Coles Marketing Mix
Coles is one of the leading names in the Australian retail industry. It deals in a large range of products and services. From fresh food to groceries, general merchandise, liquor and fuel, the brand deals in a large range of products. Apart from it the brand also deals in financial services. It sells .its products and services online as well as offline through its large national store network. Across the entire Australia Coles owns a large store network of 787 supermarkets, 865 liquor stores, 89 hotels and 690 convenience outlets. In the financial services market, the brand offers home, car, life and landlord insurance as well as credit cards. Its financial services segment has more than a billion credit card, debit card and insurance policy holders. The brand is present in every state of Australia and has a large workforce of more than 102,000 members. This is an analysis of Coles’ marketing mix that analyzes its four P’s – Product, Place, Price and Promotion.
Product:
Coles deals in a large range of products. From fresh food to general merchandise as well as liquor ad fuel, the brand sells quite a large range of products to its customers. The brand products from Coles have won more than 500 awards during the past four years. It works with its suppliers to provide its customers with product that are equally great in quality and taste. Several of its products including ice creams, bread rolls and cakes have won awards and recognition for their taste and quality.
Its products have always outperformed the rivals in innovation tests. So that its suppliers keep delivering great products and quality, it has focused on creating long term partnerships with them and regularly encourages them. Coles is currently focused on becoming the best food retailer of Australia and in this regard is working with its suppliers to continuously deliver the quality and availability of fresh food. The brand also operates in the financial market and offers home, car, landlord insurance and credit cards. It serves more than a billion with its credit card, debit card and insurance policies.
Place:
Coles is present all across Australia from as far west as Geraldton in Western Australia to as far east as Ocean Shores in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. Its workforce of 102,879 is spread across every state throughout Australia. The brand undertakes more than 21 million customer transactions at an average each week through its national store network and online platforms.  The brand has a store network of 787 supermarkets, 865 liquor stores, 89 hotels and 690 convenience outlets across the country. In this way, Coles has a footprint all over the nation.  The brand continues to deliver fresh and good quality products to its customers throughout Australia.
Price:
Price is one of the most critical factors to be nailed if you are trying to be a leader in the retail industry. Same is the case with Coles. It has also worked to keep improving quality and also drop prices. The brand is on its journey to become the most customer friendly brands and for that the focus is on both quality and prices. The brand strives to offer real value to its customers by continuously lowering the price of the weekly shopping basket.   In 2016, its total profits rose 4.1%. Food and liquor sales grew by 5.1%. Its online sales grew 24.1%. Sales across the convenience stress saw a growth of 11.1%.
The brand has added 31000 grocery products on every day value which means that customers have access to a larger assortment of grocery products available at lower prices. Coles has seen 7 years of price deflation by now and is making efforts to drop them further. The overall focus is to deliver great products at great prices and to deliver a similar great customer experience. Like Walmart, Coles is also focusing on everyday low prices which means that the customers do not need to wait for a special discount or day to shop for products at low prices. It has more than 4000 everyday value lines. The brand is committed to continuous investment in lowering the cost of shopping for the Australians.
Promotion:
The retail market scape has grown highly competitive and the battle for market share has grown tough.  Coles however, is among the best retail marketers in Australia. Price is an important factor in its marketing efforts. Apart from instore and online advertising, the brand uses other traditional channels too to market itself.  As a first step to market itself as a customer friendly brand, Coles started printing the prices on the Everyday items as a part of packaging. Social media is the favorite marketing venue for every brand and Coles has also used it efficiently to connect with its customers and followers. Its twitter account named Coles Supermarket has more than 37K followers. Apart from regular tweets highlighting products and offers, the brand also responds to customer queries and grievances through Twitter. On Facebook, it has more than 1 million followers. It also uses its Facebook account to greet its customers and to keep them posted on products and offers.
Sources:
Coles Annual report 2016