Market Research - Kudler Fine Foods

Kudler Fine Foods is a local upscale specialty food store located in California. The three stores located in La Jolla, Del Mar and Encinitas and are approximately 16,000 square feet each. Getting the most out of each square foot of the three stores will be the focus of Kudler's marketing campaign. The current plan is focusing on several areas; Research, development, and rollout of new programs, Cooking Classes, Frequent buyer points program, Supplier relations program. Before beginning this plan, Kudler will need to perform research.

Marketing research is the process of defining a marketing problem and opportunity, systematically collecting and analyzing information, and recommending actions (Kerin, Hartley, Berkowitz, & Rudelius. 2006, p. 206). Kudler will need to perform marketing research to develop the company's marketing strategy and tactics. Kudler strategic objectives are to expand services, introduce a frequent shopper program and to increase efficiency.

Kudler offers parties in the store. These parties show customers how to prepare food by renowned chefs and even Kathy Kudler, the company's owner. The purpose of the parties is to pull customers into the store and have these customers purchase the food used to prepare the dishes in the party. The company will need to research the effectiveness of the parties.

The company will offer a frequent shopper program in an effort to increase revenue. The frequent shopper program is a marketing and sales promotion tool. These programs are used to encourage repeat purchases by acknowledging the purchases made by a consumer (Kerin, et al. 2006, p.517). Retailers collect data on the purchases of each time a customer uses the card at the checkout.

Retailers are protective of their customer data and many are cautious in sharing that information with manufacturers. The data is shared for analysis and third-party analytic firms play an important role for this. Retailers do not provide the identities of their consumers and the manufacturers analyze general purchase data, without identifying the individual consumer's identity. Retailers and manufacturers should look for common goals and synergies from a customer perspective and focus on improving data analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of their marketing promotions (Santella, 2006)

The protection of customer specific information is extremely important to Kudler Fine Foods. Kudler will perform additional market research on the customer loyalty program. Research will focus on trends and successes with high end grocery store programs. The additional money spent for this research could save the company the greater expense of introducing a campaign that has a probability of failure. Some consumers oppose loyalty-card programs for what they perceive as privacy intrusions or price manipulation (FMI, 2006). Kudler will survey their customers in an attempt to determine their opinion of the loyalty program.

Kudler will review the agreements currently in place with its suppliers. This review will reveal opportunities to negotiate pricing. Partnering with the suppliers could allow Kudler to purchase product at a lower price and either offer the product for less to the customer or to increase Kudler's margin. Another benefit for Kudler would be the company would be more efficient due to the lower prices and increased margin. Kudler will need to look for additional methods to become