WE ARE THE FOOD LOVERS!

Sunday, 13 March 2016

GROUP EVALUATION ABOUT THE STALLS

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 dumplings 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. 

















References:

Investopedia.com (2016). Brick And Mortar. Retrieved from http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/brickandmortar.asp

Study.com (2016). Brick-And-Mortar Store: Definition & Marketing Strategies. Retrieved from http://study.com/academy/lesson/brick-and-mortar-store-definition-marketing-strategies-quiz.html


Reyhle, N. (2014, June 27). 5 Advantages of Brick & Mortar Over E-Commerce. Retrieved from https://retailminded.com/brick-mortar-over-ecommerce/


eMarketer.com (2015, March 2). Here's Why Purchasers Still Prefer Brick-and-Mortar. Retrieved from http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Heres-Why-Purchasers-Still-Prefer-Brick-and-Mortar/1012128


pwc.com (2015, February). Total Retail 2015: Retailers and the Age of Disruption. Retrieved from https://www.pwc.com/sg/en/publications/assets/total-retail-2015.pdf

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

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