A major increase in sales between 2000 and 2006 has made Hotel Chocolat’s competitors eager to find the key to the company’s success, leaving the founders to face the challenge of how to protect the business from plagiarism. Trademarking its name and all its products, although a widely-used defence mechanism, is not a satisfying solution here; with 30% of its products replaced by another annually in order to meet the demands of its customers and continuous product range expansions, it would become a burden, adding administrative costs and bureaucracy. Now a luxury provider, the company started in 1980s supplying mints, before moving to chocolate and, finally, rebranding in 2003 as Hotel Chocolat. With own cocoa plantation, 11 retail shops in popular tourist locations, a call centre and an online store, Hotel Chocolat is now reaching customers in the UK, USA and in Europe, with aspirations to become one of the world’s top chocolate brands. Despite these developments, Hotel Chocolat is not interested in offering department store concessions or own-label goods and wants to keep the number of its high street shops to the minimum in order to retain its premium brand image and uniqueness as well as keeping full control over staff training and storing conditions of its products.
Knowing what to do before a problem or issue occurs will help companies stay competitive and in control of their market share. This industry has utilized these three forces and has thus far remained successful [ (Perner PhD, 1999-2008) ]. Market Force 1: Competitive Forces and its Impact on the Chocolate Bar Competitors often threaten to take away markets from other companies or businesses. While this may be bad for businesses, it is good for the consumer. This can happen at many levels.
By now, Lush has over 900 stores, located in more than 50 countries worldwide (lushcountries.com, 2014). Recently, with the increasingly fierce competition of the cosmetics market, many cosmetics companies attach similar labels such as fresh or organic to their products in order to enhance competitiveness. Most of them, however, could not surpass the achievements of Lush. Therefore the aim of this paper is to identify the dominant factor that makes Lush such a successful retailer in this industry. This paper begins with an illustration and analysis of several factors that make a contribution to the success of Lush, followed by a comparison between Lush and its competitor, The Body Shop, and will conclude with an evaluation of the key factor.
This is the reason why creating alternative products for the company is necessary . Even though the company is focused on promoting spicy chocolates , it should always create an alternative to cater to the needs of those who might not like the said type of product .COMPETITION BASED PRICING : What other products are in the market and what does the company product have in advantage ? The good points as well as limitations of the produced items should be carried into consideration as the pricing is being decided upon . For cowgirl chocolates , most competition in the industry comes from the businesses producing sweet chocolates . An advantage maybe is that the Cowgirl
Analysis: Corporate: Look into expanding even more globally and even the possibility of entering the “brick and mortar” industry. Business: to improve competitive position they can continue to innovate and use the successful business models that have gotten them where they are today. Competiveness) Blue Nile currently holds 0.6% (19 ranking) of the market share of Jewelry Retailers. Something the leading 18 have in common is that they have a physical location. Their s also less global competition which equals more slices of pie for Blue Nile.
This will impact the company, as they will manage to still have a unique image, without interference from the other subsidiary. Therefore to conclude, although some customers may feel cheated on or annoyed that they were not informed of Teapigs being a subsidiary of Tetley’s, which was also similarly seen with companies like Starbucks. It is highly beneficial for the business as they will be able have help from other experienced businesses in the sector, without them being directly affected by the larger subsidiary thus still allowing them to be an independent
Moreover, Product differentiation is difficult to achieve in a crowded market(over 400 new fragrances have been launched in 2007). Starbucks(an example from class) planned to increase its coffee sales. After a thorough analysis it was concluded (in unison) that Starbucks should focus on second most visiting visitors as the most frequent visitors are already generating maximum sales. Flare is experiencing a similar situation (performing exceptionally well in mass channels and Loveliest product category) and using the above idea it can be concluded that Flare should focus on drugstores and increase its sales in Summit and Essential brands. Flare can penetrate into Drugstores at cost of turning over the
In this report I am going to discuss the similarities and differences between the marketing techniques between Starbucks coffee and Santander Firstly diversification is important in a business like Starbucks coffee as if a company does not bring out new products the existing customers may lose interest in the business and move to a rival company that is showing interest in to bringing out new products and trying new things, however bringing out lots of different products and possibly forgetting or getting rid of the old products might upset existing customers as they have no reason to shop with you. Starbucks has to bring out new products but keep or work on the existing ones to keep a healthy customer base and hopefully bring in new customers. Santander are slightly different as they are marketing a service they want to offer new customers deals and offers to persuade them to start banking with Santander, but they need to keep their existing customers happy too by offering them deals. Customers stay loyal when they feel like they benefit from using your service or enjoy your products this is why both companies use diversification to show they are active and interested in their customers. Some customers don’t like change and they like to feel comfortable with their products and services, this is where product development is useful as they are used to their usual product or service but it has been improved or changed in some way, for example Starbucks changing their coffees and using different types of beans shows they are interested in keeping the customer and the customer feels important to the business.
This business strategy worked very well for these companies, however that’s not always the case for all businesses. Therefore, companies turn to be unethical in order to make a profit or just because it the easier way to go. In this case for Ben and Jerry’s everything seemed to work out fine for them, and they were still profitable even when be ethical. Instead of getting brownies from Greyston Bakery they could’ve just produced their own brownies and that would make them a lot more money. However, they decided to partner up with Greyston Bakery because it was the right thing to do and it created more jobs people who otherwise wouldn’t have one.
Thirdly, to resolve the issues of a widening customer demographic and unclear brand perception, Starbucks could engage in a promotion to encourage their most loyal customers as well as new business through promotions such as a free cup after “X” visits or a “club card” that encourages repeat business. For all three of these solutions, Starbucks would want to enact these solutions as quickly as possible due to the threat of eroding their brand perception. See Appendix C for rejected alternatives. Rationale for the Recommendation Adding labor hours is our first recommendation. Interestingly, Starbucks faces a unique problem since they are actually improving their service yet the customers are still not necessarily recognizing the progress.