Introduction
The task of this assignment is to complete a competitive analysis of two of the largest competitors in the industry of chosen study. This researcher’s chosen field is the Car Wash industry. Unlike many industries, the Car Wash industry does not have dominant players or franchise names that rule across the country. Unlike other automobile related industries such as oil change (Rapid Oil Change), tires and batteries (Goodyear), and auto parts retailers (NAPA), where these types of name players may have thousands of locations throughout the country, there are no big name players in the Car Wash industry. Although there are companies that own and operate multiple car wash facilities, most of these multi-location owners operate multiple locations throughout a metropolitan or regional area and their overall location totals are nominal. Since there is a lack of dominant competitors to analyze, this researcher will focus on an analysis between the two main categories of car wash ownership: full service vs. unattended operations.
Industry Overview and Description
The Car Wash industry began to start and grow across the U.S. after the conclusion of World War II. America’s economic rebirth and prosperity created a boom in the housing and automobile industry. What began as a business to satisfy Americans’ love of the automobile has grown over the past several decades into an international industry. From washing one’s car in the driveway with a water hose and bucket of soapy water, to the do-it-yourself, unattended coin operated high-pressure wand locations, to today’s professional car washing businesses which feature complex automatic equipment and technological systems to wash cars more safely and effectively than ...
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...ion wash bays are a huge competitive risk as these gas retailers usually offer discounted car washes with the purchase of gasoline.
For the full-service wash model, they too have to be in tune with cheaper and less service options as in challenging economies, their services become more difficult to justify for the consumer who is worried about income. Competitive rivalry, threat of substitution, and threat of new entry are the forces that the full-service model is at most risk with. Poor service reputation and lack of a strong value proposition puts this car wash model at serious risk of substitution. The treat of new entry for both business models can be significant as there are many new innovations in car wash businesses such as mobile wash stations and new and used car dealerships that are adding this business in what has been a very difficult car economy.
There were ten major competitors in the industry in 1995. Private-label riding mower sales were on the rise. Total industry sales had 65-75 percent coming from private-labels. National retail merchandise chains contributed 24 percent of sales in the retail distribution of OPE.
One of them that I suggest for CarMax is only focusing on used cars, not new-cars. As it shows in Exhibit2, selling new cars does not affect that much to CarMax. Used cars and wholesale cars are what customers usually looking for in CarMax. So I recommend CarMax to eliminate the new car selling but more focus on used cars business. The competitor, AutoNation, is focusing on new-car franchises after they closed other businesses, rental business and the used car. As AutoNation decided to focus its strategy only on the new-car franchises and have been succeeded, CarMax could only focus its strategy on used car selling which possibly help to save the money from purchasing the new-cars and get more profits from used-cars and wholesale cars. Another alternative is adding more stores. In Exhibit 9b, it demonstrated that CarMax has the smallest number of stores among the other competitors. However, the Sales per Store of CarMax, 95 million, is higher than the rest of the competitors. Thus, if CarMax decide to build more stores nationwide as they thought they should, the profit of CarMax will increase in several
PetSmart has some important key success factors, as this paper will evaluate the competitive strategic assessments. Any company, which will be successful in the pet industry, must have the strengths of reputation, distribution relationships, product and service range, financial resources, product presentation, experienced workforce, and location. PetSmart was the first to expand the selection of value-added pet services to include grooming, Pet Training, Boarding, and Day Camp.
In the United States, modern car manufacturing has been historically dominated by the American companies including Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Group LLC, and General Motors Co. These three companies, known as the Detroit Three, controlled 95% of the market in the 1950’s and the dominance continued until the beginning of the 21st century. In the 1980’s Japanese auto manufacturers entered the United States, a decade later the Germans, and finally in 2000’s the Koreans. By the end of 2009, the Detroit Three only accounted for 45% of the total U.S. auto market. Another factor that had influence on this was constant fluctuations in gasoline prices and price sensitive consumers. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, gas prices hit record high averaging $3.07 per gallon in May 2007 and kept climbing up to $4.08 in July 2008. As gas prices kept increasing, consumer buying trends have been changing. In 2006 sales for SUVs, pickup trucks, and vans dropped 16%, while the market for compact cars rose by 3%. Unfortunately, the Detroit Three were not prepared for this since their...
Offering consumers access to an extensive inventory online along with warranties, service, financing, appraisals, and add the consumer’s ability to sell the car to the dealership is CarMax’s brand. CarMax needs to continue to leverage their competitive strengths while making sure they offer the best-priced cars to the very competitive used car buying consumer. While it may be attractive to CarMax to enter new car market, they risk losing the ability to conduct their business model as manufacturers have various rules and contract requirements to carry the Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, Honda, or Toyota product lines. With this, they risk losing their brand recognition and identity with their consumers. Additionally, costs associated with buying an existing dealership with inventory and various licensing and franchising fees have the potential to drive up costs and therefore threaten their ability to price
Case Study of The Home Depot Preface This Essentials of Strategic Management assignment has been made by three persons which have been working together and individually to finish the assignment properly and in time. Secondly, we would like to thank the company whose websites we were able to visit and use, to get additional information that we could use for leading the assignment of Home Depot to a successful ending. We can say, that it was a pleasure to work on this assignment and would, in the third place, like to thank each other. The persons who worked on this assignment, for the effort and time that is put in the assignment, that brought us to this finished version.
Rivalry among established firms is fierce. There are several factors that illustrate this: established market players (6.1). The product is highly standardized and the switching costs of the customers are low. Players are aggressive (6.2)
Automobiles play an essential role in American society. As if being the major means of transportation was not impressive enough, automotives can be seen on T.V., in movies, in magazines, and can sometimes be indicative of a person’s wealth and social status. On average, Americans drive nearly 40 miles and drive for just over 50 minutes driving per person per day (http://www.bts.gov). That means a person spends roughly one-sixteenth of a day driving. It would make sense, then, to make such an essential part of society as efficient, cost effective, and clean as possible. However, that is not the case. As the years have passed cars have actually begun to move away from efficiency. Hawken writes, “[The automobile] design process has made cars ever heavier, more complex, and usually costlier. These are all unmistakable signs that automaking has beco...
The automotive industry is one of the most important sectors of the economy for every country in the world. It involves a large number of corporations and institutions engaged in the manufacturing process of motor vehicles including designing, developing, manufacturing, marketing, and selling. It contributes to the global economic growth by generating a significant return and creating a ripple effect on supporting the supply chain as well as providing job opportunities for the skilled workers (ACEA, 2016).
It is no doubt that automobiles have become a way of life in the current society besides the transport sector contributing immensely to the economic growth of every cou...
In 1944, Kia Motors Corporation of Seoul, Korea, was founded as a manufacturer of steel and bicycle parts (Kia.com). During the early1950’s, the company changed its name officially to Kia Industries and began production of Korea’s first bicycle (Kia.com). In 1957 Kia began producing Korean’s first motor scooter, the C-100 (Kia.com). Korea’s first truck, the K-130 was introduced in 1962 (Kia.com). In 1971, the Titan, a 4-wheel cargo truck was produced (Kia.com).
The first phase is essentially the foundation of a great car wash. The first step is usually to remove any debris, dirt, or bugs from the car to begin the detailing process. When washing your vehicle its important to get all areas wet and ready for the next step. Therefore, you wash your vehicle using the two-bucket method to avoid scratching your paint. One bucket will contain pure water for cleanse, and the other bucket will have water mixed with wash solution from any local auto store; I personally use armor all car wash. This phase should take a solid five to ten minutes based off how dirty is your vehicle.
The market for Frigidaire's front-loading washing machine should be divided into single segments which can then identify groups of consumers who share commonalities that have the potential to drive demand for the new product. Each segment of the market will have similar needs in quality and performance; they have a semi-uniform response to the marketing mix. The target of Frigidaire's marketing campaign will rely on the hierarchy of each segment's priorities. Typically, a market is segmented to include demographics combined with other behavioral attributes as previously demonstrated in the VALS survey. The information obtained in data collection from these market segments is crucial because the behaviors behinds these groups combined with the presentation of the product are the driving forced behind sales. One technique frequently used is a perceptual map that discerns which features are important to consumers, often called determinant attributes (Business).
University of Phoenix, (2007), retrieved January 19, 2007 from the University of Phoenix rEsource database MarketLine Business Information Center
AutoEdge is facing crisis since millions of its automobiles has had to be recalled due to product quality issues. Many things should be considered in order to implement a proactive response to rectify the situation. As the research analysis, I have been tasked will helping to rebuild AutoEdge’s reputation as well as to reduce and control operating costs. When making any decision on implementing change within the organization market analysis must look at the market structure of the organization. Market structure is made up of the relationship that exists between buyers, sellers, competition, product differentiation, and ease of entry into and exit from the market. The article “Review of Market Structure” (n.d.) defines market structure as the “microeconomic characteristics of different markets” and include such elements as competition level, high versus low entry barriers, and scale (Review of Market Structure, n.d.) To make the decision the decision to relocate, AutoEdge must analysis and evaluate of market structure. This report will discuss the four different types of market structures: monopoly, oligopoly, monopolistic competition, and pure competition. Additionally, it will outline the type of market structure AutoEdge fits into, how that market structure impacts the level of competition, elasticity of demand, price, and position in the industry.