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Market Analysis
We have found that there is a large interest for our U Must B Clean, Campus Cleaning
Service within the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) community. Our group
prepared a survey and received results from a representative batch of twenty students. 68%
of those inquired said they were interested in our cleaning and laundry services.
There are 9,406 undergraduate students enrolled at UMBC. Our surveys show that
43% of this population would be interested in our maid services. A sixth of those who
expressed interest would use our cleaning services three times a semester, one half would use
them four times every semester and one third will use our services five times every semester.
After processing the data, we conclude that, with no competition, assuming our business is
well known, we can potentially attract 19,803 calls for maid services in one semester. This
figure corresponds to 1,414 calls every week. Of course, this estimate only applies to the
final stages of our business and we do not expect to reach it until sometime during our
second year.
Concerning our laundry services, 21% of the surveyed students expressed interest.
Predicting an average of two loads per month per customer we estimate a final intake of 987
loads every week. Again, this estimate is not achievable until later progress and expansion of
our business. Looking at the figures we can easily tell that even 10% of the final market will
exceed our initial capacity. This proves that with adequate advertising and marketing we will
have few issues concerning lack of business on the UMBC campus. In fact, as we show later
in the budget section, even with an estimate of 2% of the market being our customers, we
will be making a profit.
Of the people who were initially interested, 28% said they would use both of our
services at the same time. This would incorporate our cleaners to clean the apartment and
then take the laundry to be cleaned. By using both services at once, the U Must B Clean,
Campus Cleaning Service is planning to offer a discount to encourage customers to continue
coming back to our business. In the long run, this strategy will provide us with a steady
customer base.
Although our survey did not reflect whether the respondent lived on or off campus,
we think that, due to the fact that our service is located on campus, the percentage of those
who live off campus but are interested in our maid services is negligible. Due to the fact that
the costs involved in covering off-campus sites is much higher, our apartment cleaning
services will only be offered and targeted to UMBC campus residents. Conversely, we expect
a small amount of off-campus business regarding our laundry services. Again, we estimate
this percentage to be small. However, the costs of our laundry section of our business are
independent of location if we do not consider delivery. This is why we decided to target offcampus students as well as on campus students in our laundry advertisement campaigns. The
only difference will be that, for off-campus students we will not be able to provide pick-up
and delivery of laundry. This group of customers will drop off and pick up their laundry
during regular business hours. However, we offer the option of room delivery for oncampus customers, which will require a small fee – pickup will be free of charge.
In order to understand some of the details of our business it is important to note here
some main characteristics of our target customer. We expect our average customer to be a
messy person, not without interest in having a clean room but with too little time to achieve
that goal. We expect our customers to want a quick solution to their cleanliness problem.
This is why, instead of operating through setting appointments we have set up the business
such that, during regular business hours, we will guarantee one of our cleaning staff to be at
the client site in within an hour of the order. We have estimated that such speedy service,
although a bit most cost consuming at first, will benefit our business in the long run, since it
ultimately targets a more profitable market.
Furthermore, we found that 62% of potential customers were male and 38% were
female, all of whom are students at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).
With this information, we may conclude that we attract more males interested in an
apartment/suite cleaning than females, and therefore we can advertise in male dominated
places more heavily in female dominated places. For example, we plan to put more flyers in
the Men’s locker room at the Retrievers Activity Center (RAC) than the Women’s locker
room. Flyers will also be posted in every academic building, whether it is in classrooms, in
the hallways, in the library, or on doors, but a larger bulk of flyers will be located around the
buildings of many male-dominated majors, such as Computer Science in the ITE building as
opposed to female dominated majors, such as the Dance floor in the Fine arts building.
Important characteristics of our target consumers are that they are young, between ages 1724, are low income, and are somewhat laidback individuals given this college lifestyle setting.
We will have to market our product in such a way that they will be most receptive to our
product. Even more, flyers will be put around the RAC itself (where many students spend
their time), and by the courts, in the weight room, on the cardio balcony, in restrooms, etc.
Posters and flyers around our office in the Susquehanna dormitory will be a good thing
because it will be convenient to just walk in and either find out more information or even
drop off laundry. The reason we chose this location for our office is because it is near the
center of campus, easily accessible from the commons and dormitories rather than on the
outskirts of campus on Hilltop Circle. Furthermore, we will pass out flyers outside the
commons before and after free hour in the first few weeks of our opening. Posters will be
placed on bulletin boards, given the permission of UMBC. This will be an inexpensive way
to advertise because we only need paper and black ink- our photocopies will be done in bulk
at Kinkos. By posting information around the college campus, we target students and not
the average resident in the Arbutus/Catonsville area. Since we decided not to market
towards the commuting students, there is no need for us to put out so many flyers in the
Commuter’s Lounge in the Commons, but rather in the Library, attracting attention from all
students.
For first 100 customers we are going to give out free t-shirts with the company name,
logo and phone number. Since our title is catchy and our logo is attractive, we are confident
that these t-shirts will be worn, either by individuals wearing them while working out,
hanging out around the dorm/apartment, or even wearing them to class. This is a form of
free publicity because no matter where they are worn, people will see them and take a second
or more to look at both the design and the catch-phrase. It all begins with one glance. The
phone number will be easily readable. For a sense of continuity, our uniform polo’s will be
the same color Gold, only with a collar, presenting a professional look.
Some of the disadvantages of having a cleaning/laundry service on campus is that we
will have to close in the summer and winter semesters due to students leaving. This will
reduce our annual revenue, but overall, closing during the off seasons will save the company
money because we will not have to pay the workers when the net income is low. Also we
would not be able to open exactly as soon
Perfered Price Range
as the fall semester begins; when students
first move into their residences, they will
Pay 5-10$
Pay 10-15$
not have a need for any type of cleaning
service. We decided to open our business
two weeks after school starts. Another
disadvantage of starting a cleaning service
is that nearby services might see how successful we are and will attempt to begin their own
business using ours as a model. Yet an additional factor we have to look at is that our entire
customer base – all will be college students. This means we have to accommodate their
needs, and with a very low income, we will adjust our prices accordingly. Of the thirteen
people who said they would use our services, six of them said they would be willing to pay
$5-10 for a half hour of cleaning, while the other one is willing to pay $10-15. The other
seven said they would be willing to pay $10-15 for a half hour of cleaning, even though they
are not interested in using us at the moment. To solve this dilemma we are going to charge
$10 for every half hour of cleaning service provided (laundry service is on a different pay
scale).The messier the apartment, the more money we will earn.
There is no immediate on campus competition, but we do have to consider the off
campus competition. The closest maid company to UMBC is Maid in the USA and is two
miles from the campus and offers maid services only. The next closest company is Maid to
Perfection having two offices that are approximately five and seven miles from campus. The
main advantage we have over these companies is our location. We will have the competitive
advantage over these companies because they also have to consider gas coverage to
transport the maids to UMBC. We intend to undercut prices of our competitors in order to
keep them away. Hopefully, the competition will not be worth it, considering the advertising
and costs it involves. Another minor source of competition is the laundry machines in every
residence hall. The machines are coin operated, with a charge of 75c per load for washing
and the same price for drying. However, our markets barely overlap. As we have shown, we
target those who would pay to have someone do their laundry for them, and not have to
worry about separating colours, waiting in line, folding or buying laundry supplies. Our
prices will indeed be a lot higher than the $1.50 per load of laundry needed for the automatic
machines, but our customers will pay the extra fee in exchange for the convenience of not
having to spend the time to do the laundry themselves.
Overall, there is a market for U Must Be Clean, Campus Cleaning Service, to base itself. It
will take time for our company to flourish and prosper, but through intensive research and
careful consideration, there is definite interest in our product.