Market Research at Kudler Foods Market Research

Market Research at Kudler Foods

Market Research at Kudler Fine Foods

The catalyst of any successful business is the ability to quickly translate customer data in its many forms into a competitive advantage (Perreault, Cannon, & McCarthy, 2008). For Kudler Fine Foods, they have many opportunities to learn from their customers and grow their core business in the process. The intent of this analysis is to evaluate how the many concepts, frameworks and structures of market research can be used to augment and strengthen the store's ability to serve existing customers and gain new ones.

Retailers especially need to be cognizant of how to best to coordinate all the market research functions in a concerted and focused base of knowledge which can be used for making insightful, intelligent strategic decisions (Perreault, Cannon, & McCarthy, 2008). For retailers this focus needs to include the complete customer experience from an authenticity and trust standpoint (Wagner, 2010). The sensory aspects of market research in a retail environment also needs to be considered as the part of any methodology as well (Morrison, Gan, Dubelaar, Oppewal, 2011).

Justifying and Seeing the Value of Market Research at Kudler Fine Foods

What makes this retail business so unique is the specialized needs they fulfill with a distinct, highly differentiated customer base. From the "foodies" or hobbyist cooks to the commercial cooks who visit the store for items they need for their jobs, Kudler Fine Foods has significant upside revenue potential based on the link of its unique products and customer base. Capitalizing on the uniqueness of their customer base and products will require intensive focus and commitment to making the market research programs defined in this analysis real and valuable over time. At the very fundamental level of all research in retail businesses is an assessment of what brings the greatest value to customers through the experience of shopping there, and within that, the authenticity and trust created (Wagner, 2010). To find this out, Kudler Fine Foods needs to have a methodical, focused strategy for understanding more about their customers, their preferences, pricing levels and elasticity, in addition to their unmet needs (Perreault, Cannon, & McCarthy, 2008). All of these factors need to be taken into account for a market research strategy to work the retailer.

Beginning with segmentation research, Kudler Fine Foods needs to have a more accurate and precise definition of their target markets, ranging from amateur or "foodie" chefs to the commercial chefs who earn their living preparing meals. What Kudler is missing today is to capture and leverage these influencers of the local culinary community. Using a series of customer panels Kudler could better understand the motivations, needs and unmet needs of each of these segments (Pearson, Henryks, Trott, Jones, Parker, Dumaresq, Dyball, 2011). An ongoing panel would also give Kudler the ability to test new products, pricing, and new promotional programs as well (Shoemaker, Pringle, 1980). The recruiting of customers for these panels could be easily accomplished using social media strategies and the development of hosted blogs for each of the key influencers to share their ideas and insights on the Kudler site. This would motivate these key influencers to participate in research and also support the Kudler brand by infusing even greater expertise in their reputation at the same time. Kudler needs to use the concept of a customer panel to further drive thought leadership across their business as well. All of these benefits are possible when the company creates an effective customer panel or customer listening system to gain greater customer segment-specific market research (Perreault, Cannon, & McCarthy, 2008). A second area of market research needs to be on auditing existing customer sales-out data from store receipts and creating a data mart or database that can be used for evaluating the price elasticity of categories of items, managing profitability and the supply chain more effectively in the process (Shoemaker, Pringle, 1980). Kudler Fine Foods is sitting on a goldmine of data with their sales-out data, and they need to approach the task of analyzing it from a strategy-driven standpoint. Looking at the price elasticity of their most differentiated items could easily lead to a multiplicative effect on their gross margins and sales over the long-term (Boatto, Defrancesco, Trestini, 2011). Kudler needs to think about how market research can unify the systems of record or large sets of data in their business with the core set of customers it continues to pursue and create loyalty with (Perreault, Cannon, & McCarthy, 2008).