The purpose of conducting research in the market is to find the right product of service to provide. Therefore carrying out both primary and secondary research will help identify the preferences of the market, this will also help me find out what products are in high demand, and what products are not in demand. This will help me identify the products that I can sell within my organisation. I will also need to identify what products will be in high demand as soon as they are released into the market.
I have chosen to use a questionnaire because I can gain the best possible results from the people that will be purchasing products from my organisation. The questions can be written in a way that is targeted for a certain group of people. People who may be not will to answer a telephone, and speak over the phone. If they decide to complete a questionnaire then they can remain anonymous or they can give their name.However, questionnaires can become very costly as I could be travelling to several different shopping centres to complete all my questionnaires.
And to produce all the questionnaires that will get filled in. This will cost the organisation a lot of money. And will be time consuming. The results I gather from the questionnaire are based on 100 people that I have asked.
These will help me identify the type of products I will have in my organisation. This could also determine how successful the organisation will be in the future.I decided not to use interviews because the people I want to interview may not be confident and willing to participate in an interview, also I do not this it is relevant for my organisation as I think it is a bit to personal, I just need information quickly from the general public, and I do not want to spend a long time on filling in questionnaires. Another method that I could use to find out what to use in my organisation is using telephone interviews.This method is very time consuming and would cost the organisation a lot of money, the answers that you receive will also not be very accurate as people might not be bothered to answer the questions truly as they might have other things to do. Secondary Secondary research is looking into the examining published information, e.
g. Media, government statistics and internet. I will be using secondary research in my market research because information can be easily found and obtained. It is not expensive and can be used and obtained fairly easily.Secondary research also has its drawbacks such as the information obtained is not always relevant to my needs and often not up to date. I can use the internet to get a lot of helpful information, the internet has become a major affect of finding information, it is now referred to as commonly as a library, and the internet has become a place in which all information can be found.
From the internet I can also find out information on my competitors, I can find out the price at which they are selling the products that I am selling, and therefore, I will try to either match or beat these competitors.I can also used the internet to find the best loans that I can achieve for my organisation, for this I will need to search for a loan company which gives us the least amount of interest rates. The information that I gain from the internet can easily be transferred to a word document and then printed if it is needed. There are also a few drawbacks as internet service providers can also be slow at times, this is the only main drawbacks, the advantages outweighs the disadvantages. Competitors are going to be major influence on how successful my organisation is.
The prices that I set are all going to be in comparison to those of my competitors. I will also need to do research on the price that my competitors are charging for a specific product, the reason behind this is because if I am selling the same product at a higher price then one of my competitors then they will most probably go to one of the other companies as they are for one maybe bit more recognised then my organisation and also I will be asking for more money on a product that would do the same job.As I am opening an organisation which has a lot of interest in today's market, a very important part in the success of my organisation is the location in which I open it and the local competitors, these are the main competitors for my organisation because they all sell products in the same market. Now that I have identified who my competitors are I am going to look at the products and service they provide. To find out the information I need I will look for an IPOD NANO 2GB (SILVER). I will look for the price of the product, the delivery course and the after sale service that is provided by the retailer.
After looking at four different organisations I have a rough idea of how my competitors try to persuade customers to purchase their products. They use several different after sale service techniques and provide extra services such as free delivery so that people are tempted to purchase a particular product. Argos and Dixons used the technique of providing an optional 3 years cover plan which is charged at a small price. Whereas Curry's and PC World have provided free delivery to customers who purchase items from their website.The cheapest price for the product I was looking at out of the four websites I looked at, is Dixons, they charged their product at i?? 90. 99.
And they have a very cheap delivery price of only i?? 1. 99 so I think that the price overall is very good, and I will need to consider to review the prices of Dixons the most as they could be one of my main competitors. Marketing Mix Product I am opening an electronics shop, I will look at the different ideas involved with my organization using the results I gained when conducting my market research.I will be selling a variety of the latest products so that I have an advantage over my customers. I have looked at my market research and the main products which I think will invite the most business to my organization is TV's as they are very costly and everyone usually has more than one in their property, DVD players as they are a growing part of the electronic industry, desktop Pc's as everyone is becoming more aware of the benefits that a computer brings. I will also be selling laptop pc's as these are required as well.
I will also be selling a wide variety of mobile phones so I have a complete variety of mobile phones. I will have a wide variety of mp3 players including ipods. I will also make sure I have a wide variety of while goods available in my store for example fridges, fridge freezers, tumble dryers, washing machines Price Price is the recommended retail price which I am going to charge for my product, and there are several different types of pricing strategies, I am going to explain which I am going to use and which I will not be using and why.Whilst considering the pricing strategy I am going to use for my product, I had to consider several factors, I needed to remind myself that the pricing strategy used must reflect the impact the price is going to have on the consumer, and how the pricing strategy used would give me an upper hand over my competitors.
I had several options, and I decided to use two different pricing strategies, which I think will help me in different ways.The first is competitive pricing, the reason I have decided to use this is because the organisation that I am running can set their prices as close as possible to my competitors, and this would be good as I could provide a small addition to the product which would hopefully persuade the customer to purchase the product from my shop. This pricing strategy would also increase the market share I receive. The second pricing strategy I decided to use is cost plus pricing, this is when an organisation purchases a product and then adds a small amount on top known as a "mark up", so that the organisation can make profit.
This will also increase the market share of my product and is also a good advertising method, because if I am advertising a product through a shop window, and a customer notices the comparison between the prices from my product and the price of another organisation, I could persuade the customer to purchase the product local shops. There are several pricing strategies that I decided I didn't want to use because I thought they were either not relevant to my product, or not the type of pricing strategy I had in mind.I decided not to use penetration pricing, penetration pricing is where a business sets a low price in order to enter the market, once sales start to increase they can raise the prices to match competitors, this wouldn't be good as people would come and purchase the product after the initial sale. The other type of pricing strategy I have decided not to use it destroyer pricing, I decided not to use this because I knew it would be a massive risk for a new product which has just been introduced into the market. This pricing strategy involves selling my products at such a low price it put my competitors out of business.
Place This involves the method in which the customer receives the product or service using either direct or indirect channels of distribution. Direct channels of distributions involves supplying the product direct to the consumer, this means that there is no middle man involved. Direct distribution can reduce the costs and also be used to targets customers. There can be a limit on the coverage of the market.
The other method of distribution I could use is indirect distribution this involves a middle man or someone who produces the products and sells it to an organisation for cheap if they buy in bulk.These are then sold to consumers for a small profit. I am going to use indirect channel of distribution which means I will be supplying goods or services using intermediaries which means that I am getting products from a wholesaler and I am selling it to the customer through a shop, I will be a manufacturer. The benefit of this is profit margins would be higher as organisation who is a retailer can purchase products from a manufacturer in bulk at a cheaper price, and then add a certain amount to make a profit.
I am also going to ensure that I keep close to my competitors so that I am aware of the products which they have got which are similar to the ones I will be selling and the cost of these products, so that my price is competitive to my organisation. Dixon's is going to be my main competitor, the reason behind this is from my market research I gathered important information which showed me that Dixon's is the place people generally decide to go to Dixon's to purchase their Mp3 player's. PromotionPromotion is one of the four aspects of marketing. The other three parts of the marketing mix are product management, pricing, and distribution. Promotion involves disseminating information about a product, product line, brand, or company. There are several different types of promotion, and I will need to choose one or two which I think will be the best for my product.
There are several different promotional methods which could be used, some of them are: newspapers (national/local), billboards, buses, magazines,TV and radio, I have decided to use two methods of promotion, the first is to advertising my product in a local newspaper, the reason I have chosen to use this method is because the message will get out to everyone in the local area, this method is better that promoting my product in a national newspaper because it is generally expensive. The money I spend on advertising will be effective as I will get through to the people I need to. This method would be read by the older generation and this might be effective because parents of children would consider purchasing a electronical product for their child.The second method of promotion that I have decided to use is billboards, because they are a good method of promotion as you can choose were you want to put a banner to advertise your product. This method is also effective as if someone is driving past and they don't read all the details of the company, they can go back to the billboard to have another look.
The cost of this would be expensive, but because I need to increase sales and maximise profit this must be done.There were also several methods of promotion I decided not to use, there are several reasons why I decided not to use these methods, and I am going to explain why and what methods I decided not to use. I decided not to use buses because they travel from one end of town to the other, and advertising on buses which are not always in the local area would be costing the organisation a lot of money, and not maximising the amount of general public that view my advertisement. I decided not to use magazines plainly because magazines are sold everywhere, and I need to promote my product mainly in the local area.The same reason applied to the methods of promoting on TV's and radio.
From my market research I gathered that the general public expect an advert for an Mp3 to be placed on the internet, after this the next popular was in newspapers. I will use this information so that I can promote my product in the best possible way. Promotion of my product is very important, I need to know that the general public knows that I am providing a service, and that if I advertise enough, I will increase sales to its maximum capacity. I will need to give a lot of consideration when looking to find the right balance of advertising amongst my product.I will look at several existing promotions which I could find from local news papers and in shop windows, and try to interpret that into a design from my product. I would need to promote the products as much as possible.
This is an example that I have found on the internet from www. pcworld. co. uk.
Although, I will not be using something like this, it shows a good example of how an Mp3 player is being promoted. I could use this as an example and create something similar, although I would need to change several details so the customer knows where the product is being sold.
