Kudler Fine Foods Marketing - Research Paper Example

? Marketing Research Introduction Kudler Fine Foods is a small organization and faces no serious competition as there are no other gourmet stores in their geographical area. Their strength lies in offering 350 different kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables and 250 varieties of cheeses. It is meant for savvy shoppers who search finest wine, and cheeses, No one else in that region can offer such diverse variety of products. Kathy herself directly interacts with the customer and knows very well what customer really needs and offers them promptly. The customer oriented approach has won her many laurels and once the customer enters her store, they keep coming every 7-10 days to purchase more products. Her success lies in offering what customer needs. Growth is a way of life and Kudler too wants to expand suitably selecting right product mix and targeting potential customers. Currently, markets and the demographics of the region are rapidly changing due to movement of the people across the states and nations. Though Kudler offers a great promise as a discerning gourmet store in the California region; nevertheless, it becomes essential for the firm to conduct some essential market research before putting its scarce and valuable resources on the business expansion. Identifying and Defining Marketing Issues In order to expand, Kudler needs to identify places where it can open new gourmet stores. After a setback from Del Mar location, the company is quite conscious of finding the most lucrative locations in California. Del Mar was a small town with not enough population to support its store. Through the market intelligence, the company has already identified some of the promising locations such as San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Palm Springs but before starting its store at any of these locations, the company must ensure through a proper market research that its decision to expand will not backfire. Carlsbad is one such site that shows enormous potential and once store at Carlsbad gets steam, Del Mar store may be gradually phased out. Marketing Research for Finding Potential Locations The company is well aware of the fact that the most specialty gourmet stores are located in the eastern half of the US and they do a roaring business there. In the last few years or so a sizeable population has moved from Philadelphia, New York, and New Jersey to the west coast due to job prospects in technology sector and these populations are well aware about the concept of gourmet stores. In view of the various alternatives, the major issue is to find the most promising locations where residents of the area are aware about the concept and would always be eager to patronize such stores if they find one in their area. Before taking a final plunge, the company needs to conduct a survey in the towns of Palm Springs, Santa Barbara, San Diego, and San Francisco. The survey will involve asking a set of questions through a skillfully prepared questionnaire to the randomly selected but representative target customers to explore the real potential in the area. The questionnaire needs to be designed skillfully so that the real objective of the survey to find the most potential location is fulfilled. This is crucial because once the store is opened making huge investments on infrastructures there is no way out to go back. Marketing Research for Choosing Appropriate Product-Mix Moreover, the company has been thinking to open Asian Specialty Produce Department at San Francisco area to meet the needs of Asian population – especially the fresh herbs, and spices. The idea is to serve a special group of Asian customers who can not only afford the special product offerings but always eager to patronize the store quite often. That simply means that before opening a shop at this area, it would be advisable to do some market research that will decide about the core Asian community group such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean or Indian subcontinent region that the company wants to target at. These Asian groups differ in their taste and choices. Depending upon the market research findings, the store can be segregated in two or more sections, specifically to meet the needs of two distinct Asian communities, if required. The market research will give credence to the decision taken in establishing Asian Specialty Produce Stores offering right product-mix and targeting a correct group of the people. The marketing research exercise will save the company a lot of time and valuable resources as well. Assessing Catering Business through Marketing Research Kudler has been in the business of catering too but this has not been promoted aggressively so far. Overall, the catering business has been a profitable venture but when Kudler decides to enter into it in a large scale, it needs to have a different setup altogether and should be run as a separate profit center. A fresh permanent staffing requirement emerges with the full-fledged catering service business and before Kudler decides to plunge into it with full strength, it is essential to assess the true potential of catering business in terms of value and occupancy in number of days in a year and that can be ascertained only by conducting a proper market research. E-commerce and Marketing Research Currently, Website is the most effective way of marketing research and developing e-commerce by deploying much lesser resources than the other traditional models of campaigning. It is worth exploring the various possibilities on this count. The first and foremost objective of any organization is to increase its revenue. Obviously, increased revenue translates into enhanced profitability. Expanding customer base is the objective that Kudler has been hankering on since long and that is the best way to beat competition. Kathy has been doing all inventory management job single handedly and that leaves a little time to her for more important jobs such as personal customer interaction. She knows that vendor identification and selection is crucial for her organization as she procures some specific ingredients nationally and internationally for her stores. Electronic initiatives can help a lot in this direction and save her a lot of precious time and resources (Schneider, 2004). The Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California states that 78.6 percent of Americans now access internet for their needs (Miller & Washington, 2007). This is huge and it is an indication of the changing business environment that is likely to take shape in the coming years. In this perspective, in order to grab a reasonable market share, it has been essential for any firm to offer e-commerce initiatives to the customers. Kudler is located in and around the Silicon Valley area targeting the most discerning, young and wealthy technology-savvy consumers. In that sense, it is quite likely that a large portion of the Kudler's business will be generated through e-commerce in coming years and thus, website can become a veritable tool for e-commerce, marketing campaigns and marketing research activities. References Kerin, R.A., Hartley, S.W., Berkowitz, E.N., Rudelius, W. (2006). Marketing. University of Phoenix. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies. “Kudler Fine Foods” from https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/secure/aapd/CIST/VOP/Business/Kudler/KudlerHome002.htm Miller, R.K.; Washington, K.D. (2007). The 2007 e-Commerce Market Research Handbook. Retrieved November 24, 2012 from http://www.fontbonne.edu/upload/2007EcommerceMarketHandbook.pdf Schneider, G., P., (2004), Electronic Commerce: The second wave, Thomson Course Technology, Fifth Edition. Read More