Summary MBA-FPX5012 FM Assessment3-1.
Marketing Management
Business Context
Walmart is one of those most recognizable brands across the world,
... [Show More] specifically in the United
States. It is the largest retailer in the world with over 2.2 million employees across 27 countries
(Walmart 2021). Walmart’s 2020’s fiscal year brought in more than $500 billion in revenue. With
its “everyday low prices” motto and cost-leadership strategy, Walmart provides a variety of
products at low cost without losing value. In 2020, Walmart’s e-commerce division grew 37%
from the previous year bringing attention to an opportunity to compete with its biggest
competitor Amazon (Walmart 2021).
In 2012 Walmart Lab’s launched a snack subscription services called Goodies.co, which sends
members themed boxes of 5-8 healthy sample snacks monthly for the flat fee of $7 (Lawler,
2013). Walmart wanted to encourage customers return to the Goodies site to rate the items and
buy the full-sized versions. Customers can gain enough points through reviews to redeem for a
free box. The boxes are developed by Walmart’s internal tasting lab, which reviews and provides
feedback for featured items. After about a year in the beta-testing phase, Walmart Labs shutdown
Goodies.co in 2013 citing the launch was merely a test and the customer feedback would be used
for future launches (Lawler, 2013). Now relaunched as Snackies, this subscription box will still
be priced at $7, less than 4 times of competitors. However, a need to develop and implement a
digital marketing strategy as it is strongly recommended that Walmart continues to invest in its ecommerce technologies to further strengthen Snackie’s promotional, pricing and distribution
strategies.
Situational Analysis
Within this situational analysis, we will use a competitive analysis breakdown and SWOT
analysis to take a deeper look into Snackies biggest competitors Snacknation/Love with Food.
Competitive Analysis
Competitors
Love with Food- prices start at $7.99-9.99 for 7-9 healthy snack items for their “Tasting” box.
Love with Food uses a tiered-pricing strategy as the company features options of more items for
a higher price point. Love with Food offers a 3-month, 6-month or annual plans (Nazish, 2020).
The company’s differentiation is the partnership with Feeding America to donate 1 meal for
every box sold. In 2014, Love with Food’s annual revenue was over $3million (Bokat-Lindell,
2015).
Snacknation- offers a 15-item snack box for $26.95 and has also partnered with Feeding
America to donate 1 meal for every box sold. The company’s differentiation focuses on giving
more items per box thus justifying its higher price point. its most popular competitor
Snacknation’s standard box of 15 healthy snacks for $32.95 (Watson, 2016).
Snackies: Digital Marketing Plan 3
Products
Both companies feature over 5000+ premium and “better-for-you” brands of healthy snacks.
Products use real ingredients, organically produced, preservative-free and must pass their 73
Banned Ingredients lists before being sold. Products are packaged in themed-packages depending
on the subscription or current promotion. Snack boxes typically include:
Chips, crackers, and popcorn
Savory jerky, nuts and granola mixes
Nutrition bars
Healthier sweets
Coffee
Mugs/ Wine tumblers (themed box)
Puzzles/ Cards/ Stress balls (themed box)
Competitive Advantage
SnackNation’s acquiring of Love with Food in June 2018 has expanded the company’s reach
to over 500,000 consumers across 5,000 businesses nationwide. With the acquisition, a
combination of SnackNation’s business-to-business (B2B) sales model and Love with Food’s
business-to-consumer (B2C) sales model was adapted (YPO, 2020). While SnackNation targets
businesses and now remote employees, Love with Food targets individual consumers. Additional
advantages include more snack selection, non-snack consumer packaged goods, and enhanced
consumer insight capabilities through data collection.
Pricing
Both companies use a 4-tier pricing strategy in different ways. First, both companies provide
different themed boxes with each box varying in number of snacks or items. The consumer has
the option of paying a subscription for 1 month, 3-month, 6 month or 12-month order. Love with
Food most affordable price package starts at &7.99, while Snackation’s begins at $32.95 and up.
This allows the customer to choose which option works best for them. Additionally, both
companies provide free shipping.
Target Market
SnackNation targets small (less than 100 employees) and medium-sized businesses (up to
1000 employees) using their B2B sales method. Specifically, management or personnel in charge
of office budgets are targeted. However, after the adaptation of Love with Food’s B2C method,
the target market has extended to health-conscious millennials (b. 1981-1996) who want to
“snack without the guilt”. With its affordable pricing, Love with Food provides healthier snack
options directly to the individual rather than business (Watson, 2016).
Snackies: Digital Marketing Plan 4
Market Share
The global food subscription box industry is projected to grow over $7.6 billion US dollars
by 2024. This just a mere 1.5% of the $510 billion reportedly spent in online sales for 2018. As
of 2018, SnackNation’s estimated annual revenue is $46.2 million, while Love with Food
reported $5 million in revenue (Conway, 2020). 80% of SnackNation’s revenue comes from its
business subscriptions. All sales for both companies are currently only in the US. [Show Less]