Management Issues in WOW Sight & Sound Retailing Company Research (Research Paper Sample)

Management Issues in WOW Sight & Sound Retailing Company
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Institutional Affiliation
Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u 1.Introduction and Problem Identification PAGEREF _Toc27799084 \h 32.Discussion PAGEREF _Toc27799085 \h 42.1 Physical Retailing PAGEREF _Toc27799086 \h 42.2 Online Retailing PAGEREF _Toc27799087 \h 53.Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc27799088 \h 64.Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc27799089 \h 6References PAGEREF _Toc27799090 \h 7
1 Introduction and Problem Identification
The purpose of this report is to identify management strategies used by WOW Sight & Sound, and address issues associated with them as they may be critical in the company’s future success. WOW Sight and Sound was started in 2003, with its first shop situated at Queensland. The shop dealt with office equipment, home entertainment systems, cameras, games and CDs, DVDs, car audio systems, telecommunications, among other electronics. With time, WOW expanded to a company and opened 15 stores across Australia. It was an indication of active management, growth, success and profitability despite the existence of massive competition from Dick Smith, JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman. However, the success of the company was short-lived as severe financial issues started arising from 2011 due to declining sales and profitability. The problem was more critical in the following year, forcing the management to announce the existence of financial strive.
According to Ghahnavieh (2018), management strategies are very critical towards the success of a business. With the ever-changing business environment, companies are required to pay careful attention to issues associated with technology, globalization and economic turmoil CITATION Gha18 \l 1033 (Ghahnavieh, 2018). These are issues that have a significant influence on the existence of a business. With the growth of online retailing platforms, shopping behaviours have changed with many consumers shifting from physical shopping to online retailing (Piotrowicz & Cuthbertson, 2014). Furthermore, the offering of substantial discounts for online consumers does have a significant adverse effect on stores with physical shopping as their primary shopping mode. In our case study, WOW Sight and Sound concentrated on trade through physical stores. The company had 15 physical stores and only one online store (www.1wow.com.au), which was launched in 2008. However, WOW failed to tap online consumers despite running online retail for more than four years, and this could be the main reason for the decline in sales and profitability. The aftermath was the closure of the stores in 2012, and take-over of the WOW website by G &M Direct 2 U Pry Ltd. This report will first discuss the contemporary issues of physical and online retailing. The two will then be examined according to the WOW Sight and Sound case. Lastly, the report will give an insight into better online retailing.
2 Discussion
2.1 Physical Retailing