Between Market Structures in Kudler ECO365 “Kudler Fine Foods was established in 1998 when Kathy Kudler fulfilled her vision of establishing her own gourmet food store. The La Jolla store continues to grow while the Del Mar store has been having some difficulties. The store in Encinitas has just opened, but sales seem brisk. ” (Apollo, 2011, Strategic Plan, p. 3) The owner works 7 days a week and performs many jobs from purchasing to stocking shelves. Kudler Fine Foods sees itself outside of competition.
The customer’s satisfaction survey, conducted in 2011, indicated that 80% of customers find Kudler Fine Foods stores convenient for open hours and are pleased with atmosphere and decor inside the stores. The owner makes sure that the shelves are restored with the fines and fresh product, however only 40. 3% of customers said that the quality of the product matches its price and only 62. 5% were happy with customer service representatives (Apollo, 2011, Market Surveys).
On top of that the numbers listed above have decreased from the surveys conducted a year before. The high price and low customer satisfaction may shake the stability for the entire business especially for the new store that was recently opened. Increasing customer satisfaction is necessary to improve the business. * Kudler Fine Foods markets structure is closer to oligopoly. Their strategic plan outlines a “gourmet food shop” is the only store in its southern California region that offers its range of goods and services (Apollo, 2011).
The Term Paper on Food Customs of India
Food Customs of India By: Richa Laroia Course code: HFN20 Teacher: Mrs. Coletti With nearly 1 billion citizens, India is the second most populated nation in the world. There are twenty-four languages that are spoken by a million people or more, and countless other dialects. India has seven major religions and many minor ones, six main ethnic groups, and countless holidays. India is located in ...
They also view themselves similar to stores like Harvest Ranch Market, Cardiff’s Seafood Market, and real-world firms, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods (Apollo, 2011).
The statement seems to be true since Kudler Fine Foods is specialized on selling organic specialty food and wines. They sell their product on a limited area-South California. Also, the high cost of the specialty food is an obstacle to entry is another argument that Kudler Fine Foods is an oligopoly. The market structures are outlined below to better understand the differences in between them. Perfect competition| Monopoly| Monopolistic competition| Oligopoly| * Example organization| Farm| Government| Hotwire| Ford| * Goods or services produced by the organization| Vegetables, grain| Energy, water supply| Airlines tickets, car rentals| cars| * Barriers to entry| None| Significant| Few| Significant| * Number of organizations| Almost infinite| One| Many| Few| Price elasticity of demand| MC =MR= P| MC = MR| MC = MR| Strategic pricing,between monopolyand perfect competition| * Is there a presence of economic profits? No long-runeconomic profitpossible| Possibility of long-runeconomic profit| No long-runeconomic profitpossible| Some long-runeconomic profitpossible| * * Kudler indicates that they are nearly completion free however, they also indicate that the some firms compete in meat and seafood and other companies offer similar organic specialty foods or cooking utensils (Apollo, 2011, Strategic Plan).
One of the reasons Kudler has low customer satisfaction may be the fact that they act as monopoly and think that they don’t have direct completion.
The fact is if they continue such behavior they will not sustain their business. Another issue is 40% of their customers think that the product is overpriced or the product does not match its monetary value. At the same time in Kudler’s Strategic Plan outlined that they are striving to deliver lower price. If the same continues, they will start losing their customers. Being an oligopoly, they should consider how their prices affect competitor’s reaction (Colander, 2010), therefore they should think about price reduction to bring more customers which will help business stability in the long term. The Marketing overview says: “Forecasting which items to carry and how much to carry in the future has always been a challenge. Kathy and her department managers utilize historical data on which items and what quantities were sold in the last 2-3 years, especially on holidays. This provides an indication of which items and what quantities to carry in the future. ” (Apollo, 2011) This is another area of opportunity to establish a strong inventory system to be able to track items sold and being able to forecast better.
The Term Paper on Why Did Global Food Prices Rise?
For the last 25 years global food prices have been falling, driven by the increased productivity and output of the farm sector worldwide. In 2007, this came to an abrupt end as global food prices soared. By September 2007, the world price of wheat rose to over $400 a ton-the highest ever recorded and up from $200 a ton in May. The price of corn (maize) surged to $175 a ton, some 60 percent above ...
Kudler strives to deliver 95% inventory to its customers and in order to do that the strong inventory system must be established. * There is one thing that they are very creative and very good at:” Expanding Services (Revenue Increase) – Kudler is offering parties in the store to show customers how to prepare specialty foods. The draw for the consumers is to be trained by world-renowned chefs, local celebrities, other food experts, and even Kathy Kudler herself, and to be invited to exclusive, upscale events.
The anticipated outcomes will be to increase the customer purchase rate of high margin food and beverage items and to get consumer to make an evening at Kudler Fine Foods part of their social network. This increased time in the store will increase the overall revenue per visit and increase the frequency of visits to the store. ” (Apollo, 2011 Marketing Overview) They should absolutely continue with this strategy. This makes them unique and decreases competition. Even though Kudler acts like a monopolistic company they are definitely is oligopoly and should get more realistic and consider competitors who will attract Kudler’s customers shortly. In order to sustain and grow their business they need to work on matching their prices with their competitors otherwise very soon they will realize that their sales drops due to customers are shopping elsewhere. They also need to work on retraining their personnel to improve customer’s satisfaction. Customers who come to shop to their stores want to feel welcomed, and want to be assisted nicely and on timely manner.
The Term Paper on Kudler Fine Foods
Kudler Fine Foods wants to deploy a Frequent Shopper Program for its valued customer, while still capable of meeting the desires of the company. As with any new system which must be developed, the scope and goals of the project must be properly outlined, measures by which we may determine the success of the project must be defined, an analysis of the total feasibility of the project must be made, ...
Also, establishing a strong inventory system will help them to keep their product fresh and available to their customers. Strong inventory system will help forecasting and will show customer’s shopping behavior. Last, the owner needs to hire and train more personnel, very soon she will find out that she is too tired to run her own business 24/7 but won’t have people to replace her at that time and it will lead to a big problem. References Apollo Group, Inc. (2011).
Kudler Fine Foods. Retrieved September 5, 2012. Colander, D. C. (2010).
Economics (8th ed. ).
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. *
