Supply, Demand, and Market
Equilibrium
Supply, Demand, and Market
Equilibrium
Wal-Mart stores Inc., is a retail
store company that operates worldwide with various stores at different points
in the world, it deals with the mass sale of different goods. Wal-Mart stores
operates in segments, essentially three segments which are Wal-Mart U.S which
operates in all the 50 states of the united states of America, secondly
Wal-Mart international which operates in the rest of the world and Sam’s club.
Sam’s club is a membership only warehouse that only operates in the U.S and
covers 48 states (Roberts & Berg, 2012).
The company was incorporated in
1969, and over time it has grown and kept a long with major trends in business
such as the e-commerce, they have embraced the use of online stores and each
and every segment has adopted the use of this. The company has a large employee
number, from the statistics ion 2015 the company had 2.2 million employees, and
these were people who work directly for the store, which is from top executives
to general service people.
The retail store has major line
of products which are divide into six merchandise units that is grocery, health
and wellness, apparel, entertainment, hardliners, and home the grocery segment
contains mainly food, alcoholic and non alcoholic beverages, pet supplies.
Health and wellness has over the counter drugs, clinical services, optical
services and pharmacy. The home unit consists of furniture, interior and
exterior décor, house ware, beddings and horticulture, apparel consists of
jewelry, men’s, women’s and children’s wear. Entertainment consists of
electronic toys, video games, movies, and cellular phones. Finally the
hardliners are the stationeries, automotive hardware, and fabrics, paints and
sports aid (Roberts & Berg, 2012).
The company also engages in financial services, which is mainly meant
for the U.S segment and deals with money orders, wire transfers, prepaid cards,
bill payment and check cashing. Wal-Mart also integrates digital stores
physical stores by the use of services such as Pick up today or Wal-Mart pick
up. This ensures that the online buyer gets their goods on time (Roberts &
Berg, 2012).
The service of discussion is
going to be the clinical services offered by Wal-Mart, it is a clinical service
that does not require appointments and operates seven days week. The
introduction of the clinic has been purported that it will affect U.S
healthcare since the prices are a little bit lower. The demand for Wal-Mart
clinics services has increased over time due to the fact that as the prices
decrease the demand increases, this is due to elasticity.
Branding is one of the non-price
factors that affects, since there is general demand for Wal-Mart products it
likely that more people will subscribe to their clinics, therefore an increase
in the demand. The nature of service also will affect the demand, the clinic
offers walk in services meaning that appointments are not necessary. This is
convenient for most people and they prefer that that structure, hence it will
attract more people to the clinic therefore the demand increases (
Stackelberg, Bazin, Urch, & Hill, 2011).
Supply is based on the store, one
of the factors that will affect the supply, is governments policy on health
insurance, since the health insurance policy is deemed as expensive, it gives a
rise in the need for providing other health services that are more pocket
friendly. The second factor would be Wal-Mart distinction; several stores do
not provide medical clinics beings on its own.It can use that to its advantage
and increase the supply ( Stackelberg,
Bazin, Urch, & Hill, 2011).
The clinical services fall under
the health services industries, has very many categories, from clinics,
hospitals, pharmacy, medical tourism and health insurance amongst others. In
the health services industry the demand is slightly higher than the supply,
even though sometimes they might be at equilibrium but generally the supply
can’t easily meet the demand (Phelps, 1992). If the demand increases therefore
there will be a general increase in the supply to meet the demand, since there
is need for the supply to nearly meet the demand in the health insurance
industry, as it’s a basic need for all people. In recent past health services
has been seen as the most necessary form of service to near all people (Phelps,
1992).
With this, Wal-Mart clinics
should match the increasing demand for health services with an increase in
their supply this is done by increasing the number of clinics and increasing
the number of medical practitioners they have.
References
Phelps,
C. E. (1992). Health economics. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.
Roberts,
B. R., & Berg, N. (2012). Walmart: Key insights and practical lessons
from the world’s largest retailer. London: Kogan Page.
Stackelberg,
H. ., Bazin, D., Urch, L., & Hill, R. (2011). Market structure and
equilibrium. Berlin: Springer.
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