PetSmart vs. Petco: A Dogfight That Neither One is Winning

If you have been an avid pet lover over the last decade there is a high chance you frequently found yourself at PetSmart or Petco, America’s two largest pet stores, whether it was to get necessities for your pet or spoil them just because you felt like it. 

With new carriers of pet supplies and new technology of online shopping, PetSmart and Petco were facing a lot of new competition in the market share. These declining companies needed to seek new resources and strategies to gain sustainable competitive advantages over their competitors. PetSmart Inc. bought Chewy, the online pet shop, for $3.8 billion, they wanted to improve their sales by entering into e-commerce, hoping to increase their sales revenue by selling their products in a new market. Petco decided to focus on developing and enhancing the services they offer that you can’t purchase online, such as grooming and pet sitting. 

 

Petco has been improving its veterinary services and training classes to draw people to stores. Photo: Paul Ladd/Associated Press

While Petco’s financial performance has progressed after re-vamping it’s in store services, PetSmart Inc. continues to decline in sales and grow in debt even after acquiring Chewy.

PetSmart’s CEO J.K. Symancyk said that the firm is intentionally keeping the businesses separate because of where each company stands in terms of their growth. PetSmart is established and has a mature customer base, while Chewy is a new and upcoming company, their focus is on obtaining new customers. If PetSmart Inc. wanted to treat each company as having a separate target market, then they should have made a different marketing mix for each business. Instead they treated both PetSmart and Chewy as a combined target market, they lacked developing unique products for each target segment and differentiated campaigns and promotional tactics to increase sales and clientele.

Ron Coughlim, CEO of Petco, said in an interview, “Our objective is to have a sustainable company, if we tried to play Amazon’s and Chewy’s game, that would be a losing hand”.

Petco has seen recent success once again again because the company avoided to engage in head-on competition and developed on an existing product that you can’t physically order online. It seems that PetSmart should look to Petco for future advice on how to turn their business around.

I chose this article because I find it very interesting that two very well known companies now have to fight to maintain their place in the market. It emphasizes how important it is for any company, whether big or small, has to have a strategic and well thought out plan in order to be successful. Not only does a company have to have a strategic plan in place but in order to stay relevant they must continue to adapt and update it as time goes on and their external environment changes. 

By: Khadeeja Safdar and Miriam Gottfried 
Feb 20, 2019 8:00 a.m. ET 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dog-days-arent-over-for-pet-store-rivals-11550667601?mod=cx_picks&cx_navSource=cx_picks&cx_tag=undefined&cx_artPos=5#cxrecs_s

Disney Buys Fox

Disney purchased 21st Century Fox last month, and according to Erich Schwartzel this is by far the largest merger in the history of the company. Over the past few years the entertainment industry has undergone rapid consolidation in response to the increase in popularity of streaming services. Disney has also recently removed all of its products from Netflix, so it is likely that they are setting the stage for the launch of their own streaming platform. If Disney is successful, this will allow them to skip all of the "middle men" that are currently involved in getting their product to the consumer.

This acquisition of Fox by Disney is not favorable for everyone. There will be thousands of layoffs across Fox according to Erich Schwartzel, and only the top executives will be making the transition to Disney. Also analysts are expecting movie theatre owners to take big hits upon release of Disney's new streaming service. According to the article, Disney was responsible for 26%  of the box office market share in 2018, and Fox accounted for 9%. Future releases from Disney and Fox will no longer be available at the movie theatre once the streaming service is released, so over a third of the box office revenue will be disappearing. 

This applies to our class, because Disney will need to have enough selections available on their streaming service so consumers will be willing to pay a monthly fee. Also, theatre owners are going to have to explore new outlets and get creative in the coming years if they want to stay in business. 

Nikolos Oakes

Article Title: Disney Closes $71.3 Billion Deal for 21st Century Fox Assets 

Article Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-completes-buy-of-foxs-entertainment-assets-11553074200

 Photo Link: https://io9.gizmodo.com/new-details-emerge-about-disneys-streaming-service-whi-1828627324

5:42pm 

There Are Five Different Races in Streaming TV. Here’s Where Apple Fits In

There isn’t just one race in the streaming media world. In the U.S., there are at least five distinct categories where Silicon Valley heavyweights and traditional media companies are competing for users’ attention and money. Some, like Netflix Inc., is building subscription entertainment services with large stockpiles of original and licensed programming. Others, like Dish Network Corp.’s SlingTV, are creating slimmed-down, online versions of the cable-TV bundle. Still others, such as Roku, are looking to be streaming-TV hubs in the living room, providing hardware and services that let consumers connect to and sign up for all sorts of streaming offerings. So where does Apple fit in?IIt is among the many companies that are playing in multiple categories. It's Apple TV+ service, announced last week, aims to create original programming, such as “The Morning Show,” a drama about a talk show featuring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, and the space drama “For All Mankind.”It also has a separate Apple TV Channels service, which is more of a streaming hub, letting users sign up for HBO, Showtime, and Starz, among other on-demand video options. All of this is quite different—and less ambitious—than Apple’s initial hopes of building a replacement to cable TV that would allow ad-free viewing. In some ways, Apple is emulating Amazon.com Inc., which competes with Netflix in original streaming entertainment but also runs Amazon Prime Video Channels, not unlike Apple TV Channels. Google’s YouTube is also a player in multiple categories.

I choose this topic because the rise of online streaming services such as Netflix and HBO Go has dramatically altered the media habits of Americans, especially young adults and most young generation do not watch traditional TV. In the past, if you watch TV series, variety shows, and videos, basically only the TV set at home can satisfy you. But in recent years, the rise of large-screen smartphones, tablets, video sites, and various live apps has had a big impact on TVs, so that video viewing can have more forms than just TVs. .The mobile phone and tablet on hand allow you to watch what you want to see whenever and wherever you want. It can be said that it greatly reduces the function and presence of the TV.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/there-are-five-different-races-in-streaming-tv-heres-where-apple-fits-in-11554120001

Walmart Builds a Secret Weapon to Battle Amazon for Retail's Future

The world’s largest retailer is using Jetblack, a money-losing personal-shopping service, to develop artificial intelligence to compete with e-commerce giant Amazon.

Jetblack is a personal shopping company that is targeted at mothers in New York. It was launched in the summer of 2018 by a newcomer, Walmart. Walmart is the world's biggest retailer by revenue, with $514 billion in annual sales. Members of Jetblack are invited by Walmart or referred by current members, but the only required thing is that members need to have a doorman to join. Once members join, an agent is sent to the house to take an inventory of what products the member uses, giving them a database of frequent purchases. The members are also spending an average of $300 a week for products due to the ease of the service Jetblack provides and encourages more frequent purchases through text messages. The agents assigned to reply to text messages do it right away and at night there are set automated text messages so that the person can know that agents are not available to help but will do as soon as they can. Jetblack agents make suggestions to shoppers and then order what they decide they want.

Jetblack uses agents to go through the orders received and couriers fetch the items, bring them back, wrap them, and deliver them usually on the same day. Walmart is doing this because of a large competitor it has: Amazon.com Inc. Amazon has Prime which more than 100 million people use. Walmart is fighting for a larger online presence by buying small online retailers, like Bonobos a men's apparel company. In addition to that, Jetblack is just one of Walmart's small online investments wanting to target wealthy shoppers. 

Workers stock up on frequently purchased items by going to a Jet.com warehouse or Walmart stores in New Jersey because New York has no physical Walmart stores. 

I chose this article because I love doing online shopping so it is interesting to see that online shopping is being made easier just by sending a text message and someone sending suggestions to choose from. Although Jetblack is only in New York, it would be nice to see it spread out over the US. 

This article relates to marketing because Walmart is doing everything it can to promote online sales by inviting members to join Jetblack. It is doing it so it can get more publicity that will eventually lead to an increase in their e-commerce. 

Karla Gorostieta 

Works Cited: By Sarah Nassauer | Photographs by Kevin Hagen for The Wall Street Journal

March 21, 2019 11:23 a.m. ET https://www.wsj.com/articles/walmart-builds-a-secret-weapon-to-battle-amazon-for-retails-future-11553181810