25A - What's Next?

Existing Market:

What’s next?

·         Branded bags

·         Insulated boxes to hold multiple bags at a time for catering services

·         Reusable bags given to customers, when 5 are collected by a customer, they get an incentive like 25% off an order

·         Different options for bags: most environmentally friendly choice, a cold bag, a heat bag, different sizes, etc.

·         Bag with structure to encourage food to keep its shape and stay where it belongs in the bag

Interviews:

·         Small restaurant owner: In quarantine, their takeout frequency has skyrocketed. Because of this, they have not prepared adequately for this explosion of orders. With more takeout orders, comes more complaints when food is not quite up to par.

o   He recommends looking into production of extra-large structured bags, that have separate pouches/compartments for separate orders in the delivery process. Having different orders all in the same insulated bag will help put even more heat to be circulated within the food, keeping the orders extra hot.

o   He also loves the idea of having his logo placed on the bags, as his restaurant is very small and local, so in the use of these branded bags, the word would be spread about his business.

o   He often gets orders for things like cannolis and salads, which do not stay cold very often, so he recommends adding a cold bag option to the business for things like desserts.

·         Fast food restaurant manager: Fast food purchases/customers have boomed in the last month or two due to quarantine, and are expected to continue as such for a while. They have diverted all of their focus from in-store orders to order ahead and drive through. As such, they have been running out of supplies and having problems like above.

o   She has bought clothes from places before that have given her reusable bags, and she has gone one to use them out and about for things like carrying food to work, to the gym, to the beach, etc. She thinks using these could also be applicable in the setting of a fast food restaurant to help give more exposure.

o   She also suggested doing some sort of a promotional deal in which if customers brought a certain number of reusable bags back in, they could get some sort of a reward (free meal, etc.).

o   She also suggested the incorporation of insulated/reusable cups/drinkware into my product lineup for the same reasons as before. This would help drinks from getting prematurely watered down, especially when getting takeout! It would also be another chance for incentive and brand growth.

·         Catering company: Obviously no one is getting catering right now due to the times, but once things resume as normal, catering companies will be stuck with the same issues that they had before (or perhaps even more so) as they will need to provide less family style things and more personal meals since people will be more conscious of it.

o   Having structured boxes that have insulated/cooling capabilities would be a big win for catering events and situations. Not only would this facilitate transport, but also the distribution of meals to customers.

o   Giving customers some sort of a memento to keep (a reusable bag!) would be a key way to market and spread growth. Not only would you be getting business from the event, but also potentially from the attendees in the future!

Future Path:

The first thing that I will pursue in the coming future is the branded bags. This makes the most sense I would say and has the greatest chance of playing out as a success based on my market research thus far. It would also be a nice segue into some of the other future options.

Aside from this, I would definitely explore marketing my products with incentives for companies (another way to help sell my product!) and then pursuing the cups, as I believe they would be easy to sell to customers once they have started to buy into my bags and my ecosystem!

New Market:

Step 1) Instead of targeting a B2B market, this time I will be trying my hand at a B2C market, selling bags directly to consumers instead of the companies that would distribute them to them.

Step 2) I would be able to provide value for the people in this market space in the same exact way as before, solving the exact same problem as before. The only difference here would be that I would be selling directly to the consumers.

Step 3)

·         Mom of 3: She is frequently buying carryout/takeout and has issues all of the time with the food being wet and cold by the time that it gets home. Having my product would ensure that the food she brings home is always hot and fresh, no matter where she goes to get food from. She like the security and reassurance that this provides.

o   She suggests giving bags with eye-appealing patterns like chevrons, dots, and assorted color palettes. This would help incentive customers to use them more frequently and buy them in the first place if they had aesthetic appeal.

o   She also likes this idea because they can also be repurposed for use during shopping. Not only will this keep her from having to pay for plastic bags, but it will also help keep her groceries cool and fresh on the way home. This would really help sell her on this product.

·         Single Professional: She always is making lunch to take to the office, and she struggles with having a good solution to taking her lunch in while also being fashionable. She also likes to keep things as minimal as possible and will often stop at the store on the way home to pick up groceries if she needs something to make a recipe for dinner.

o   Having a reusable bag that would allow her to not only take her lunch to work in style but then also grab groceries after work, all while being to keep it in one neat and compact package in between is extremely appealing.

o   On the occasion that she were to go through the drive through, she would also be able to use this bag too! She could keep it in her glove box for easy storage since it could be folded down neatly.

Step 4) This new market turned out to be more promising than I had first expected- there does seem to be a lot of room for me to sell my product to consumers. However, I am still skeptical as to whether or not this by itself would be a better avenue for my product since there are already a lot of options in this space and I feel that I would have less edge and utility.

However, one thing that I could potentially be able to do was to both simultaneously conduct B2B and B2C sales! This could potentially allow me to capitalize on two avenues of revenue, but from the same product. Sounds like a win win to me, but needs more testing and market research to see if it would be worth it.