Business Shop Task

        

               Miles

14. Would you say there are more meat or milk shops within your area?

Meat              Milk

15. Are any of these shops kosher?

Yes                  No

16. Would you be prepared to pay more money based on the quality of the food?

Yes                  No

Thank you for taking part in this survey.

Competition

To also help conclude decisions about the shop, I decided to observe a modern day Bakery in Barkingside high road. In doing this I could highlight and consider some of the key decisions leading to its success and its survival, such as its location and its range of goods, and could use these observations to see if it could possibly help the shop in anyway.

Name: Gregg’s bakery.

Aims: Gregg’s bakery aims to provide consumers with good quality freshly made bread based foods, and to gain profit from there sales.

                                                                                       

Location/s: The particular Gregg’s bakery I visited was the one located in Barkingside high street, which I found was vital towards the shops success as it meant it could attract a wide range of consumers within the busy high road. Gregg’s bakery is also divided into over 1000 different franchises. These franchises are located all over the UK in various different locations.

Goods: Gregg’s bakery uses a method in which aims to sell freshly made, bread based foods, this includes sandwiches, fresh bread, cakes etc.

Target market: Gregg’s bakery aims on selling their range of various bread based foods to a whole different variety of consumers, although there main focus is selling there goods to local people in the hope to gain there more sales in the future.

Licensing

To help broaden the range of my potential consumers, I decided to give information based on the topic of kosher foods. The main purpose of this was to try and gain a larger target market, including people who do not keep kosher or who aren’t even Jewish. I decided to present my information through some common questions people may have about kosher foods. 

Some Typical kosher fish dishes

What does “kosher” mean?

The Hebrew word "Kasheir," or "Kosher," means fit or proper. When applied to food, the term indicates that an item is fit for consumption according to Jewish law. The word "Kashruth" refers to the general subject of kosher food.

What makes an animal kosher/acceptable to eat?

Meat - For an animal to be Kosher, it must have split hooves and chew its cud. (E.g. cow, goat, lamb.) Non-Kosher animals include pig, horse, camel and rabbit. Kosher birds include chicken, turkey, goose, and certain duck. Animals and birds must be slaughtered by a specialist, called a shochet, and then soaked and salted in accordance with Jewish law. All carnivorous (meat-eating) animals and birds, and the blood of all animals and birds, and any derivatives or products thereof, are not kosher.

What makes milk products kosher?

Milk products (cheese, cream, butter, etc.) of a kosher animal are Kosher-Dairy. These may not be eaten in combination with meat or fowl.

Why do some shops gain kosher licensing?

By gaining a kosher license, food companies can access a whole new range of consumers, helping to increase there range of marketing and to gain a more substantial profit from their products.

A kosher licensing also means much more than adherence to Jewish dietary laws. A kosher license can be perceived by many people as meaning quality, and will therefore choose to go there rather to a shop without a license.

How do you apply for a kosher license from the London Beth Din?

To apply for a kosher license the company must fill out an application form stating information about the store, the product list, the ingredients list, including any additives or processing aids.

The expert team of rabbinical coordinators from the Kashrus Division will then review the application and will check to make sure everything meets there standards, if it does then the shop is entitled to apply for a license.

What standards must you meet to gain a license from the Beth Din?

The policies of London Beth Din have certain standards, which many kosher stores must meet to gain a kosher license. Here are some of the following standards:

Caterers must own all their own equipment and may not kosher and utilize hotel equipment.

All kosher inspectors must be employed by the Beth Din and may not receive any pay or bonuses from the caterer.

Hotel dishwashers may not be used and equipment must be washed at the caterer's base by hand.

All dairy products must contain supervised milk.

Is it only Jewish people who buy kosher foods?

It is definitely not only Jews who buy kosher food, and there are in fact, many different consumers who buy kosher foods from shops, such as:

Muslims who keep the Halal dietary laws.

Consumers insisting on a high-quality, safe and healthy product.

Lactose intolerant customers purchasing non-dairy (Pareve) Kosher products.

Vegans and vegetarians.

(http://www.kosher.org.uk/)

Action Plan 2

As with my first one, I filled out a second action plan, again to highlight the main activities I will need to carry out, if I am going to gain successful information. The activities have again been broken down into the weeks following the start of my analysis and conclusions during this research.

Analysis of Data

Here are the results which I obtained from my survey, which I first created to find out about certain factors which would need to be considered before opening a new food store e.g. competition within the area and the consumers wants and needs. After gaining my answers from each survey, which I gave to 20 people to fill out, in Barkingside, Chigwell and Buckhurst hill, I converted their answers into clear separate pie charts. From these pie charts I can clearly see the answers of the 20 people from each area that filled out my survey and can therefore draw my own conclusions from them. I decided to base my observation on my results from the people’s answers which I obtained in Chigwell, as I thought it could be the best possible place to locate the shop.

I have highlighted 8, specific pie charts as they are the ones which were most relevant to making decisions on the store, I have also explained how each individual one has helped me and why I chose those questions.

First of all, I am trying to break down the potential consumers into separate categories, through this question I can see how many of these consumers answering this questionnaire are actually relevant to the answers I am trying to obtain.

        

Here I am trying to find out how profitable and useful the potential consumers could be to the store, by asking them this question I can see how great the potential market could possibly be.

This is again similar to my previous question, although I am trying to expand my options by seeing whether meat or milk could bring the store the most profit.

Here I am trying to find out how great the potential competition through other businesses is within the area, and am trying to break it down into separate stores to see which could post the biggest threat.

        

Here I am trying to see the personal preferences of the consumers, being whether obtaining a kosher license affects their choice in anyway, through this question I can conclude how important a kosher license will be for the store.

Here I am trying to highlight the types of stores which could post a threat of competition if my store were to open within that area. Through this question I could decide which type of store I will open to possibly avoid some competition.

Here I am again trying to find out how profitable potential consumers could be to the store by seeing there limit to what they would choose to spend. This could help me decide on what the price range should be for the store to satisfy the consumer’s preferences.

Here I am asking directly about the store, seeing whether the consumers would be interested if the store were to open in there area and if they’d go there. This question is vital to the store as it tells me how willing the consumers would be to purchasing in the store.

        

Evaluation of Survey

As I have found key pieces of information through my observation of the results from my survey I can decide on some key things, I will set my prices to suit the consumers preferences (not too low though), I will stock meat as I now know the majority of stores in the area do not sell it, therefore decreasing the threat from competition in the area. I will also decide on a specific location later. So, this conclusion follows the observation I made from these 8 pie charts and from the results of my original survey. Therefore I feel my survey has been incredibly useful to help making decisions about the store and how it can market itself.

Analysis of observation

When I made my observation of Greggs bakery in the high street, I noticed some key factors which helped towards it success. Firstly, it had purposely been set up on a busy high road, where consumers walked past everyday and could notice it; this therefore helped its marketing a huge amount. Another thing which I noticed was that even though all its foods are bread based, it has a huge variety of foods that it sells, so it can suit the different wants of its range of daily consumers such as its sandwiches, cakes or simple bread loaves.

My shop would be very similar to Gregg’s bakery on these terms, I will locate it where there is a huge potential for a large amount of consumers so it can market itself easily. I will also choose to stock a variety of different meats (obviously kosher) although unlike Greggs who sells bread based foods. I will locate where I am sure that there will be a large market available, and my aims and objectives will also be to sell a range of different foods to consumers to satisfy them and to gain profit. This is also similar to Gregg’s in this way.

Analysis of licensing information

When I obtained my information on kosher licensing from the London Beth Din, I based my decision to gain a kosher license for the store on this key factor. It was the fact that even though there are slightly strict, set standards that you must meet before the London Beth Din can issue you with a kosher license, having one can almost definitely affect your consumers expectations of the shop hugely, affecting their trust within purchasing from the store and can therefore determine how much profit you could gain from them. I noticed this when I looked at the information on why stores would go to these lengths to gain a kosher license.

To explain what I meant about the license affecting the customer’s expectations of the shop, I meant that having the license can be defined by many people as so much more. For example, by gaining a kosher license, food companies could actually expand their market to a whole other portion of consumers, helping them to increase there profit by a substantial amount. A kosher license could also be perceived by meaning dedication to satisfy the more religious aspects of purchasing food for certain consumers. It could also simply mean quality to many people, so they could possibly choose to go there when they might not have done if it hadn’t had a license. It is for this reason I have decided that the store should have a kosher license.

        

Marketing Mix

To help decide which method the shop should use to market itself, I identified the definitions of the four main marketing methods. By doing this I then decided which one the shop would use.

Promotional Pricing – “Offering discounted prices to encourage purchase as part of a promotional campaign.”

( dictionary/p/promotional-pricing.aspx)

Skimming Pricing - The product or service is first offered at the highest price that customers will pay, and the price is incrementally dropped until it reaches a level designed to be viable for the long term.

(http://www.investorwords.com/5731/price_skimming.html)

Penetration Pricing – “A pricing policy of setting a price below the s of competing s in order to penetrate a  and produce a larger unit .”

(http://en.mimi.hu/marketingweb/penetration_pricing.html)

Destroyer Pricing – “Destroyer pricing is the practice of a firm selling a product at very low price with the intent of driving competitors out of the market, or create a barrier to entry into the market for potential new competitors.”

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing)

What marketing method the shop would use

I decided that the shop would use penetration pricing as its method to market itself. My reason for this is that I felt that by using this method I may be able to attract a large percentage of potential consumers within the area to purchase from the store, which is crucial if the shop is going to succeed. This in turn will mean that if the shop is able to price low and promote heavily early on and attract a large percentage of the potential consumers in a short amount of time then it will help to avoid being overcome by potential competition in the area over time.

As I previously done with the marketing terms, I also identified the definitions of the two main methods of promotion. I would again look at these definitions and highlight the main advantages and disadvantages of both methods. This would then leave me to conclude what I thought the best one would be for the shop to use.

Above the Line Promotion – “An advertising technique using mass media to promote brands. Major above-the-line techniques include TV and radio advertising, web and internet banner ads.”

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Above_the_line_(advertising))

Below the Line Promotion – “An advertising technique. It uses less conventional methods than the usual specific channels of advertising to promote products, services, etc. These may include activities such as direct mail, public relations and sales promotions for which a fee is agreed upon and charged up front.”

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Below_the_line_(advertising))

Here is the brief table highlighting the main advantages and disadvantages of using the above the line promotion method:

Here is another brief table, this time highlighting the main advantages and disadvantages of using the below the line promotion method:

What method of promotion the shop would use

I decided that the shop would use the above the line promotion method as I felt that by doing so there would be a larger focus in through advertisement of attracting potential consumers to purchase within the shop. I also felt that by advertising through the media was a very efficient way of attracting consumers. Other then this it could be used to the shops advantage being that it could promote sales a large percentage of the consumers within the area possibly within a shorter space of time.

Where the shop would locate

I would now need to decide where the shop should locate and why, based on the results of my surveys. Going back to my observation of the results which I obtained in Chigwell, I concluded that it would in fact be the best possible place to locate. I based this decision on how well the shop would be able to cope within the area, through the answers of the potential consumers this included whether the shop would suit consumers wants and needs, how great the risk was of potential competition, and whether the sales of kosher food would be wanted or not, so if the shop if even going to make profit.

Now I decided where the shop would locate I would then need to decide on what it should stock, being either kosher meat or milk .I devised a table highlighting the certain factors, and what affect they would have on what the shop would stock. In doing this I could easily break down the product range that would be decided that the shop would use.

Here is the table I devised highlighting the factors which will be affect the product range of the store and why.

What the shop would stock

I decided that the store would specify in kosher meat and would aim to sell a range of products consisting of meat based foods. My reasons for this were that through obtaining the results from my survey I found that there were a number of factors which would limit me, if I were to open a kosher milk store. Firstly, I found that most people in the area said that there were more milk then meat stores. Secondly most people said that even though they probably purchase milk on average per week more then they purchase meat, the meat they buy is more expensive. This led me to base my decision on trying to limit the amount of competition within the area and to try and make as much profit as possible through the store.

Logos

When considering what shop would need to do to help market itself, I needed to make a decision on a logo for the shop to use. I created two brief rough ideas of what the logo could possibly be, and would then decide on which one the shop would actually use, below are the two logos which I devised for the shop:

               1st Logo                                                   2nd Logo                                  

I decided to use the 1st logo which I created. My reasons for this were because I concluded that it was a much clearer and attractive way of marketing the store through using a logo. I also thought it was a more appropriate logo as it clearly defined the shops aims, which is crucially important. This is of course to sell kosher meat.

Implications

Before opening the shop, there are many legal processes which I will need to first consider. These factors will be crucial towards the opening of the shop. The main legal constraints that I will need to consider will include gaining building rights to set up the shop in Chigwell, the expense of opening the shop, whether the shop satisfies health and safety standards, and also whether it will come under the satisfactory demands of others, such as the suppliers and consumers.

These specific factors will be crucial in affecting the plan for the shop being set up. The things such as the building rights could possibly delay the construction of it, meeting the standards that come with opening the shop will be needed is the shop is to be allowed the go ahead on sealing its goods, satisfying the health and safety aspects of the shop and all of its foods will also need to be considered for the selling of its goods.

Here is a table I have created, highlighting both the pros and cons in how opening the shop will interfere with the local community.

                     

Conclusion

I have gained a lot of useful knowledge whilst obtaining this information to use towards the opening of the shop. The whole topic of the marketing mix and how business can use it taught me many useful things, such as how to analysis appropriate data, how to find and aim towards a target market, and how important a shops location is towards it success. It has also taught me how crucial it is for a shop to advertise and market itself accordingly, if it is going to succeed, and that there are many different factors (depending on the shop) that need to be considered before a shops opening.

Bibliography

Theory –

(http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/marketing/definition.htm)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_research)

(http://marketing.about.com/cs/sbmarketing/a/smbizmrktseg.htm)

http://en.mimi.hu/marketingweb/target_market.html)

Kosher Licensing –

(http://www.kosher.org.uk/)

Marketing Mix –

( dictionary/p/promotional-pricing.aspx)

(http://www.investorwords.com/5731/price_skimming.html)

(http://en.mimi.hu/marketingweb/penetration_pricing.html)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Above_the_line_(advertising))

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Below_the_line_(advertising))