Marketing Research Kudler Fine Foods

Marketing Research: Kudler Fine Foods

University of Phoenix

MKT/421

August 14, 2011

The competitive marketplace always challenges firms to maintain profitability. It does not matter what route a business may choose to enter, there are always going to be competitors. An essential way of a business to keep up with other competitors is investing in new or existing products are different from the rest of competitors and would be difficult for these competitors to duplicate the product. The founder of Kudler fine foods, Kathy Kudler, understood that going into this industry there are challenges that may arise, and Kathy Kudler would have to understand these challenges to succeed with the business.

In 1998 Kathy Kudler opened up her first upscale epicurean food shop in La Jolla and is currently the owner of three stores. In this paper the subject to identify is the significance of marketing research in the development of Kudler, and the general strategy that Kathy Kudler took for her business. Market areas are also acknowledged where the market research is needed most to examine, the improvement of strategy and tactics of the marketing, competitive intelligence, and the analysis of the development of Kudler fine foods.

Importance of Marketing Research

When a business wants to relay a message to the consumers of their product a company must have a successful business marketing plan. The strategic plan that Kudler Fine Foods specified, "Kathy not only has the vision of the organization, she has established the culture and is the main management person. She hires new people, fires those not working out, finalizes the inventory numbers, places the weekly orders and controls the finances making sure all of the vendors get paid." (p. 12)

A business that is large or a small, they should have a marketing department that concentrates on the development of the marketing distribution. Kudler fine foods should have a well thought-out marketing plan to retain the present and the prospect of the future success of Kathy Kudler's business. Kudler fine foods is a very good example of a business that has focused on the expansion of the services it offers, also the momentous growth Kudler has turned out to be. Merchandise activity is at the level of consumer needs, also the supply of advanced respect bonuses is a loyalty points program Kudler's has established. A consumer's purchase behavior also helps Kudler refine its offerings and the processing to satify of Kudlers valued customers.

Price on the Kudler's products is not a factor for its customers, Kudlers customers are focused on the quality of the products and locating the specialized items, and instead of lowering prices on products or giving discounts, Kudler fine foods chooses to offer loyalty points to its consumers, and this allows the consumers of Kudler to redeemed high expectation gifts such as airline tickets, or specialty foods Kudler offers. If Kudler was going to expand its market, create a new business plan, or launch a new product/service, Kudler would have to accomplish any of these three through a market research plan. Based marketing research, Kudler can determine what portion of the population will be purchased it's products based on a person's gender, age, location, and income. Kudler can create a plan on how to target the characteristics of each category of a consumer.

Additional Market Research is needed.

Kudler fine foods have created surveys to its consumers and these surveys have shown that Kudler continues to exceed its consumer's satisfaction in areas of the business except in one, and this is the cost of Kudlers products. If Kudler were to reduce the costs of products and, services it offers there would be an increase in customer satisfaction. Market research has played a large role in Kudlers organizations strategy, and allowing Kudler to expand itself, because Kudler has expanded its services it is very important