FInal Project Analyzation

Would Hosting Cooking Demonstrations Improve Trader Joe’s Profits

A Market Research Study

We set out on this survey Saturday afternoon, 11 September 2010, to examine if Trader Joe’s were to hold weekly cooking demonstrations would the company see an increase in profits due to the clientele purchasing the products being featured in the demonstration. In order to examine if holding the demonstrations would even be useful to the company, we began by asking questions that would help us determine if most of the customers of the store are loyal to the store or if they just stop in occasionally, because if most people just stop in occasionally they will not be likely to come on the day of the demonstration and therefore would not make an impact in the company’s sales. According to our survey that 58% of the customers interviewed shop at Trader Joe’s between 3-6 times per month and 80% make 1-6 purchases per month. From this information we can see that most of customers who shop at Trader Joe’s are in fact loyal customers and therefore would most likely attend a cooking demonstration, in fact 68% of those polled said that they would be somewhat likely or likely to attend the demonstrations, and therefore the demonstrations would be a chance for the company to sell and suggest new products to its customers that they may not normally have tried before.

The customers who already loyally shop at the company shop there for many different reasons including the quality of products, the organic options that are offered, and the fair and reasonable prices. These entice the customers to make purchases at the store and their purchases are quite substantial considering the low prices of the goods. When surveyed, 76% of the participants said that they purchased between $21-$40 per transaction at the store. If this number could be raised even by $10 per transaction by the introduction of the new products being demonstrated in the cooking demonstrations the company would see their profits rise.

When surveyed however only 30% (15) of the customers had attended cooking demonstrations in the past and then only 46.6% (7) of those customers actually purchased the products that were featured. This may or may not be a good result for Trader Joes. Perhaps previously the cooking demonstrations featured products that were too pricey for the customers to purchase, or maybe they were too specialized to be used for more than one distinct recipe. In order for Trader Joe’s to ensure sales of their featured products I would feature products that can be easily used in everyday recipes that are known to a vast majority of customers, and also choose products that are not too expensive that a customer would be able to easily add to their shopping cart without too much hesitation.

Overall I feel that the information gathered from the survey indicates that if Trader Joe’s were to implement weekly cooking demonstrations that they would see a rise in product sales and company profits.

Final Project Graphs

Final Project Hypothesis

If Trader Joe's were to hold weekly cooking demonstrations, would their sales increase due to the purchase of the featured product during the demonstration?

Week 9 EOC--Network

While watching the film Network in class it was hard to miss the parallels drawn to all of the marketing research topics that we have covered throughout the quarter. Faye Dunaway’s character Diana was the most obvious example of the marketing research that goes into the everyday workings of a national television company. She was constantly asking for ratings, talking about getting a higher market share, and using then taking that data and turning it into a profit for the company by being able to charge advertisers higher rates during those shows. A company such as UBS uses secondary data that was collected by another company (usually Neilsen for television) who gather and analyze the data and then send it to UBS so that they may take the information and plan accordingly. We begin to see how obsessed Diana is by this information near the very beginning of the film when she notices that ratings for the evening news hour went up 5 points overnight when Howard ‘told the truth’ to the public. From there she went on a crusade to make the show more popular by investing some money into it and eventually turning it into a huge spectacle that was watched across the country and helped UBS to come out of debt. Without the research and data that was collected by Neilsen and reported in a timely manner she would have never been able to notice that there was a heightened interest in Howard that one evening and then would have never been able to turn him into the cash cow that he became for the network. It does become somewhat pathetic though as this data overcomes Diana’s life and interferes at all possible times, from the beginning when she first witnesses Howard’s show with her husband and then later on her romantic getaway with Max the ratings and scandals of the network are all that she can talk about. So while this information can be (and is) extremely useful, one must wonder, at which point does it become too much and we experience information overload that we cannot overcome.

Week 9 BOC--Neilsen Ratings

Hundreds of channels, thousands of programs, millions of viewers. Our job is to decipher and deliver television data every day. How does a program achieve # 1 rank in Nielsen TV Ratings, and what does this mean? Our ratings aren’t qualitative evaluations of how much a program is “liked.” Instead, our ratings provide the simplest, most democratic measurement: How many people watched.

When Arthur Nielsen introduced the Audimeter (his first metering device) in 1936, there were only about 200 television sets in use worldwide. When the Nielsen national TV measuring service was established in 1950, the average American household that owned a television had only one set and received three network telecasts.

Today, the typical home has multiple television sets and well over 100 channels from which to choose. Likewise, our measurement technologies must constantly evolve to keep pace with daily innovations in consumer electronics.

With recent advances in electronics, viewing is no longer limited to the television set and content is available on multiple platforms. Computers and mobile devices have joined the television as places to view programming. Nielsen measures how people use and engage with content across these “three screens.”

(Neilsen website, http://en-us.nielsen.com/content/nielsen/en_us/measurement/tv_research.html)

Week 8 -- Mr Clean Jeans

In order to get the best experience of designer denim one cannot wash it in the washing machine with hot water and tons of soap and then throw them in the dryer, it would completely ruin them. The denim will no longer fit, it will be worn, and become too soft too quickly. It would seem that since the best thing about an amazing pair of denim is that they fit the wearer perfectly and the entire concept of the wash looses this aspect because the denim becomes distorted. Perhaps the best way to wash denim is by hand. Preferably in water that isn’t too hot and with a small amount of soap/detergent, following with an air drying process where the denim is lied flat on a surface. This way it allows for the denim to be ‘freshened up’ without having to withstand the tough washing environment which will ruin them. I feel as though somewhere I also once read that as odd as it may seem, wearing ones denim into the shower to wet them, washing them gently with detergent and then following with the air drying is the best process. This way when the denim is wet it can mold to the wearers body and then in the air drying process the shape will not become too far distorted because they are not being tossed about in a heat filled tumbling machine. Preferably this process would be done as little as possible, because truly how dirty does our denim get, perhaps a minor stain every now and then, but mostly they are worn for a day in which we did no strenuous activity and then taken off. I think that the best timing then would be to possibly do this about twice a year, so every six months. After all, designer denim is expensive, and we want it to last for quite a long time and have them possibly evolve into our favorite pair ever.

Answers

1. Carrefour Group

2. GM

3. Chrysler

4. Toyota, Honda, Nissan

5. Chrysler

6. Toyota, 34%

Week 8 Quiz

Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Nissan, Toyota

1. What is the second largest retailer in the world-British Company....

2. For the month of August who sold the most cars-Honda

3. Who sold the least-Chrysler

4. Japanese car manufacturers by sales-Toyota, Honda, Nissan

5. Of the six, whose sales increased over last year-Toyota

6. Who lost the most money by percentage from last year-Chrysler 33%

Week 7 EOC -- Trader Joe's Market Research

Market Research Questionnaire:

Hypothesis: If Trader Joe's were to create an organic baby food, sales would increase dramatically due to the consumer market they have established.

1. Do you have children?
2. Would you shop at Trader Joe's for baby food?
3. Where do you currently shop for your baby food? Wal-mart? Target? Dollar store?
4. Do you feed your baby organic food currently?
5. How often do you shop for baby food? Less than once a week? More than once a week?

Week 6 EOC -- Nevada Tax Cuts

In the article Nevadans Say That Income Tax Cuts Should Stay, the individuals being poled were asked if they wanted the ‘Bush Tax Cuts’ enacted in 2001 and 2003 should stay in place in the coming years. This question seems quite arbitrary and perhaps dated. Wouldn’t the better question be, do Nevadans want Income Tax Cuts? At the time those tax cuts were first enacted it may have made sense for the country at the time. If the people who issued the poll wanted a response that reflected the state today, they needed to find a more open question, rather than such a restrictive one.

For one thing, many of the people being polled probably never knew, or have forgotten, what exactly the Bush Tax Cuts were. How can one make an informed decision if they do not know what they are being asked? Most people will just say that yes, the tax cuts should be extended because they think that it will be less money for them to pay to the government and more money to save or spend on themselves. What most individuals don’t realize is that by this point the only group of individuals who would further benefit from these tax cuts are the wealthy, and not so much them and their families. In this sense, asking if they feel tax cuts in general should be extended would show a further idea of the idea currently. Many people would probably still agree that there need to be tax cuts but they may now be more free to also say, or perhaps start contemplating, how these tax cuts should work. The only information that the polling company is getting now is whether or not people are still thinking about how to help themselves and not them and everyone in their community around them by wrapping them in a biased question based upon already enacted laws.

Week 5 EOC -- Poll

For week 5 we were asked to add a polling feature to our blog and have various students answer the poll. I added two questions, how much are you willing to spend on a tshirt, and what high-end label do you prefer. As fashion majors I would suspect that for the most part my peers would be more willing to spend more money on a tshirt than perhaps the regular 'Joe' from the street, though I think being in college some will still be somewhat price conscious and will answer somewhere in the $20-$30 range. My other question about high end designers may be a bit more challenging to predict. I chose brands that were not obvious luxury brands (ie Louis and Gucci) because they are too easy and obvious. This question asks my peers to think a tad bit more deeply for a moment to come up with an answer but I suspect the answer may be Chanel or Givenchy.

Week 5 BOC -- Men's Hairstyles

Men’s hairstyles seem to change just as quickly as women’s, which may be quite surprising to some. Right now there seem to be about four different major trends; the bangy, medium length, the curly long length, the stylized short length, and the classically modern short length. The bangy, medium length would be hair like mine (when it’s cut regularly) Chace Crawford, and Zac Efron. The front of the hair, the bangs, extends to about eyebrow level and the back is kept somewhat shorter and the top is layered and usually choppy.

The curly long length has been popularized by skaters and snowboarders like Shaun White. The style is just as is sounds, hair that usually extends to about shoulder length and is usually naturally curly by that point. Since most men these days don’t want to perm or curl their hair if it’s naturally straight they may leave it so.

The stylized short length includes fauxhawks and shorter hairstyles a la David Beckham and Jake Gyllenhaal. It is kept shorter and closer to the face and is usually very choppy and layered to keep the entire style interesting and texturized.

The classically modern length is much like those favored like business professionals in the 60s and brought back into style today by the likes of Jon Hamm from Mad Men. It’s a shorter style with the hair side parted and combed back. Quite chic.

Week 4 EOC -- Big

The movie Big has a very interesting meaning when evaluated from a marketing research perspective. In the movie they talked specifically about marketing reports while walking through the toy store and about how they can’t really give the kind of information that going to an actual store can. It’s a lot of numbers that a lot of people don’t understand. When they were in the marketing meeting Tom Hanks’ character Josh had probably one of the best points, I don’t get it. There are all these numbers showing that the company has grown in action adventure toys over the years but they have the potential to grow more if they made products that kids wanted even more. “It’s a building that turns into a robot? Why not a robot that turns into a bug?” A unique perspective got the entire staff excited about the prospect of a new toy and even more profits because the toy sounded fun even to them. The movie offers, perhaps unknowingly, one of the ideal things that a marketer and company would want. They have at their disposal their target market, a 13 year old boy who plays with and has an opinion about toys, working for them and they don’t even know it, and yet he will probably have, or at least the possibility of, having a huge impact on the financial success of the company by being able to tell them almost exactly what their main consumer will want and (have their parents) eventually buy. They have sort of been handed a focus group without having to go through and actually create the group, and it may be better because he is willing to tell them the truth whereas perhaps some children who may in fact be chosen to participate in a focus group would become nervous around the adults and may not want to be completely honest and tell the adult that the toy is not fun. If only an actual 13 year old boy could end up working for a toy company….

Week 4 BOC -- Beautiful Stranger

The site beautifulstranger.tv is a very interesting concept that I have sort of fallen in love with! According to their about us, street style swat teams scour the world’s hippest cities for trendsetters, stop them in their tracks and ask them to spill their style secrets. (beautifulstranger.tv) I really enjoy the idea of capturing American street fashion from the city and bringing it to those who are not fortunate enough to travel to them often. I think that it will help to expand the reach of fashion (which is already readily available almost anywhere) to areas with less dense populations where the accepted uniform is that of Abercrombie and Fitch, and Hollister. The way the website was set up was also interesting and kept my attention. With the simple white background and the unobtrusive ads it was a pleasure to browse. The layout while at first confusing (there was only one main post on the front page and others had to be found by clicking) became very easy to use after some exploring and lead to a plethora of more shots, style tips, and rankings. Another amazing feature is how the people behind the site have taken the time to find the pieces that the people they photograph are wearing and have links to the designers’ pages right from their website so that if one were to see something that they like they would be able to purchase it right away and not have to make a trip to the mall, or in some instances, a trip to New York or Los Angeles. I also enjoy how they have mini interviews with the people in their photos, allowing the reader to connect with them a little more, and who knows, if they have something in common with the featured then they my try out something that they are wearing and it will work out amazing for them.

Week Two EOC--Marketing Research

In class today we were suppose to choose a market research report which had been previously completed and analyze the data in order to see if we could somewhat understand and further explain the results. For this project I chose to do the research completed that studied, Affluent Customers in the New Economy: Food and Foodservice that was compiled by the company Packaged Facts in July 2009. The report was created to show how affluent customers (families who earn $100,000 or more per year) are likely to spend their money in the food sector, as well as where, in these times of economic hardship. The report seems to suggest that even in these times of a lesser economy, or perhaps even because of these times, that the average affluent customer is spending more money on organic and local produce and protein products as well as becoming more health conscious in general. The places where these customers are purchasing their food products is also changing with Trader Joe’s and other specialty ‘local’ stores with their exotic product and value-priced store brands.

The research that was conducted by the company was that of basic research, they compiled the information so that the general knowledge would be available to whomever may need/want it but not to solve a particular problem of their own. The company seems to have used mostly descriptive research in their study, both that of their own from previous studies they have completed and those of Experian Simmons (New York, NY) in its Winter 2008/09 National Consumer Study that ran from July 2008 through March 2009. Because they used these previous reports from both themselves and also Experian Simmons, the data would be considered secondary and more than likely would also be considered cross-sectional seeing as it was compiled and analyzed in a short period of time and not over the course of years.

Week Two BOC--Quiz

What is a booty pop and what is it's significance?

-A booty enhancing underwear device who's significance I am unaware of

Who shops more online, men or women? What is the proportion in % and $ amount?

-Men 51% 2 billion

-Women 49% 1.3 billion

Who spends more time shopping online, men or women? What is the proportion in % and time?

-Women 60% 60 minutes

-Men 40% 40 minutes

What advantages do markers have to women shopping online versus men?

-Women browse more and spend more time meaning they will see more ads as opposed to men who find what they need and purchase immediately.

Week One EOC

I hope to learn a great deal in the Principles of Marketing Research class. In just the first day alone we were previewed to some great information, some of which was new for even myself with my business background. I feel the class is going to offer a unique perspective on the way companies and individuals approach marketing research and will help my classmates and I further our understanding of the subject. It seems as though the course will allow for us to create marketing research projects that will help us in our retail futures, if we diligently work on our assignments and make an effort in class. By the end of the course I hope to be able to take this overall general information and be able to utilize in a way that will in the future allow for me to use it in a professional setting and perhaps set myself apart from other co-workers with less of an understanding of the subject. Since I plan to work in the areas of advertising or public relations I feel that any information that I am able to gain from the course will be very helpful in my future professional life.