- Do you know of any special offers on Poppets?
- What kind of special offer would attract you to buy Poppers?
- Have you ever seen any adverts for Poppets?
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Do the adverts influence you?
- How do you rate Poppets to other confectionary?
History Of Paynes
Paynes was first incorporated on 17th April 1896. Their initial products were mostly blends of tea and coffee, managing to continue making a profit. Their market share increased in 1905 when the production of cocoa increased dramatically.
By 1910, Paynes had progressed from producing cocoa-drinks onto making chocolates. They quickly established a reputation as a maker of high-quality chocolates and sweets. They built on this reputation by sourcing rare items, like Brazil nuts, and making them into tasty goods.
The company was now renowned as a maker of fine confectionary. Their next plan was to start making more exciting flavours of chocolate.
In 1937, Poppets were launched. The range of Poppets was quickly enlarged to many other flavours and variants. The Poppets brand was a very popular product, and remains highly popular to this day.
Paynes have never forgotten about their reputation as a maker of fine confectionary, and hold up that reputation.
In June 1998, Paynes were bought by Northern Foods, a much larger company. Because of this new ownership, their company could easily have lost most of it’s market share or gained a much larger one. If Northern Foods had decided to cut Payne’s funding, the company would lose its share of the market. If they increased it, Payne’s would have the opportunity to expand into other market segments.
Mars: 33p
Revels: 32p
Bounty: 33p
Poppets: 31p
As you can see, Poppets are priced to undercut their competitors. If they had used a different type of pricing, they might have ended up with an uncompetitive price. Because they used competition-based pricing instead, they got a highly competitive price that probably increased their sales.
Place is where the product is sold, e.g. a supermarket, a corner shop, a service station or any other kind of shop. During my research I found Poppets being sold at all of the nearby supermarkets, as well as the nearby Swavesey service station.
This diagram shows how Poppets are distributed:
The traditional Manufacturer → Wholesaler → Shop is used. This works well in most applications, although it can be harder for the Manufacturer (in this case, Paynes) to gain a sizable profit – this is because the Wholesaler also needs to add their margin. If the manufacturer sells its product directly to the Shops, the end product would be cheaper to the shops. The manufacturer can then reduce its price if the company wants to increase the popularity of its product. However, they could take advantage of the fact that there isn’t a wholesaler, and charge the shops wholesaler prices.
It could be difficult for the manufacturer to distribute it’s product to the shops, and the added strain to the manufacturer of having to supply many different shops instead of just a few wholesalers would mean higher costs. I predict that if Paynes decided to bypass the wholesalers – cut out the middleman – they could easily make much more money without changing their product. They would have to be prepared for the extra strain, however.
I think that working the system this way, with no wholesaler, is probably not a good idea for a less-popular product such as Poppets. I think this because the shops – who would have bought Poppets from the wholesaler – would just not stock the product instead. If it was a more popular and better-known product, such as Mars or Skittles, the shops would be happy to go out of their way and go to the manufacturer to get the product. After all, the shop could lose the business of the customer if they don’t stock the customer’s favourite kind of snack – and a lost customer is lost profit.
As you can see, Poppets are available at almost any store. This is a good way of developing a ‘fan base’ – a group of people who like the product and will continue to buy it. If the Puppets are sold in the same place as other similar products, the lower price of Poppets can easily be a deciding factor in whether a possible customer either buys their product, or a competitor – e.g. a Mars bar.
