GROUP EVALUATION ABOUT THE STALLS
Why choosing the stall?
The purpose we choose these 2 places may have several
reason. First of all, they are special enough compare with others which they provide
different country food which is Taiwanese and Japanese culture. So we can enjoy
Japanese and Taiwanese food in Malaysia without going oversea.
Furthermore, the quality of the food that provided
by them, no matter in taste, look, and the smell can reach the perfect level.
Most important issues are the service that provided by them are good enough.
For an example, every time going purchase the dumpling from the hawker, she
always using her smile to serve us, makes us feel that there are so warm just
like mother and son. On the other hand, the owner of the Alley John like to
chit chat or joking with the customer, the feel just like a best friend, give
us a joyful environment when having a
lunch or dinner.
Beside that the food they sell is affordable for the
students. So the students like to enjoy their lunch or dinner at there.
Lastly, their stories make us feel interesting
enough to make us choose them as our topic. For an example, why the Taiwanese
dumpling stall call as ‘lao ban de niang’, that is because she is the only
financial sources for her family. She had to take care of her 2 daughters alone
by giving them a better life. Her daughter just like her boss, she had to find
money to take care of them.
On the other hand, why the Alley John owner will
open a Japanese food shop in Malaysia due to he had married with a Japanese
wife. He wants to make her wife feel happy and warm by open a Japanese style
shop for her so that she can enjoy the Japanese feeling although in the foreign
country.
Classification
of E-Commerce
The major types of e- commerce transaction for our
group selection are based on business-to-consumer (B2C). Business-to-Consumer
(B2C) of e-commerce is a concept includes the retail transaction of products
and service from business to individual shoppers. It also can call as e-retailing
when the transaction is use by online between a seller and customer.
For Taiwanese Dumpling, “老板的娘”
(means mom of seller) will buy the ingredients from the markets and prepare the
importance material as well to start her business day. The concept of B2C using
by the mom of seller is doing the transaction of food business with her
customers at her stall as offline business. She will face-to-face interact with
her customer as friendly and humor style and give kindly service for customers.
For example, she asks a customer which is a person of dislike vinegar sauce but
more prefer on Kimchi sauce, so she gave the customer Kimchi sauce as more as
she wants, let the customer enjoys her day. Due the taste of Taiwan Dumpling is
too delicious, the amount of customer was increased and since the number of customers
queue more than before she started the business. Although she has a lot of
customer need to serve, but she still remains patient to cook the dumpling and
friendly service for her customers on every business days. So, the reason for
the mom of seller doing her business successfully by this B2C concept is because
she has a good attitude interact with her customers and friendly maintain the
relationship with customers as well in her business style.
For Alley Johns café, the owner will order the
materials and prepare the ingredient as well to start his business day. For
example, he will order the fruits like strawberries from Cameron Highland and
made sure the quality of fruits still remain freshly. The concept of B2C that
also use by the owner named John in doing a transaction of food business and
services with his customers at his own café. Although he has opened a Facebook
account by café name (Alley Johns) to interact with his loyalty customer and
introduce the main popular foods, but he didn’t do the online transaction as
based on offline business. The owner more focuses on product service for the
customers on his business strategy. For example, he provided own product cover
to benefit customer easily handed their crepes. Besides, the owner also made a
kindly notice board to teach and help customers how to remove the cover and
taste the crepes more joyful. If the customer has any question about the foods,
the staff services will always friendly give some help and advice for the customer
to know and easily choose their flavour crepes. So, the reason for the owner
using this concept’s B2C successfully in his business is because he is a
creative, friendly and effort person of owner and keep remain good relationship
and interact with the customer to improve his business as well in the
future.
Business
Model
For the business model, we clearly found out that
the stall of “老板的娘” and the shop of Alley
Johns café are categories as brick and mortar. Brick-and-mortar marketing is
directly referred to a business strategy that identified as a business
servicing the customers with interactive ways and within a limited area or
extent of a traditional storefront and the store's products. (Study.com,
2016) Since “老板的娘”
and Alley Johns café are a traditional ‘’street-side’’ business that faces to
face to deals with their customers in their own store, so it is part of brick
and mortar. (Investopedia.com, 2016)
“老板的娘”
and Alley Johns café able to enhance the customer interaction in which both
store owners and employees always communicates with their customers with a
friendly and happy environment. For example, the hawker of “老板的娘”
always keeps her smile in serving her customers and will jokes with her
customers for sometimes. Customers can feel warm, comfortable and memorable
after visited physical store of“老板的娘”and
Alley Johns café that they can’t get this benefit from the web-based
businesses. This establishes trust and loyalty in which customers can
face-to-face meet with friendly store owners. This also brings confident to
customers in which they feel more comfortable to directly pay for the foods at
the physical store of “老板的娘”
and Alley Johns café. (Nicole Reyhle, 2014)
Besides that, “老板的娘”
and Alley Johns café also allow their customers to physically hold or try the
products in the first moment of purchase. For example, customers can directly
smell and taste the delicious Taiwanese dumpling after purchase at the “老板的娘”
rather than wait for a long time if they purchase a package of food online.
Customers can feel the freshness of homemade foods at“老板的娘”
and Alley Johns café that they can’t get this benefit from online buying.
Customers also have the confident and feel safe since they can see and touch
the merchandise from physical store of “老板的娘”
and Alley Johns café.
However, “老板的娘”
and Alley Johns café may have the difficulties to compete with web-based
businesses in the future because web-based businesses are having greater
flexibility with lower operating costs. The web-based businesses provide the
benefits of convenience, cost and time saving to customers will bring challenges
to “老板的娘” and Alley Johns café
in a long term.
In conclusion, “老板的娘”
and Alley Johns café as the physical store and a part of brick and mortar still
having more competitive advantages than web-based businesses and having only
fewer disadvantages. Based on the September 2014 study by
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the frequency of customer brought products
in-store still remain higher than online channels. (pwc.com, 2015) Based on
total retail survey 2015 which sources from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC),
customers still prefer brick and mortar with the top reason of can seeing,
touching and trying on the merchandise pre-purchase and the immediacy of the
in-store buys. (eMarketer.com, 2015)
Basic
approach used in marketing and advertising
Marketing is a management process which goods and
services move from concept to the customer. It includes the 4P’s of marketing
which is price, product, place and promotion. Advertising is an act or practice
of capturing public attention to a product and service especially deliver a message
through newspaper, radio, television and billboard that need a certain payment
amount.
老板的娘
“老板的娘” had used social
media marketing to promote their Taiwanese dumpling. She open a page on social
media and listed all the details that are seeking by customers. It includes
prices, types of products sold, contact details operating hours and location. Word
of mouth is used to promote the Taiwanese dumpling. After a student consumes
the dumpling, they like the taste and start to spread positive word of mouth to
their friends and keep on spreading until they are more customers become loyal
to the Taiwanese dumpling. In addition, 老板的娘
has applied the 4P's of marketing.
The price of the Taiwanese dumpling is very
affordable to all levels of customers. The pricing strategy used for the
Taiwanese dumpling is price bundling. It is a strategy in which takes a set of
products and offers them to customers in a package. For example, 老板的娘
only sell its Taiwanese dumpling in a bundle of five, seven and ten pieces per
box.
The product strategy used for the Taiwanese dumpling
is line extension. Line extension is defined as introducing additional product
variants under the existing brand name. 老板的娘
previously only sell Taiwanese dumpling which the fillings is cabbage but now she
sell leek dumpling as well.
The distribution channel used by老板的娘
is a direct channel. This is because the boss interacts with her customers
without passing through intermediaries. There will be no extra cost implied which
makes the Taiwanese dumpling’s
price level increases.
老板的娘 also provide
promotion when the leek taste dumpling
was introduced. The leek taste dumpling is not so popular among the buyer, so老板的娘
give out for free to customer attached with their packet of purchase. The boss
wanted to promote the product to the customer so that soon the customers will
accept it.
The advertising media used by老板的娘
is social media. It is a very effective ways to advertise its product because
nowadays a lot of people have converted their traditional ways of advertising
into the internet. A lot of people are bounded to the internet world rather
than the real world. They spend more time surfing the internet rather than
spending time on reading the physical newspaper.
Alley
Johns
Alley Johns used social media marketing to promote
their Japanese crepes. The owner of Alley Johns created a Facebook page and
listed off the details such as maps, contact number, operating hours and photos
about the products and its environment. Word of mouth is used by Alley Johns to
promote their crepes as well. The spread of news about the tastiness of the
crepe attracts more and more people to come and purchase the crepes. In
addition, Alley Johns also apply the marketing mix into their business.
In pricing strategy, Alley Johns has applied cost-
based pricing strategy. Cost- based pricing is a strategy in which setting the
price based on the cost. There are two
types of cost- based pricing strategy which is full cost pricing and direct-
cost pricing. Full cost pricing of the price of the product includes fixed,
variable cost and the percentage of markup. Direct- cost pricing involves variable
cost and percentage of markup. Direct- cost pricing is what Alley Johns had
used.
As for product strategy, Alley Johns has applied
line extension strategy. Line extension is defined as introducing additional
product variants under the existing brand name. Alley Johns has modified the
original Japanese crepe and localized the crepe based on Malaysians’ favourite,
the crepes that are sweet and made with local fruits.
In addition, the distribution channel used by Alley
Johns is a direct channel. This is because Alley Johns only sell its products
at its physical store. There are no intermediaries that help the store to
distribute to the consumer. No additional cost is needed to increase the price
level of the crepes.
The promotional strategy used by Alley Johns is
loyalty card program. The loyalty card will be distributed to those who are the
patron of Alley Johns. The red card user will have the privilege to get free
toppings for spending Rm10 for five times in the store and an RM3 discount will
be given to those who spent Rm10 for ten times in the store.
The advertising media used by Alley Johns is social
media. It is a very effective ways to advertise its product because nowadays a
lot of people have converted their traditional ways of advertising into the internet.
A lot of people are bounded to the internet world rather than the real world.
They spend more time surfing the internet rather than spending time on reading
the physical newspaper.
Recommendation
Switch the business from offline to online, the benefits are as below:
1 Connect
with the customers. Using to Facebook or Twitter profile
for create a social networking profile so can business to connect directly with
the customers.
2.
Get
blogging. Use a blog platform such to update
consumer and suppliers with news from the business.
3.
Offer
feedback from customer. Encouraging
and acting on feedback allows business to tailor the product or service to the
customers’ needs..
4.
Respond to
the feedback. Note down feedback from
all social
media accounts. Complaints are your priority, so set up a policy to deal with
them swiftly and efficiently. Use suggestions to generate ideas to improve your
product or service.
5.
Keep an
eye on the competition. Many
sectors have consumer review sites where customers are encouraged to share
their experiences. Scan these regularly to see what customers are saying about
your business and your competitors. If all your rivals seem to have special
offers, it might be worth considering launching one, or you could miss out on
custom.
6.
Note what
your customers want. If similar queries come up
regularly, look at how they can be avoided by changing your processes. If this
is not possible, add an FAQ section to your website to answer regular queries.
7.
Communicate
changes to your employees. Train
staff to use social media, and set out a clear policy for anyone using your
Facebook or Twitter accounts.
8. Saving
Cost. They can doing advertisement through
online so that can saving the media advertisement cost such like advertisement
on newspaper or distributing the flyer.
R.
Lehmann, D., & S. Winer, R. (2005). Product management (4th ed., p.
316,). Singapore: McGraw-Hill.
The
Marketing Mix and th 4 Ps: Understanding How to Position Your Market Offering.
Mindtools.com. Retrieved 12 March 2016, from
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_94.htm
