Assignment 25A
Existing Market
The customers of my market are primarily middle-aged, middle-class suburban families that live in a location where grocery shopping and homemade meals are valued. I specifically targeted working parents with more than two children because these are the busiest customers.
The three customers I interviewed all had concerns for one main thing: Drive-thru time and complexity of orders. This too was an issue I thought of at the very beginning of my venture, and it still is not an answer I have perfectly smoothed out. However, hypothetically, advanced technological machinery would be required in this operation to ensure the smooth-sailing of it. When I told my interviewees I wanted to ensure that customer service and sufficient staffing was prioritized. While they all agreed on this and mentioned this would help resolve the issue of drive thru times, one interviewee suggested that robots take place of the staff. This makes a lot more sense than my idea for several reasons. Automated robots are a lot faster an more efficient than humans. Plus, it would lower costs of having to hire so much staff to ensure a convenient experience. While robots cannot replace humans in the customer service realm, they can replace them in the actual, physical aspect of having to search for food on the spot.
New Market
Oppose to the members of my existing market, the new market customers include individuals with plenty of free time in their hands, as well as local food market advocates. I chose this specific group because I believe they would be oppose to the idea of a large corporate grocery change managing produce and facilitating its sale through drive-thru operations.
I was right to believe these two kinds of individuals would oppose my idea. I interviewed an older gentleman who lives alone and does not have a job because he is living off of his retirement funds, giving him plenty of time to partake in chores and daily hobbies. When I brought up my idea, he laughed an said America was getting lazier as technology advanced. I responded by telling him this could give people more time to enjoy their days with their family instead of chores, but he disagreed. I also then visited our local food market and spoke to a young lady with fresh produce on her table. I told her about my idea and she frowned at the thought of a large venture as mine taking all the business from small fresh produce market tents like hers. She then proceeded to give me a wonderful idea. She told me that my corporation should buy its fresh produce for local farms and support the local community. This, in theory, would be an ideal situation. However, buying locally might incur more costs than buying in bulk elsewhere.
Hey Gaby. I think that the people you interviewed gave you some really good insight that you can implement to your business idea. Adding robots to the stocking rooms would be a great idea. However, I do think you still need people working the drive-thru and the customer service aspects. Also, I could see how people such as the older man and the woman that sells locally grown fruits and vegetables. However there are a lot of people that would benefit from this greatly.
ReplyDelete