Second report: the Monopoly from Hasbro

Résumé du document

The purchases are made by the parents and are integrally devoted to early-learning games, plushes and dolls. Parents and grandparents seek for educative products for their children. Games and toys which used to suit the 10 to 12 year olds are now adopted by the 8 to 10 year olds as well. The games and toys consumption is strongly linked to the economic situation. That is why French households limit their non essential purchases, and among them toys, exept during the Christmas period because parents do not want to penalize their children.

Extraits

[...] The assets of Monopoly faced with one of its main competitor: One of its competitors, the one which the most looks like to Monopoly is called La Bonne Paye. It is also owned by Hasbro and is a board game where players have to make money each month. The concept looks like the Monopoly's. La Bonne Paye is more funny because it is illustrated with funny pictures. But the fact that the game does not give place to reflexion tends to decrease the popularity of the game. [...]

[...] Those contracts aim at defining the condition of distribution of their range. They include quantities, prices, discounts and promotions. The purchase prices are the same for all stores. So the more important the central buying and its market shares are, the more they will benefit from reductions. In general, the hypermarkets are more powerful than specialized stores, particularly at Christmas. The differences are less important during the rest of the year because specialized stores offer more references in low season than hypermarkets. [...]

[...] First, our advice is not to rely only on a few retailers, who could thus impose their price. Indeed, as we remarked, the Hasbro's top five customers accounted for approximately 50% of full year net revenues in 2004, with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Toys'R'Us Inc. and Target Corporation, its three largest customers, accounting for 46%. This contributes to reduce the leeway of Hasbro to negotiate with these customers, and this is definitely here to stay because of the concentration of the distribution industry. [...]

[...] Its only power is to show himself in stores. The representative goes regularly in stores to be sure that its products are well represented. The Hasbro representative comes every 14 days whereas the Mattel representative comes between every two or three weeks in hypermarkets like Cora. They both control the shelves, take down prices and discuss directly with the department supervisor. This overcontrol of Hasbro and Mattel is directly linked to fact that they are US firms. A brand like Ravensburger makes less control. [...]

[...] This is a great force of Monopoly. And to renew itself efficiently, Monopoly use innovative means. It has developed new supports to adapt with time. It now exists as Playstation game, as Software, as Internet Game or in mobile phones. The innovation capacity is a great force of Monopoly II. The monopoly weaknesses Hasbro can not be absent of any kinds of retailers and this forces Hasbro to put pressure on retailers in order to have the right place for its products. [...]