Planning.
I think the price of “Douwe Egberts” should be slightly above the average price of coffee yet not too expensive, hopefully this will make the consumer assume that “Douwe Egberts” is of better quality than the average coffee and I think the target market would be willing to pay a little bit extra, obviously I can prove how correct or incorrect this theory is when I carry out surveys later on in the assignment. I shall also need to consider “Douwe Egberts” own costs and overheads before pricing the coffee.
I think “Douwe Egberts” should sell their coffee to a wide range of supermarkets, coffee shops restaurants and hotels. “Douwe Egberts” should definitely not sell to ‘cheap’ places (e.g. shops such as: Pricerite, Lidls, Aldi`s or ‘greasy spoon’ style cafes) if they want to keep their upmarket image.
I have various promotional ideas in mind for “Douwe Egberts” such as free samples given when completing an online questionnaire on “Douwe Egberts” web page, I could also contact ‘food and drink’ magazines and ask them to give away free samples. I also think it would be a good idea to contact well known cafes/coffee shops and negotiate a special offer with them such as giving a free “Douwe Egberts” coffee away with an order, Cafes/coffee shops are likely to comply with this offer as it would bring business in for them. It would also be good for “Douwe Egberts” because the cafes/coffee shops would hopefully continue to buy from “Douwe Egberts” after the promotion expires. “Douwe Egberts” could also put out magazine, television and radio advertisements, although I feel that “Douwe Egberts” would benefit best from advertising on the internet because it costs very little to put banners on other websites and it reaches a worldwide audience. I also feel that advertising in supermarkets in-house magazines would be a good idea because the consumer will see the product and be able to purchase it directly from the store – so perhaps advertising “Douwe Egberts” with a ‘money off voucher’ would be quite effective.
“Douwe Egberts” do a wide range of coffees including roast and ground coffees, Le café range, the select range, the organic range, Instants and Speciality instants.
“Douwe Egberts” packaging will be of high quality, it shall be packaged in a glass jar with a glass lid so it looks of a higher quality than most coffees that have plastic lids, the wrapping on this glass jar shall be made of glossy coffee coloured paper with gold lettering – this shall vary with different types of coffee.
I have a few ideas about finding out peoples opinions of “Douwe Egberts” and coffee in general, firstly I think questionnaires would be a good idea rather than do these through the post or face-to-face I think it would be much better to do these questionnaires via email or relevant websites. This would take a lot less time and would be a lot more cost effective; it would also reach a wide range of people. I think the target audience will be towards people aged between 25 and 50, in my opinion people seem to drink more coffee while in work and people in employment such as office work and teaching are more likely to be coffee drinkers, I shall be sure to confirm my opinions by including questions such as these within the questionnaire.
Collect Data.
I am going to collect data mainly via the Internet; I can get many figures from the national statistics site. I shall also be collecting a lot of my data from results from questionnaires put out on relevant sites and questionnaires sent via email. I mentioned in an earlier chapter that I intend to get cafes to give away free samples of “Douwe Egberts” coffee, I could also ask them to give out a small card with this free sample asking what the consumer thought of the coffee and this could be sent back to the company.
Analyse and evaluate data.
When all data is collected I think it would be best to put it into a simple graph so the results can be clearly seen, I could also use pie charts or scatter graphs for this. From these graphs I should be able to see whether there is actually room in the market for “Douwe Egberts” coffee, what my target audience is and what price I should give “Douwe Egberts” coffee.
Communicate findings.
To communicate my findings I shall firstly write up a report on all information that I have found. I shall then go about planning a small presentation. To convey the information clearly I could use a number of aids to help me such as OHP, diagrams on the board and handouts. I should also prepare a section at the end of my presentation for my audience to ask questions, I should therefore prepare possible questions and answers I could give to them.
