Kudler Foods Case

Kudler Fine Foods

Kudler Fine Foods was founded in June 1988 by Kathy Kudler. Kathy began looking for opportunities because she was weary of the corporate life. While searching for opportunities Kathy realized there was an opportunity to create an upscale food shop for those individuals who appreciate fine foods and drink as much as she did. Kathy opened her first location in La Jolla, California, in 2000 opened her second store in Del Mar, California, and in 2003 her third store opened in Encinitas, California. Kudler Fine Foods is a successful company and Kathy knows that she must stay one step ahead of her competition but also maintain customer value and loyalty. Kudler Fine Foods has announced plans to implement a frequent shopper program for all three stores in California. However, for this program to succeed Kudler must conduct market research to find if this program will prosper. As one reads this paper he or she will find the importance of marketing research for Kudler Fine Food's in regard to marketing strategy and tactics as well as areas additional market research is needed. He or she will also find the importance of competitive intelligence and analysis in regard to the development of Kudler Fine Food's marketing strategy and tactics.

Kudler Fine Foods "announced plans to create a frequent shopper program for their three stores in Southern California" (Apollo Group, 2010). This program will allow loyal customers to receive information regarding store events, featured products, and sales. It will also grant those loyal customers "exclusive offers on select merchandise and discounts on cooking and wine classes" (Apollo Group, 2010). Kathy Kudler, owner of Kudler Fine Foods, believes "this will be a huge benefit to our most loyal customers" (University of Phoenix, 2010). However, Kathy and her team must conduct marketing research to know for sure if this will generate excitement for her customers and if it will give her business a competitive advantage.

Marketing research is "the systematic design, collection, analysis, and reporting of data relevant to a specific marketing situation facing an organization" (Armstrong & Kotler, 209, p. 106). Marketing research is important because it allows reduces some of the risk involved when implementing a new product or service, which in turns improves marketing decisions. Kudler Fine Foods is a small business; therefore Kudler will want to hire an outside industry to conduct the marketing research. Hiring an outside agency will benefit Kudler's research because the results will have an objective view. Internal research can at times have a clouded judgment making it more difficult to finding the specific marketing problems and in the end the company could make incorrect marketing decisions.

There are four steps to complete a market research and those steps include "defining the problem and research objectives, developing the research plan, implementing the research plan, and interpreting and reporting the findings" (Armstrong & Kotler, 2009, p. 106). In the case of Kudler Fine Foods the problem is deciding if the frequent shopper program will benefit the customer. To find this information Kudler's objective research should contain a descriptive research. This will allow Kudler to know if there is market potential for this particular service. Kudler's next step is to develop a research plan. A research plan is gathering specific information efficiently to make the marketing decisions of if to continue with the plan as well as how to market this new service. The third step in market research is collecting secondary and primary data. Secondary data "are facts and figures that have already been recorded before the project at hand" (Kerin, Hartley, Berkowitz, & Rudelius, 2009, p. 199) and primary data "are facts and figures that are newly collected for the project"(Kerin, Hartley, Berkowitz, & Rudelius, 2009, p. 199). The fourth step is implementing the research plan, which includes the collection, processing, and analyzing the data. Once the data has been collected and processed, it is time to interpreting and report the findings.

To collect data Kudler has decided to use a survey however this survey the question are not prudent to the information needed for making a decision regarding a frequent shopper program. For example, the first question on the survey should be how often do you shop at Kudler Fine Foods or do you shop at Kudler Fine Foods occasionally, often, or every day. This type of questioning would determine the loyalty of the customer to Kudler Fine Foods. Although it is important for Kudler to know the opinions of their customer regarding the look of the store, those questions do not matter for this particular survey. Other information that would benefit the marketing decision would be to ask if the customer