Hi everyone, I’d like to go back to chapter and talk about the strength and weakness of contact methods.
To find the responses from a target market, the approaches are through 1)Mail 2)Telephone 3)Personal and 4)Online.
Last Sunday when I was about to leave Hyperstar, I saw a green stall written ‘Japanese Sushi’ on top. The waiter served us free sushi and he talked about the location of the SHUN restaurant (which is in Gulberg).He asked me about the taste, whether the fish was fresh.It was definitely authentic good Japanese food but when I was looking at the prices I was shocked.Two pieces of the tiny sushi is sold at more than Rs300 and a plate like this is more than Rs1200. Usually in Taiwan two pieces of sushi is sold not more than Rs100. The price is triple…
‘So do you like our food?’the waiter asked.‘Yes I do’, I answered honestly.‘Please kindly visit our restaurant! It opens from 12-3:30PM and then 6-11PM’I spoke in a polite voice ‘Okay, thank you.’ After filling some contact information, then I walked away.
Let’s look at the modified chart on page 99
Personal Approach
According to text
According to me
Flexibility
Excellent
Excellent. The waiter actually only served people who already know what sushi is.
Quantity of the data that can be collected
Excellent
Fair.There were only one stall with two waiters, and they said they were only there for the weekend.
Control of interviewer effects
Poor
-
Control of Sample
Good
Excellent. Mot people in hyperstar are decent people I suppose.
Speed of data collection
Good
Fair. We were there only for 5 minutes, but I suppose they have been waiting for interested people.
Response rate
Good
Excellent. I was smiling at the sushi all the time.
Cost
Poor
Poor.
Class if you worry about where to spend your money then I think this restaurant is definitely a good place to visit.
A couple days back I was shopping with my younger brother Eddie in Macro. There we were standing, considering if we should buy the big box of ‘Poppers’, Cadbury Dairy Milk’s new product. There are 24 bars in the box at the price of Rs 225. We were tempted to buy the product as it was quite appealing, however the problem was either of us is a fan of chocolate. So I said, ‘You can buy a box and sell it to your friends at Rs.10 each.’ Without thinking my little brother said, ‘Why Rs10? I can sell it for Rs15.’ Alright if I started to lecture him on the markup pricing concept, this is what I could have said: Suppose you want to make 20% profit on the sales, then here is the calculation for you. Unit Cost/ (1-Desired Return on Sales)= 9.375/(1-0.2)=Rs 11.7 Each chocolate bar will now be sold at Rs 11.7
Or I can tell him to be a nice friend to people, ‘Think about how much is your target profit and we can work on the breakeven price’. Suppose Eddie says ‘Ok I want to make Rs200 profit on this’ Break-even Price= (Cost+Target Proft)/ Quantities=(225+200)/24=Rs17.7 Here we have the chocolate bar at Rs 17.7.
All I want to say is that I have heard people commenting on marketing people are not good with numbers. But what I believe is that, maybe people are like Eddie, who doesn’t know the fancy formula to calculate the numbers, yet customers have a ruler in mind to feel what is reasonable.
End of the story is that I simply said ‘Sure why not, Rs 15 sounds good to me!’ Picture taken from:http://eatntravel.pk/2010/01/19/cadbury-dairy-milk-poppers/
Hi class, I'd like to share a link of video here. This genius from MIT has invented something incredibly surprising, and the reason I want you to see it is that as Mr.Ahmad Shuja(hope I am spelling the name correctly) has quoted from Henry Ford 'When I ask custmers what they want, they tell me faster horses!' It is so imprtant to think for your customers what they really need isn't it :P
I bet this technology will definitely sells well, but the guy is s nice that he is actually thinking about giving it for free :D
if you don't see the link, please go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC3H3JOtvSs
p.s it gets really cool after 6:27, so be patient and watch it =)
Hey it's Cindy here. Finally this is my first post but honestly I have been a faithful reader to this blog. It's just that somehow I was unable to blog. This is something I wrote before the Winter Break.
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Let’s look at the big red seven on page 343 in our marketing book.What is ‘7-eleven’?According to the text, it is an example of convenience store, and I am going to share my experience of it and hopefully it gives you some picture in head.And hopefully some of you get really successful one day and bring 7-Eleven chain into Pakistan, because I miss it so much.
A.What does it sell?
Its aim is to satisfy whatever a resident might need in 5 minutes walking distance (otherwise it is not that convenient is it?)Any regular size has a mini bookshop with about 60 options of novels, books, comic books, magazine, maps, newspaper, CD, toys, and stationary.You can find about 20 types of bread, 10 types of sandwich or burgers.Hotdogs, spaghetti, macaroni, pizza, salads, tea eggs, fried or steamed dumplings with different flavors, lunch boxes and steamed buns etc.There are about 70 types of drink you can choose from, 20 types of ice cream. You can also find face wash, toothbrush, shower gel, socks…..and I guess I don’t need to talk about cookies, candies and all that, do I?
I often get very confused about what to eat so I usually go for whatever is on promotion, and I think 7-Eleven is a good place to learn about a company’s marketing strategy.
Last time when I visited it, it started to sell freshly brewed coffee and now it works with shipping company like TCS here and online shopping sites like eBay and online bookshops. So basically you can order something you want online, and select the nearest 7-Eleven. Later you’ll pay and collect the goods from 7-Eleven. Don’t ask me why Taiwanese people want to purchase things online, but if you are interested, leave a comment. You can also go there for concert tickets booking, government’s gas bill/ fine bill payment, DVD renting, ATM machine, fax and copy machine.
B.Why does it work?
First of all, 7-Eleven is everywhere and you can literally find 7-eleven shop every corner in a city! I tried to find a figure to show you how intense it is.
1)There are 4818 shops in Taiwan (35980 km2) so it means, in the same scale there should be 237 shops in Lahore(1,772 km2)! I am not sure how many Gourmet bakery shops we have in Lahore, but I am guessing it’s about 50 shops?
2)Or another way to make the estimation is there is one shop for average 4773 people (Population of Taiwan: 23 million) ! In that case there should be 2095 shops in Lahore! (Lahore population: 10 million), or 37,712 shops in Pakistan (Population of Pakistan: 180million) ! Isn’t that crazy? But it is what it is like in Taiwan, and please don’t forget 7-Eleven, even though it is the mainstream in Taiwan, still has 4 other similar convenience store chains competing with it!
C. What is the difference?
What differentiates 7-Eleven is that it is open 24 Hours a day unlike departments store, supermarket or super store.The definition given by the text is ‘A small store, located near a residential area, that is open long hours seven days a week and carries a limited line of high turnover convenience goods.’I cannot recall how many times when all the shops were closed because of the typhoon, we bought our lunches and dinners from 7-Eleven stores.There we shop without having the idea ‘oh I need to go shopping.’You simply just walk in, get confused by all the colorful products and the advertisement ‘Oh I like this, let me take one.’Without realizing, you have already paid the money and left, because it is too convenient.
If you are interested to find out more, you can go to following links of 7-Eleven:
The link for the photos:
1. http://www.7-eleven.com 2&4 .
http://tw.image.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Ftw.image.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3D7-eleven%2B%25E5%258F%25B0%25E5%258C%2597%26js%3D1%26b%3D19%26ni%3D18%26ei%3Dutf-8%26y%3D%25E6%2590%259C%25E5%25B0%258B%26pstart%3D1%26fr%3Dyfp&w=500&h=375&imgurl=static.flickr.com%2F3026%2F3002428579_1932e111c1.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2Fhey-gem%2F3002428579%2F&size=223k&name=interiors+5&p=7-eleven+%E5%8F%B0%E5%8C%97&oid=be540263dbb72402&fr2=&fusr=hey-gem&no=20&tt=256&b=19&ni=18&sigr=11g7je2i7&sigi=11g783g1q&sigb=14a4b15hu&type=JPG>
3.http://p7.p.pixnet.net/albums/userpics/7/5/587175/1217153961.jpg
