Questionnaire
- What gender are you?
Male Female
- How old are you?
-12 13-16 17-19 20+
- What types of games do you like to play?
Shooting Sports Strategy Role play games
- Have you ever gone to an internet café/gaming centre?
Yes No
- If not will you ever go to an internet café/gaming centre?
Yes No
- Do you like the idea of an internet café/gaming centre?
Yes No
- If you do like the idea how often will you go to an internet café/gaming centre?
Once a week once every 2 weeks once a month
Other-__________________________________
- What times will you go to an internet café/gaming centre?
10am-1pm 2pm-4pm 5pm-8pm 9pm+
- What days will you go to an internet café/gaming centre?
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
Sunday
- Where do you go to shop?
High street Market
- What advertising attracts you the most?
T.V Radio Newspaper poster/billboards Magazines
Other-__________________________________________
- What promotion methods will attract you the most?
Buy 1 get 1 free ½ price Special offers free hours
Other-_____________________________________________
- Do you think this price strategy is appropriate?
Half an hour = £0.50
1 hour =£1.50
2 hours = £2.50
3 hours = £4
Yes No
- If this is not appropriate can you suggest another one, within reason?
Half an hour = £_____
1 hour = £_____
2 hours = £_____
3 hours = £_____
Analyse Questionnaire and charts
- What gender are you?
Male Female
- How old are you?
-12 13-16 17-19 20+
- What types of games do you like to play?
Shooting Sports Strategy Role play games
- Have you ever gone to an internet café/gaming centre?
Yes No
- If not will you ever go to an internet café/gaming centre?
Yes No
- Do you like the idea of an internet café/gaming centre?
Yes No
- If you do like the idea how often will you go to an internet café/gaming centre?
Once a week once every 2 weeks once a month
Other-__________________________________
- What times will you go to an internet café/gaming centre?
10am-1pm 2pm-4pm 5pm-8pm 9pm+
- What days will you go to an internet café/gaming centre?
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
Sunday
- Where do you go to shop?
High street Market
- What advertising attracts you the most?
T.V Radio Newspaper poster/billboards Magazines
Other-__________________________________________
- What promotion methods will attract you the most?
Buy 1 get 1 free ½ price Special offers free hours
Other-_____________________________________________
- Do you think this price strategy is appropriate?
Half an hour = £0.50
1 hour =£1.50
2 hours = £2.50
3 hours = £4
Yes No
- If this is not appropriate can you suggest another one, within reason?
Half an hour = £_____
1 hour = £_____
2 hours = £_____
3 hours = £_____
The most requested price plan was-
Half an hour = £0.50
1 hour = £1
2 hours = £1.50
3 hours = £3
I have used quota sampling because I chose who I questioned and it is more accurate for my results. My selection was by age, I interviewed the people I thought were in my target market.
1.
This chart shows that I have asked more Females than Males in my survey. I have asked this question so that I know what gender is more interested in my idea of a gaming centre/internet café, this could help me decide what games to install on the computers or even what drinks and snacks to include.
2.
This graph could also help me chose what games to put on the computers because 17-19 year olds wouldn’t want to play childish games.
3.
This question was asked to see what games are favoured, this links to what games to choose again.
4.
I asked this question to give me an idea of how many people are expected to come to my internet café/gaming centre.
5.
I asked this question to know if they haven’t gone to an internet café/gaming centre will them, and also to find if there is a need for an internet café/gaming centre.
6.
This question was asked so that I could find out if this business idea is liked within the community.
7.
This question was the main one for finding out about the need.
8.
This question will help with the opening times, like this chart implies that 2pm-4pm. This question also helps me decide how many employees to higher at what times.
9.
This graph shows what days I need to employ people for longer hours.
10.
This question tells me where the best place to situate my business is.
11.
This question will give me an indication on what advertising to use.
12.
This question will help decide what promotion methods to use.
13. The last question helps me see what the people want and what they think is a good price plan.
Secondary Research
This game Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare is a new game that was voted as one of the top 1st person shooter game of 2007. It also won the game of the year for its multiplayer mode; this game is very much liked at one of my other competitors, Omega Sektor, there it is the most played multiplayer game on the Local Area Network. Hopefully by adding this game it will attract more people, because of its great reviews, awards and sales. They have even just released a new game of the year edition for this game, with new maps for online play.
Dawn of War Winter Assault is another big hit at my competitor, Omega Sektor. It is one of the best RTS game in the world behind Age of Empires. “Dawn of War is a testament to what can be so great about real-time strategy, and it captures the grim and brutal world of Warhammer 40,000 extremely well.” Warhammer 40,000 is a huge board game that had its own shop in Harrow. It is a war game that uses fictional characters that fight each other in a war. To play this game you have to build your army, as well as using researches to make your army the best to win the war. As you can see this is the game of the year edition for the game group RTS.
This game is called counter strike source. It is one of the best online and LAN played games. This is the biggest success at Omega Sektor and is the most played 1st person shooter. “With a full complement of real world pistols, rifles and shotguns, Counter-Strike's battle of terrorists and counter-terrorists became the basic blueprint for many modern team-based online shooters. Now enhanced with the power of the Source engine, the game features drastically improved visuals, enhancements on classic maps, offline skirmish play with AI bots and more.” This was said by IGN, the top gaming review website in the UK. But the bad side to this game is it only comes with a program, this is called Steam for cafes.
Summarise and analyse all Research
Some of the primary and secondary researches I have done are-
Questionnaire
Competitor surveys
Census reports
Observation charts
Questionnaire- from the questionnaire I found out what game genres were the most liked, what times are most likely to be busy, what promotions would be most attractive and what advertising methods would be best. This research will be one of the most useful because I have done it myself and I know it will be reliable, and I know what information I need from the questions. I know from personal experience that allot of people like the idea of an internet café/gaming centre in Harrow, so that is why I have chosen to locate my business in Harrow and my questionnaire just proved it.
Competitor Survey- From the competitor survey I saw what my closest competitor’s prices are, what games were most popular, what kind of computers will be good for the games and what specifications they need to be good enough to play the games. This research was useful because it can help me to see what my competitor is doing wrong so I can fix it in my business and also use the things they are doing right. I am gong to use this information to help buy my computers within a certain specification, help with the networking, and know what the benchmark for my price plan was.
Census reports- from the census reports I found out 1,338 people out of the 10,632 are in my target market of teenagers. This research will be useful so that I know that I should expect quite allot of people in my target market walking past the shop or even going in. I am going to use this research to estimate the number of customers I get a day.
Observation charts- from the observation charts I found out that an average of 8 people per second walk past the plot were I want to place my business, and on the total it was 1,080 people who walked past my plot in one Saturday (10am-9pm), and an estimate of 75% of these were in my target market. This could also help me with an estimate of how many people I should expect on a Saturday.
I collected this data by handing out and asking my questionnaire, I went on the harrow government website for the census reports, I actually went outside the land I want and counted the people and I went to my competitor to fill in my competitor table. In my questionnaire I asked 25 people, in my observation chart I counted 1,080 people. The sampling method I used was Quota; I used this because it is more accurate and has more accurate results and I used this when I was giving out my questionnaire.
Most of the results I have are what I expected in my questionnaire, but in the census reports would be the most little accurate of all the pieces of information, because it was done in 2003 and more young people would have moved to harrow in 5 years. There were limitations/weaknesses to my research. The weaknesses to my research were-
The census reports are out of date.
I don’t have all of the information for my other competitors.
My questionnaire did not have some of the questions I needed to get the full potential for my business.
The limitations to my research were; I only have a limited amount of funding.
I can’t reach far places if I want expand my business.
Research findings that helped me to decide what target market segment was the census reports, my observation charts and from personal experience. From the census reports I learned that 1,338 people out of the 10,632 people living in Harrow when the census report was done was in my target market. In my observation charts I saw that allot of people that I estimate are in my target market. When I said my own experience I mean that from my visits to Harrow I can see allot of young people, roughly in my target market.
Recommendation and evaluation of place
It is important to have a right place because you could have a really good business but if the business is situated is not in the right area the business will go bust because it is not getting the right business or not enough business so there will be insufficient profits leading to the eventual closing down of the business.
The options I had when I was planning a place for my business were in South Harrow and in Harrow. Out of these choices I chose Harrow. Harrow was the better choice because it is more populated; overall Harrow has 2512 people within my target market, with my target market of teenagers compared to the South Harrow location, which has 3029 people in my target market, 13-19, plus the many more that go in their leisure time. But on the other hand the South Harrow location has more transport going around the place.
I have chosen Harrow for my location. The deciding factor was the vast majority of teenagers in this area, also the number of people who past by the area I want, which was 1,080 in a day (10am-9pm). Also there is only one other internet café like my one in the whole of Harrow and this one is already very busy even on weekdays.
The channel of distribution I will use is Producer to consumer. The benefits of this are it is quicker and cheaper, as I am the producer also because I am cutting out the wholesaler and retailer. My customers will have to wait allot less time in fact no time because I am the producer. The disadvantages are I have to keep up to date on everything, like games and internet speeds.
Recommendation and evaluation of product
Product is the service or object that is bought by the consumer. If there is no product there is no business, or if the product is not that good then the business will not sell enough of the product and go out of business. So product is really important to a business. But on the other hand if you have the right product at the right price the product might sell allot and you will increase your profits, and only if there is a need for that product.
The products I have considered are services, because I am going to run an internet café that has games on the computers. I have considered games like Call of duty 4 and 2, Counter strike source, Dawn of War winter assault and Dark Crusade and lastly a game called Stalker. The advantages of Call of duty 4 are that the game is relatively new and a really, is played world wide and is a really good game. The advantages of Counter strike source is it is also relatively new and is also one of the most played first person shooting games in the world. The advantages of the Dawn of War games are they are the best RTS games in the world and played massively on the internet and LAN. Stalker is a good game but is not that good. But the disadvantages of all games are they go out of date as new games are released, so I have to keep up to date by buying all the new games.
Out of all these games I will choose them all, but Stalker. It is the worst game out of all the games, but it still is a good. I have decided to choose all the other games though to put on the computers. The factors that swayed me to choose all the other games apart from Stalker because they are the best rated games for the genre of game they are in, e.g., RTS, first person shooter. They are also the most played games on the internet at my only other competitor, Omega sektor. I have decided to put more first person shooting games on the computers because 10 out of the 25 people like them more and from personal; experience first person shooting games are better then RTSs, RPGs and strategy games.
I may keep these games until they are not played anymore. But when these games are not played there will be newer and better games that I will have put on the computers, which will be the reason for them not being played.
I have also decided to sell drinks and snacks. I have decided this because, that is a fault that my other competitor has. It has no snacks so customers are continually going to corner shops to buy drinks. This is bad for both the business and the customer. It is bad for the customer because as soon as they log out they loose all their game data and bad for the business because they are loosing money.
The product mix I will have is the different game genres, such as RTS, RPGs and first person shooters. My product lifecycle will be short because new games come out every year and also new computers are being made every day almost.
I will mainly have first person shooters because my questionnaire stated that 10 out of the 25 people preferred this games genre to other types, this could be a risk because the people wanting to play RPG games will not have a great variety, and the same with people who like RTS games.
There could be some legislation I should worry about that concerns my products. This could be the copyright to the games. I need a licence for each game and these costs allot of money. My competitor has 20 licences to the game Call of Duty 4 modern warfare, this means that a, maximum of 20 people can play the game at one time. If I buy enough licences for the whole shop for one game then that will be costly, but if I buy not enough then not that many people can play at one time.
Recommendation and evaluation of Promotion
Promotion is the marketing of a businesses product, because a business has to somehow notify the customers on its new or on sale products and make the customers want the product. It is important to have the right promotional strategies because if you don’t get your product across then the customers will not know about it and it will not sell, leading to reduce in profits. If a business uses inappropriate promotion methods then no matter how good the product is it will not sell, but if you get it just right then it could sell very quickly.
I will use above the line promotion. I will use the radio and maybe posters/billboards around the area of my business to promote it. The advantages of posters/billboards are they can be seen from a far distance and can be bright and colourful. The advantages of the radio are it can reach a wide area, the business can be explained in detail and it can reach lots of people. The disadvantages of the posters are they may not be read, people will graffiti over it and other people my put their posters over the top of it. The disadvantage of the radio is, not that many of my target market listen to the radio. These choices are compared to TV. I have chosen these two because put together 10 out of 25 on my questionnaire find these 2 ways more attractive. I will also use free samples as a method of promotion, like in shops and people will be handing them out on the street will be vouchers for a free hour at my internet café, but there will only be 1 to an account.
I will use these strategies for the first 1-2 years of my business. Even though TV adverts are most popularly used and are the best ways to advertise, they are really expensive and as a sole trader I might not be able to fund it on its own.
The consequences of these promotions are they may not bring enough customers to make an efficient profit; this may be because not that many teenagers listen to the radio and posters/billboards are either not read or are destroyed with graffiti. The promotions will be used to get more people attracted to my business, as people like the idea of free items or services, for example; free spa vouchers or shop vouchers.
Recommendations and evaluation of price
Price is the cost of the product. It is important to have the right pricing strategies because if the product isn’t suited for a pricing strategy and you use it then the product will not sell as well as if you have used the right one. This could lead to reduce in sales in turn leading to a reduce in profits; this could eventually lead to the closing down of the business.
I was thinking of using a range of pricing methods. These were; competitor pricing, penetration pricing and promotional pricing. Competitor pricing will use me competitor The Omega Sektor, which used penetration pricing, because there old prices were;
30minutes=£1
1 hour=£2
3hours=£5
This was for around about the first year and a half. Then after this period of time the prices went up to;
30minutes=£2
1hour=£3
3hours=£5
I know this because I have been going to this business for about 2 years. The advantages of this is, if my prices are cheaper then the leading business and I have the same products then that will attract more customers. But the disadvantage of this is I will never make more money per person than my competitor. I was also considering using promotional pricing; I was going to use this for holidays, such as Christmas to give discounts in certain times of the year. This disadvantage of this is, I will never make a steady profit if my prices are always lowering, and I will never have a set price.
The final pricing strategies I have chosen to use are penetration pricing and competitor pricing. I will penetration pricing to start my business of and attract customers. This will be a good idea because people will be reluctant to try my new business out, and the cheap prices will just draw hem in more. But these cheap prices could lead a loss in profit. I have chosen competitor pricing, this will make the customers of my competitor, The Omega Sektor, more pulled towards my business because they will be saving money.
I will use penetration pricing for the first year and a half of my business then after this period change to competitor pricing.
I have not chosen skimming as my pricing strategy because; my target market who goes to my other competitor Omega Sektor said the prices were too high after the change and if they don’t want to pay allot at a old business that they know is reliable, why would they do it at a new business that is just started up. This is shown in my questionnaire results, because these show that they want a low price, this was shown by 16 out of the 25 interviewed and also as a customer to the omega sector I also think that their prices are too high.
The consequences of my choice in price plan could be, if I don’t get enough customers when my price is low when I am using the penetration pricing I might not get enough profit to keep going I will go bust. Also if my competitor reduces its prices, all the customers might go back.
Conclusion and evaluation of success
When choosing this I had the choice between two areas. South Harrow and Harrow. I chose Harrow to locate my business. I think this could be the better choice because it is more populated with my target market and is even more populated on the weekends and after school, because of the shops and leisure in Harrow. South Harrow could have been a better choice. This may be because of the lack of competition the vast travel links, but not as many as Harrow and the ready bit of land to put my business in. I chose Harrow because of the extra quantity of my target market and it has all the features of the South Harrow location.
My product is the games, the drinks and other snacks and other computer services on the computers. The other computer services could be things such as; Microsoft office and the internet. I have to choose the right internet speeds to keep up to date and have to have faster internet speeds for the online gamming and basic internet use.
I am going to use above the line promotion. The types of above the line promotion I am going to use radio and posters/billboards, but another type of promotion that was out of my price range was TV adverts. This could be a bad thing because I am only a sole trader. This could be a bad thing because I may not be able to fund the promotion for too long. But if I manage to fund it for a while then it might attract allot of business. My pricing strategies are penetration pricing and competitor pricing. I will use penetration pricing for the first years and then switch to competitor. My prices are going to be lower than my competitors. Their prices are-
30minutes=£2
1hour=£3
3hours=£5
I think these prices are too high so I have changed them to-
Half an hour = £0.50
1 hour = £1
2 hours = £1.50
3 hours = £3
This price plan was the most recommended on my questionnaire results.
I need to be aware of the copyright legislation that protects the games from being copied onto the hard drives of the computers. The financial costs I need to be aware of are the cost of the computers I am going to buy, a storage space for the snacks and a safe way to secure the computers, whilst trying to keep the buttons accessible. I will be extra sure to make the computers are safe, because they will be expensive and at my competitor a computer was stolen. I will have to be careful of marketing legislation as well.
I think my business will be a success, but after a couple of years when it has become established in the market. I am not expecting the business to make a profit in the first year, or even the first two years. I am just hoping to brake even by the second year. I think my business will be a success because I have no competition, only from one business. But my prices are lower then theirs and we will have the same products and services, and according to my research and own experiences customers will prefer the cheaper option. My biggest weakness may be my promotion. I am not sure whether it will work or not.