QINGBO FENG
SALES MANAGEMENT
FRESH FRUIT STAND
BACKGROUND
Tulane students typically eat little fresh fruit, and after some research, I conclude it into several basic reasons. First, this is a food culture thing in American hospitality industry. Sometimes people simply don’t like fruits and vegetables, but often American diet is simply not fruit or veggie-centric. If you look at most menus posted in LBC in front of each food counter, you will notice that the entrees are primarily meat or grain based: “BEEF STEAK”, “ROSTED CHICKEN”, “PASTA DISH””SAUSAGE PIZZA””SANWADGE””STEAMED RICE””HAMBURGER”… Salad served in LBC tends to consist of some vegetables and fruit, but the amount of fruit is really limited.
Usually, Fruit is only an after-thought in most dishes, or people tend to enjoy fruit during the break in afternoon. But existing cup-fruit is standardized and is not flexible for the preference of different fruits. it’s disappointing for some people because of the limited varieties there. Different people have different appetite for fruit. For example, Apple is known as the “king of fruit”, but I still keep on hearing some people’ complains about the bad taste of apple.
Furthermore, fruits and vegetables also haven’t been extensively packaged in ready-to-eat forms. There are rows and rows of “open and eat” lunch meats, cheeses, cereals, granola bars, crackers, but just a handful of easy to consume, fresh fruit options. Most fruits require washing and peeling, perhaps chopping, steaming or boiling to really enjoy. The lack of convenience in preparation probably also defers consumption.
Some students prefer to bring fruit from home. This is a practical option, but not always optimal. Based on my experience, it is a huge challenge for your brain to remember to put an apple into your bag before you rush for the last minute, and most of times you fail.
Another reason why students eat little fruit probably is the existence of fruit juices available everywhere on campus, like LBC refrigerator storage, vending machines, or coffee shops. The juice bottles are convenient to carry away, and some of them do contain limited fruit pulp inside.
Also, sometimes we can find bagged dried fruit in grocery stores, supermarkets or vending machines on campus. These ready-to-eat fruit also provides the needed vitamins but they are pretty easy to carry along. And most importantly, the weight of these kinds of bags typically is lighter than that of fresh fruits, so it provides another incentive for students to consume dried fruits.

MARKET POTENTIAL
The fact that Tulane students eat little fruit just unveils one potential business opportunity. Fruit is essential to our daily life not only because of our desire for fitness, but also the diet for beauty, people’s daily habit, ethical reasons and its affordable and economical price.
Health Consciousness (Fitness) Nowadays, consumers become more and more conscious of health and nutrition issues, and their purchase patterns are driven by this growing awareness when they decide what food helps them build and manage optimum health. This growing attention on healthy diet is also shared with Tulane students. Some topics over meals are concerned about the optimal food schedules for some specific purposes. And this trend uncovers the potential huge demand for healthy food, of which fruit definitely accounts for a great portion.
Fruits are rich in vitamins, which are an important part of muscle, bone, brain and organ function as well as other biochemical process. Vitamins can help boost our immune system and keep our organs working well. Fruits also contain basic minerals, of which a diet of meat and processed carbohydrate fails to provide adequate amount. Fruits are also known as 100% bad-cholesterol free, miraculous healing effects and full of essential fibers.

Diet for Beauty
Losing weight always seems an impossible challenge, and most of times, people, mainly girls, fail because of their unrealistic restrictions on their meal schedule, for example, only one meal per day. However, people need energy generated from food to support their daily activities, or the unexpected depressions or diseases will follow soon. But, how to maintain the injection of essential nutrition, meanwhile, stay away from high calories? The answer is Fruit.
Fruit, especially fresh fruit, is highly preferred by girls who are on diet. The abundance of vitamins and fibers prevents from storing excessive fat while providing the vigor their body need.
Keep in mind that, the pursuit of excellent body shape will never lose its attractiveness among girls, so, it means that fruit will always stand its position in the market demand.
Daily Habit
Some people are brought up by eating fresh fruit every day, so this habit has become an essential part of their daily life. So, whenever they could afford fresh fruit in convenience, they will go with it. This situation is pretty typical among Chinese students.

Ethical Reasons
Fruit doesn’t have to be killed or slaughtered before you can eat it. For some religions, meat is strictly restricted, so vegetables, fruits, and carbohydrate become the major food for them.
Also, as far as I know, there are many vegetarians on campus. Their demand for fruit occurs every day.
Affordable & Economical Price
When compared with the price of those “junk food” and the benefits they bring in, fruits seems really stand its ground.
Fruit is inexpensive especially when you buy them in wholesale price, like in Wal-Mart. But currently on campus, this price issues stays as an barrel which prevents students from consuming more fresh fruit as they are supposed to.

FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS OF FRESH FRUIT MARKET
Threat of New Entrants
Since the setup cost of the fresh fruit stand requires not that much initial investment, so the threat of new entrants stays high. Once my retail fresh fruit business proves a huge success, there is a large chance that other merchants will join in this market to compete for customers.
Existing Players
Currently, the only fresh fruit provider is the cup-fruit seller. This kind of processed fruit, which has been washed, peeled, and chopped, is bought by certain faculties and students, but by no means become a daily need for all students.
Also, cupped-fruit has limited varieties for customers to choose. Most of them are standardized and not so flexible to add or delete certain specific fruits. Customers will turn away sometimes by this inflexibility.
Bargaining Power of Supplier
The sources of fresh fruit could be purchased from many places, like Wal-Mart, grocery store, Supermarkets. We can even go to negotiate with the fruit growers around New Orleans to locate a bargain price. So, the bargaining power of supplier is not a threat for this business.
Bargaining Power of Customers
Because the fresh fruit will be sold in retail selling, so customers will be price sensitive. If the price is set beyond their upper limit, the business will be doomed. So, find out the optimal price for each category of fresh fruit will be critical.
Meanwhile, not all students and faculties have put the fresh fruit in their daily much-eat list, so they could live without eating any fruit if they think the price is too high and not worth it, therefore, we can tell the bargaining power of customers is pretty high.
Threat of Substitutes
Fresh Fruit has its own beauty for its healthy, fresh, and tasty.
Fruit juice is a powerful substitute of fresh fruit for its convenience to carry on and the accessibility to buy through vending machines in almost every corner of Tulane campus. However, there are many artificial flavors in the bottled fruit juice (except 100% Orange Juice), and these artificial flavors is not good to health. More and more girls dropped this choice also because some flavors in the ingredients actually create fat in body.
Dried fruit is another substitute to get the nutrition and vitamin from fruits. But the price of dried fruit is typically high, and on campus there is limited place to buy them. Meanwhile, most of time, dried fruits do not have the same delicious taste as the original fruit.

BELLA’S FRESH FRUIT STAND
Business Description
The aim of my business is to provide Tulane students and faculties fresh fruits at reasonable price for their convenience. The varieties of fruit will encompass most of seasonal fruits and we will provide high-level services to make it easy for our customers to enjoy their fruit. Beside the fresh fruit, we will also provide the cup-fruit with whatever customers want to process and fresh fruit juice by processing it on the spot. Washing service: Fresh fruit is a healthy part of every diet, but growing it often involves the use of pesticides and you should thoroughly wash it before eating. That’s probably one big reason why students are unwilling to buy fresh fruit even though they have strong desire to enjoy it. Once the customers buy our fresh fruit, we will provide the washing services for them. Peeling & Chopping service: some customers have preference to enjoy fruit by peeling and chopping them. We will also provide this service to save our customers time and trouble. Cup-fruit service: although the additional material cost of cups will push the price of cup-fruit a little higher, some customers are still willing to pay for it because it’s typically ready to go. We will accept the phone call order to process the desired fruits into cups ahead of time, so when the customers come to the counter to pick up their orders, they don’t have to wait. Fresh fruit Juice: Some students prefer the juice, but they really hate the artificial flavors in the bottled juices. So, to provide our customer the most satisfying service, we will invest in a juice machine in our store. So, after customers pick up the fruits they want, we will process them into juices on the spot. Quality Fruit Guarantee: we will purchase our inventory under a highly strict standard to guarantee the quality of the fruit we are going to provide.
Considering that LBC is the hub of campus, I will set my fresh fruit stand in/beside LBC.
Market Positioning
Our aim is to provide our customer the high-level services through selling and processing fresh fruit on campus for their convenience.
Value Chain
High-level service could allow us to set the retail price a little bit higher than the regular price in Wal-Mart or other supermarkets, and this quality service will be our competitive advantages.
For the retail business, massive customer base is essential. We will focus on attracting old customer to come back while developing new customers.
Competitive Advantages
We should always keep in mind that our high-level service to make our customers’ life easy and enjoyable is our competitive advantages, and we will work hard to maintain this advantage.
Risks
Although the initial investment in retail selling of fresh fruit stand is not huge as capital-intensive industry, it still needs large quantity of money. As long as there is investment, there will be risks associated with it.
First, fruits are highly perishable, so a high inventory turnover is crucial.
Second is the fixed cost. The cost of renting space in LBC, the cost of employee payroll, and the cost of unsold inventory are all detrimental to my profit.

MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
Our Vision: To become the most popular and valuable fruit provider for Tulane students and faculties
Our Short-term Target: through our high-level service, we will generate our profit to expand our business and to reward our employees.
So, to fulfill the vision (long-term strategy) and short-term target, we have to select and manage our employees wisely.
First is the selection of my salesperson. The criteria that I put more weight are self-motivation, ambition, and strong desire to learn. My company is a start-up, so I hope my employees come here with a strong desire to learn some precious experience. They will treat this as an opportunity to become an entrepreneur.
Once the salesperson are put in position, they will be trained how to deliver the high-level services, like washing, peeling, chopping, and processing juice. A detailed list of requirements has to be met in every deal and service. For example, in washing process, minimum amount of fruit cleanser has to be applied; minimum napkins have to be used to remove the additional water, and ect.
In addition to the detailed requirement of services, employees will be trained to gain the knowledge of different fruit. So, whenever customers don’t have any idea what to buy, employees could guide them based on their special situation. For example, if one student comes and says his eye sights become a little blur these days, then employees will immediately realize that he probably need some berries or apples full of vitamin A,C,E, which are beneficial to eyes.
Employees will also be trained to gain a deeper knowledge about the combination of different fruits. Some fruits have plus-plus effect, but some fruits just go the opposite. This deeper level of knowledge could gain us the recognition from our customers.
Meanwhile, considering that some fruits are highly perishable, our employees also will be trained how to sell specific fruits once the inventory of these fruits is piling up and facing the danger of deterioration.
To guarantee the high-level customer services, I will set up the communication platform for feedback from my customers. Employee lists will be posted beside the cashier, so they are invited to grade the services they have received. The grading will be “above satisfaction”, “satisfaction”, “below satisfaction” and “disappointment”. If one employee get three consecutive “disappointment”, then he will be under probation, and the managers will be required to interfere to find out what’s going on. The employee who gets the most “above satisfaction” will be the “star of month”, and will enjoy the additional income which is set aside for this reward.
Promotion will be selected internally. For those employees who gain the most customer recognition and also demonstrate leadership ability, they will have the chance to get promoted to take more responsibilities.
Last but not least is the internal selling skill. Employees will be trained to get this through team-building activities. Team building is really effective to build the harmony working environment internally. Employees will work together to solve one challenge in some outdoor actives. Once they succeed, deep relationships will be built up. Team building activities could be some outdoor challenges, a food treat, travel or picnic, etc. with at least once a month.

CONCLUSION
It is by no means easy to start a business and develop it to a successful enterprise. A lot of issues have to be taken into consideration. I hope my fresh fruit stand will be the most popular and recognized store in Tulane campus.