Cowgirl Chocolate: Analysis of Consumer Behavior of the Product (Research Paper Sample)

Marketing
Student Name
Cowgirl Chocolate
Date
1 Background
2 Problem Statement
3 Analysis of Consumer Behavior of the Product
1 Usage
2 Appeal
3 Type of Buyer
4 Product decision
4 Product Line
5 Pricing
6 Breakeven Analysis
7 Advertising and Promotion
8 Selling and Distribution
1 Background
The study is about decision making on the diversification, whereby Marilyn is already doing the magazine advertisement business and is considering introducing chocolate production. In spite of being an award winning package designer as well as a great quality chocolate, more consumers and retail traders are adamant in the decision to buy or resell the products (Aaker, 2008). Both the consumers and the resellers have already commented that chocolates products are very spicy.
2 Problem Statement
The problem in this situation is that the current market is very small and needs to be expanded. Marilyn has developed mild-mannered chocolate, a non-spicy chocolate. The percentage of consumers in the target market that have interest in the products is only between 10 % and 15 %. Additionally, Marilyn targets the female fraternity in the American society, but the majority of the consumers of hot spicy chocolates in the market are the male consumers. Before she spends more funds on increasing the advertising drive, as indeed she intends to add $3000, Marilyn Lysohir has to carefully think about what she needs has to so as to achieve her objective in making the business more profitable.
3 Analysis of Consumer Behavior of the Product
1 Usage
Marilyn ought to do a consumer analysis and restructure the pricing strategies. She has to identify and acquire access to the effective circulation channels to use the organizations’ web site. From the time of initiation of the hot spicy chocolate, Marilyn Lysohir has made great efforts to grow the business into a more profitable business. However, all along, she has given the company more loans to sustain its existence. Cowgirl chocolates take care of both the funs the Chocolate and hot spicy food a fans.
2 Appeal
The indicators of this trend is that even though the present target market consumes a lot of energy and has a great risk to be taken, the market is not conforming to the patterns and objectives of Cowgirl. The consumers are extremely happy with the inclusion of hot paper to the taste of the spicy chocolate. Another aspect of analysis that requires urgent attention is in the development of systematic pricing.
3 Type of Buyer
Even though the some competitor of Cowgirl Chocolates specializes solely on hot spiced foods, Marilyn finds favor with the potential buyers. This is because her prices are competitive coupled with the quality of products, which are in the rank of the Seattle Chocolates. There was a serious concern that the competitors use similar features in advertisement that could confuse the buyers in the decision making between the Cowgirl spicy chocolates and the competitor products.
1 Product Decision
The product development in the Cowgirl Chocolate business is quite unique since it combines two non-related industries, the advertisement and the food manufacturing industries (Kotler & Keller, 2012). There is need to realign the products such that there is uniformity and specialization, rather than the wide difference between the products.
1 Product Line
From the risk profile of the organization and the limited financial capacity, the management ought to decide on the product that targets many potential buyers. This is purely the food. As the business grows, the expansion plan of the product business will focus on the increase of product types. The Seattle Chocolate that manufactures the Cowgirl Chocolate has a private label as an organization that works in conjunction with the Frango chocolatier to make their chocolate products. The creative packaging of Marilyn products is attractive to the customers since it is done in customized bags, boxes and tins. However, some consumers have maintained that despite the packaging the chocolate products are too spicy for their consumption (Baker, 2008). Marilyn therefore has to consider making non spicy products.
2 Pricing
There ought to be a march between the wholesale process and retail prices as well as the percentage of the revenue implied by each of the process. For example, it should be easier to describe a product as the bestselling, based on the prices of the entire sales that the product represents. For example, a product can be referred to as the bestselling product in the market, forming 45% of the sales. It should also be easy to monitor the process and to present the analysis in a systematic manner for example; the percentage increase in the prices of hot spicy chocolate was 50% (Shaw, 2012).
3 Breakeven Analysis
The analysis of the business performance of cowgirl chocolate shows the ability of the company to move from loss making books to profit making performance. Of course, with the increase in the product lines, the cost of operation is likely to rise against the constrained sales volume. The risk of making losses from the expanded business is very high. This calls for the study of the business trends to be able to estimate from the business forecasting, the p[ay back period, when the loss making pattern will have ended. At present, Marilyn does not focus on a specific product. This is very essential, considering the business continuity that has taken place even though some products are not performing (Goldstein and Lee, 2005). With the inclusion of many products, the company may possibly break even during the fifth or the six year of operation from now.
4 Advertising and Promotion
The main channel of advertisement is the cowgirl Chocolate website, which presently accounts for about 75% of all the sales realized in the financial dashboard. However, the website lacks the statistical mschanism to report the important tracking details such as the number of visitors, the most searched product, and the number of actual sales from the advertisement (Homburg, Sabine and Harley, 2009). Marilyn is therefore not able to establish the patterns of buying as a contribution of the website advertisement.
5 Selling and Distribution
The volumes of sales and distribution have to increase for the Seattle Chocolate manufacturing company to break even fast. The retail wholesale process ought to be kept low to encourage more retail distributors to operate the retail business and influence more consumers in the target market.
6 Income Statement
The income statement is as shown below:
PROFIT AND LOSS ACCOUNT

COWDUNG CHOCOLATE - FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 31-Dec-2013

Revenue





Product sale

26000




Miscelaneous Income

4046




Total net sale


30046


100.00%

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