12 women are purchasing organic produce always. 54 females sometimes purchase organic produce. The survey thus shows females more frequently purchase organic produce than males.

The chi-square test is performed to analyze association between past purchase frequency of organic produce and gender. The null hypothesis is that there is no significant association between frequency of organic produce and gender of the participants (Lee and Yun 2015). The alternative hypothesis is significant association exits between the two variables. The p value (assymp. Sig 2 sided), is obtained as 0.028. The value is less than 5% significance level. Therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected implying presence of significant association between participants’ gender and purchase of organic produce.

In total male participants, only 15.5% men always purchase free-range produce. For females, the corresponding percentage is 28.2%. Among female participants, maximum participants purchase the free-range produce often with corresponding percentage being 42.3%. Among the male surveyed, 37.9% males sometimes purchase free-range produce. For both male and female group there is only 1 participant who never purchase free-range produce. 

Chi square test is used to examine the association between free-range produce and customer’s gender. The p value (Asymp. Sig 2 sided) of the test, statistics is 0.121. The value is greater than significance level of 5%. This shows acceptance of null hypothesis of no association between free-range produce and customers’ gender. Therefore, the purchase of free-range produce is independent of genders.

Association between free-range produce and organic produce is tested using Chi-square test. The null hypothesis here is there is no significant association between free-range produce and organic produce. The Chi-square value is statistically significant as seen from a lower p value than the significance level (McHugh 2013). This implies rejection of null hypothesis meaning the organic produce has a significant association with free-range produce. 

The table above shows the correlation between intention of the participants and purchase of organic and free-range produce. The correlation co-efficient between average intentions of free range product to that of average intention of organic produce is 0.687. The positive correlation implies as customers’ intention towards free-range increases, the average intention towards organic produce increases. The correlation co-efficient is statistically significant showing a significant correlation between average intention of free range and organic produce.

Customer perceptions towards free range and organic produce

From the correlation matrix, a very strong correlation is found to exist between intention of the participants and frequency of past purchase of organic produce. The correlation co-efficient is 0.816. This means as average intention increases the frequency of purchasing organic produce increases. Average intention has a weak positive relation with attitude towards food. The corresponding correlation co-efficient is 0.053. Overall beliefs on organic produce again have a positive relation with intention of customers (Pino, Peluso and Guido 2012). Again, average intention has a moderate correlation with average attitude towards organic produce.

In case of free-range produce, a strong correlation is found between average intention towards free-range produce and frequency of the past purchase. Average intention for free-range produce has a weak correlation with attitude towards food. The relation between intention and overall belief of customers in case of free-range produce is moderate, so is the relation between average attitude of free-range produce and average intention.

From the secondary sources, it has been observed that this company commissioned marketing research agency ( BMR) for gaining better knowledge of their consumers views on both the free range as well as organic produce and explore differences in their consumer perceptions. Furthermore, the research objective that are to be addressed in this study has been to examine how the perceptions of their consumers vary between free range and organic products sold and how this affects their purchase intention. 

The variation of customer’s perceptions regarding Waitrose free range and organic products has direct implication on their marketing strategies. The results shown above reflects that females purchase more organic produce than males as the females are motivated owing to eating healthy diet while males are highly influenced by the social circumstances. For this reason, this company conducts more communication campaigns for addressing generally to females in order to promote healthy eating at home (Lees 2014). In addition, as males purchase less organic food products in comparison with other non-organic products, Waitrose strategizes to lower the price of their organic produce. This however positively influences the attitude of males in purchasing the organic food products.  Furthermore, as the purchase of free range produce is independent of genders, the BMR of this company strategizes to create new products based on the analysis of their target market (Hammou, Galib and Melloul 2013). Apart from this, they also use differentiation strategy for targeting the market in order to sell the free range produce. As the above interpretation reflects that organic produce has significant association with the free range products, this company sets organic product price based on the target market of the free range produce and vice-versa. This enterprise also offers product trials for the organic products where their consumers could initially utilize these commodities for few days before making the decision regarding continuation of consumption. This in turn influences the purchase of free range products that are produced by this company. The results highlighting positive correlation between customer’s intentions to purchase organic and free range products also affects their marketing strategies. The promotion strategy adopted by the BMR of this company opts for the direct marketing that apt to adopt strategies such as mobile marketing since it does not need expenditure on operational overheads and home delivery organic product bazaars. This in turn increases the purchase of organic food products, which also leads to increase in purchase of the free range products. As the customer’s views on free range produce are moderate, they try to understand the attitude of their customers for target market (UKEssays 2018). The BMR launches the free range products based on their customer’s behavior so that they can achieve success in the market. This company also undertakes range of certain activities for maintaining their green image that includes- environmental report, Bag for life etc. As it can be viewed that the customer’s intention regarding free range produce has been relatively moderate, the company focuses on designing the packaging of these products in unique way (Janssen and Hamm 2012). This helps them in making their customers feel better while purchasing the free range products. This enterprise also develops the range of several distribution channels for selling both the organic and free range products to their customers. Implementation of this marketing strategy helps them to gain competitive advantage against their rivalries. 

Research design refers to the strategy adopted by the researcher for amalgamating different components in the research study. This is basically the process that is utilized for assessing the variables of research problem. There are three major kinds of research design that involves- exploratory, descriptive and explanatory.

Exploratory research design is generally used to establish precedence among different competitive explanations. This research design facilitates to explore the circumstances to give insights about the study. Besides this, this research design also aids to elucidate the theories and devise the issue in precise way. The methods that are included in this research design are interviews, experiments etc in order to complete this study.

Descriptive research design indicates the design that depicts the participants with higher accuracy. It also helps the researcher to illustrate the circumstances in appropriate manner.

Explanatory research design signifies the research design that endeavor to link the ideas in order to comprehend causes and effect of relationship (Mitchell and Jolley 2012). It also aids the researcher to describe the things that occurs in collective manner.

For this market research, descriptive research design has been used for collecting the appropriate idea about the result (Lambert and Lambert 2012). Although this design helps to analyze the customer’s insight about the organic and free range products, it can create confidentiality issue. In fact, as the results obtained from this research design are not repeatable, this market research might not be replicated. Moreover, few data obtained during this research design can be unreliable as the participants answering the questions might not be truthful.  Hence this has some implications on the outcome of market research.

The responses that have been obtained from the given questionnaire highlights that the participants have the positive attitude and intention to purchase organic produce. On the contrary, the responses collected from the participants reflect that their intention to purchase free range produce has been moderate. In addition, as there might be some biasness of the participants regarding their views on free range and organic produce, the outcome of the research might include some discrepancies. 

References

Andidas.com. (2018). Cite a Website – Cite This For Me. [online] Available at: https://www.andidas.com/academic/babm/RetailMarketing_WaitroseTraineeGuide_by_andidas.pdf [Accessed 10 Mar. 2018].

De Mooij, M., 2013. Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes. Sage Publications.

Hammou, K.A., Galib, M.H. and Melloul, J., 2013. The contributions of neuromarketing in marketing research. Journal of Management Research, 5(4), p.20.

Janssen, M. and Hamm, U., 2012. Product labelling in the market for organic food: Consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay for different organic certification logos. Food quality and preference, 25(1), pp.9-22.

Kitapci, O., Taylan Dortyol, I., Yaman, Z. and Gulmez, M., 2013. The paths from service quality dimensions to customer loyalty: An application on supermarket customers. Management Research Review, 36(3), pp.239-255.

Ko, E., Hwang, Y.K. and Kim, E.Y., 2013. Green marketing’functions in building corporate image in the retail setting. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), pp.1709-1715.

Lambert, V.A. and Lambert, C.E., 2012. Qualitative descriptive research: An acceptable design. Pacific Rim International Journal of Nursing Research, 16(4), pp.255-256.

Lee, H.J. and Yun, Z.S., 2015. Consumers’ perceptions of organic food attributes and cognitive and affective attitudes as determinants of their purchase intentions toward organic food. Food quality and preference, 39, pp.259-267.

Lees, N.J., 2014. Delivering high quality, safe and environmentally friendly food through long term agribusiness supply partnerships: Case study of Waitrose Supermarket’s, Welsh and New Zealand seasonal agri-food supply chain.

Lei, N. and Moon, S.K., 2015. A Decision Support System for market-driven product positioning and design. Decision Support Systems, 69, pp.82-91.

Makadok, R. and Ross, D.G., 2013. Taking industry structuring seriously: A strategic perspective on product differentiation. Strategic Management Journal, 34(5), pp.509-532.

McHugh, M.L., 2013. The chi-square test of independence. Biochemia medica: Biochemia medica, 23(2), pp.143-149.

Mitchell, M.L. and Jolley, J.M., 2012. Research design explained. Cengage Learning.

Paul, J. and Rana, J., 2012. Consumer behavior and purchase intention for organic food. Journal of consumer Marketing, 29(6), pp.412-422.

Pino, G., Peluso, A.M. and Guido, G., 2012. Determinants of regular and occasional consumers’ intentions to buy organic food. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 46(1), pp.157-169.

Pino, G., Peluso, A.M. and Guido, G., 2012. Determinants of regular and occasional consumers’ intentions to buy organic food. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 46(1), pp.157-169.

UKEssays. (2018). Brief background of Waitrose. [online] Available at: https://www.ukessays.com/essays/marketing/brief-background-of-waitrose.php [Accessed 10 Mar. 2018].

UKEssays. (2018). Marketing theories and concepts applied to Waitrose. [online] Available at: https://www.ukessays.com/essays/marketing/marketing-theories-and-concepts-applied-to-waitrose-marketing-essay.php [Accessed 10 Mar. 2018].

Wells-Burr, E.V., 2016. The Sweet Smell of Success: An Ethnography of the Waitrose Customer Experience. Journal of Promotional Communications, 4(1).

Yang, A. and Cui, Y., 2012. Global coal risk assessment: data analysis and market research. World Resources Institute Working Paper.