25A: What's Next?

Assignment 25A: What's Next?

• What is Next:
• What I think is next for my company would be to broaden our customers from primarily grocery stores to more retailers in general such as clothing stores and supermarkets.  I think that clothing stores would really benefit from my magnetic ink product because it is so simple for someone to steal clothing.  Additionally, I think that supermarkets would also benefit from my product because it would be much more effective in reducing the rates at which shoplifting occurs in their stores while also being cheaper than the high-expense security systems they have currently.  I truly think that the more publicity and awareness that my product receives, the more that retail businesses would be interested and want to try my product in the hopes of reducing shoplifting in their stores. 
• Existing market:
• My existing market is definitely grocery stores, especially grocery store owners and managers because they have the purchase authority for a product like mine.  My existing market is specifically grocery stores because I believe that they have the most potential to benefit from my product and its original purpose.  However, when interviewing people and learning from what they think and need themselves, I am able to adjust my product and target to be the most successful.  
• Existing market Reflection:
• As I talked to customers who are already a part of the market I have identified, I learned of other product and service ideas that could be created to help this market.  As I interviewed grocery store owners and managers, I was able to listen to their ideas about what they thought I could do with my product and company.  Their beliefs partially agreed with mine as they thought that my product would do well in larger retail stores who spend way too much money on security sensors when they do not even work for a large proportion of the time as shoplifters always find ways around the security system.  
• One of the people I interviewed expressed how often he comes in contact with other business owners (not in the grocery store business but simply in retail) who are struggling to find effective ways to limit shoplifting in their stores.  And many people have tried to find solutions such as hiring more employees to serve as security means and buying more expensive security cameras; however, it is impossible to be able to catch everyone by using human labor and it is inconvenient to have someone watching security cameras at every second a store is open.  Instead, by using my product, the people I interviewed really believed that they could stop shoplifters before it's too late and before they get away with it.  
• New market:
• For this new market I took a totally different view and targeted a business to consumer market rather than a business to business one.  I interviewed two consumers: one who is a mother of four and goes grocery shopping at least once a week with her children and another who is a very affluent business man who rarely does his own shopping.
• New market Reflection:
• When explaining my product to the woman, she was immediately intrigued by my product.  She believed that it was a great idea because she has seen people walk out of stores such as Target with items in their cart that they never paid for.  She explained that one time when she left Target, she forgot to pay for the water that was on the very bottom of her cart.  She realized it as soon as she got to her car, walked back into Target, and paid for it.  The expensive security sensors that Target has did not even do their job.  In cases like this, the consumer clearly did not purposely mean to shoplift; however, if there was a more effective sensor, it would save retailers like this so much money. 
• When I explained my product to the wealthy man, he was not as impressed at first.  He believed that my product would not serve any other purpose different from that of the metal security sensors placed in larger retail stores today.  As he rarely does his own shopping, it is possible that by having less exposure to the realities of retailers today, the man does not understand how simple it is for people to steal and how ineffective and expensive those metal security sensors are. 
• Evidently, from this new market I learned that consumers often see shoplifting in very different ways than businesses do because they are not as exposed to it.  This helps validate the accuracy in my targeted market as businesses will definitely recognize my product as a useful tool to secure their sales, profits, and business environment as a whole.