Brand Image of Sears Term Paper

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Total Length: 2050 words ( 7 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 5

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Executive Summary



Sears is a retail company that offers a range of products and services via brick and mortar locations and online shopping portals. Its brand focuses on offering quality proprietary brand products and in-home services in an industry that is currently led by larger retailers like Wal-Mart, Target and Amazon, the e-commerce giant that is single-handedly changing the nature of retail today. In order to stay competitive, Sears is focusing on building brand loyalty among the young target market with disposable income—the 25-30 year old demographic; it is differentiating itself from its competitors by focusing on providing quality products and services as opposed to only discounted options. Sears’s main selling point, therefore, is its quality brand products—like Kenmore and Craftsman—that appeal to homeowners, especially to new homeowners who are in a prime position to develop brand loyalty to the types of appliances and services that only Sears can offer.



Sears: Brand Analysis



Introduction



This paper examines the Sears brand in the retail industry. It is organized into the following sections: Brand Profile, which describes the Sears brand; Industry, which examines the market in which Sears operates, its market share and the brands and market share of its competitors; Target Market, which identifies the primary and secondary consumer groups that Sears is targeting; POP/POD, which describes Sears’ points-of-parity and points-of-difference in the industry; and Unique Selling Point, which discusses the main POD that lets Sears stand out from its competitors and that should be used as its main selling point in order to differentiate itself.



Brand Profile



The Sears brand is based on the old brick and mortar retail approach to business: Sears is dedicated to providing consumers with a place to shop, to find the trusted merchandise and home appliances that they need, and to obtain services that they desire. To make itself more appealing to consumers, Sears has a number of proprietary brands that it sells, including Kenmore, Craftsman and DieHard (in the home appliances, kitchen, hardware, construction, and automotive industries), and in this way the Sears brand has broad appeal across numerous customer bases. Both men and women are attracted to the brand because of its diverse offerings—from kitchen and home appliances to garage and hand tool needs. The Sears brand is also focused on providing home services—i.e., the company’s representatives visit the customer’s house to install products that are purchased—from air conditioners to dishwashers to washing machines and so on. In this sense, Sears has always focused on providing consumers with quality as opposed to projecting an image of being a discount retailer like many of its competitors in retail.



The Sears brand is thus based on developing loyalty to its products through years of trusted usage, good will developed by making service calls to homes—Sears makes “more than 14 million service and installation calls annually” (Sears, 2018), and ease of access by offering a retail outlet environment where products can be purchased or picked up—i.

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e., the personal touch that is going missing in the days of Internet buying and e-commerce. The Sears brand stands out as one that is still committed to doing things the old fashioned way—and that has a meaningful impact on customers who want a brand with a good reputation for offering quality products like Craftsman, and is a long-running business that they can trust.



Source: Breillatt (2017)



Industry



The industry in which Sears operates is the retail industry. The leading brand competitors in this industry are Wal-Mart, Target, and Amazon. Wal-Mart has nearly 12,000 stores in over 25 different countries and serves over 200 million customers every day (Karbastera, 2016; Jurevicius, 2018). Wal-Mart’s revenue is considerable: it has maintained an increasing year-over-year revenue of 485.873 billion USD in 2017, nearly a 1% increase from 2016. However, the company’s weakness is seen in its declining net profits: 13.643 billion USD in 2017 versus 14.694 billion USD in 2016—a fall of more than 7% (Jurevicius, 2018). This can be explained by the arrival of Amazon, the e-commerce giant that is putting traditional brick and mortar retailers out of business every single year. Wal-Mart’s market share stands at 25% (Hochschorner, 2016). Amazon has dominated online shopping and provides ease of access to consumers who can select products for delivery without ever having to leave their home. Amazon’s market share of the entire retail industry is around 4% and its e-commerce share stands at 38% (Molla, 2017). Target’s meanwhile is around 2% (Hochschorner, 2016).



Wal-Mart’s brand is based on the idea that consumers can get quality products at the lowest discount prices at Wal-Mart’s mega-stores that are like all-in-one destinations, where customers can eat, shop, purchase home furnishings, groceries, and virtually anything else that might be needed. Target’s brand is similar and though the company is not as large-scale as Wal-Mart, it provides consumers with convenient access to a wide range of products, from clothing to furniture to household products, groceries, and more at low prices. Amazon’s brand is based on the idea of shopping being made simple: consumers order their products through Amazon’s website which hosts a wide ranging platform for sellers who then ship the product to the consumer’s house. For all three companies, the ease and convenience of shopping is a big part of their brand appeal and the low prices attached to products are another aspect of the brand appeal.



Target Market



As Sears offers a wide range of products to consumers, its target market is best understand in terms of demographic groups. Indeed, Sears appeals to several demographics and targets these….....

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References

Breillatt, A. (2017). Sears. Retrieved from http://pictureimperfect.net/2017/01/05/sears-from-wishbook-to-wistful-thinking/

Hochschorner, K. (2016). Wal-Mart—PT $42.48. Retrieved from https://seekingalpha.com/article/3979929-wal-mart-pt-42_48

Jurevicius, O. (2018). Walmart SWOT analysis 2018. Retrieved from https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/walmart-swot-analysis.html

Karbastera, K. (2016). Walmart and IKEA. Retrieved from http://216108.edicypages.com/blog/walmart-and-ikea-which-is-better

Lark. (2018). Sears home maintenance plan. Retrieved from http://lark.website/Sears-home-maintenance-plan.html

Molla, R. (2017). Amazon could be responsible for nearly half of U.S. e-commerce sales in 2017. Retrieved from https://www.recode.net/2017/10/24/16534100/amazon-market-share-ebay-walmart-apple-ecommerce-sales-2017

Sears. (2018). Sears holdings. Retrieved from https://searsholdings.com/brands/sears

Shropshire, C. (2013). Sears shifts gears and sets sight on busy urbanites. Retrieved from http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-02-14/business/ct-biz-0214-sears-20130214_1_sears-holdings-sears-spokesman-chris-brathwaite

Trout, J. & Rivkin, S. (2006). Differentiate or die. In The marketing Gurus (ed. Murray). NY: Penguin.

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