Coffee Shops

A recent primary research survey has found that 70% of occasional coffee drinkers view the Mr. Coffee brand as an inferior or budget coffee brewing device that does not make a superior cup of coffee (Appendix, Opinion survey). Brands such as Keurig, Cuisinart, and DeLonghi inspire more thoughts of quality coffee than Mr. Coffee. Other consumers are opting to spend several dollars per cup of coffee at coffee houses such as Starbucks, Caribou Coffee, Dunkin Donuts, and even McDonalds (Appendix, Opinion survey).

Coffee for a Cause will benefit the nearly 800,000 veterans in the United States that are in some sort of need (Delany). With so many people to help, BRCC decided Veterans were the ones that were in need and could benefit the most. Evan Hefer, might not be what the mainstream media would call politically correct but him and his company have a set of values that are anything but difficult to see and understand. The fact that the company and it’s employees live by their four values family, business, veterans, and country, everything else is null and void to the company and they aren’t afraid to speak their mind, fight for their causes, and work hard to win. Coffee for a Cause is going to be the next big win for the company, a great new product with a great new causes that helps a population that is in need. After all who can say it better? “If there is good to be done for causes we believe in, we will take it on. No different than raising your right hand and stepping into service for your country (Sauer).”

Market researchers would like to know if customers prefer a well-known brand over a generic brand of soft drink…

The strategy is necessary for the establishment of a good relationship between the wholesale clientele and the company. The association that the regional sales teams have with the wholesale customers is vital for giving the company the necessary information regarding the performance of the product. The triple-tiered strategy is necessary for the identification of the challenges that the competitors are going through, and building on their weakness to increase the sales volume. An element of a weak competition in consideration involves brand recognition. Carolina Coffee

Costa coffee founded in 1971 in London, UK. Now, it has become the biggest top coffee shop chain in UK. However, Costa should be prepared for danger in times of peace. In this report, some suggestions will be proposed to improve Costa coffee’s marketing mix over the next three years. We begin with a brief description of the data we collected, then go on to analyses coffee shop market environment in UK; the next section looks at Costa coffee’s current statement of marketing mix, and finally we give recommendation of the marketing mix in the next year for Costa Coffee. Section 1 Primary research method Primary data was collected in the form of questionnaire with 15 questions, which was posted on the Internet. Also,

quality of the products connected with a fair price attracts many coffee lovers. Starbucks also

The industry’s saturation is moderately high with a monopolistic competition structure. For new entrants, the initial investment is not significant as they can lease stores, equipment etc. at a moderate level of investment. At a localized level, small coffee shops can compete with the likes of Starbucks and Dunkin Brands because there are no switching costs for the consumers. Even though it’s a competitive industry, the possibility of new entrants to be successful in the industry is moderate. But this relatively easy entry into the market is usually countered by large incumbent brands identities like Starbucks who have achieved economies of scale by lowering cost, improved efficiency with a huge market share. There is a moderately high barrier for the new entrants as they differentiate themselves from Starbuck’s product quality, its prime real estate locations, and its store ecosystem ‘experience’. The incumbent firms like Starbucks have a larger scale and scope, yielding them a learning curve advantage and favourable access to raw material with the relationship they build with their suppliers. The expected retaliation from well-established companies for brand equity, resources, prime real estate locations and price competition are moderately high, which creates a moderate barrier to

“When an individual buys a product, there is a process which occurs for making their decision. This is the consumer decision-making process, which includes: recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase, and post purchase behavior (Cachola).” When buying a coffee or food such as a cookie from Starbucks there has to be some type of appeal to the product. For many consumers that would be the aroma from the coffee as soon as one would to walk into the building. The Consumer Decision Making could be the answer, by advertising different brands of coffee and food this could appeal to a younger crowd such as teenagers and kids.

1. What factors accounted for Starbucks’ extraordinary success in the early 1990’s? What was so compelling about the Starbucks’ value proposition? What brand image did Starbucks develop during this period? Is the value proposition still valid in 2002?

For the concept of standardization of The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, branding and image are consistent in host markets with that of home market. Despite the expectation that cultural differences may affect the demand for their products and services the coffee shop felt that maintaining standardization was more important than adaptation. Standardization is enforced by the company on branding to ensure that the brand image and value is being perceived consistently by the customers in all markets. Adaptation has also applied to the product offering For example in its home country, the coffee shop have a limited range of food and beverage items in their outlets. However, the coffee shop had included a wider range of hot food items in Asia as Asians need to have food with their coffees. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf also provide both the good quality of input and output has brings a big achievement. The foundation of the coffee chop is a commitment to quality. They produce and serve only the finest coffees and teas from around the world.

In this 21st century, a demand of the coffee and tea is ever-increasing in complexity due to the new life style of modern people. People become more particular in choosing the coffee brand. Buyers hence may have to mainly rely on the brand image and the reputation of the manufacturers in order to simplify their purchase decisions. In addition to brand image, there are other factors that contribute to consumer purchase decision-making such as price of the products, servicescape and so on.

gourmet coffee quality. They have less than six months to launch the product, and very limited

Kraft Foods, Inc. pursued an aggressive launch of coffee pods in the United States, but had less than a month to decide whether Kraft should proceed with a similar launch in Canada, or await the U.S. results. However, a Canadian launch withholds several decisions. A suitable branding strategy is necessary, wholesale and suggested retail price for coffee pods, choose which flavors to offer, and decide whether Kraft should use traditional distribution channels or direct-to-store (DSD). Also, the development of an effective advertising and promotion strategy on a relatively limited budget is necessary. From a consultant perspective, Kraft has chosen to pursue the Canadian market. Kraft has chosen a Canadian test market because a test market assumes less risk, less cost, and insightful information regarding the purchase of coffee pods in a foreign country.

In the coffee industry, buyers have a lot of leverage due to variety of coffee offering and there is no cost of switching to another coffee shop or brand.

The most obvious advantage of the card to Starbucks is the guaranteed income. Once people load money on the card it can only be spent at a Starbucks location. It also makes tracking customer purchasing habits and preferences readily available. Then there is the case of the forgotten or lost cards that never get used that equate to pure profit. One last advantage is that with the card they have also created a secondary market for sales by placing the cards in stores like Giant Eagle where people that wouldn’t come into the stores can buy the cards as a gift.