As well as the product and the price being an important factor, the place you decide to sell the product is very important. It is important because if you try to sell your product in an area with a low resident population there would be no one to buy your product and again causing you to make no profit.
The final factor to consider is promotion. The promotion you choose to use for your business is very important. If you don’t use any promotion, then people won’t no about your business and again you won’t make a profit. Choosing the right form of promotion is also very important. If you had found out from a survey that 9 out of 10 people listen to 1 particular radio station, for example radio 1, and then you advertise your business on a different radio station, for example SGR Colchester, then people may not know about your business. And this therefore would mean that you wouldn’t make any profit because you promoted your business on the least popular radio station.
All of these factors are important and one of them doesn’t work without the other three as well.
Product
A product is a good made or a service provided by the business. For my business as a restaurant I had several options of what I could sell in my business. These were my options: Pizzas, burgers, chicken, chips, kebabs, pasta and sandwiches. I could also have a choice of what toppings I could put on a pizza, these options were: Margarita, Pepperoni, chicken, meat feast, Hawaiian or vegetarian. As well as the burger and the fillings I also had a choice of what type of bread I would use for sandwiches. I have decided from looking at the research of my survey that it would be best for me to use a stuffed crust base for my pizzas as 18 out of the 20 people I had given a questionnaire said they preferred stuffed crust. My competition McDonald’s sells vegetarian burgers, so I have decided to make a vegetarian option for all of my foods; this means I can still attract the segment in the market who are vegetarians.
Price
The price is the amount of money you are going to sell your product or service to the customers for. There are several ways in which you can price you product. You could use competition based pricing. This is setting the price of your product based on what prices your competition is selling their products at. For example if your competition were selling the same product as you, you would either go for the same price or lower so that the customers would buy your product because it was cheaper. You could use the skimming method to price your product. This means you would start selling your product at a high price and then you would lower it. The alternative to this would be penetration pricing, this is where your initial price is low to get the customers to buy your product and then you would higher it t your customers became more regular. Another way you could price you product is Market orientated pricing, this means that you would go out and survey people to see what price they would be willing to pay for the product and then you would use that information to set your price. I could have also chosen cost based pricing, this would have meant that I would set a price for my product depending on how much it cost me to make the product.
I have chosen to use competition based pricing. I have chosen this because the competition I am up against such as McDonalds is a well-established fast food business and in order for my business to get any customers I am going to have to have sell my products for less than the competition.
Place
The place is the where you are going to sell your product. For my fast food business I had several choices of where I could sell the product. These were my choices: High Street, Highwoods, St. Johns, Milend, West Bergholt, Horksley and Braiswick. From these choices I have decided to put my new restaurant in Milend because11 out of 20 people said they would want the restaurant bar to open in Milend, this could be because there is not a fast food restaurant in that area this means that if I did put the restaurant here I should get more customers and that means more profit.
Promotion
Promotion is the communication between the business and the customer it tells the customer about the businesses product. It makes the customer aware that the product is for sale and how it will serve the customers needs.
For my fast food business I had several ways I could use promotion these were; Media advertising such as television, radio, cinema, newspapers etc, or I could use an advertising agency. I could use a direct approach by sending out leaflets or flyers. I could also use sales promotions such as money off, value offers like 3 for the price of 2 or competitions and free gifts.
I have decided to use television advertising. I have decided to use Flyers and Posters because as you can see, from the survey I carried out, 12 out of 20 people said that in adverts, they like to see bright, bold colours, persuading text, celebrity endorsements, statistics and originality; In a Flyer/Poster, I can use all of these methods whereas in other mediums, you sometimes can’t e.g. you cant use colours or images in a radio advert.
