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2.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In this paper, we will discuss the profile of The Warehouse as to who and what they are in the lives of New Zealand community outlining the following topics:

• The Warehouse recognizing the factors to operate in New Zealand in consideration of the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal matters that would impact business from macro environment and its existing target market.
• Understanding of competitors’ offering to determine The Warehouse’s strengths and weakness.
• An introduction of marketing goal to improve The Warehouse’s website to maintain customer retention.
• Evaluation of The Warehouse’s aspect in products and services being offered and its market opportunity
• An outline of new pricing strategy like bundle pricing that would excite customers to shop more items.
• Suggestion of external expert that could help The Warehouse improve their online presence.
• Using of AIDA concept to manage integrated marketing communication strategy to maintain and engage new customer for online shopping.
• Monitoring and control of marketing goal.

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3.0 INTRODUCTION

In 1982, New Zealand was a market with high import prices and the cost of goods was out of reach for many New Zealanders. Sir Stephen Tindall took on the challenge and opened his first The Warehouse store in Auckland’s North Shore on 1982.
Its plain warehouse style ‘bargain basement’ appearance became popular with its customers. The Warehouse developed a sophisticated business model and was an early adopter of new technology and modern retailing systems.
They expanded rapidly and attracting invitations from customers all over the country to open a branch on their community town.
The Warehouse now operates 92 stores in town and suburbs throughout the country and have expanded, utilizing parallel importing, opening Warehouse Stationery and later acquiring Noel Leeming Group and Torpedo7. (The Warehouse, 2018)

The Warehouse’s store is colloquially known as the Red Sheds in New Zealand and within the organization.
It is one of the largest retailers and sells items of essential use such as clothing, sports and outdoor equipment, home and gardening equipment, furniture, household needs, toys, personal care products and even automobile & electronic gadgets.
The Warehouse is notable for their position of “Where everyone gets a bargain” by offering Kiwis EDLP products.

4.0 Analysis for Marketing Environment
Macro Environmental Analysis

A PESTEL analysis is a framework or tool use to analyse and monitor the macro environment factors that may impact a business or an organisation. (Professional Academy, 2018)

Political Factor- It is about how and to what degree the government is involved

New Zealand is a strong supporter of free and open trade. It is one of the most open market economies in the world (New Zealand Foreign Affair & Trade, 2018). Most of the goods imported to New Zealand has no tariffs. The Warehouse continues to provide everyday low-price bargains to their customers.

Economic Factor- Economic status of a country or a place may prosper or fail a business’ performance.

New Zealand has experienced strong economic growth and even unemployment rate edged down consistently. It has become one of the least regulated, most free-market based economies (New Zealand Immigration, 2018). With this healthy economy, it has provided favourable economic environment for retail industry such as The Warehouse to sustain their business.

Social Factor- An organisation must take into consideration on consumers by considering the social environment and behaviour and cultural trends.

New Zealand is composed of multi-cultural people with different demographic preferences. The products offered by The Warehouse should be able to cater the needs of all social group in consideration of age, gender groups, cultural and ethnical preferences, high or low-income earners.

Technological Factor- Technological advancement can affect marketing plans as well as distribution, manufacturing, communications and logistics strategies.

Technology is one of the important elements of the New Zealand economy. Organisations are open to innovation to make their business more reachable to their clients as well as improving their productivity and communication within the organisation. The Warehouse have also revolutionized by involving internet to market their products for their customers and suppliers. Payment methods have also evolved to cashless transactions.

Environmental Factor- The environment has a direct or indirect effect on how the business operates to protect the environment.

The Warehouse are currently working with suppliers to find cost effective ways to safely dispose range of products that are no longer needed. They have also begun developing a policy prohibiting the use of microplastics (The Warehouse, 2018).

Legal Factor- An organisation must need to know and understand what is legal and allowed within the territories they operate in to trade successfully.

The Warehouse have supported fair pay, humane working conditions, health and safety needs, and access to support services and protection from harassment and discrimination. They have a special duty to protect the welfare of workers in their supply chain (The Warehouse, 2018).
Recommendation (Digital Marketing Capability)

We believe that the technological factor is the most significant for the marketing strategy of the company because there are no geographical limits in reaching out for their customers. Anytime, anywhere they can gain sales from their customers 24/7. We believe that they need to constantly improve their digital capabilities to satisfy their customer needs.

We think that The Warehouse will constantly improve their market positioning, offering more store locations and enhance their digital marketing to sustain their advantage in retail industry.
Characteristics of the existing target market

The target market for The Warehouse is the household and young professionals in the age group of 20-40 years belonging to low-middle income earners that enjoys products such as apparel and homeware.
5.0 Marketing Goals

1. To improve website conversion rate

The Warehouse is doing well in developing and improving their website and mobile app compared to its competitors. They can maintain customer retention by partnering with Meclabs Institute who is expert in independent research facility focused on how people make choices. They can help improve the online financial performance of sales and marketing process. Meclab’s Technology Group specializes in testing, analytics, application development, vendor selection, outsourcing development, infrastructure assessment, project management, and database architecture and they can work alongside with the existing IT staff. (MECLABS Institute, 2018)

By doing so, The Warehouse can anticipate the arrival of Amazon to Australia that could have an impact on marketplace for retailers and to reduce friction and anxiety within the website experience.

2. To offer an expanded range of products on the website by use of more drop-shippers

By using drop-shippers, The Warehouse can offer a broader range of products on their website that are not available instore and ship to customers from the products place of origin like Amazon does. This could improve their operational cost because the products are only ordered from distribution centres when the customers purchased the item.

6.0 Products
Level of Products

The Warehouse’s vision is all about customer centric ecosystem whereas the core value is providing the Kiwi community affordable essentials for their everyday lives. Catering their customers by offering them good quality products and services such as expanding stores, tech solutions, payment methods, marketplace, and with the right marketing platforms is their actual product. The augmented product for The Warehouse is to helping Aotearoa flourish by providing employments, education, fundraising and doing CSR to the community. (The Warehouse, 2017)

The Warehouse have connected to their customers by incorporating stores and ecommerce, offering personalized customer experience with products, pricing and marketing.

Product Analysis and Opportunity

The common things that customers consider when buying online are easy navigation, customer’s testimonial and reviews, good price and product display, transparency in terms of product detail and subscription and payment method.

Consumers also consider when buying online are price, quality and convenience. Choosing low priced products will always be the first choice for low- medium income earners and especially for migrants living in New Zealand. They enjoy products on promo deals to take advantage of buying more in spending less. The second choice is quality, where customers would prefer to consume products in a longer term. They don’t mind spending at a higher price to enjoy superior quality of the products they have bought. The third one is the availability of the product offered online or in store. Consumer considers convenience to find all the things they need in one location. They tend to buy more irrelevant products in addition to their needs because everything is already convenient for them.

The market opportunity for The Warehouse is to improve their product offering by sourcing products with much more quality than a mass produced in an affordable price that customers would still enjoy.

7.0 Price and Positioning
Economy Pricing – Everyday Low Price

The Warehouse has successfully position themselves to their customers “Where everyone gets a bargain” by offering everyday low price.
Bundling Price

The customers would also enjoy if The Warehouse would introduce Bundled Price bargain. It is a pricing strategy where multiple products are sold at lower rate than consumers would face if they purchased each item individually. This would invite customers to purchase more relevant products such as apparel and beddings especially on upcoming change of seasons. Introducing “Stop Shop & Save” where the customers stop and see what’s more to offer, and shop more and save more.

8.0 Distribution
Search Engine

The Warehouse could heighten their online presence through Search Engine Optimization (SEO), it is a tactic used to increase the number of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine. (Lyfe Marketing, 2018) With the help of external experts like Pureseo, it is a New Zealand company that provides high quality SEO throughout New Zealand and Australia. (Pureseo, 2018). It would create a competitive advantage among the competitors that The Warehouse has a strong platform of ecommerce.
Channel Conflict & Cannibalisation

There may be a risk that sales gained digitally may be at the expense of sales from a brick and mortar store.

9.0 Promotion

An AIDA model is a stage the customers go through during buying process of a product (Smart Insight, 2018).

Awareness- creating awareness in the minds of customer.

The Warehouse has an extensive marketing strategy. One way to engage their online presence to loyal or new customers is to introduce their website and mobile app to the public using TV and prints ads to create awareness that they have an option to shop online or in store. The use of social media might have an impact in consumers attention because people spend more time in their social media accounts.

Interest- making interests to encourage customer in searching for products

When the customers are now aware of their online presence, they are now interested in searching for certain products available to suit their needs and wants with an affordable price and exciting sales promo offered online.

Desire- creating a mindset of desire to purchase the product

The customers have now the desire to purchase because of the other customer’s experiences and perspective from the company through reviews and word of mouth advertising.

Action- initiate an action to purchase

The next step is to engage the customers action to maintain the relationship by offering direct marketing like email subscription of latest promos for The Warehouse.

10.0 Monitoring and Controlling

The Warehouse should focus on their distribution strategy because this is where the company can determine the behaviour of their customers. The Warehouse could gain some perspectives and they will be able to improve and introduce new products and services.
Measurable Metrics

The Warehouse can focus on tracking the movement of their website by means of monitoring the following:

o Web traffic- the number of visitors to their website.
o Traffic source- visits on their website through search engine, website or social media
o Bounce rate- how long the visitor stays on their website.
o Hits- the number of times the customer view a page in their website.
o Clickthrough rate- ratio of visitors click the links of their website.
o Carts- knowing the usual items bought by the customer and the price range
o Location- knowing the ratio of customer’s location where the product is most purchased

By knowing these metrics, The Warehouse can determine their sales performance from online and they could analyse their product offering where the most sales and highest margins were gained.

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