Business coursework; Fish and Chip shop (Burnham high street) Essay

Introduction I am doing an investigation on a small local business to identify ways that it could be improved and what the business is doing wrong at the moment that is preventing it from making the progress that it could make. The local shop that I chose was the fish and chip in Burnham high street, SeaWorld. I chose this shop because I am a fan of seafood and when I go into a seafood place I expect to find many items that are actually seafood but normally they have different varieties of food but rarely any seafood. They normally have kebabs, chips, burgers, but chips are a necessity with fish. Preparation We started off making our individual surveys for both customers and workers and chose the best survey to be printed out. We also were planning on tasting the food in SeaWorld as well to see how good the product was. We thought of the types of shop that would be competitors. What we did For our research we had about an hour to go to the fish and chip shop in Burnham high street, but unfortunately SeaWorld was closed so we decided that some of us would take out the surveys on the public while the other group would see how the point of sale looked and find anything wrong with it. There were quite a few surveys done, and we managed to figure out some problems with the point of sale. Luckily there was a worker inside SeaWorld who did not mind us asking questions about his workplace. I think that we had taken a few surveys of people who go there regularly, but would have liked to see how the business was when it was open. Things like how many people go there, what there menu was, how well priced the food was, what majority of the regular customers thought of the seafood shop. We also looked out for competitors and how accessible their shops are, how their shops looked and how close they are to SeaWorld. Place SeaWorld is in Burnham high street and because it is quite a small high street even a small number of competitors would be a problem. There aren’t any seafood restaurants or seafood take-away as such in Burnham high street but there are cafes and fast food shops and there is a seafood shop in Burnham. These are also competitors because if people go into these shops it can pose a threat to the business of SeaWorld by reducing its market share. The other issue with the place is how easy it is for the customers to access the shop in terms of parking, distance and is there a contact number so they can order over the phone? The restaurant has a telephone number next to the restaurant’s name which is convenient for the customers and the business because it won’t be crowded so they will have enough seats but they will still be getting the sales and revenue. The first take- away or restaurant that you see when you enter the high street from hog fair lane is SeaWorld which means that for ease of access and to save time people will go here. Therefore I think that the place that the seafood shop is not bad, but the look of the point of sale from the inside and outside needs to change. It needs to be re-painted and the inside needs to be looking more spacious to attract more customers. Product I did not have the opportunity to get a good look at their menu because at the time they were not open, but from what I saw there was a range of fried and battered fish food, chips and drinks which is what their customers would expect and this makes them look good. There was a problem though which was that on the outside of the shop there was a label that said ‘kebabs’ that is something that you wouldn’t expect in a fish and chip shop and I don’t know if they do sell kebabs but if they didn’t then that would be misleading the customers which would be irritating for them and they could potentially lose customers. If they did have kebabs then it would be inappropriate. Price I was not able to ask or look at the prices that they had for their food but the price needs to be below five pounds for each product and above a pound. If the products are priced too highly customers would not buy from that shop and if it was too low then they will be at a loss and will not be able to run efficiently. Theoretically the lower the price the more demand there is for that product, but you also need to balance between charging high enough to cover costs but low enough to keep the customers buying. Sometimes even if the prices are high the demand still remains the same, this is because things like customer service is good and the product also should be better than others. For the seafood shop it means that they need to be friendly to customers, deliver orders on time and put the customer’s needs and requests first. Promotion Walking along Burnham high street I did not see any form of promotion for the seafood shop. This is one of the crucial factors of getting a small business to succeed. If people do not know where you are or even if you exist then how will you get more customers? The seafood shop does not even have a website which means that it makes it harder for people find out about such a shop. The locals around Burnham high street might know about the shop but not many other people will. Therefore they need to find a form of promotion that will allow them to be known but not too expensive either. Picking the promotion The ways of promotion best for SeaWorld is through leaflets through letter boxes, this is a form of promotion suited to this business because it will be spread throughout the local area, because people from other areas are not going to travel a long way just to get to SeaWorld and it is not that expensive. The down side to leaflets is that it is often seen as junk and discarded, so it has a low success rate and you would need to find someone to hand them out or put them in letterboxes this means they need to pay that person as well. Another way that is cheap and affordable is advertising in the local newspaper, this would reach a wide local audience and there is only the cost of publishing it in the newspaper. The size of the advert can be adjusted so that it fits the budget of the seafood shop, but to get a large sized advert that is well designed it may be expensive. Another promotion that is totally free, very reliable and trustworthy is customer word-of-mouth recommendation; this is when customers recommend the shop to family and friends. When it is recommended by family and friend’s people trust that it is a good shop and go there, but it is the customer’s choice to do it and you cannot control it. You can aid this by providing excellent customer service, good value for money and good standard of food. A good thing to advertise is offers like buy one get one half price or tokens on newspaper or leaflets that have good offers which they can claim. Offers for a meal are actually cheaper than buying them all individually so it encourages customers to buy more and they would chose a place that has offers on food to one that does not. Loyalty cards are also a good incentive to get new customers and keep existing customers to come back for more and this would increase sales because a certain number of purchases would get them a reward, which is normally more food. Frequent customers would feel angry that they do not get discounts or complimentary food. Survey of worker We did a questionnaire on the worker about the Seafood shop, and working conditions and he seems to be very positive about working there, but from how he spoke we realised that he was being bias so we cannot really trust everything that he said. He said that it was a good environment to work in and that the working conditions were good. The environment would be good because it would be busy. The workers seem happy and motivated therefore I would expect the customer service to be good as well and the food to be of a good standard. I asked what kinds of fringe benefits or monetary benefits they get but it seemed that he did not get any. The staff cannot be kept well motivated for long without any benefits. The owners can make the staff more motivated by giving monetary benefits at first and then fringe benefits. At first they would find that money is what they need and will be motivated when money is at the other end and it will be cheaper to give small monetary benefits than fringe benefits. When the business grows it can afford fringe benefits and the workers need benefits other than money to motivate them. The easiest fringe benefit could be a discount on the food in the fish and chip shop, or free lunch for the workers. To keep them well motivated there needs to be a better fringe benefit that they will get for working well or achieving a target number of sales.