Whole_Foods

Whole Foods has operated in the average of 65,000 square feet stores that offers plenty of accommodations that includes mini restaurants, raw food and juice bars, a wide selection of cheese including 1800 wine bottles to choose from, more than 800 walk in beer cooler, a meat department with smoker and everything else a customer can think of. Every store has different accommodations that best suit the location geographically. Whole Foods alternative to massive square footage and departments around the stores has been its operation of the acquisition of a much smaller scale store Wild Oats. Whole Foods preferred it’s large over the top operation rather than instituted smaller operations that need to be dealt with because of Wild Oats stores acquisition and various others. Wal-Mart has operated in smaller stores that offer mostly groceries and basic essential. Since larger upscale stores have to adapt to its environment to survive, Whole Foods needs to successfully adapt without reconstructing its stores policy. Whole Foods smaller store operation needs to be dealt with in a sense that it still offers the most organic and healthy foods in accordance to its smaller square foot stores. In accordance to smaller stores, fewer employees are needed because of less traffic flow. Whole Foods has to also cut back on offering accommodations such as operating just as a get in get out organic grocery store without restaurants, huge selections of alcohol and varieties of everything else. The smaller operation alternative could work out in Whole Foods flavor by cutting down on expensive cost of labor and space but still offering more than necessary for the customer. So alternatives to only operating new stores in upscale areas/suburbs of just major metropolitan areas, it could operate more effectively in areas where organic foods isn’t anywhere to be near its geographic location. Advertising is one of the minor factors that Whole Foods consider not to be important. There strategic is to have the customer themselves advertised about how healthy and organic Whole Foods offer to their loyal customers. Less than one percent of revenue is used on advertising. I honestly haven’t ever heard or see any commercials or any form of advertisement from Whole Foods. If Whole Foods consider word of mouth and testimonials solely with minimal advertisement to spread the whole word, I do believe it would do more justice to maximum advertisement efforts. Whole Foods competitors such as Wal-Mart and local market super markets depend on advertising in the local area for higher sales. Advertisement can come from a form of television, newspaper, online, or even have inserts of their daily sales in newspaper or inserts delivered to people mailboxes. I found the cheapest form of advertisement is having customers sign up in for an e-mail program that update customers with store specials and ongoing sales. Billboard advertisement has worked in the past and Whole Foods could use it to drive more business into their organic stores. The best advertisement is demonstrating the usefulness of naturally grown organic food/products. The business slogan of carrying organic food not just to help boost sales but have the best tasting and most nutritious food available anywhere. If Whole Foods alternatively put more effort into letting people know what they stand behind through advertisement; it could help its market segment not only by sales but improving the lives of people who chooses Whole Foods instead of non-organic substitutes. The company’s financial perspectives could improve from good to spectacular with heavier advertisement. You have to spend money to make money. Reward programs or store cards are used to keep and maintain customers to only shop where it pays them back over time. The unconventional aspect of grocery shopping has not been in terms of being able to be delivered. Whole Foods can venture into the unknown as a risk to reward concept of home delivery. Customers can shop once or however many times they want and write down which items they know they need daily, weekly, monthly or evenly yearly and Whole Foods can deliver them to your doorsteps with a small fee. An alternative is online shopping of organic foods online through a website that is built solely for customers to order online and delivered no matter if there’s a store in the metropolitan area. People have transition into online ordering for almost everything else, why not grocery' Factors that can drive patrons into shopping online and home delivery could be from high gas prices to health conditions limiting shopping in store. For customers who want to cut down on time, customers can order online and pick up in stores without looking for the item in the store. It’s easier to run promotions online and offer free shipping and discounts. The recommendations/alternatives regarding John Mackey are to restore and sustain growth and financial performance. It can begin with cutting back on the numbers of stores and focus more on advertisement and the economy before opening too many stores that might need to close because of the economic hardship in the future. For example, Starbucks have closed newly open stores because of the recent recession. These mistakes can be avoided by carefully planning and waiting for economic conditions to improve. Paying down debts and accumulating more cash reserves can prove to help companies stay more productive and out of bankruptcy. Cutting capital expenditures to what is necessary can help the company steer out of debt problems. The cost of remodeling stores acquires or adding newly built stores can wait if possible. Since the cost of organic food tends to run higher than non-organic food, customers who are price driven tends not to invest their time in paying more but more budget friendly. Running specials and promotions each week can help customers saved and buy more which can keep current and new customers happy. It’s important to have customers shop as much as possible at Whole Foods even if it means cutting down prices on different products each week. It’s beneficial to notion in shoppers mind that there are numerous ways to save on organic healthy food and live a better life. I’ve stated introducing a reward or store card because it’s proven to work at Kroger, TomThumb, and Albertsons (before they downsize and gave up on the store card) as examples. Many times, stores have discontinued or stock lower on higher price or items that doesn’t usually sell can help decrease deadweight in the store. Trimming down inventory on products that doesn’t sell or running specials on them to trim inventory helps. The last recommendation is to pay particular attention to help sales and profitability of acquisition stores such as Wild Oats. Whole Foods need to prove that it was a good return on its investment of Wild Oats and able to operate it at a profitable manner. Whole Foods needs to grow at a decent growth and not a rapid growth that can backfire such as Starbucks. Mr. Mackey always needs to strategize for unexpected events such as recession and changing market condition to stay on higher regards.