Competitive environment and key market trends

Pallas Foods is an online food company in Ireland which was founded in the early 1980s by Geary family. The business shows full dedication towards offering best products and services to its customers. The vision of the company is to evolve as the top food service distributors on the island of Ireland. The company is providing services to more than 8,000 customers by featuring 12,500 products. It is the only company of Ireland which offers frozen, fresh, ambient and non- products along with the finest craft beers of Ireland. The company aims at offering one- day delivery services to its customers all across the island of Ireland.  The operations of the company take place from its central warehouse in Newcastle West, Country Limerick along with its regional distribution and delivery centres (Pallas Foods, 2018).

The focus of this report is on competitive environment and the key market trends of Pallas Food along with the current target market and key customer pain points. The report also provides strategic recommendations regarding how the growth of this business can be maximized. Furthermore, it highlights marketing objectives, key tactical marketing recommendations and measurement strategy for the marketing recommendations of the company.

Competitive environment of a company can be defined as the dynamic external system in which it functions and competes. If the number of sellers of similar products or services increases, the environment becomes more competitive for the companies. The competitive environment of Pallas Foods comprises of the similar businesses i.e. other online food companies of Ireland. The biggest competitors of Pallas Foods are Four Corners and Green Isle Foods. Four Corners is one of the leading distributors and importers of award winning cider and craft beer to the on and off trade sectors in Ireland. Green Isle Foods is also one of the largest frozen food producers of Ireland. The company is known for being a champion in the production of great tasting food (Green Isle Foods, 2018). The company has a great focus on manufacturing excellence, innovation and an unwavering dedication for their customers. This competition is forcing Pallas Foods to adopt competitive strategies from time to time in order to ensure its survival in the marketplace. Moreover, the company also faces competition from the offline stores which provide the facility of hand to hand delivery to the customers.

With the passage of time, the people of Ireland have become more technologically advanced and therefore, they prefer their decision can be altered on the basis of the trends on social media.  The purchasing decisions made by the customers online are greatly dependent on social media. People get to know about the brands, offers and discounts on social media which is a key trend that affects the sales of Pallas Foods. Moreover, shopping apps for mobile are also becoming increasingly popular which provides ease to the customers in making purchases on the go. Therefore, the company should offer this facility to the customers (Wong, 2018).

The current target market of Pallas Foods Include the family feeders (usually a parent) who purchases food products as per the requirements of the entire family. They make regular purchases with significant varieties from time to time in accordance with the preferences of the end users in their household. The target market of Pallas Foods also includes consumers that have a busy lifestyle due to hectic work schedule, travel, sporting activities or studies. Such consumers do not get time to visit an offline store for making food related purchases. Another set of consumers of Pallas include the variety seekers who are loyal towards a specific brand which is not available in the offline stores. Such types of consumers are more responsive towards the new product offerings and sales promotions. Another category of the target market of the company includes the consumers with healthy choice. Such consumers are always in search for the healthy and natural products and select the products that are fat- free, natural, low- carb, and gluten free.  All these categories of people generally between the age group of 20-50 years (Fang, Wen, George and Prybutok, 2016).

Current target market, key customer ‘pain points’ and Strategic Recommendations

Customer pain- points can be defined as the specific problems which are experienced by the customers of the business. The basic problem which is faced by the customers during online food shopping is regarding the quality of the products. Generally, the policy of the companies provides that perishable products cannot be returned back to the company even if they are not up to the expectations of the customers. In such cases, the customers are reluctant with making the purchases of such products from an online food store. Rather they prefer to go to an offline supermarket where they are also able to get the hand to hand delivery of the products. Another key pain point faced by the customers is their hesitation in making online transaction due to the risk of online frauds relating to credit and debit cards. The customers are also not able to resolve each and every query related to a product due to the availability of limited information on the website of the company (Strauss and Frost, 2016).

With the help of strategic recommendations, Pallas Foods can maximize its growth through the expansion of its target market group strategy. It is recommended that Pallas Foods should also serve its customers through an offline stores which will increase its target market as it will cover those customers as well who hesitate in making online purchases despite of the availability of best products in the store (Bragg, Eby, Arshonsky, Bragg and Ogedegbe, 2017). The company should further aim at tailoring the browsing experience for the target segments and should go for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which will assist in its visibility in the top results in the online searches made by the customers. Furthermore, it is recommended that the home page of the website should be personalized by using the data from the last searches made by the customers such that the relevant products can be suggested (Ledford, 2015).

Marketing objectives can be defined as the goals which are set by the company while promoting its products and services to the target customers and such goals are required to be achieved within a defined time frame. For the purpose of identifying the main marketing objectives for the company, SMART framework can be taken into account. SMART marketing objectives stand for specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and time bound. These marketing objectives are time bound as they are for a time period of five years.

The first marketing objective Pallas Foods is to increase the sales further in the period of upcoming five years. This will be done by having a look at the past analytics of the visitors and the customers. The company will increase its sales by working on search engine optimization and redesigning its marketing plan through increasing the use of social media for promoting its business and offers (Fan, Lau and Zhao, 2015).

The second marketing objective of this e- business will be establish partnership with the influencers. This will be done with the help of creating affiliate marketing relationships with influences ad collaborating with them on different projects. Thirdly, the company will aim at making its website more responsive since it is an online business and it completely depends on the responsiveness of the website. The proper consideration of these marketing objectives by the company will assist the business in its growth in the next five years.

Defining marketing objectives using SMART Framework

Tactical marketing can be defined as the tactics needed to be implemented for the purpose of obtaining the results as per the planned strategy. In other words, tactical strategy is the short term strategy which will provide assistance to Pallas Foods for the achievement of the goals of the long term strategy (Müller, Fries and Gedenk, 2014). This is explained below with the help of 7Ps of marketing.

Price- As far as the price of the products of the business is concerned, it is recommended that Pallas Foods should keep it as low as possible in order to attract the customers (Luo, Roach and Jiratchot, 2015).

Place- The company already has perfect mechanism for the distribution of its products to the customers. However, the company should also consider the opening of an offline store in order to increase its sales and target market.  

Product- It is recommended that the Pallas Foods should aim at provided different brands of various products such that the needs of all types of customers can be satisfied (Dolnicar, Grün and Leisch, 2018).

Promotion- The company should start making the use of social media marketing for the marketing of its customers in order to reach wider customer base. E mails and affiliate marketing can also be used for the promotion of its products (Alharbie, 2015).

Physical Evidence- Currently the physical evidence of Pallas Foods is its website. The website should be further improved in order to increase its responsiveness. The physical store of the company is also recommended to be opened in the popular places of Ireland.

People- People are the central focus of Pallas Foods. It should consider different aspects of customers experience its order to need the needs of individual customers.

Process- The company is recommended to aim at improving the customer interface between the consumer and business along with the dealing with each other through the process.

Pallas Foods can position itself in front of its target audience only by way of its unique selling proposition (USP). The USP of the copay is its ne day delivery service and its complete focus on providing quality products and services to the customers. It will further aim at personalizing the customer experience as the part of its brand strategy for the purpose of acquiring and retaining the customers. It will further require the constant scanning of the market trends in order to deal with it on timely basis (Datta, Ailawadi and van Heerde, 2017). The buying behaviors of the customers varies from time to time therefore Pallas Foods will require to offer products and services in accordance with their needs. This positioning strategy will assist the company in its survival in the competitive environment.

Measurement strategy can be defined as an all- encompassing plan which performs the function of organizing the business goals and provides how it will be measured. One of the measurement strategy that can be adopted is conducting surveys which will assist Pallas Foods in knowing whether it is being able to meet the changing expectations of the customers or not. If it will constantly meet the expectations, it will be able to increase its sales and market share (Hanssens, Pauwels, Srinivasan, Vanhuele and Yildirim, 2014). Another measurement strategy will depend on the milestone set by the company in the form of SMART goals. The results will be analyzed during different intervals of time in the said five years and at the end of this period (Sull and Sull, 2018).

Conclusion 

Therefore it can be concluded that marketing can play an important role in the growth of the business. This report focused on the competitive environment and the key market trends of Pallas Food along with the current target market and key customer pain points. The report also provides strategic recommendations regarding how the growth of this business can be maximized. Furthermore, it highlights marketing objectives, key tactical marketing recommendations and measurement strategy for the marketing recommendations of the company. Four Corners and Green Isle Foods are the competitors of the company. Pallas Foods needs to focus on the market trends in order to stay competitive in the market.  Through the use of SMART framework, three marketing objectives have been identified in this report. Measurement strategies such as surveys and milestones can be used for marketing recommendations.

References

Alharbie, A., 2015. Business growth thru social media marketing. International Journal of Innovation and Applied Studies, 13(4), p.873.

Bragg, M.A., Eby, M., Arshonsky, J., Bragg, A. and Ogedegbe, G., 2017. Comparison of online marketing techniques on food and beverage companies’ websites in six countries. Globalization and health, 13(1), p.79.

Datta, H., Ailawadi, K.L. and van Heerde, H.J., 2017. How well does consumer-based brand equity align with sales-based brand equity and marketing-mix response?. Journal of Marketing, 81(3), pp.1-20.

Dolnicar, S., Grün, B. and Leisch, F., 2018. Step 9: Customising the Marketing Mix. In Market Segmentation Analysis (pp. 245-254). Springer, Singapore.

Fan, S., Lau, R.Y. and Zhao, J.L., 2015. Demystifying big data analytics for business intelligence through the lens of marketing mix. Big Data Research, 2(1), pp.28-32.

Fang, J., Wen, C., George, B. and Prybutok, V.R., 2016. Consumer heterogeneity, perceived value, and repurchase decision-making in online shopping: the role of gender, age, and shopping motives. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, 17(2), p.116.

Green Isle Foods. 2018. About us, [Online]. Available at: https://www.greenislefoods.ie/about-us/ [Accessed on: 31 December 2018].

Hanssens, D.M., Pauwels, K.H., Srinivasan, S., Vanhuele, M. and Yildirim, G., 2014. Consumer attitude metrics for guiding marketing mix decisions. Marketing Science, 33(4), pp.534-550.

Ledford, J.L., 2015. Search engine optimization bible (Vol. 584). John Wiley & Sons.

Luo, A., Roach, S. and Jiratchot, C., 2015. The effect of the 7Ps of the marketing mix on air freight customer satisfaction and repurchase intention. Journal of Supply Chain Management Research and Practice, 9(2), pp.28-36.