Marketing Plan and SWOT for “Eastcoast” Supermarket
Introduction to the Business
Despite being associated with high levels of poverty in the past, Guyana’s economy is now one of the fastest rising economies due to the recent discovery of oil in the country. Recent research has classified Guyana among the countries with the fastest-growing economies in the world (Klatman et al., 2017). As such, the economy has provided a perfect environment for a multitude of new business investments and has attracted both internal and external investors. One of the industries that have seen an increase in investment opportunities is the retail industry. The argument for the increasing opportunities in the Guyana retail industry is also due to the fact that consumers in the country have been increasingly demanding for healthy foods and have expressed a strong willingness to pay for them (Constantine, 2016). This is due to the low cost of living in the country, as well as the rise in the minimum wage that has made more people able to purchase products. People’s demand for basic household products has generally increased. The rural areas of Guyana are especially best suited for investing in retail as there are no other retail outlets around the region and, therefore, reduced competition for the market. The nature of the Guyana industry, therefore, creates a golden opportunity for investment in the retail industry sector, with a primary focus on supermarkets. As such, the article will present a marketing plan and SWOT analysis for a Supermarket that will be situated along the coastal plains of Guyana, South America.
Business Products and Mission Statement
The name of the business will be Eastcoast supermarket and will be based in the coastal plains of Guyana, which will be its only outlet in the region. In a bid to grab the rising market opportunity in the retail sector, the supermarket will deal with the provision of a wide range of household products that are currently in high demand. Major products that will be provided b the supermarket will include home and personal care items such as detergents and utensils. Different types of foods will also be provided in the supermarket, such as groceries, ready to eat foods and processed foods. Different types of drinks, as well as clothing and electronics, will also be sold in the supermarket. To address current consumer trends, the supermarket will also have an internal bakery for making different types of foods and as well as a café where customers who want to enjoy their meals in the supermarket will be served. The business will be viable as there are no major supermarkets in the surrounding areas and, therefore, limited competition for the large market. The products will also be viable as they have been particularly selected to satisfy the needs of the consumers in the area. The mission statement of the supermarket will be “To satisfy customers with a unique shopping experience by providing a variety of quality products and services based on the commitment of our employees and the culture and traditions of our customers.”
Objectives
The immediate objective of the Eastcoast supermarket is to improve the buying experience of the people in the area and make it effective. It looks to achieve this by focusing on the people and consolidating a model of proximity and closeness with multiple channel strategies (Ben-Oz & Greve, 2012). Another objective of the supermarket is to make a successful entry in the market and succeed in its market penetration in the long run. The establishment of the supermarket will be highly centered on building a strong name through establishing and nurturing strong relations with the consumers. This objective is going to be the basis for the supermarket’s effective pursuit of its long term objectives. Another objective of the Eastcoast supermarket will be to assemble a team of talented and dedicated employees who will work to positively contribute towards the success of the supermarket by helping it attain its long term goals. The business will also aim to provide a range of quality products that will effectively meet the needs of the consumers, with pricing suitable for all the consumers.
Long term objectives of the supermarket will be to grow and expand the business in all areas of its operation. This growth is an essential indicator of the success of the operations of the business, especially in the case of an increase in competition (Bower & Paine, 2017). The long-term objectives of the supermarket will, therefore, be to attain sustainable growth by opening other outlets in the neighboring regions as well as make agreements and partnerships with other retailers and franchises in the area. To bolster its expansion objective, the business looks to launch a delivery system for clients who buy bulky products like big electronics. The business also looks to introduce an online platform where clients will be able to explore the full range of products offered in the supermarket together with their prices. The online platform will also enable clients to give their views and opinions as well as compliments and complaints.
Another long-term objective of the supermarket is to achieve maximum financial growth and maximize profitability. This will be achieved through price leadership and effective cost management. By achieving financial success, the business will be able to achieve growth and expansion in the long-run (Bower & Pine, 2017). Needless to say, it is the overall objective of Eastcoast supermarket to attain sustainability through the improved quality of products and services offered. Paying attention to the preferences of the customers as well as their opinions will also help the supermarket retain its consumers hence achieving its long term objectives. Pursing the short-term and long-term objectives will enable the firm to succeed in maintaining a high level of competitiveness in the market.
Environmental Scan
Guyana has a largely traditional economic environment whereby the majority of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture (Hilson & Laing, 2017). This makes the economic environment conducive for a supermarket given that few people are engaged in the retail industry. This, coupled up with the growing economy due to the recent discovery of oil, makes the place for investment. However, the business environment is difficult, with information often unavailable and unreliable.
In modern times, the use of technology is a significant boost to the success of any business in any place in the world, Guyana included. A majority of the population, especially the youth, are conversant with the use of technology. The business should, therefore, adopt the appropriate technologies so as to increase its competitiveness through increased efficiency and customer satisfaction (Westerman et al., 2014). The supermarket may, for instance, introduce an online platform where consumers can view the goods and services offered and give reviews and recommendations.
Social-cultural forces play a crucial role in determining the extent to which a business’ products or services are perceived by the targeted consumers (Gagliardi, 2015). One of the major social-cultural factors that could affect the success of the business is the prevalent rates of crimes that bring the risk of property damage for the business. Also, it is crucial for the business to understand the beliefs of the people before introducing certain products.
Guyana has a favorable regulatory environment for all legal business investments. There are no discriminatory restrictions for domestic and foreign investors, and the regulatory framework allows for people to invest in any lawful field of economic activity where the private investments are guaranteed by the government. In addition to fewer restrictions, Guyana offers investors a range of incentives for new investments, the majority of which are in the form of tax incentives.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
The biggest strength of the supermarket is investing in an area with limited competition from other major supermarkets. This will give it a chance to establish market dominance by gaining a large share of the market before other competitors enter the market. As the only supermarket serving approximately 500 residents, the business will make a lot of sales, therefore, increasing its profit margins. The provision of a variety of better quality household products as well as quality foods will give the supermarket an upper hand and advantage to dominate the market over other retailers due to the increasing consumer demand for good quality products by the consumers (Wang, 2014). The supermarket also has the potential to build a national brand in Guyana, being among the first supermarkets to penetrate its rural markets. The strength of the supermarket is its low pricing strategy on its goods and services, which will enable it to attract more consumers for its products. This will lead to an increase in sales volumes helping the business generate revenues.
Weaknesses
The major weakness of the Eastcoast supermarket is limited brand awareness compared to other retailers in the region. While there may be no major supermarkets in the region, there are other retailers and small supermarket that are more established in the market and which have already developed more brand awareness than the supermarket. Being a new business, the supermarket may face substantial financial constraints, which may limit it to achieving its full potential, for instance, limit its ability to expand its market share in Guyana. Financial constraints may make it hard for the business to cover its costs hence lowering its profitability (Hovakimian, 2011). Since the business will source most of its employees locally, securing employees with commitment as well as skills may be limited in the region.
Opportunities
Eastcoast supermarket has various opportunities that it can utilize to achieve success in the market. First, the business will serve a very big market without competitors. This will give it a chance to increase its sales revenue as the business will operate as a monopoly without competition in that particular market. There is also a rising demand for products in the region due to the growing economy and the increased demand for products by the consumers due to improved costs of living. There are dozens of other areas in Guyana which lack a major supermarket. The business may also make use of this opportunity to venture into these unexploited markets in the region. The presence of other small retailers provides the opportunity for the supermarket to grow and expand its operations from acquisitions.
Threats
The small scale retailers already in the market may be a threat of competition in the market. While there are no other supermarkets in the region, these retailers have a first-mover advantage proving to maintain a big percentage of the market share. High levels of regulations by the Guyana government may also plague the supermarket. This may be due to such factors as challenges in obtaining the licenses required to operate the business. The business may also be threatened by the unpredictability of the market and economic forces, which may adversely affect demand for their products.
Word of Mouth Marketing and Viral Marketing
Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) is an activity taken by an organization that winds up spurring individuals to discuss their products, administrations, or brand precipitously. It is likewise an activity taken by the mouth or individual that suggests your item since the person in question is risking their credibility or social money (Maisam&Mahsa, 2016). The development of online presence has conceivably open doors for new types of showcasing correspondences. Therefore, numerous organizations are progressively giving more consideration to use these innovative techniques advancing their goods and brands. One of these showcasing devices is viral advertising, which is additionally named as electronic word of mouth (WOM).
The procedure is like the spreading of infection from individual to individual. Geoff Mills characterizes viral advertising as “any showcasing system that empowers everybody who gets the limited time message to give that message to other people – along these lines making the potential for exponential development of the message’s compass and adequacy.” However, this informal electronic exchange can likewise make contrary recognitions around brands, items, or administrations (Chae et al., 2017). The motivation behind this task is to clarify the advantages and disadvantages of viral promoting as far as a business among organizations and buyers.
Benefits of Using Digital Marketing to Create Awareness
Today in our general public and the universe of business, we experience a wide range of classes of promoting to convince purchasers toward specific items or administrations. One of the most known and utilized kinds of promoting organizations is Digital Marketing. Since the web has a worldwide reach, your image will be seen by a bigger crowd than your business group or physical store can address every day or week after week premise. With higher quantities of individuals having the option to get to your image, attention to your items or administrations will be higher than if you were utilizing conventional techniques for expanding brand mindfulness.
The occasions a brand gets seen is straightforwardly identified with brand acknowledgment. Being available over numerous digital channels fits higher brand acknowledgment. The more grounded the brand acknowledgment, the more noteworthy the chance to be the picked brand by potential clients. Eventually, all brand tacticians seek to make top-of-mind brands. Customers are bound to pick brands that they perceive. Your brands’ essence in the digital space, permits you to sustain your potential purchasers from being in the brand mindfulness stage to entering the thought stage, where they become instructed about your items and administrations (Chaffey & Smith, 2017). When they have chosen to pick your item or administration over your rivals, they become purchasers.
Furthermore, in case you are ticking all the crates in overwhelming them in each stage (mindfulness, thought, and choice stages), your buyers are well on the way to become brand diplomats. While considering the client venture, promoting offices think about numerous computerized showcasing components. Digital marketing arranging will incorporate components of email showcasing, social media, versatile advertising, content advertising, and search engine optimization (SEO). A reliable brand is an effectively unmistakable one, has been around for quite a while, has a dedicated client base, and conveys on its guarantees. At the point when a business is seen as a conspicuous, all around presumed brand, the business’ validity increments both inside its industry, just as among its clients (Chaffey & Smith, 2017). As validity and trust fabricate, so does devotion and network. The side project is that informal promoting increments, thus also ease of procurement. In the advanced space, this implies an expansion in web traffic, commitment with online journals and web-based life, and possibly higher paces of media intrigue as well.
Potential Drawbacks to Digital Marketing
The whole model of Digital Marketing depends on the web. Notwithstanding, only one out of every odd spot of this world is associated with the web offices. In this way, these regions will consistently remain to keep away from the attention to your item on the off chance that you picked Digital promoting for publicizing (Patrutiu-Baltes, 2016). Your techniques can be replicated whenever. The Internet is an immense space. Furthermore, in this colossal space, many individuals are perusing. Regularly somebody can without much of a stretch track and duplicate your whole plan of action from you. Moreover, despise battles are the most exceedingly terrible thing that can happen to your business. On the off chance that once the client begins loathing your image by some impact, at that point, there is no returning. Consequently, you generally need to keep up individuals’ dependability towards your image or item.
Target Market Selection
The main consumers or the immediate beneficiaries of the positioning of the Eastcoast Supermarket will be the residents of the Guyana region. Given the economic orientation of the area, many retailers tend to shy away from setting up shop in the region. Seeing the potential untapped market in Guyana, Eastcoast Supermarket’s main aim will be exploiting the rich possibility of creating a dedicated and consistent consumer base. The positioning of the area is perfect with the promise of expansion due to the aesthetic value of the nearby coastal area. The rural positioning of Guyana means that customers often are disadvantaged when they need to go to other towns to get what they need.
The main consumer will undoubtedly be farmers and their rural counterparts. With this in mind, Eastcoast Supermarket aims at canvassing the immediate needs or goods that garner a higher demand in the area and consequently avail the products. The focus on-demand gives the supermarket a market penetration advantage, thus allowing the slow introduction of non-contemporary products to their inventory, increasing variety, and diversity in products. The projected boost in the economy as per the discovery of oil means higher spending rates ensuring steady but sure growth in the supermarket. The introduction of a new supermarket is sure to switch the consumer mindset with most people getting assimilated in retail shopping instead of small scale purchasing. Rural areas are proven to have a higher psychological approval rate for retail businesses due to their unique product ranges.
The customers will seek essentials at first. Thus, we will focus on the high demand commodities that are preferred in the area. We will then measure the rate of product usage to determine the sourcing and inventory building of the supermarket. We project an increase in consumers to around 20% monthly.
Product
Eastcoast Supermarket will give a wide scope of products that include food, apparel, tools, and money related services, and so on. The ever-extending items range will take into consideration every conceivable requirement of its consumers and will consequently dive into the online marketing segment as well. In each classification similarly, Eastcoast Supermarket will give a wide variety of choices from the brand, regional produce, universal foods, and different choices that may not leave the consumers lacking with retrospect to choice (Wu & Li, 2018). We will ensure that during the setup of the supermarket we get people talking about it by word of mouth to stir up excitement and anticipation
Price
Eastcoast Supermarket will endeavor to maintain low conceivable prices without diminishing the state of its products or self-sabotaging the venture. To successfully offer favorable price circumstances to customers and maintain upbeat, Eastcoast will utilize various probabilities that will include the economies of scale the company is comfortable with. We will focus on advertising price slashes on social medial and online platforms through virtual marketing and also support word of mouth movements in the market (Houghtaling et al., 2019). Eastcoast Supermarket’s low pricing strategy is the approach that will prescribe it to potential customers, making it workable for Eastcoast Supermarket to achieve all goals and become the leading retail store chain in Guyana, leaving every single old brand like behind.
The change will prompt the Eastcoast Supermarket to conduct frequent market updates, which are highly beneficial in the decision-making process when developing the business. The research helps to gain an understanding of the preference of the target market and clientele — proper research results in the incorporation of the most sought after choices in the market. This method ensures price balance from initial pricing to returns from the sales for the companies. It also helps deal with fluctuating prices during the seasonal sale cycles and unpredictable weather patterns, which constraints the businesses. The companies optimize client spending when demand is high. These are some of the success factors in the industry.
Place
Eastcoast Supermarket will get headquartered in Guyana, South America. Eastcoast will get spread far and wide at the beachfront locales in Guyana. It will utilize two basic ways of conveyance for the company’s products and services – on the online and offline. Eastcoast’s offline presence will have stores of various types – Eastcoast Express, Eastcoast Extra, Eastcoast Metro, Eastcoast Compact, EastcoastHomeplus, and Eastcoast Superstore. Eastcoast Supermarket’s investigations show that all clients are not happy with huge stores, nor is it conceivable to set up such a significant number of them. Along these lines, it utilizes littler stores for simpler availability (Jindal et al., 2020). The supermarket’s social media Eastcoast Direct will include the official site www.eastcoast.com which will get spread through word of mouth marketing.
Promotion
Eastcoast’s greatest preferred market approach is reduced costs. This strategy separates it from other market chains, and the supermarket will use it to improve its brand presentation to customers. Eastcoast significant target will consistently be to improve its brand by reducing costs and being consistent with affirmations it makes while amplifying the supermarket’s benefit (Datta et al., 2017). Most importantly, we will focus our marketing on word of mouth marketing, a showcasing system that empowers everybody who gets a limited time message to give that message to other people. Eastcoast Supermarket will similarly give significant alluring proposals to its customers that will last through the year. It will be very simple for any customer walking through the paths of Eastcoast supermarket to find offers like ‘get one get one free,’ and ‘deep discounted’ through word of mouth advertising. Eastcoast will aim to influence clients to purchase increasingly, while similarly feeling like they have spared to such an extent.
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