Heb Supermarket

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- Forming Bonds with local community and benefiting them

H.E.B is a socially responsible company. It always takes into account the benefit of the community in which it is operating. It has involve itself in number of charitable activities and has served the community by being energy efficient. H.E.B dedicate Five percent of its pre-tax income to the charitable causes of the community in which it operates. This strategy has helped in not only creating a goodwill of the company but also serve as a way of creating competitive advantage. (Raven 2015)

1.3 Competitiveness and competencies

Competitive strategy of H.E.B is in being unique and different. It has always looked for new ways of performing activities that leads towards providing value to customers.

Instead of providing different brands to its customers, H.E.B has focused on Texas grown and Texas produced products. It has also emphasised the use of word Texas in labelling many privately manufactured products. This strategy provided H.E.B with exclusivity as such products are only available in their stores. This uniqueness not only provide competitive advantage to the company but has also become a competence as the other store chains in Texas has failed to tackle this approach. (Raven 2015)

2. Competitor Analysis:

San Antonio’s market is majorly dominated by H.E.B. For many years, different retail stores has tried to weaken its grip but has failed. H.E.B has always dealt with competition through customer loyalty and commitment to its ‘Bold Promise’. (Anderson 2012)

H.E.B has operated in market filled many competitors. Some of its major competitors include:

- Wal-Mart

- Whole Foods Market

- Albertson food and drug store

2.1 Wal-Mart

Founded in 1962 by Sam Walton, Wal-Mart is the world’s second largest public corporation. It is an American retail company that owns a largest chain of discount stores. Wal-Mart emphasis on making a difference in the lives of their customers by helping them save money and live better life.

Wal-Mart is a leader in retail industry. It provide a wide range of products including Electronics, movies and music, home and furniture, clothing, footwear, jewellery, toys, health and beauty, pet supplies, sporting goods and fitness, auto, photo finishing, craft supplies, party supplies, grocery etc. to customers around the world

Wal-Mart has a reputation for providing low prices and excellent shopping experience. In addition to this they have also implemented several environmental measures for energy efficiency. (Wei 2015)

2.2 Whole Foods Market

Whole food market is the world’s best natural food chain. It owns more than 300 stores across North America and United Kingdom and is publically traded on Nasdaq (WFM). Emphasising on perishable and prepared products, whole food market is recognised for providing best quality food and excellent shopping experience to its customers. Through its excellent services and food, whole food market has set high standard and it has become very difficult for the other supermarkets to meet them. Its current strategy is to expand by means of new store openings. And to make these opening successful, it relies heavily on relationship building and massive advertising. Their key strength lies in their high standards for quality products and passion for food. When it comes to the store size and layout, they have a competitive advantage in this aspect. They have specialised themselves in providing less processed, natural and high quality organic products to their customers.

(Meador 2012) (Hartman 2012)

2.3 Albertson food and drug store

Albertson food and drug store another major competitor of H.E.B. In 1939, Joe Albertson opened his first grocery store named as ‘Idaho’s largest and finest food store’ in Boise, Idaho.

Joe took many innovative initiatives including first magazine racks in country, providing their customers with home-made ice-cream, buttered popcorn and roasted nuts. Like H.E.B, Albertson food and drug store also focused on providing low priced products. Due to this reason both these companies engaged themselves in price war.

In order to deal with competition provided by Albertson food and drug store, H.E.B adopted the strategy of using H.E.B brand names. This enabled them to provide customers with low prices high quality products. This strategy worked out in its favour. (Raven 2015)

3. Customer Analysis:

H.E.B’s corporate slogan is, “Go home a hero. This slogan shows H.E.B’s commitment for providing best quality products and excellent services to its customers, thus becoming customer’s champion.

H.E.B has incorporated a large number of customer focused strategies. It focuses greatly on providing convenience, friendly services and low priced excellent quality products to its customers. It tries its best to know its customers and provide them what they actually want. (H.E.B 2015)

3.1 Segmentation and targeting:

- Families:

H.E.B is a family owned business and it always tries to better serve families of Texas and northern Mexico. The segment of Families is one of the major segment being targeted by H.E.B and due to this reason it has become a household name. H.E.B provides this segment variety of low priced products along with in-store coupons and discounts.

- Foodies:

H.E.B’s central market targets a segment called as foodies. According to them, central market a place for very persons who loves food. This segment of customers are interested in a number of global products. H.E.B provides foodies with a verity of global products and an international culinary experience in their own home.

- Hispanics:

Hispanics is another important segment being targeted by H.E.B. In order to respond to the needs of growing Hispanic community, H.E.B has introduced a store called Mi Tienda that offers Hispanic community wide range of traditional Hispanic food items than any other grocery store thus enabling them to enjoy the taste of their culture. (Leon 2013)

3.2 Customer Value and