Reference no: EM133214274

Scenario

BeeKeep Supplies is a national company supplying beekeeping equipment to commercial and hobbyist apiarists (beekeepers). BeeKeep Supplies began as a family-run business in the late 1970s and has grown to the national prominence it has today. It has stores in 30 regional cities where it deems its market is.  Customers are serviced through those stores, and it has moved cautiously into mail-delivered products, where it considers about 10% of its trade is now derived from. BeeKeep Supplies will take telephone and mail orders from known customers; otherwise, goods need to be purchased in-store. This is done as BeeKeep believes that as the major supplier of beekeeping equipment it is responsible for how its products are used and supports the effort to improve biosecurity in the beekeeping industry.

BeeKeep prides itself not only on the products it sells but on the fact that it is the "Friendly" BeeKeep supplier, knowing their customers' demands and as a source of knowledge and information to the local beekeeping fraternity.

It has a major competitor in the market, BeeBest Supplies, who are increasingly gaining a larger part of the market since they started operating in their trading territory some 2 years ago.

BeeBest Supplies operates a mail-only service and considerably and continually undercuts

BeeKeep on prices of its goods. It offers little or no advice to customers and just sells products through an online selling portal which are shipped via mail or courier.

The potential for large price variances in the products that both companies sell does not exist and consequently, it is the cost of servicing and delivering the product that allows BeeBest to undercut BeeKeep in the market.

List several strategies that BeeKeep Supplies could use to increase their competitive advantage over BeeBest.