The competitive advantage among different supermarkets in imperfectly competitive market

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

My thanks go out to all who have helped me complete this study and with whom this project may have not been possible. In particular, my gratitude goes out to friends, facilitator and family for extensive and helpful comments on early drafts.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTII

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION1

Background of the study1

Introduction1

Problem statement2

Aims and objectives of the study2

Research questions2

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW4

Perfect competition4

Imperfect competition4

Monopolistic Competition5

Oligopoly5

Monopsonistic Competition5

Oligopsony6

The concept of competitive advantage and sustainable competitive advantage6

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY7

Introduction7

Research method applied—Case study method7

Research tools8

Questionnaires8

Secondary data collection8

Population and sampling9

REFERENCES10

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

After three mouths living in Edinburgh, I find the same goods in different supermarkets hold the different price. For example, ASDA and Lidl are all supermarkets, but the meat and fresh vegetables are cheaper in Lidl even though the scale of ASDA is bigger than Lidl. So in my opinion, it is because of the competitive advantage that the supermarkets can live in the marketing no matter how big supermarkets they are in imperfectly competitive market.

Introduction

Porter (1991, 47) has defined the concept of competitive advantage as an advantage, which an organization could gain over its competitors when the organization offers greater value to its customers as compared to its competitors (Caves and Porter 1977). An organization can achieve this feat through offering its products at a lower price than its competitor products or through offering additional value-added features or service, which the customers would really value (Brynjolfsson 2006). In today's competitive world, it s very important for an organization to build its competitive advantage through one way or the other; otherwise, the organization would be blown away by the competitors. In this research, we had analyzed the marketing strategies of the super stores in the UK and the manner in which ASDA has attained competitive advantage in an imperfect market. This dissertation would focus on the manner in which an organization can create competitive advantage in an imperfect market.

Problem statement

ASDA and Lidl are amongst the two super stores, which manage their operations in UK. Both of these stores offer more or less the same products; however, the prices of the same products at these two stores are different, with ASDA charging more prices for the same product in comparison to Lidl. In spite of this fact, ASDA have more number of customers as compared to Lidl. ASDA have managed built a competitive advantage for them in an imperfectly competitive market like UK super store market.

Aims and objectives of the study

The major aim of this dissertation is to investigate the manner, in which a company creates competitive advantage for itself in an imperfect competitive market, with the case of UK super store market.

The objectives of this dissertation are as follows.

Analyze the concept of imperfect competitive market.

Analyze the manner in which a firm might attain competitive advantage.

Analyze why are customers prepared to pay more for the same products to firms like ASDA instead of other super stores in UK.

Explore the factors that affect competitive advantage of ...