Marketing Research
Stephanie King
MKT/421
June 18, 2012
Bob Balcerzak

Marketing Research Kudler Fine Foods is a unique epicurean food shop. They first opened in 1998 and since then have opened two additional store locations. They are well known for their cheese and wine products but also carry a wide variety of the freshest produce, meat, seafood, and bakery items (Kudler Fine Foods, 2011). Kudler just like any organization needs to make good decisions concerning the marketing research for the organization. Marketing research is all the details that go into discovering a problem or an opportunity and then solving it. It is also used most of the time to try to reduce some of the risks there are in an organization (Kerin, Hartley, & Rudelius, 2011). There is always room for additional marketing research in any organization. This is an ongoing process used to keep a company moving forward. Since Kudler Fine Foods opened the first store in 1998, they have been a leader in the fine food market in the San Diego metropolitan area. It is very important for Kudler and any organization to use marketing research everyday to help the organization grow. Marketing research is used to bring the organization more knowledge about what they are looking for which can then bring them to more of an understanding which can then lead to a better profit for the company. The only way to effectively please the target customer is to meet or exceed their needs and wants with the product or service from the company. In order to do this Kudler Fine Foods did the research about what products people wanted to see if their store as well as what locations have the most people that would come in to shop. Now that they have three locations they can effectively meet the needs of more people across the San Diego area. It is important for Kudler to use marketing research to make all marketing decisions because as the decide on new products that they will sell or how to change excising ones to make them better they need to learn about what their customers need and want before they do so. There are areas in which Kudler Fine Foods could use some additional research to help them grow healthier in their industry. This first thing would be to help them with their competition in their particular industry. The location that they are at has many different bakeries, wine and cheese specialty stores, or fresh markets. One thing that Kudler has going for them is the fact that they have so many option in one location. Instead of someone having to go to three different stores to prepare a nice meal they can just stop at Kudler and get everything at one location. Kudler can use marketing research to see what products their competitors sell, how fresh they are, and how well they do with customer service related issues. Kudler can then use this information to make sure they are serving their customers better than the competitors. Another area would be maximizing profits and increasing sales which go hand in hand. Kudler can use marketing research to analyze the price elasticity for many of their products so that they can set their prices where they need to be to sell more and make more of a profit. In order to increase sales Kudler needs to understand more the wants, needs, and attitude towards their products. And then with that Kudler can determine if their products fit these criteria and with that they will be able to sell more to the correct people. As discussed knowing the competitor is a very important part of marketing. This research is called competitive intelligence and analysis. Kudler can use competitive intelligence to help further develop their marketing strategies and tactics. Sun Tzu was a Chinese military strategist who wrote a treatise on the Art of War. His thoughts can now be applied to not only the military leaders but business leaders as well. “If you are ignorant of both your enemy and yourself, then you are a fool and certain to be defeated in every battle. If you know yourself, but not your enemy, for every battle won, you will suffer a loss. If you know enemy and yourself, you will win every battle” (AWARE, 2012). Kudler Fine Foods needs to know who they are and what they are about as well as what their competitors are about as well in order to successfully come out ahead. Kudler’s competitors are not just the other retail stores like themselves but also the organizations that can eliminate the need for their products. Things such as kits to grow organic fresh veggies at home can take customers away from Kudler’s fresh produce. There are four stages when it comes to staying on top of the competition. The first is collecting data or information about the competitor. This is such things as location, price, products, and services. The next stage is converting the information into intelligence. This requires some organizational skills to correctly see what information the company has and then analyzing and interpreting it to somehow benefit the organization. The third stage is communicating the intelligence. This can be done in board meetings, memos, or any form that gets how you will use that information against your competitors. And then the last stage is countering the competitor’s actions. This is when you actually use the information collected to maybe change your price to be lower or to change your warranty policy to better please your customers (AWARE, 2012). Kudler Fine Foods is a unique epicurean food shop that has made numerous strides since they first opened their doors. They have used many marketing research techniques to grow in their particular industry and to keep their target market customer’s happy and coming back for more. As they grow and expand their business over new areas and bring in new products, they can use this research to see what will work for them and will not. They realize the importance of continuing this research over the years so that they can continue to stay ahead of competition and to continue to keep those customers happy.

References
AWARE. (2012, February 19). Competitor Analysis. Retrieved from http://www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk/resources/competitor-analysis.htm
Kerin, R. A., Hartley, S. W., & Rudelius, W. (2011). Marketing (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill Irwin.
Kudler Fine Foods. (2011). About Kudler Fine Foods. Retrieved from http://ecampus.phoenix.edu/secure/aapd/cist/vop/Business/Kudler2/internet/about.asp