Question

Here is the context in which you should write your final exam. Bronner’s Christmas Store is one of the largest in America. Bronner’s currently has one store located in Frankenmuth, Michigan. Bronner’s has decided to open up a second store in Heidelberg, Germany. Reflecting on each chapter in our textbook, respond to each of the following questions as though you were hired to be a consultant to Bronner’s.

Q: How will you strategically position your Heidelberg, Germany store?

Answer 1

Although I do not have access to your textbook mentioned in the question, I have tried to answer the only question I can see up there, based on my research on Bronner’s Christmas Store as available on the internet and the city of Heidelberg.

I would love to get hired by Bronner’s, which way I would have access to authentic data of my choice to take a well thought out decision to strategically position my Heidelberg, Genrmany store.

The city in discussion is a city of of approximately one hundred and sixty thousand people, including about forty thousand student population who reside within the city limits to study in some university out of several Heidelberg hosts.

Interestingly, Heidelberg is just about an hour's drive away from Frankfurt, which is a trading hub in Germany.

While strategising location, I am considering a similar setup of the Bronner’s Christmas Store to be established in Heidelberg. The first factor I would like to consider would be visibility and thereafter the lineup as below:

• Visibility & ambience
• Rentals and other costs or any incentives available
• Transportation and infrastructure
• Competition
• Consumer behaviour
• Availibility of man power with desired skill level
• Cost of living
• Merchandise

1. Visibility & ambience: I would like to find a prime location in Heidelberg, where the locals can throng to shop and have a good time with family, while people from outside town may also feel free to drive in. The Bronner’s Christmas Store, Heidelberg, should be out of a crowded market, in sight of public driving past and have a open ambience, unlike the usual stores in the city. This should be symbolised as a shopping destination for planned buying, as well as, as a place included for "must visit in Heidelberg".
2. Rentals and other costs or any incentives available: This is a factor to be looked into but not mulled over too much because the cost of saving money in this may cost in lost opportunity for future business volume.
3. Transportation and infrastructure: It will be essential for the varied cross section of the consumers to visit the store, especially students, who will not be driving cars to shop around and may have to come from afar to visit the store. The transportation will also be needed for the sales force and operational staff to ply to and from home daily to keep up the exclusive customer experience going.
4. Competition: I would not bother myself much about it although will keep an eye on things. Having the lasgest Christmas store in hand will have the upper hand of taking the already established brand to the new place. At the same time, I will be cautious about understanding the local culture and adapt quickly to avoid alienation.
5. Consumer behaviour: Very important aspect of this strategy. It is absolutely necessary to understand the customer, all age groups, all socia-economic strata, along with common habits of lifestye and buying. I would definitely take great care to irradicate all possible errors that may creep into operations in the initial stage of operation there.
6. Availibility of man power with desired skill level: This will definitely be necessary and I am sure with the student population so high, can recruit lot of interns and have a healthy mix with the regular staff members to maintain freshness, enthusiasm and low costs of operation.
7. Merchandise: I will be really choosy to look into all the SKUs that we will carry there, a major portion of which may include local items in sync with our spread.

In the above discussion, I have hovered on all possible primary factors that is required to be taken into consideration while locating a retail store, which is to show how interlaced each of the aspects are with the location of the store. Especially when the culture in the two countries, v.i.z. America and Genrmany, are so starkly different. With change in consumer behaviour, very well established retail formats of one country have failed miserably in the past trying to ascertain foothold in another country.