Modern Marketing Planning Cases and Comments

Author: Liang Hong, Yan Liang, Liu Shanhua / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-01-01
Features: "The European-style Kitchen" planning team is always inspired when they see, online, the glass displays in foreign fast-food restaurants featuring plates and bowls of fine ham, cold meats, liver paté, meat sauce, smoked salmon, cheese, as well as various vegetables cooked by boiling, roasting, or oil-frying, all creatively combined with fresh seasonal ingredients to create delicious salads. My "appetite bug" starts buzzing. If we open a Western-style ready-to-eat food store in China following these models, we are sure to attract a flood of customers.
I. Market Analysis and Store Setup
Currently, the ready-to-eat food available in the domestic market mainly consists of ham sausages, chicken legs, chicken wings, braised pig trotters, fried chicken, braised pork hock, and braised beef, with products being largely similar and lacking distinctiveness. Additionally, they are often high in starch and overly greasy. "The European-style Kitchen" specializes in freshly baked and sliced Western-style ready-to-eat food, allowing those who don’t want to cook or dine out to enjoy fashionable meals at home. Find a 20-square-meter store in a bustling area of the city with a monthly rent of 3,000 yuan. Remove the front brick wall and replace it with large glass windows, complemented by a Europe-style pointed roof and white window frames surrounded by "flowers," allowing warm sunlight to illuminate the store and make the food look even more fresh and tempting. In addition to creating a pleasant shopping atmosphere, efforts will be made to enhance consumer trust in terms of hygiene, preservation, quality, nutrition, color, and weight. The store will be decorated in a simple style, divided into an takeout area and a preparation area. The preparation area will be enclosed, dustproof, and flyproof. Ovens, electric stoves, barbecue grills, microwaves, packaging machines, and knives will be handled by dedicated staff in dedicated rooms, disinfected separately, and the process of on-site smoked roasting will be fully transparent, ensuring absolute cleanliness and hygiene. The glass displays for ready-to-eat food will be illuminated by lights with red bulbs, with red, black, and green rubber pads at the bottom. The ready-to-eat food will be served in exquisite, shiny plates, exuding great temptation. Long tables by the windows are reserved for a few customers who prefer to buy and eat on-site. Additionally, equipment such as air conditioners, printing scales, refrigerators, preservation cabinets, and food counters will need to be purchased, totaling nearly 100,000 yuan, to establish the "The European-style Kitchen" signboard.
II. Business Model
To ensure the distinctive flavor and quality stability of "The European-style Kitchen" Western-style ready-to-eat food, it is necessary to hire a Western-style chef to design the menu and oversee product quality. The goal is to allow consumers to enjoy five-star hotel-style flavors at supermarket prices. In the first year of operation, the following major categories can be offered:
1. European Cuisine: From cold dishes like sliced ham, handmade pork sausages, and roasted snails to main dishes such as bone-in smoked and roasted lamb chops, German pork knuckles, grilled beef, and beef tenderloin, as well as handmade lasagna and various pasta sauces and bread dips, all can be packed separately. Customers can take them home and simply mix or lightly heat them.
2. Frozen Ready-to-Eat: From lasagna and cheese-baked potatoes to French lamb chops, grilled chicken breasts, and hamburgers, hot dogs with or without batter, and fish sticks, as well as whole roasted turkeys, all are pre-prepared and stored in refrigerators/freezers. Customers can heat them in a microwave for a few minutes and serve them.
3. Salad Bar: Featuring delicate cold salads with mixed greens and pickled vegetables, paired with handcrafted salad dressings offering diverse flavors. DIY sauces and greens are also available. For customers within a 500-meter radius of the store, free delivery of vacuum-packed ready-to-eat food will be provided, along with complete eating instructions and meal descriptions. For larger orders within the city, all deliveries will be free.
III. Marketing Strategy and Return on Investment
Under the premise of ensuring quality and selling in large quantities, to build the brand of "The European-style Kitchen," a snowball-style gradual enhancement promotion strategy can be implemented—to first attract customers in a small market segment and increase the frequency of visits by existing customers; then gradually expand the influence to attract customers outside the current business area.
(1) Media Promotion: Print single-page advertisements featuring introductions and ordering details of Western-style ready-to-eat food, distributing them in parking lots, door-to-door, or sending them to companies in office buildings. Create a "The European-style Kitchen" website and publish information on fashion and food channels of various websites.
(2) Coupons and Gifts: Provide customers with free coupons based on their total purchase amount. Accumulating these coupons can be exchanged for ready-to-eat food. Give customers pens, calendars, and shopping bags printed with "The European-style Kitchen" logos.
(3) POP Advertising: Set a representative theme each month and hold promotional events with discounts under this theme. Hang promotional banners on the outside walls, post notices in the windows, and create display cards and price tags for each stall, using attractive POP advertising to capture customers' attention.
(4) Other: Create a soft, tranquil light music atmosphere to enhance customers' sense of security during shopping. In addition to live demonstrations and free tastings, a 30% discount will be offered for two hours before closing each day to increase traffic during that period and reduce product waste. For unsatisfactory food, it is better to discard it than to damage the store’s reputation.
Assuming "The European-style Kitchen" can sell 15,000–20,000 yuan worth of ready-to-eat food daily, after deducting costs, the net profit could be 5,000–6,000 yuan per month. With a growth rate of about 3% per month, it would take two to three years to fully recover the initial investment. To expand the business further, it must be done steadily under favorable conditions. "The European-style Kitchen" will steadily achieve standardized and strict management, ensuring that the ingredients and production processes for each Western-style ready-to-eat dish follow established procedures, laying a solid foundation for chain operations.
On rare occasions, "a good meal is better than a rushed one." If you don’t want to cook, just call "The European-style Kitchen" for "help," and they will take care of the main dishes and snacks, ready to be served on the table!
(Case Source: Jiang Yanbo, Entrepreneur, 2002.10)
Case Review
A gentleman saw delicious dishes being served in foreign fast-food restaurants online and was inspired to open a Western-style ready-to-eat food store in China following this model, hoping to attract a flood of customers. However, there are several points in his planning that deserve scrutiny:
(1) The target market for "The European-style Kitchen" is relatively small, with highly dispersed high-consumption groups. Although fast-food chains like "McDonald's" and "KFC" are thriving in the Chinese market, they are not true Western cuisine, and the Western-style ready-to-eat food offered by "The European-style Kitchen" has not yet been widely accepted by the general public. Additionally, Westerners in China are relatively scattered, making it difficult to achieve a booming scene.
(2) Ensuring the hygiene and freshness of the Western-style ready-to-eat food produced by "The European-style Kitchen" is not an easy task. Due to fewer customers, the storage time is longer, affecting sales. Furthermore, opening a Western-style ready-to-eat food store requires high demands on Western culinary culture, employee quality, management level, and financial strength. The entrepreneur may have gaps in these areas, as they are not very familiar with the dietary habits, styles, and food preparation methods of Westerners. Simply imitating without understanding the nuances will not yield ideal results.
(3) The food sold by a Western-style ready-to-eat food store is a low-added-value, highly elastic-demand product, primarily focused on takeout. If the store is designed in a Europe-style, it will require a significant investment, making it difficult for the business to recover the investment promptly and potentially leading to financial distress. Additionally, competing with "McDonald's" and Chinese restaurants, as well as investing in advertising, will be a heavy burden for an individual operator.
(4) The business model of "The European-style Kitchen" is overly idealized and conceptualized. The plan was conceived after just a few online visits, which seems somewhat hasty. It would be better to conduct preliminary research, visit the scene, draw inspiration appropriately, test samples, combine Chinese and Western cuisine, accumulate experience, and then implement the planned scheme.
P.17-20