Idea generation
My idea for a new product is a GPS for shopping carts. Many
times when I am working I will have customers come up to me and ask me where
different items are in the store. When that happens I have to take time to show
them where the product is located. Sometimes I do not even know where the
product is and have to waste time finding my manager to help me the product. Something that would help big grocery stores would
be a GPS shopping cart.
Idea screening
The GPS on the shopping cart would eliminate the time wasted
trying to find products. All customers
would have to do is scan their shopping list or manually type in the item they
are looking for and the GPS would tell them exactly where it is. The GPS would
also include many different features to help customers. Some of the features
would be a calculator, and a feature that would find the nearest employee if
the customer still has problems. The GPS
would also allow customers to scan the barcodes of their items to keep a
running total of how much money they have spent. The customer value would be the convenience of
being able to save time in the store while adding extra features that would
make shopping easier. The target market would
be bigger stores such as Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, or Lowes. There are two other competitors in the smart
cart market, Media Cart, and Mercatus.
Although they both produce the cart I have never seen any smart carts in
any of the stores I have been to. I
believe that if I was to market the cart correctly I take a large share of the
market from both companies. The market
for the smart carts is over 4,554 stores in the U.S. that I can begin to market
to. This is just counting the stores
that Wal-Mart, Sam’s, and Lowes own(information taken from Wal-Mart’s website
and corporate profiles).
Concept Development and testing
I would have a few different images of the smart cart draw
up so that customers at grocery stores and the owners of the stores could
decide what design appealed to them. The
concept I would provide customers would be a shopping Cart that could help them
find products, keep a running total of their costs, and improve their overall
shopping experience. I would go to customers
and the owners of big stores and see if they would be interested in using or buying
the carts. I would also see what types of features the customer would like to
see included on the smart cart. If there was enough interest in the carts I
would continue to develop a marketing strategy for the carts.
Marketing Strategy Development
The target market for this product is owners or big
corporations of superstores. I believe many younger Generation Y and X shoppers
would be the first to learn how to use the cart and use the cart to its full
potential. Many baby boomers will probably be reluctant at first to the use of
the new technology and would rather just find an employee get their questions
answered rather than utilizing the GPS.
The smart cart gives presents value to both the shopper and the owner to
the store. The value of the cart to the shopper is an easier, and more
enjoyable shopping experience. To the owner of the store it gives employees
more time to get their work done, and attracts new customers looking for a new experience
to shopping. My plan for the first two
years of business is to make deals with some of the biggest stores that would
have much more of need for a smart cart then smaller stores. Once the smart
cart becomes popular with bigger stores smart cart will market their cart to
smaller and smaller stores who want an innovative new way to attract customers.
In five years smart cart will have carts
in stores in all states of the U.S. and start expanding globally.
Business analysis
In an interview with the Dallas morning news in 2007 Steve
Carpenter, president and CEO of media cart said they were selling the cart for
under one thousand dollars. With today’s
advances in technology I can estimate that the cost of the cart is around 700
dollars a cart, which means the cost to produce the cart is around 600 dollars.
The average amount of cart a Wal-Mart superstore
owns is 800 carts (this information I received from a supervisor at the Wal-Mart
super store in Vestal PA and a location in Dickson City PA). This means that if
one Wal-Mart made half their carts smart carts it would mean forty thousand
dollars in gross profit for one Wal-Mart location. This means that the potential profit for the
whole market of smart carts is over 182,160,000 dollars.
Product development
In the product development stage I would have to contact a
few technology and software companies to help me develop the GPS, such as Microsoft,
or Apple. The smart cart computer system must be durable, weather resistant,
and the controls would have to be fined tuned so they will be very user
friendly. Many of the stores using the smart carts customers will not be taught
how to use the carts it is crucial that they are easy to use so that customers
will not get discouraged when using the cart.
Test marketing
To test market the product I would ask different stores, of
varying sizes and demographics if they would carry the carts for a week. Throughout
the week I would use Ethnographic research to see what customers liked,
disliked, and what generation best responded to the cart. I would also check to
see how the cart handled the weather and abuse it would take on a daily basis.
Commercialization
Once I analyzed
the data from the test marketing I would begin to sell my product to large
stores. After I had sold the smart carts
to many larger stores many people will go through the adoption process and
begin accepting and using the cart every time they shop. Then I will begin
marketing to smaller stores while adding new features to the cart while providing
maintenance for stores that carry the smart carts. Since the carts will be sold
from business to business not much advertising will need to be done for to attract
consumers, most of the marketing strategy will target large grocery and retail stores.
(picture of Mercatus’s smart cart) The cart would look something like this
