Marketing 412
Professor Carolyn Galvin
New Joe on the Block
1
There are two critical decisions Joe needs to make in order to run a successful coffee shop. The first will be to determine the best location for his coffee shop. After gathering the appropriate information, hopefully, Joe will be presented with an idea of the types of coffee shops that perform well in different locations such as suburbs and inner cities. Once he has come to this decision it will lead him to the next key factor; what type of coffee experience he will have. Will it be a fast paced coffee shop depending on a high volume of sales, or will it be more based on a gourmet coffee shop experience complete with a lounging area, and perhaps offer snacks as well. Most likely, it will be a hybrid of the two.
2
The coffee studies Joe viewed were not entirely relevant. Most have glaring issues with their methodology and reliability of the data collected. The issue with the first two studies is the sample size; the sample size being one. This is too small to be a sample, and as such are merely opinions of individuals. One thing that might be slightly useful is that the first study did include prices of coffee, albeit plain black. The savings of a few cents were not enough make the researcher value the cheaper coffee from burger king, as he chose the most expensive ones. However, as this is just opinion it may not be indicative of the target population.
The third research study was extremely biased, as the researcher stated that Starbucks had lost its way from the very beginning. Then he interviewed 100 people outside of an organic coffee shop about which type of coffee they prefer. This sample is going to more biased as those who frequent organic coffee shops with be almost a niche market of the whole coffee drinking pool. Unsurprisingly, the interviewees chose the organic as the highest rated, while putting Starbucks last.
The only truly redeeming research was the study in