Shown below is a map marked with an “X” showing where “Garforth Consulting Ltd” is situated. The map shows us that this business is situated approximately 3-4 miles from the area in which I want to start my business.
The second business similar to mine that is in the local area is “Cloud 9 Celebrations” and is shown on the map below by a purple circle.
Neither of these businesses focus on just planning weddings, but as they are the only businesses that do this in the area, they are my primary competition.
I decided to work from offices rather than from home, as although premises will add to costs, I expect working from home would be more stressful, e.g. bringing work home, also I would need extra space for storage of files, and I would rather bring customers into an office environment, as it seems more professional than bringing them into my own home. Also, I do not wish to work from home if I hire staff, as I would rather keep my work and home life separate, so that my business stays as a business and professional.
I would be running this business myself, however I would need contacts for such things as dresses, flowers, etc… To do this I would gather a portfolio of local businesses and would ask each if I was to give their details to customers that I would get a fixed commission from each. Then I would make a final portfolio of those that agree which I will then use in my work.
I plan to work with one or two employees. To find these partners I would advertise for them in specialist wedding magazines, or could even find the addresses of some planners with past experience. I would then pay these employees to help me through the week and weekends to plan my weddings. I would be the person who the couples would meet with and discuss what they want from the wedding, then with my staff I would plan and research the wedding.
On I have found that Chorley has an above average percentage of residents age 25-44 than for all of the North West, which is good as this is the most common age bracket for couple getting married. This information tells me that in the Chorley area, I can target a higher percentage of people than I would be able to in the whole of North West England. I expect I shall be targeting approximately 1/200 of the people in Chorley. The size of the population (taken again from ) is 100449 (this will have differed slightly in the past year), so my target market is approximately 502 people. I also estimate that there will be people from other areas who will want to use my service, so I believe this number will be slightly higher.
I have produced a questionnaire that involves open and closed questions which can collect quantitative and qualitative information. This is shown below.
Questionnaire
1. Are You Married? Yes □ No □
2. If answer is yes, did you hire someone to Yes □ No □
plan all or part of the wedding?
3. If answer is yes, were you satisfied that
having someone else plan your wedding Yes □ No □
was better than you doing it yourself?
4. If you were to get married, would you
think about getting someone to plan Yes □ No □
your wedding for you?
5. In accordance to the above question, give reasons:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
6. How much would you be willing to pay for your wedding (excluding organising costs)?
Below £3,000 £7,000 £11000 Above
£3,000 - - - £15,000
£7,000 £11,000 £15,000
□ □ □ □ □
Questionnaire Continued
7. How much commission on overall costs would you pay a wedding organiser?
Below 5%-10% 10%-15% 15%-20% 20%-25% Above
5% 25%
□ □ □ □ □ □
8. Would you prefer a wedding planner to be businesslike or professional or both combined?
Business Like Professional Both Combined
□ □ □
9. Which of the following features do you think would be most important in an organised wedding? Place in order of importance, where 1 is the highest and 8 is the lowest.
Cost □
Place □
Everything Organised and On Time □
Good Decoration, Flowers, etc… □
Clothing □
Wedding Reception □
Catering □
Hospitality & Professionalism From Planning Staff □
10. If there was one thing that we could do as a wedding planning service that would make your wedding perfect for you, what would it be?
……………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………..
Survey Methods
I have decided to use postal surveys and internet questionnaires for my survey methods. Both of these are relatively inexpensive, this is one of the reasons I chose them as I would not be able to afford face to face questionnaires, focus groups or phone surveys as they would be to expensive for me to do when starting a new business.
Postal Survey
I have chosen to use postal surveys as even though they have to be of low depth, I will be able to find out the basic needs of my customers, on which I can base my businesses goals. For example if most of my results say that my customers would want a cheap yet elegant service, my goal would be to provide this.
I also believe postal surveys will be a good idea, as I can post them around the area in which I believe my customers will be (mainly Chorley). By doing this I will be marketing my business to the customer. Another way of arranging my postal survey would be to find out where single people live, or where people live who have been buying wedding magazines (as these will be my main customers). Then I can send my postal surveys to them so I am not wasting money by sending the survey to people who will definitely not be my clients.
I have also decided that when sending out these postal surveys, I will attach some kind of coupon or money redeeming voucher so that there is a reason for whom I sent the survey to, to fill it in. An example of the coupon would be “10% off organisational fees with KLH Wedding Co-ordinators”. By doing this I would be getting my research done, and also attracting clients to my business.
Internet Questionnaires
Again this type of survey means getting back a low depth of information, however I still believe the information I gain will be useful. This form of surveying is relatively inexpensive, and it can be aimed at specific markets, in this case, people who want to get married.
As with the postal surveys, I will be hoping to send my questionnaires to people who wish to get married. I could do this by buying information off websites that have people’s email addresses. This way I can send the information directly to people who I know could be interested in it.
Overall
I know both postal surveys and internet questionnaires are a slow way of finding information, and have a low response rate, but I believe if I send them to the right people, I will get a fairly good response, (better than the average postal or internet questionnaire survey), and seeing as I will add a coupon to both, I expect more people will return my questionnaires. I have also decided that if I decide I need more information, I will add a few open questions into the questionnaire that the reader can fill it in if they have an interest in my company.
Unfortunately there is a chance that neither of these 2 survey methods would work, or that my results will be very basic. In this situation, I would hope to be able to bring together some people who have replied to my questionnaires that wish to get married. To do this I would ask on the questionnaires if they are planning a wedding or will be doing soon. From these people I will hope to be able to bring them together for a focus group, I can then find out their needs and wants from a wedding planner. I know this will not be a cheap, and I expect I will have to give them some kind of reason to do this, for which again I would offer some kind of redeemable coupon.
Sampling
I have decided to use stratified sampling as my sampling method. This is because stratified sampling will be targeting a certain group of people. This is what I want as by doing this I can survey just people who are planning on getting married. Doing this will also mean that I will know what people who are getting married, want from a wedding planner, and not from those who aren’t planning on getting married. Hopefully this will give me reliable results. I know the results will not be representative of the population, but they will be representative of my clients.
I also chose this over the other methods of sampling as none of the other methods would focus on just surveying people who are getting married. If I did use one of these methods, I would probably find that the views of those who plan on getting married, are different to those who don’t, as things like money and time are more important than you think to those when planning a wedding, compared to those who aren’t planning a wedding.
Competition
In my area, and generally in England there are few business that focus on organising only weddings. In Chorley there are 3 other businesses that organise weddings, parties, functions, etc… so these are my primary competition as they do the same thing as my business and are in the same area.
Primary Competition
As we can see from my table, none of my primary competitors focus their business solely on wedding organising. I believe this is an advantage to me as it means that I do not have to DIRECTLY compete with these competitors.
I am aiming my business at people who want to plan a wedding, this is my business’s USP (Unique Selling Point). None of these other businesses have that unique selling point, which makes me seem more focused and specific to my customers than the other businesses.
Bibliography
Websites
- www.celticoccasions.co.uk
Books
- AS Business Studies – By Malcolm Surridge and Andrew Gillespie
Directory
Comptetion
Secondary Competition
These businesses are all secondary as they all are based much farther away from my business than others, however they are secondary competition because they mainly focus on wedding planning arranging, in contrast to most places that focus on any general planning and organising.
