Positioning of the Company

Pret a manger is a global sandwich shop franchise chain which is based in United Kingdom. It is popularly called as Pret and was founded in te year 1983. At present, Pret has approximately 460 shops in the United Kingdom and only in London, Pret has 324 locations. The main focus of the company is on the use of natural ingredients and the company advertises that their sandwiches are extremely fresh and made on the day of purchase in the kitchen at each and every location. The food which is not sold on a particular day is collected by the charities. The packaging of the sandwiches is done in a paperboard instead of using sealed plastic. The structure of the organisation is classified between its store as well as the main offices (Nair, and Kraus, 2019). The head office in London is the main hub of the stores in United Kingdom and the office in the New York City is the main hub for the store of America. Each and every store has some levels of positions which range from a team leader to the store’s general manager. The main of the paper is to critically evaluate Pret a manger and examine the positioning of the company, the way in which the marketing mix are used by the company for reinforcing its positioning and to identify the way in which the company evaluates the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.

(LAS VEGAS SANDS CORP, 2016)

Pret a manger had prior plans of moving to Ireland but they had to hold because of the pandemic of Covid-19. 39 stores were closed by this group in the United Kingdom because of the pandemic and lay off more than 3,700 staffs.

Positioning can be said to be the way in which the customers see the product or the services of the company in comparison to its competitors (Soegoto, 2021). The company can only influence their position but it is the consumers who can determine it.

Source: Created by the author

Source: Created by the author 

The above two maps is a visual representation of the way consumers interpret Pret in comparison to its competitors. The first figure analysis Price vs. Healthiness and the second figure considers the quality of output of the employee against the pleasure of the employee of working in the company (Agnihotri, and Bhattacharya, 2019).  There is a reflection of differentiation in the positioning; the reason behind it is that the place where the company differentiates the most against the competitors is the place where they stand a chance of over positioning themselves in the eyes of the consumers.

Four P’s of Marketing

The positioning statement which bets fits the strategy of Pret a manger is- For individuals finding an affordable and healthy snack on the go, Pret a manger is the healthy fast food where additive free natural handmade food is offered with love and care by the skilled employees (Hirth, Boons and Doherty, 2021).

The specific attributes on which prêt a manger emphasizes on is its fresh and organic products. This provides an advantage to the consumers as they offer a healthier option and falls in line with the trend of sustainability. For the customers, they can buy food which is prepared freshly. The main emphasize of Pret is to sell the best quality food at affordable prices. Apart from this, the company also offers more than eighty varieties of products with a huge range of coffees. The shop’s Stainless Steel Environment brings the feel of a good restaurant and it also reflects the hygiene needs of the operations (Knox, 2018). Through this, the consumers feel a greater value of money and they get more satisfied with their purchase. All these aspects allow Pret to make a unique selling proposition in comparison with their competitors. Commonly, lunch on the go is highly processed as well as packaged and they even have long shelf lives. This means that they contain huge amount of additives as well as preservatives which the consumers see as unnatural as well as unhealthy. While there might be many chains in the United Kingdom which provides healthier options but they generally come with an extremely high price (Alostad, Steinke, and Schafheutle, 2018). This is the area in which Pret has been very successful through providing a combination of fresh, affordable as well as organic products. The missing option of the market has been successfully identified by Pret and it has been integrated into a profitable business.

The main asset which allows Pret to differentiate them is not just the fresh food but also the services which they provide to people. With respect to product, the company has been able to provide a huge range of classic options of lunch but the main focus is on being organic and fresh, along with this, the packaging of the products in done in a very attractive manner with a good red shade that is used for all the bags and cups of the company (Filimonau, et al., 2020).  The company has been successful in making the packing convenient for the people on the go like the bottle of smoothie and boxes of salad. Another important asset of Pret is their service. Whenever there is a need of speeding up, the company can control huge number of customers and also train the staff to deal with the rush hours in an effective and efficient way. The service of the company is very prompt and it is visible that their staffing is adequate in the rush hours. Pret also provides a level of trust in the availability of stock and in their offering’s consistency. The company takes pride in making sure that their employees have the best time of their life working for them. Incentives, benefits as well as discounts are offered by the company to all their employees. Pret is the only organisation in the market which makes use of the fresh and natural ingredients for the manufacturing of its products. The product of the company is of high quality and it is offered at a low price. The primary customers of Pret are the middle class earners of income along with the business professionals (García, et al., 2019). The sustainable strategy of business used by the company has made it very attractive in the market because of its positive contribution.

A company can select as well as decide on an appropriate marketing strategy with the help of marketing mix. It also helps a company in the allocation of budget as well as resource to various aspects of development of product as well as marketing strategy (Coates, et al., 2019). Marketing mix even permits a company to select the correct and effective tactics for marketing for its promotional requirements.

Product- Product is among the most significant element of the marketing mix of Pret a manger.  The distinctive features of the product by the company are:

• The company maintains the best quality of products
• The maintenance of high quality product is done by adding some value at the time of the various stages of the value chain.
• The raw materials is procured by the company from the trusted suppliers only
• The processing of the raw materials is done under environments which are maintained carefully for providing high as well as consistent quality of products (Rauber,et al., 2020).
• The company gets a competitive advantage through the promise of delivering high quality.

• the products produced as well as sold by the company is easy to use
• there is a user manual of every product which can be understandable easily and offers simple instructions for the use of products
• The retail representatives offer instructions as well as explanations with respect to the utilisation of products during sale.

• There is a broad product portfolio of prêt a manger
• the broad portfolio helps the company in reaching various target groups in the market
• The broader portfolio of product even adds more value for the company (Ejlerskov, et al., 2018).

Price- the marketing mix of Pret emphasizes on a hybrid strategy for pricing for getting the maximum value of its products. The company make use of a number of techniques for pricing its products which are listed below:

• Through making use of the premium price of some of its range of product, the company provides encouragement to its favourable brand as well as product perceptions in the groups of target consumers (Stankov, et al., 2019).
• The product’s premium pricing encourages a favourable quality perception of its products among the consumers.
• A touch of privilege is added through premium prices along with a high value in the products of the company
• The premium prices have helped the company to maintain high profits along with a consistent growth of business.

• As the company has a number of different ranges of product as well as groups of product, the utilisation of psychological pricing provides great benefits
• with the help of psychological pricing, the company can add more value to its products from the customers perspectives (Neri, et al., 2022).
• Pret a manger gains higher sales through psychological pricing

• The company is able to enter various regional markets optimally through geographical pricing
• For the offshore locations, the company can cover up the customs as well as shipping expenses.
• Geographical pricing even allows the company to maintain consistent growth of revenue through changing pricing in various markets on the basis of the value of local currency (Allas, Canal, and Hunt, 2020).

Place- the company places high significance on its product’s placement as it is directly related to the accessibility of the product.

• The company keeps maintenance of the stores operated through the management of Pret in every market.
• The stores which are operated by the company provide Pret a higher control on its operations along with the design and layout of the store (Gómez-Luciano,, et al., 2019).
• There is a direct interaction of the company with the consumers and they collect significant details with respect to the consumer behaviour as well as consumer feedback by the stores operated by the company.
• The stores operated by the company also provide leverage to Pret with respect to the decisions regarding the stocking of various items.

• The licensed store of the company allows consumers to enjoy various offerings of the products by the company
• The stores which are licensed decreases the risk of physical as well as financial investment for Pret in markets which are not stable
• Pret has witnesses high growth in the business because of the licensed stores along with an increase in the rapid expansion and penetration of the market
• The licensed stores help the company in localizing the offerings of its products for improving the brand image and equity.

Promotion- the marketing strategy of the company also gives high importance to the tactics and strategies of promotion. The strategies of promotion help the company to have an interaction with the customers and influence them in a direct way (Bhattarai, Kwong, and Tasavori, 2019).  A 360 degree approach is used by Pret in its activities of promotion and they make use of the following methods of promotion:

• There are corporate profiles of the company on websites and portals of social media
• the company make use of its social media presence for directly engaging with their consumers
• the direct engagement as well as interaction helps the company in understanding its customers along with their demands and needs
• The company make use of the feedback and incorporate it in its broader organisational as well as marketing strategies
• A corporate website is maintained by the company that highlights the information of the organisation.

• The company has a program of loyalty card for its customers
• The loyalty card helps the customers in redeeming points in exchange for the products or some other exciting gifts as the company directs.
• Every purchase is entered in the loyalty card through the company and is valued for point against the monetary value of the products.

Pret a manger is considered to be one of the most prominent companies in the world that has a unique sustainable strategy model of business. The company has been successful in making profits along with making a contribution to the welfare of the society. The best methods used by the manager for getting a visibility of the way in which their restaurant is performing is to gather as well as measure the team’s and the financial performance with the help of the Key performance Indicators (KPIs). The managers of Pret will be able to identify the issues in the way they are running the restaurant and act accordingly. Pret A Manger has numerous competitors. Management of the restaurant might become difficult because of the tight margins and the change in the trends of food, (Wahyuni, Vanany, and Ciptomulyono, 2019).  There are various metrics which can be used by the managers for tracking. In order to make an easy list, these have been broken down into three groups- sales and profitability, consumer experience as well as marketing.

As the cost of labour is among the highest cost in the development, it is very important to have an idea about the productivity of the staffs and the amount of sales that is brought in by them  (Facchini, et al., 2018) In the same way, it is very important to make sure that the employees are engaged and find peace and happiness in work as the high rate of turnover of the employees can affect the productivity as well as the bottom line.

A study states that approximately 97% of the people read the reviews online before they make any purchase and almost half of these people trust 4 stars or even better than that, In the same way, the satisfaction of customers should be the main priority of Pret. people vote by their wallet and for keeping them coming back, there is a need of a team of efficient as well as smiling staff for encouraging the return visits.

In an era in which poor website as well as lacklustre presence on social media can either make or break a business, it is very important to keep a track of these channels of promotion in an effective manner and to have a strategy in place that brings all the marketing together. For instance, the customers have a very hard time in finding the things they are looking for like the time of opening, the menu or the address (Qutteina, De Backer, and Smits, 2019). It will not take much of it for them to leave the website or the profile of social media for other options. The less clicks it takes for finding about the restaurant, the better it is. The main KIPs for marketing consist of the social media metrics and the website traffic metrics.

Conclusion

Pret a manger can be said to be a concept which is based in United Kingdom which is technically a shop that sells sandwiches but it feels more like a fast casual concept like Panera Bread. Pret is a place which sells salads, baked goods, sandwiches as well as soups. They take pride in themselves for building a kitchen in every shop. This chain has teams of local food which produces food in the United States and the United Kingdom as the two markets are very different from one another and for the company; it goes beyond the portion’s size. Personalization, affordability as well as better-for-you are some of the important trends of food and a proof that the company is paying attention to their customers is that they sell a slim range line of sandwiches. The company is extremely passionate about their employees and the type of people that is hired by them. It is believed by the company that people are an important part of their culture and they have always been eager to treat them well. The attitude of the company in engaging in corporate social responsibility is turning out to be apparent in the way in which they treat their employee and their solicitousness of providing fresh food.

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