ore customers, they also provide the industry leaders with power over their suppliers.
             Kmart's Business Strategy: the 1990's and the struggle to survive
             Selling a wide range of products and services at low prices and targeting urban and sub-urban areas are strategies that up until the late 90's, enabled Kmart to compete successfully in the industry. However at this time things began to go downhill for the firm. We believe that Kmart's heavy emphasis on price as a competitive advantage can be considered a catalyst to this downfall. Low prices are an important positioning and promotional tool for all discount retailers, hence the term "discount." Focusing on price as a competitive advantage is common and effective. However with the power that these large firms have over suppliers, they can all afford to offer very low prices and thus other core competencies must come into play when establishing or defending a competitive edge in the market. Kmart focused all of its attention on price cuts and failed to acknowledge the significance these other competencies, such as merchandising decisions and customer service .
             Kmart's contract to exclusively sell the Martha Stewart line, among other popular brands, was its biggest strength in the 90's. Yet the company failed to play on this and instead relied on the "blue light special" as the focus of its marketing campaign, a scheme designed to focus customer attention to the stores low prices and sale items. The blue light special involved a blue light that would flash in the store every so often, alerting customers to certain products that were on sale. The special was advertised via TV commercials and circulars and in the beginning was a big hit. Eventually however, the term "blue light special" became associated with cheap, cheesy, low quality products. There were even several Saturday Night Live skits that poked fun at it, u...