Field Research includes (questionnaire (PEOPLE), also interview employee/manager or just visit different sports shops (ORGANISATION) .
Desk research is the use of existing data that has already been collected. It can be anything from a company's own sales statistics to Department of Trade and Industry reports. Other secondary sources of information include journals, company reports, government statistics (such as the Family Expenditure), surveys published by research organisations and newspapers and magazine articles.
Desk research includes (textbooks (TEXT) and websites (ELECTRONIC) to research pricing strategies and promotion methods – include all references in the text and in your bibliography.
Quantitative research summarises the findings in the form of figures. For example in a survey ‘closed’ questions such as ‘how many…?’ or ‘which of these…?’ will be asked.
Quantitative is anything you can measure or reduce to a number. Quantitative research involves carrying out market research by taking a sample of the population and asking them pre-set questions via a questionnaire in order to discover the likely levels of demand at different price levels, estimated sales of a new product, and the ‘typical’ purchaser of the company’s products.
Qualitative research studies customer’s behaviour. In a survey ‘open’ questions will be set, e.g. to find out reasons for buying, and opinions about the product.
Qualitative research is about people’s feelings and opinions. Qualitative research attempts to gain an insight into the motivations that drive a consumer to behave in a particular way.
I will ask quantitative and qualitative questions in my questionnaire. This will help me get a wide range of answers and the best possible background information required. This can help me make efficient decisions on some aspects of my business.
Using 100 people for my questionnaire can get me a variety of different answers. I could also easily work out the percentage.
I will also research using:
Organisations – E.g. collecting brochures or leaflets.
Texts - E.g. textbooks, websites.
Electronics –E.g. websites, download a maps.
1. What gender are you?
2. How old are you?
3. What form of transport do you take to the fort?
4. How often do you purchase games?
5. How much do you spend yearly on games?
6. What console do you own?
7. What genre of games are you into?
8. How many games do you hold?
9. Where do you usually buy your games from?
10 Who do you shop for?
11. How far do you live from The Fort shopping centre?
12. What special feature(s) would you like to see at ‘GAMEz’?
- A testing room where you can play the latest games before you purchase them. Try before you buy.
- Well known Celebrities come in and sign our products.
- A customer service help desk. A place in the shop where customers can receive help for anything they need.
- Competions and prize giveaways. Every now and again Games Galhore will give out prizes to the customers.
I will be aiming more at the male gender. As my results show the majority of people who purchase games are male. My aim will be to sell to males, while a small section will be set aside for females.
The majority of customers are aged between 16 – 20. There are a lot of children who shop at games shops. I will aim for these age groups.
All forms of transport are used by consumers to get to the Fort shopping park, this is because there is wide range and major shops located there, and potential shoppers can shop around. My results show me more of the population travel by car; this is a positive sign because My shop will be located opposite to the entrance to the car park, this means my potential customers will see my shop.
As expected, women tend to keep the latest fashion trends, so buy shoes on a regular basis, this means my shop will aim to sell more styles, and high fashion shoes for the women.
The majority of people purchase games monthly.
People spend an awful lot on games yearly. This is a good sign for me because buying games is popular for the public.
This question tells me what games my potential customers are willing buy. The majority of people have playstation 2 and a PSP. However I must consider playstation 3 is fairly new to the market and the demand for its games a soon to rise. It has not reached its peak yet.
The majority of my potential customers are into sports games. Football is the major sport here in the UK. Therefore I shall seek to sell lots of football games. Action and Adventure games are next popular to Sport games. However many action games are suitable for the ages of over 18. My potential customers are mainly children, so I will cut down and try not to sell over 18 games.
The majority of people hold more than 10 games. Some of the games may be unwanted. I will give the customers the chance to trade those unwanted games to me for credit vouchers.
The majority of people buy their games from Zavvi and gamestation. They will be my main competition. In Birmingham, zavvi and Gamestation are located in the City Centre. I must persuade customers to switch from my two main rivals.
The majority of people shop for their children. This tells me that my actual customers are children. I should concentrate and please children.
The majority of customers live less than five minutes away from the fort shopping centre. There will be no problem for them to purchase at my shop.
This tells me most people would like my shop to have a testing room or get competitions and prize giveaways. Having a testing room will stretch my budget so I have decided to use ‘competition and prize giveaways’ as my special feature for my business. It is the opportunity cost.
Marketing Mix is the art of making it as easy as possible to get the potential customer to buy your product. There a 4Ps in marketing. The four Ps are the key to understanding what marketing is all about. The four P’s are Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Many successful businesses combine all the four into there business and therefore are successful. If a business get one of these wrong it is in trouble.
My shop must be available in a place that customers will find convenient. My business will be very unsuccessful if I locate it in the countryside.
It must be somewhere well known in the city.
I have decided to locate it in The Fort Shopping Park in Birmingham. Birmingham is the largest of England's , and is often considered to be the . The City of Birmingham has a of 1,006,500. The Fort is one of the major shopping centres in Birmingham and welcomes over 2,000,000 visitors per anum.
There is free parking on two levels, 1,250 vehicles above ground and 750 below ground. Customers need a convenient location to shop at, and locating in the Fort Shopping Park does exactly this.
Free car parking
My business location
M6 motorway
A47 dual carriage way
Bus stop
My business location
I will need to find the right product to suit every ones needs. A business must come up with a product that people will want to buy. The product must meet the customer’s needs or their wants.
I will be selling various game consoles and related games and accessories to many of my potential customers.
I will be aiming more at the male gender
The consoles that I will be selling are:
Format Type:
- Nintendo Wii
- Playstation 2
- Playstation 3
- Xbox
- Xbox 360
- Gamecube
Hand Helds:
The games and accessories that I will sell are related to all my consoles. Although I will not be selling Pcs I will however, also sell PC games.
I will be selling new and preowned games. Customers will get the opportunity to sell or trade their games to me. Trading will give them a credit voucher and so they will shop again.
No matter how good the product is, it is unlikely to succeed unless the price is right. This does not just mean being cheaper than competitors. Most people associate a higher price with quality.
The price is the amount a customer pays for the product. It is determined by a number of factors including market share, competition, material costs, product identity and the customer's perceived value of the product. The business may increase or decrease the price of product if other stores have the same product.
There are a number of pricing strategies that I could use;
I could charge very low prices when I open my shop to get lots of people interested in it. This will help me snatch customers from my competitors. Once my shop becomes established, I will increase the prices of my products and still see my customers regularly coming in. This is not a good idea because when I open my shop I will be in debt and cannot afford to make minimum profit as I will go bankrupt.
I could charge a high price when I first open my shop. This will help my shop to become desirable to people with large incomes. Once my shop has becomes established, I will lower the price to help it become more popular to all kinds of consumers. . I can take this approach for my new business, as potential customers would think that what they are purchasing is valued for its price, so would be a competitive advantage.
I could charge different prices to different consumers for the same product. This wouldn’t be a good idea for my business as I can’t sell different prices; I should sell same prices to all my potential customers and be valued by customers.
This is where I could be forced to charge similar prices to other firms because there is lots of choice and not much product differentiation. This method of pricing ignores both the costs of production and the level of customer demand. Instead it bases the price level on the prices charged by the competitors in the industry.
If I do not have product differentiation I can take this approach, but it may lead potential customers to other firms that they can trust, and have already purchased from there. If prices are similar, people wouldn’t purchase from my shop as other firms have created an identity from themselves, and customers can trust going to them.
Cost-plus pricing is a method used by firms. It is used because it is easy to calculate and requires little information. Cost plus pricing seeks to set a price that takes into account all relevant costs of production. This could be calculated in two ways.
Promotion is essential. Potential customers should be aware that the shop exists and the products within it.
My target audience will be children and teenagers. I will have to advertise on certain things that children and teenagers will take great attention to.
The size of my advertising budget is very small. Therefore I could not afford many of the advertising media.
There are various methods of advertising:
Television advertisements can reach millions of pounds and you can target potential customers who watch particular programmes. It would have the benefits of colour, sound, vision and movement. But it is very expensive. I could not possibly afford this method of advertising considering the budget I have.
Radio advertisements are cheaper but still expensive. It is sound only and is dull. Audiences are smaller. On the other hand I can advertise locally and you can also target potential customers who listen to certain programmes.
Newspapers again can be useful to target potential customers. They know a lot about their readership. They will often be read more than once. On the other hand newspapers are silent and often not in colour. The advert will suffer a lack of impact. There is no guarantee that it will be read.
Magazines like newspapers are silent and can be found not in colour. However, advertising in magazines would be great for my business. It would be easy to target my potential customers. I can place advertisements in the latest local games magazines. Mainly children and people who love games tend to read games magazines. This would be good because I am aiming to keep my business mainly for them. When reading the various game magazines, my potential customers can be aware of my shop.
Billboards and Posters are near roads and drivers can only take a glance at them, so they can’t contain much information. They are vulnerable to graffiti, rain, and wind. On the other hand they have a high visual impact, they stay in place for a long time and can be seen daily by lots of people.
Cinemas have a high visual and sound impact and you can target particular films. Unlike all other media, you have a captive audience. But they’re expensive considering the audience size.
Leaflets are cheap to produce and are a good idea to make people aware. It would be easy to distribute them around, and it’s cheap. Regular travellers could see this and could go and visit the shop if they are impressed.
Junk mail like leaflets are cheap to produce and distribute. You can target local people. However, junk mail is easily ignored and no one would bother to read them.
Internet sites can have a high visual impact and be interactive. Many people use the internet. But my advert would be competing with a lot of other stuff on the net so it has to really grab people.
Many people use the internet, so it would be a good idea to inform them about a new shop opening. But I would have to compete with a number of other businesses on the net, so my advert may not be appealing to consumers, compared to others on the internet.
As I mentioned earlier, my form of product differentiation will be the visibility of the store to attract people to the store. And the layout is important it can influence consume behaviour, and show the quality of the store to attract more customers.
I will organise the games into themes, grouping similar computer games together maybe to suit a particular season for example:
I will display my new releases closest to the entrance so customers can see my new games as they walk past. People can look at my latest games and adore at them. The will judge my whole shop because of what they can see. Displaying attractable and adorable things will have a great effect to the public. This is called Point of Sale advertising.
I have carried out my market research, I have looked at the different types of pricing and promotion strategies that my business can take, and what products I need to sell to satisfy the needs of my potential customers.
As I want to promote my games shop in local area, I will place my adverts in local newspapers magazines and on posters/billboards. I will also Distribute leaflets to local people is very beneficial as they are cheap to produce and they easily attract target audience. Displaying adverts on billboards in the local areas is eye catching and it can also attract customers. Billboards have a high visual impact and stay in place for a long time and are seen daily by lots of people in the local area.
My business must give an impression to the customer that the price is good value for money. It should be a good enough price for what you are selling. Apart from destroyer pricing I have thought long and hard about what pricing strategies to use. I have to conclusion and have decided to mostly use skimming. When a new shop is launched, research and development costs are likely to be high, as are the costs of introducing and promoting the shop by advertising and etc. In such cases, the use of skimming allows for some return on the set up costs. On some occasions Competition pricing will be the best idea. I will be forced to use this price strategy on items such as computer games. When new games are launched into shops, it is very hard to find different prices in different stores. All shops will try to make maximum profit when the demand is high. Therefore no one is willing to cut the price immediately.
There are a few social and moral issues for me to consider. An example is not selling 18+ products to someone younger. There are no cultural issues surrounding my company, it is not going to discriminate any ones culture.
I can create a number of jobs from my business. I will give my manufacturers a job to supply me with my products. I will also need 5 workers to run my business. One of which will include a store manager. This is good for the local community because my shop will produce job creation.
Bibliography
People
100 people for my questionnaire
Electronic Research
maps.google.co.uk
http://www.game.co.uk/
Organisations
Gamestation leaflets
Texts
CGP GCSE Business Studies Revision Guide