Strengths
Lid is a well-known name for providing quality products at lower prices. People from all the sections of society use the products of Lid
Lid has very high operational efficiencies and lower operating costs. This has helped them to achieve higher profitability in spite of having low selling cost. Lid has achieved continuously increased turnovers by employing minimal staff, smaller stores, and lesser shelf area. Economies of scale through uniformity of product assortment across the stores throughout the Europe. Being a privately owned business, independence of operation and authority to take quick decisions has helped to magnify its scale quickly. Lid enjoys a good customer loyalty as compared to its competitors. Lid has many privately own brands which have more market share than leading brands
Weaknesses
Lid has very limited product types in each category thus by leaving its customers with lesser choices to select from. This aspect may lead to losing variety seeking customers. Lid has been into many controversies regarding mistreatment of its staff and has earned a bad name in the media. The company has been accused of multiple instances for wiretapping on its own employees and this has deteriorated the brand image of the company. There is the minimal online presence. This is a ladybird for the company in terms of not providing customer convenience.
Opportunities
Lid has market share of only 2. 0% of the retail market in the UK. Hence there is a huge business expansion potential available in the market. With the advancement of technology and customer base being more techno-savvy, there is a huge opportunity to expand Lid’s presence over the internet by providing online customer services. I-J retail grocery landscape is presently captured by high price supermarket chain stores.
Lid has sufficient space to improve its image as an alluring supermarket combined with a price advantage. ? Large players such as Tests which has almost 12 times the market share than that of Lid do not consider Lid has their major competitor. Hence there is a potential opportunity to emerge as a niche player by carving out unique positioning and growth strategy.
Threats
LID faces direct threat in terms of battling competition from players like Laid and Iceland which operate on the same levers of cost reduction through economies of scale. ? Low entry barrier in the market can lead to surging of new players in low cost discount retail business resulting in sharing of pie in the current market share Market surveys and studies prompt that growth of discount retailers has been possible due to downturn in the economy creating a liquidity crunch and reduction in purchasing power. This being a temporary phenomenon possesses major threat to the existence of stores like Lid once the economy is back into full flow. This again needs a rebinding of Lid to place itself as an upstream supermarket and not Just a
