Marketing Case Study: Kudler Fine Foods

Kudler Fine Foods Marketing Research
Introduction
Kudler Foods opened its doors for the first time on June 18, 1998 in La Jolla, near San Diego, California. Within the next five years, Kudler Foods opened up two additional stores, both in the San Diego metropolitan areas, in Del Mar and Encinitas. The founder or Kudler Foods, Kathy Kudler, had once been a Vice-President of Marketing for a defense contractor but wanted to make some changes to her stressful lifestyle. Her love for cooking helped inspire her to open this gourmet epicurean supply company. In visiting one of the three locations, one can expect to browse through aisle of bakery and pastry products, fresh produce, fresh meat and seafood, condiments and packaged foods, and cheese
and specialty dairy products. The combination of the quality and diversity of the products available, coupled with the exceptional staff, allows Kudler Fine Foods to appeal to many different types of consumers, but it still has some fine-tuning to do when it comes to market research and cornering some additional aspects of the food market.
Additional Market Research Kudler Fine Foods marketing objective is to increase customer loyalty and profitability of consumers. Most recently it was released that the company will be starting a frequent shopper program which will provide exclusive offers to loyal shoppers and also offer additional discounts to those that frequently shop at Kudler Fine Foods. This program is focused on increase revenue but at the same time promotes customer loyalty. While this is a great benefit to those that frequently shop, Kudler Fine Foods can also use the purchasing habits of these frequent shoppers to help create more product availability and even offer exclusive discounts when purchasing habits are identified. They could use the frequent shopper card to help identify what particular products that shopper tends to buy and can create coupons or special discounts exclusive to that particular patron. It could also use this purchase information to help couple other products that might work well together in order to drum up more sales for a particular sister product. The frequent shopper card is also already designed as a points system that creates now only discounts or special offers within the store, but can also be redeemed for items such as airline first-class upgrades or high-end gifts. One flaw to this frequent shopper system is that needs to be marketed with the “customers best interest” in mind. It cannot seem as if it is a revenue increasing product for the company, but as a way for loyal customers to simply be rewarded. Kudler Fine Foods marketing department is also currently focused on cost reduction that can also be passed on to the consumer. They are focused on their software systems and upgrading it to a more enhanced stocking system that will allow the company to reach the “zero stock out” policy they are trying to implement. With this new stock policy, the purchasing department also has to get the buy-in of its suppliers which will also take the creativity of the marketing department to help spin the correct approach. The final marketing focus is on increasing the foot traffic for the cooking class and preparation aspect of the company. They will be offering exclusive cooking classes and new product discoveries from world-renowned chefs and even some local celebrity chefs. During these cooking parties, guests will receive entries for different drawings that will also help boost product sales. The marketing goal here is to increase awareness of what these specialty products are for and also to increase the amount of physical time that shoppers are spending in the store. This will also help foster that loyalty and hopefully spread the word that Kudler Fine Foods is not just a place to shop, but a whole different experience into the gourmet food world. Competitive Intelligence
With all the internal marketing research available, Kudler Fine Foods also needs to consider what is happening with the rest of the gourmet food markets across the state and beyond.
The marketing department appears to have done a fantastic job with focusing on the current shoppers and what they can do to retain their business and increase this particular consumer groups spending in the store, but has seemed to lose focus on obtaining new business from other local competitors. Although a part of the company’s sales plan is to focus on new customers through cooking class socials, the advertising is geared mainly towards certain zip codes which could seriously limit new clientele. Generally certain zip codes are related to certain classes of people. If the company targets only certain zip codes, they could potentially leave out large quantities of new customers. Kudler Fine Foods marketing should consider offering special cooking class socials to different local organizations to help drum up business from new customers by pitching these classes as a team building activity. By reaching out to the local business organizations, this could open the door to a whole new target marketing group that might never have thought about purchasing the gourmet goods offered at Kudler Fine Foods until they had the chance of experiencing the exceptional service and tastes of the products first
hand.
Another aspect into competitive advantage that the marketing strategy is lacking is focusing on what exactly the competition is doing. Kudler Fine Foods marketing should consider employing secret shoppers both within the companies three locations and to the competition not just within the state but beyond to see what is working in other similar organizations. The company is only as good as its own product and service, but often times seeing how the competition is stacking up even if it is worse, can give a company a new vision into what changes they can make themselves to help corner an even bigger slice of the market.
Conclusion
The marketing strategy of Kudler Fine Foods internal process is top-notch and has helped the company become a huge success in the greater San Diego area, but it is not enough. The company needs to broaden its search and vision to what is happening in the market around them and not just internally behind the doors of these three stores. Their marketing plan, although strong and successful, needs to take a step back and focus on the aspects that are lacking which is external factors. If the marketing department of Kudler Fine Foods can add this extra focus into their marketing strategy, Kudler Fine Foods will absolutely come out on top of gourmet food service industry in the San Diego area and beyond.