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Market Research
For my market research I shall provide a questionnaire with a series of quantitative, qualitative, open and closed questions.
I chose to do my market research in the form of a questionnaire because it allows me to gather very detailed information there are some limitations with this method of research as it wastes a lot of time.
This will give me all the information I will require to find out what the consumers needs are. Based on the information I gather from my market research I can make a marketing plan which will benefit my own needs and those of the consumers.
From my market research I will find out if people actually would buy my products, how much they would pay, who and where they will buy the product and the competition my business will face.
For my questionnaire I shall present some of my data that I collect on pie charts this will show my results more clearly. I shall do a random sample, this is so I can see what a wider range of people think and want within my school, then the data I collect will be more relevant.
I will ask 25 people to fill out my questionnaire if I feel that I need more data I shall increase it to 35.
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Questionnaire
- How old are you?
(11- 20)
(21-30)
(31-40)
(41-50)
(51-60)
(other)
- Do you think you would benefit from a stationary shop based within the school premises?
(yes)
(no)
- How often do you think you would visit the stationary shop?
- What item do you purchase most from a stationary shop?
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- What item do you purchase least from a stationary shop?
- Where do you normally buy your stationary from and why?
- What days would you prefer our stationary shop to be open?
- What times would you prefer our stationary shop to be open?
- Which class room do you think would be most suitable for our stationary shop to be?
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- What is the highest price you would pay for the stationary seen below:
Pencils
20 colouring pencils
Erasers
Glue stick
Ruler
Gel pens
Calculator
Geometry set
Pencil sharpener
Ring binder
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- If you dislike stationary shops please state why:
- What is the best quality you expect to see in a stationary shop?
- How many times on average would you shop at the stationary shop?
(1-3)
(4-6)
(7-9)
(other)
- How much do you spend on average in a stationary shop?
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Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................1
Market Research.....................................................................................7
Costing/ Supplier Research..................................................................15
Market Segmentation............................................................................16
Break Even...............................................................................................17
Competition.............................................................................................18
Advertising and Promotion...................................................................19
Evaluation................................................................................................22
Glossary....................................................................................................23
Bibliography............................................................................................24
Costing/Supplier Research
The only costs I will be paying out for is the hire of the room which will add up to £24.60 per day that’s £172.20 per week, and the costs of stock which will me reasonably cheap because I feel that from my market research that my service and products will be of high demand, therefore I will benefit from bulk buying from a wholesaler, and I will have to borrow £100 that will be used for stock and promoting and advertising my product and to start up by business that I will pay back weekly, these costs will be added into my fixed costs.
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Break Even
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From the results of both my break even table and graph I can see that I need around 34 customers to break even or more than 34 to actually make profit.
Competition
It is important to know about the completion against this particular business because then I can try improve my business to appeal to my service than to go to another.
To do this I need to make sure my prices are lower than any other business that’s in the same market as I am, I need to stock a wider variety of products.
My main completion would be highstreet shops such as Whsmiths, Woolworths and Partners and so on.
However my prices are much cheaper and I believe that because my business is set up within the school premises it will encourage people to get their equipment from my business as it is more convenient for them. On the other hand my competition is more well known by the public, has a larger range of products and it has more capital within the business therefore can spend more money on advertising its products with loyalty cards, television adverts and also their shops are in a franchise around the country and the business on a whole is much, much bigger than my own.
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Promotion and Advertising
It’s important for any business to spend money on promoting there product, and also promoting it. Promotion is one of the 4 main P’s in the marketing mix ; the others are price place and product. Promoting is a form of advertising your product. Advertising is any message about the firm or any of the products that the firm has purchased. Firms advertise for different reasons, they advertise in different places and they can be either informative or persuasive. Through my methods of advertising I aim is to create awareness, to tell people what I sell and where I sell it.
My advertisements will have to be persuasive yet informative. There are three different forms of advertising, firstly direct advertising and direct selling. Direct advertising is advertising through different mediums and product placement whereas direct selling is approaching people on there door step or telesales. Finally direct marketing, to perform this kind of marketing you could use junk mail and sales catalogues. Advertising should be calculated according to the size of the business, if you are a small company local radio or local newspapers could be used. However, if you are a large multinational company television and junk mail could be used.
This is my businesses logo and name I chose this design because I think it’s bright and stands out well and the name scribblers in unusual and is easy to remember. I will have this printed on all carrier bags with the 19
opening times and state where my shop is this will let people know when to come to my shop and will also get the name around. I will promote and advertise my product by posting posters around school, also on the school newsletter’s, I will send out messages in the registers for years 7-11 informing them of the shop and will also hold an assembly talking about my business explaining what it is, what it sells and other valuable information. I feel this is a cheap way of successfully promoting my business and then everyone will know about my new service. I shall include brand loyalty to those who shop frequently by receiving the cheapest item bought for free. When my business reaches saturation point this is where I will introduce my marketing strategic plan. I will alter the offers to the public, change the colours in my products and promote them more. This will hopefully prevent my product from being obsolete.
For all of my advertising the aim is to keep the customers coming back and to keep my product well known.
It would be pointless me using television adverts to advertise my service because I only have one small shop in a local area, and the costs for actually creating an advert and then to put it on the television is too expensive. Radio would be a better option but as I only have one shop, it is not a good method to use at this time. If my business was successful and I opened a franchise of it then maybe I would advertise via the radio. I could also advertise in a local cinema but my advert would only get to a limited amount of people so therefore I wouldn’t choose this.
Therefore I shall begin promoting my service very cheaply with the use of posters, and word of mouth. I feel that this is the most successful way of getting my business known. And if my business becomes successful I can use some of the profit on other ways to promote my business.
I really need to differentiate my product and the ways in which I promote it in order to get the most sales.
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Evaluation
I think that my business is viable, because my business breaks even and makes efficient amount of profit, I’ve got a large market and because of my market research I know that people want to the ability to actually use my service. I think that my methods of promotion and marketing will increase sales and popularity of my business, which will help my business to survive.
Throughout my project the use of IT has helped me greatly, I’ve been able to organise and edit my work more efficiently and I’ve been able to draw accurate pie charts for this project also all my numerical calculations have been calculated quickly and effortlessly.
The use of IT for my business could help it immensely because I can make charts quicker to see how my business is doing profit wise and customer wise. I could also set up a website where people can order online stationary requirements and have a wider variety of products.
This will increase sales, customer database and popularity.
With the use of IT I would be able to plan my promoting skills better and easier which will also increase profits
With the use of IT people could e-mail in telling me their views of my business and what I could do to improve or do to make my business more convenient for my customers.
Investing in software that can make the accounts more manageable and easier to see would help this business because you could spend more time working in the shop than sorting out the capital of the business.
I think the main benefit I could gain is making a website, this would make a massive difference with sales and would increase profit on a huge scale. Therefore once my business is up and running I may do this.
There’s a few limitations of my data within my project, I don’t know how many people to expect each day there for not sure how much stock have. But if this was to be opened within the first week I would be able to calculate and settle that problem.
I could improve my business greatly if I had used a larger sample for my questionnaire, this has limited my range of products to a mere 11 items and for a stationary shop that’s very bleak. With a wider range of items on sale I believe my shop would be even more successful than it originally was.
I could also have made my service available to people outside school, because I only made it available to people within school it made my market much smaller to what it could have been, this could also have increased sales and profit made.
I would most definitely advertise and promote my business more, I feel that this would encourage more customers and would increase my market.
I believe that the location of where I chose to plot my business is a good choice, and would not change the decision. If think that if I moved it anywhere else it wouldn’t be as successful because it’s near the main school office so it’s easy to find its ground floor