Retail Marketing – Product Analysis Part 1

Students are required to visit a publicly traded retail establishment (e.g., Home Depot, Bed Bath & Beyond) and begin gathering specific data to conduct an in-depth product analysis.

A partial listing of the required information needed:

1. Name of business
2. Address
3. General observations of business establishment location (type of center, other retailers within the center)
4. General observations of the individual stores – exterior (photos are required)
5. General observations of the individual stores – interior (if permitted, photos are required)
6. Select a widely available brand named item (e.g., Kelloggs Corn Flakes, Dewalt cordless drills, or Goodyear tires)
7. Cost of the selected items
8. List two other retailers who sell the same item and their selling cost
9. Conduct an in-depth product analysis, including target market, market size, leading competitors
10. Product placement analysis
11. Anticipated gross profit for this product
12. Trends relating to this product (use of graphs showing three years of trends are required).  If individual product information is not available, students are required to use corporate information.  For example, if you cannot find trends on Kelloggs Corn Flakes (the product), you are to use information pertaining to Kelloggs as a corporate identity.
    1. Example of the type of trens you may want to consider: Growth rate (+/-), market share, market cap, stock price, ROI, P/E
    2. A minimum of two trend analysis (and graphs) are required. 
13. Conduct an in-depth SWOT analysis of this particular product

Students are required to follow all APA guidelines when writing the Product Analysis paper.