國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
newly developed supermarket/hypermarket. Since the procurement from these supermarkets can exercise the advantage of economy of scale, the price tends to be more competitive with these new channels. For the booth in traditional market, the buying power of the booths definitely can’t compare with the large corporation. Advertisements from supermarket/hypermarket are also strong and attract the attentions of the customers. These advertisements influence the buying habits of the market by continuously broadcasting and bring certain level of damage for sales in supermarkets.
3-3) FIRST PHASE STRATEGY
In order to make the seafood booth successful, strategies play important role to help achieve the goal. Strategies can basically divide into two main directions: Differentiation or Price competiveness. Both methods will be applied to our seafood booth in order to make the profits. However, below four strategies will be the main tactics that we use to make our seafood booth different from the rest:
1) Products Differentiation (Differentiation) 2) Service Differentiation (Differentiation) 3) Cost Down Tactic (Price Competitiveness) 4) Development of uniqueness (Differentiation)
Above strategies constitute the first-phase strategy which aims to make the operation of the booth profitable. Once the booth business starts to stabilize, it will lead to second phase of our strategy: Long Term expansion. Second phase will focus more on expansion of the booth business and seek for new methods of running the sales of seafood. The new methods will not limit seafood sales in booth anymore, but bring the seafood sales to other new channels in order to reach different customer base. It can be seem as the diversification of the seafood sales in other new channels. The long term goal is to combine the unique specialty of traditional market which is formulated by its booths with local environment in
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
order to promote the tourism for greater business opportunities. However, second phase strategy will be emphasized more in later paragraphs.
3-3-1) Products Differentiation
In order to make our booth outstanding and different compared to others, products must be unique and special enough that consumers do not see often at the other booth. At the same time, these products also need to be attractive and fit to mass consumers’ taste. Therefore while most of seafood booth focus on selling the fish only with few combinations. Our booth will aim at seafood like below combination:
# Category Products Varieties
1 Fish Cod Fish/Basa Fish/Pomfret/
Salmon/Spearfish/ 5~7
2 Shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei(白蝦) Tiger Prawn (草蝦)
shelled fresh shrimp(蝦仁)
6~7
3 Shell/Mollusk Locos/Squid/Octopus/Mussel 3~5 4 Crab Series River Crab/Three Spotted
Crab/Crab Tube 3~6 5 Value Added
Products
Hot Pot item/salad series/Stir
Fried items/snacks 10~15
Total 27~40
Red highlights are our focus seafood
While other seafood booth focus their products on varieties of fish, our booth tend to focus on all type of mass products. Fish、Shrimp、Shell/Mollusk、Crab and value added products can all be seem on our display table. Our customer can enjoy one stop shopping for all kinds of seafood. This kind of shopping model is still rare in most of the traditional markets.
Out of all these categories, our booth will concentrate more on Shrimp、Crab and Value Added Products. In Asian culture, fish is still being seemed as the most important seafood on meal table. It is why almost every seafood booth displayed the fish products at best spot.
Our seafood booth will still sale fish since it is the mass product in seafood family, but our
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
attention will be shifted more on other secondary seafood: shrimp、crab and value-added products. Our product differentiation aims to sale something that other booths do not expert in and make the characteristics of our booth more special compared with others.
1. Shrimp (蝦)
The varieties of shrimps will be concentrated on 5~7 major types of shrimp. In Taiwan, two largest shrimp groups for consumption are white shrimp(白蝦) and tiger prawn(草蝦).
Most of the all you can eat buffet and hot pot restaurants use these two shrimps even more than fish categories. In regular families, these two kinds of shrimps are also main dishes on dinning tables. So on our booth, these two types of shrimps will be placed as main products and good quality will be key point for selling. However, despite the mass products of white shrimp and tiger prawn, the high-class type of shrimp will also be put in order to attract some mid to high income families. Under this circumstance, Fleshy Prawn(明蝦) and lobster(龍 蝦) will be placed at position behind white shrimp and tiger prawn on our display table.
Since Fleshy Prawn and lobster are focused on higher income families, therefore there will be special container for deposition of these two products. In order to increase the gap of differentiation between our booth and other booth, professionalism on shrimp and difference will have to be made and can be clearly compared with other booths by consumers. There is another high level acceptance shrimp product called shelled shrimp(蝦仁) which will be
1. Shrimp(蝦)
Despite Fish, Shrimp rank as second most popular and wide accepted food among varieties of seafood. But most seafood booth in traditional market sale fish only or concentrate mostly on fish and few types of shrimps to serve as contrast.
2. Crab Series(蟹)
Crab rank as 3rd best accepted specie in seafood family. But like shrimp, crabs are mostly seemed in more specialized seafood shop or nearby the cluster of seafood shops.
3.Value-added
Product(調理加工品)
As the society is transforming into busier and faster rhythm social unit. There is increasing demand for “fast foods” or
“Microwave type of Foods”. Our Booth also offers the well-prepared fast foods with different types and flavors of value added products.
‧
can reflect the professionalism of the booth manager on procurement ability of the shrimps.The price of shelled shrimp is set to be between White shrimp/ Tiger prawn and Fleshy Prawn /lobster. So despite above mentioned shrimps, there will also be “season limited” shrimps put in our varieties of shrimps during the big holidays like New year、Moon Festival in order to stimulate the sales and strengthen the differentiation strategy. These season limited shrimps will be “Red shrimp from Argentina(阿根廷天使紅蝦)、Blue Diamond shrimp(中東 藍鑽蝦) and Sea Prawn(海肥蝦). These shrimps are limited within certain time periods and can only be acquired through limited supply channels in Taiwan. Therefore our booth can use these rare shrimps to shield the sales of our regular shrimps like white shrimp and tiger prawn. These season limited shrimps play the role of strong promotion of our brand on
“shrimp professionals”. Below chart is our menu for shrimp varieties.
# Shrimps Characteristic Focus consumers Place of origin 1
White shrimp (白蝦)
Cheap、high acceptance for mass customers and can be supplied acceptance for mass customers and can be supplied 3/4 year long and Tiger prawn, the price is a bit higher than Fleshy Prawn. The customers and can be supplied 3/4 year long
All level of income families
Taiwan、Vietnam
‧
Like shelled shrimp(蝦仁)in shrimp, there is also another processed crab product called crab tube(蟹管肉) which is used widely in soup、stir fried and simple dish. The price range for crab tube is lowest among all of the crab products and it also fit the needs for mass customers.
It is another major selling crab product at our booth. Because most of the crab products are short with their growth periods, so our booth has to centralize the resource and capitals to ensure the stability of the supply on few crabs. Therefore the varieties of crabs we sale will not be as diversified as shrimps. Basically strategy is to secure supply of three types of crabs: 1) cheap and popular crabs (river crabs) 2) higher level of crabs (three-spotted crabs) and 3) Cheap and processed crab product (crab tube). However, since most of the seafood booth in traditional market does not have a lot of types of crabs or even not selling crabs at all, therefore our booth can still make strong differentiation compared to the other competitors.
‧
The crab combinations will be showed like below chart:
# Crabs Characteristic Focus consumers Place of origin
1 River Crabs suitable for mass consumers, but price acceptance might kinds of hot pot materials (火鍋料)、souse products(醃製品)、 lobster salad(龍蝦沙拉系列) and microwave products etc. The strategy of putting value-added products is to enrich the products combinations of the booth. These value added products fit the needs of fast food culture in current society. However, there will be around 10~15 types of products at our booth like below listed:
# Name Characteristic Focus consumers Origin place
1
Lobster Salad (龍蝦沙拉)
High level of acceptance and low price.
It can be eaten right away after open up of the bag.
It’s wrapped with shrimp and cabbage for fried usage.
All level of income families
South East Asia
‧
very popular food in Taiwan, mostly used for soup. invention is considered advanced compared with other countries.These are like Fast foods packs (速食 調理包) in section 6, but this focus more on Taiwanese traditional style of taste.
The focus products will be spiral shells(燒 酒螺) and shrimp roll(府城蝦捲) etc. is considered as the holiday with strongest consumption power. Therefore products for New year packs focus on stuff which
‧
mentioned products might be adjusted according to seasons and trend of the food markets and consumers tastes. However, the main purpose of displaying the value added products at booth is to enrich our food varieties of the booth and also expand our market to more efficiency- oriented and fast food oriented consumer base. There is another advantage of adapting the value added products is that there is no problem on growth period for value added products. Because most of these value products are artificial or processed foods, therefore the supply will not be affected by weather or any other natural conditions. Thus the shortage of the products might be factor to consider while managing the seafood products, but it will never be the issue for value added products. Base on these three main categories our booth will focus, products price ranges will be classified like below:# Category Standard Price Range Specie(Item)
1 Shrimp
High Cost NTD$600/K
and above Lobster、Flashy Prawn Low Cost NTD$600/K
and below White Shrimp、Tiger Shrimp
2 Crab
Despite the products differentiation, service we offer will also vary with others:
# Service Differentiation
1 E-Business 1-1 Blog Blog-It’s the most popular and widely accepted internet tool for mass
consumers. It serves the same function as websites and enables the viewers to interact with the Blog operator. We can post the latest information and price on Blog and nurture the basic customer base
‧
main tool our booth would run.1-2 Face Book Face Book-It serves the similar function as Blog, it will also be applied due to some users who feels more comfortable with Face Book than Blog, therefore we would also take care of the face Book users.
1-3 Shopping site Site-We can also sale our products through large bidding platform in order to develop a new channel, such as yahoo bidding site、Ihergo(合購網)
2 Delivery service Most of the Booth operator just perform the basic service on retailing. Our Booth will serve our customer not only through regular retail and internet sales, but also door to door delivery once the customer’s consumption value had reached NTD$3,000, this service has below tactics involved in:
1) Encourage the group shopping in order to attract more customers know about our booth.
2) Increase the efficiency and turning rate of the stock.
3) In order to reach the amount, consumer will need to invite the others to do the shopping together. It helps to do free
1) Whose consumption amount is more than NTD$5,000 2) Royal customer (ex: Who has more interaction with us on internet or customer who come to shop at booth regularly)
The Menu we offer for personal shopping service will be different compared to our daily sold seafood at booth. The seafood on the menu
1) will be changed according to season
2) If there is anything customer want but not on our special menu. They can provide their own list to us, we could also help them to shop and deliver to their doors.
There are two goals for personal shopping service
1) Increase the service differentiation of our booth compared to other seafood booth
2) Increase the customer royalty
It is clear that our service differentiation basically focus on two elements: E-Business and customization. From E-Business perspective, even though the average age that comes to
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
shop in traditional Market is older. Due to formation of M-shape society, there is increasing amount of younger working employees come to shop in traditional market. These customers are mostly married women and aged between 25~40. This consumer group has characteristic of price oriented, and also familiar with modern internet technology.
Therefore E-business is a way to attract the attentions of them. In fact, our booth does not only provide the service on internet, we also have physical shop in traditional market and it can give them more faith on our honesty and quality of the products compared to some shopping sites on line. From the perspective of customization, despite the personal delivery service and group purchase premium, our booth can customize a list of seafood materials according to different seasons for our royal customers and advise them the market price.
Customers can pick the items they are interested and let us do the service of procurement through our supplier chains and deliver the products to their door. This can guarantee customers’ acquirement of best seafood during each season with lowest cost. It is also the challenge for us to build the relationship with customers. Once customers found out that our booth’s ability of providing them the best seafood materials with lowest price, it can solidify the royalty of customer base. However, base on E-Business and customization, the service differentiation strategy aims to increase the level of trust from customers in order to promote the brand awareness of the booth, thus expand the market shares.
3-3-3) Cost Down Strategy
Price plays a key role on the business of the booth. Without a competitive price, the sales can never generate. Therefore the price is the most competitive weapon which can help us compete with outsiders (super/hypermarket) and insiders (other booth operator). We can proceed as following:
Direct Supply from Utmost (Get rid of the mid players)
Original Supply Chain Our Supply Chain
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
According to my current working position as seafood procurement agent, I personally have the closer connection with upper-stream suppliers compare to other seafood booth operator.
Thus I can use my resources help me getting the products without being ripped off by what so called upper suppliers. Food industry is basically the business of how to reach the upper stream producer. Whoever has the connections to reach the upmost stream, the operation cost will also be minimized according to the level you reach. It is also why our booth can obtain certain special products like season limited shrimps or value added products through our supplier channels. This difference of supplier chain does not only minimize our cost, but also increase the diversification of the products we can offer compared to other booth operator. For the outside competitors like super/hypermarket, the cost of operating the booth in traditional market is definitely much lower. First of all, it is free charge of income tax according to government regulation. Therefore booth retailers do not have to provide receipts while doing the business in traditional market. It is the policy that government posted to protect the growth of the local food retail business and it can provide at least 5% of the space on pricing for booth operators compare to outside competitors. Secondly, the rental fees on booth also enjoy the benefits from government’s patronage on market space.
The rental fee of the booth is based on the land scale your booth occupies. But most of the