Marry Kay Inc Case Study

Summary:

Mary Kay Inc., one of the 10 Best Companies for Women, is a successful cosmetic company that had relied on its direct selling model. The sales volume of Mary Kay was strong growth during its first 20 years. Between the early 1970s and the early 1980s, its stock share price enjoyed a 670 percent increase. However, in the six months from April to October of 1983, stock price dropped in value by 65%.

As the case mentioned, one of the core principles was that Mary Kay’s mission was “Enriching Women’s Lives.” Without a doubt, Marry Kay offered high commission and high quality products for their distributors, most of them were housewives. However, Consumer trends were changed over time: First, many in Mary Kay’s target were now working full-time, in addition to acting as primary caregivers for the family and home. Second, the Mary Kay target market was growing older. Therefore, Marry Kay tried to develop a new sales pipeline to adapt their system to these changes. To solve forecasting, inventory management, and product fulfillment, Marry Kay also tried to integrate their IT system to increase sales at the same time but don’t hurt existing distributors.

In this case study, it also analyzes the strengths of Marry Kay’s competitors: Avon and Tupperware. Both of these companies are very successful in the direct selling arena. With understanding their advantages that we can learn some methods to apply to the Merry Kay’s new strategy. As the saying goes, “Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated.”

There are three challenges that Marry Kay faced: How to launch a new strategy to solve the company’s stagnant sales, changing consumer trends, and the increasing relevance of the Internet.

Utilization of One Strategic Marketing Model

SWOT Analysis of Mary Kay

Strength:

1.Mary Kay’s company value: “give women the opportunity to do anything they were smart enough to do” “god first, family second, career third” ”enriching lives of women”...