Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

Parts 1/2/3/4/5:
Keeping in line with my opportunity of reselling unused restaurant inventory, I decided to select the franchise ownership segment of my venture's market. My father is a franchisee of a large restaurant chain. In order to get a good picture of what was going on, I decided to interview three different franchisees from the same franchise over Zoom. The first I originally interviewed did not have the unmet need, so that interview was excluded.

Among the several questions I asked, highlighted questions include:
"How has coronavirus affected your business?"
"Has there been a shortage of demand in the past three months?"
"How have you responded to said shortage?"
"Have you changed your inventory management system?"
"Are you faced with overstocked inventory that you will likely not use?"
"Would you be interested in a service that resells that inventory to bring some cash flow to your business?"
"What, if anything, has made you aware of the need for a service of that kind?"

My findings, including need awareness and information search, are below:

  • All franchisee owners became aware of a need for a system to reduce overstocked inventory towards the end of March. This awareness came either from employee concerns brought up to the owner about the inventory, or from internal review of inventory by the owners. 
  • Two of three owners said that beyond COVID-19, they have also felt this need in the past when they were overstocked with certain items. For example, one franchisee explained that when there are specific promotions of one food item, they overbuy to match expected demand. There have been times when expected demand was below what it should've been, creating the need to reduce inventory.
  • Surprisingly, when franchisee owners became aware of this need, all three were unsure of what to do. Two of the three said they would consider unused inventory "lost" and would throw away any unused food items that were eventually beyond expiration.
  • One franchisee owner explained that he often talks to other franchisees for 'information search'. He said that deciding what the next step would be based on what others in a similar position he was in are doing is essential in reducing risks. 
  • Although none listed Google Search as a source of information for this need, a Google search did not reveal any major firms offering this service to restaurants.
Part 6:
Based on what I already knew about this segment, and what I learned from my interviews, I would describe this segment as "strong" on need awareness and "weak" on information search. They are "strong" on need awareness because all franchisees felt the unmet need and recalled exactly when and where they did. They are "weak" on information search, however, because they did not know where to find a solution. This would require a lot of input for a firm to raise customer awareness.

Comments

  1. PChase19June 14, 2020 at 4:26 PM

    This is absolutely genius and you asked the right questions. Most importantly, you asked the right people. I think the biggest part of making this a reality is creating a communication and networking system. Once you do that, the message of your service will be the easy part and the demand will definitely be there. It is just about making those connections and making sure that they are long term customers and not just temporary ones.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nicolas ShenoJune 15, 2020 at 1:39 AM

    Hey Jean,
    I believe you have a strong idea that would stand the test of time and would have the ability to last through anything such as COVID and continue to be a success afterwards. I believe the set of people you interviewed were perfect and gave you a lot to work with. You definitely have the experience and the skillset necessary to make this a huge success.

    ReplyDelete

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