Business

The Canadian Tire company has five major brands in the market.  The five products of the market mix are  Canadian Tire Retail, which is a dynamic dealer in general merchandise with over 475 stores in the Canadian coast-to coast environment. The main products that are marketed under the brand name include automotive parts, accessory and services sports and leisure products and home products. The second brand is Part Source that has 86 stores that sell automotive parts with promise for professional installation that has won the reputation of the company. Canadian Tire Financial Services is a financial tailored product that provides solutions to over five million Canadian Tire MasterCard card accounts and other financial products that are related to retail and petroleum customers. The fourth brand, Canadian Tire Petroleum operates gas and car wash businesses around Canada. The brand is the largest gasoline retailer company in Canada while boasting with 273 gas bars, 266 stores and 74 car washes. Lastly, Marks Work Warehouse engages in sell of apparels, foot wear, clothing and health-care in a broad market segment that includes up to 374 stores. The brand company serves a broad retail market segment covering. (Corporate Profile 1)
    The company has a large channel of product distribution throughout the country. Tires and household goods are widely distributed in the broad 475 stores. The company has a wide financial solution kit that enhances the easy payment by customers. In addition the 276 gas bars and 266 convenient retailer stores enhance proper distribution of gasoline products. The companys apparel brand has an online purchasing system that allows customers to order apparels and other store related products via www.marks.com however the rest of the company is yet to implement a comprehensive online product delivery human resource information system that can transform the sales strategy of the company. Nevertheless, each of the five market mix brands has an online shop. The level of business growth within the company is outstandingly phenomenal in keeping up with the companys mission to built life customer base, in 2009 strategic plan, the company expects to set up 39 more outlets and 74 retail outlets have expanded their customer base by increased operating capital that was injected into the business.  
    The company makes use of differences in brand taglines, logos, color palates and symbols to create a psychological attraction of each brand to its customers. The Canadian financial service brand makes use of its logo gold options to create a psychological effect to customers who view it as a golden opportunity to reduce on the burden of cues and long waiting to make payments to the store. The marks wear house uses the orange color that emotionally creates a warm and friendly environment thus appealing to customers. The tag line helps customers identify it as a clothing store and nothing to do with automobile parts. Part source that deals with automotive parts uses colors like blue to represent power and red for seriousness since they deal in genuine and original spare parts
    The main pricing objective is to have uniform prices across all stores. The company offers major discounted merchandise to all products across all stores as a price strategy to avoid internal competition. That way customer will always know that they can get their favorite products from the store at their common price despite the location of the store. Prices for petroleum products like gasoline are maintained at a flat fee across Canada. This is in tune with the vision of the company which is to create customers for life.
    The share price for the last twelve months opened with a low of 37.81 and a high of 60.75The past fiscal year opened with shares trading at 41.88 while todays price closed at 53.92.The price changed with a percentage of  28.65 . The price change was influenced by the companys marketing strategy that attracted many into the business.                    Based on the financial history information, I would not buy shares because there was decline of share prices across the three year period. December 31, 2005 closed at 69.54 while December 31, 2008 closed at 44.92 thus there was a decline in total value of the stocks making it unfavorable time to trade.
    Business operation kept expanding though the share value remained relatively average during the trade sessions. In general the company displayed good performance in customer delivery services, the marketing strategy was achieved and with planned expansions the economic growth of the company has gained momentum to toward the attainment of the companys core vision.