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PRAKTRIK

, 2014
BUS 362c: Marketing Research
Anna Stoycheva, Tereza Georgieva, Elvis Dura - INCEPTION

BUS 362c: Marketing Research


Team: Inception

Contents
About Praktrik......................................................................................................... 3
History................................................................................................................. 3
Mission and Vision............................................................................................... 3
Values.................................................................................................................. 3
About the product.................................................................................................. 3
POD and USPs..................................................................................................... 3
Positioning........................................................................................................... 3
FOR..................................................................................................................... 4
Competition analysis.............................................................................................. 5
Marks & Spencer................................................................................................. 5
Plan A............................................................................................................... 5
Plan A 2020................................................................................................... 5
Jasper Living Room Collection............................................................................. 6
Price range.......................................................................................................... 6
Market overview..................................................................................................... 7
Target Population............................................................................................. 7
Analysis of furniture industry sector....................................................................7
Questionnaire....................................................................................................... 12
In-depth interviews............................................................................................... 15
SWOT Analysis...................................................................................................... 16
Business proposal................................................................................................. 16
Step 1: Website.................................................................................................... 17
Step 2: Social Media............................................................................................. 17
Step 3: Advertising in magazines/online issues and furniture exhibitions............17
What is May Design Series?.............................................................................. 18
Who attends?.................................................................................................... 18
What does it take?............................................................................................ 18
London Design Festival......................................................................................... 19
100% Design..................................................................................................... 19
When and where?.......................................................................................... 19
What is it about?............................................................................................ 19
How to participate?........................................................................................ 19
Designjunction.................................................................................................. 19
When and where?.......................................................................................... 19
What is it about?............................................................................................ 19
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BUS 362c: Marketing Research


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How to participate?........................................................................................ 19
Magazines/Online issues...................................................................................... 19
Heart Home Magazine.......................................................................................... 19
What is Heart Home Magazine?........................................................................19
What does it cost?............................................................................................. 20
Other options:................................................................................................... 20
Website advertising options:..........................................................................20
Blog sponsorship:........................................................................................... 20
Appendix.............................................................................................................. 21

BUS 362c: Marketing Research


Team: Inception

About Praktrik
History
Founded in 2010, Sofia, Bulgaria by Petar Zaharinov (designer) and Delyan
Spasov (manager)
PRAKTRIK is a studio and brand focused on practical tricks.
All products are inspired by burr puzzles. They see great potential for
facilitating their principles for utilitarian purposes. Their production
requires no hi-tech, they can be made of natural, ecological, and healthy
(harmless) materials, they are assemblable and disassemblable, they can
also be fun.
Such puzzle structures are geometrical and constructivist on one hand
and mystical on the other. This mystery brings some emotional quality to
such designs that we consider very important nowadays. They also
stimulate and require some intelligence from the user which is also very
important to us.
Most of such known puzzle examples are too complicated and their parts
are difficult to manufacture; as a result, new ones had to be found. During
the geometrical analysis it became clear that this task was just the
opposite of the one of a classical puzzle maker because the new solutions
had to be as simple as possible and easy to assemble.

Mission and Vision


The companys mission is related to sustainability, creativity and mind
joggling puzzle furniture pieces. It is a perfect blend between design and
functionality. The vision is to offer an alternative approach towards
furnishing your home or office space with the twist of using your creativity
and brain skills in the process of assembly.

Values
Focus on practical tricks
Functional & Fun to assemble
Made of natural, ecological, and healthy (harmless) materials
The products are assemblable and disassemblable
Do not require additional tools

About the product


POD and USPs
Praktrik is clever and unique furniture which combines an innovation in the
assembling process with a design that can fit into each lifestyle

BUS 362c: Marketing Research


Team: Inception
preference. It focuses on creating products that differentiate a lot from the
standard trend.

Positioning
We have three target groups. The first one is the Unique addicts. The
people who belong to this group are aged between 21 and 35 and they are
high-educated, career driven and love unique designs. The second one is
The Sharks. They are between 30 and 50 years old, high-class, rich
people; they use the unique purchases to show their career success. The
third target group is called Eco Mommies and Daddies which fits in the
range of 25-40. They are family oriented and when they purchase a
product, they are mostly considering the practicality.

FOR
Praktrik is a company that positions itself in the puzzling designer furniture
industry. The customer benefits from the purchase by acquiring a unique
product, which is offered on the UK market for the first time. This is a new
experience in the way of assembling furniture by creating a fun
atmosphere.

BUS 362c: Marketing Research


Team: Inception

Competition analysis
Marks & Spencer
Marks & Spencer is a major British multinational retailer headquartered in
the City of Westminster, London. It specialises in the selling of clothing,
home products and luxury food products. M&S was founded in 1884
by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in Leeds.
Plan A
On 15 January 2007, M&S launched an initiative, known as "Plan A", to
dramatically increase the environmental sustainability of the business
within 5 years and expected to cost 200 million.

The plan covers "100 commitments over 5 years to address the key social
and environmental challenges facing M&S today and in the future" with
the tag-line "Because there is no Plan B". The commitments span five
themes: climate change, waste, sustainable raw materials, 'fair
partnership' and health.
Plan A 2020
In 2014, M&S integrated their Plan A into their management processes.
They introduced 4 new pillars to focus on Inspiration, Intouch, Integrity
and Innovation. The new Plan A is focused entirely on engaging customers
and moving towards new business models.
Operates: Worldwide, with headquarters in London, England
Revenue: 10.03 billion GBP

BUS 362c: Marketing Research


Team: Inception
POD and USPs: One of UK's leading retailers with around 21+ million
customers each week
Positioning: High quality within reach.
Target group: Upper class and upper middle class
FOR: Furniture retail

Jasper Living Room Collection


Model looks very similar, made of the same parts;
Includes free shipping and assembling
Items are available in stores people can actually see them before
purchase

Price range
In order to make a better comparison between the prices of the two
companies, we made a table, which includes similar products offered by
both Praktrik and M&S, with the respective prices. (1 434 Euro = 1 133
GBP)

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Team: Inception

Market overview
Population: 64,10 million
GDP: $2.521 trillion
PPP per capita: $35 760
Worldwide statistics PPP per capita for people with High
Income( Euro Area) $37 156
Target Population
21-35 years old = 12.73 mil. (19.86%)
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30-50 years old = 17.59 mil (27.44%)
25-40 years old = 12.63 mil (19.70%)

Analysis of furniture industry sector

On the next graph we can see the share of retailers that use online sales
channels in the UK, and even though theres a 2% drop from 2012, 94% is still a
pretty big number.

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Team: Inception

We can see that overall 74% of the population made purchases online in the UK
for 2014. The share of online purchases by gender is 75% to 72%, with men
buying a bit more than women.

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Team: Inception

From this graph we can see that theres a growing trend of looking for furniture
online and its getting closer to looking in furniture stores.

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Team: Inception

The two pictures here show how crucial the online presence is. As we can see, 6
out of 10 people feel more comfortable making a purchase decision after doing
online research. However, we can see that only 9% of furniture sales for 2013

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were made online.

Why is that so? When so many people shop online and research furniture online,
why do their sales account for only 9% of total furniture sales?

Finally, heres a division of online buyers by age:

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Team: Inception

Questionnaire

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In-depth interviews
From the questionnaire we got some important feedback related to
the buyers preference of furniture. Most of the respondents belong to the
age range 25-34, having an average income of 1 500-2 000 euro. Most of
them do not own a house and their household consists of 2-3 people. We
noticed that women tend to be more interested in the questionnaire. They
have already purchased or plan to purchase furniture for their place of
residence in the future. The main aspects they have in mind before
purchasing furniture are design, price, delivery option and ease of
assembly. The products they are mainly interested in are coffee tables and
dining tables. Another important feedback from the questionnaire is that
nowadays people tend to buy furniture online because of the ease of the
purchasing process, but they are more likely to make the decision after
they take a look at the product in a showroom or a store first.
After showing the card with the samples we observed that the
respondents prefer the Praktrik furniture style than the standard one. They
are willing to pay 300 euro on average for the Praktrik furniture in
comparison to 150/200 euro for the standard furniture.
From the open answers questions we can divide the respondents in
two groups. The first one is not really aware of the furniture trends and
styles and thus has no idea of what designer and puzzle furniture is. In
those cases some of the answers for How do you understand the term
"designer furniture" were special and for How do you understand the
term "puzzle furniture"- no idea or furniture in the shape of puzzle. On
the other hand, the second group, which is defined by higher income and
higher-standing job positions, has a better vision of what the two terms
mean. Some of the answers for designer furniture were - Furniture,
designed by a designer so it looks creative and different from other
furniture and for puzzle furniture Bring the pieces of the furniture
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Team: Inception
together, Possibly furniture that joins together, like in a kitchen corner,
e.g. when a kitchen drawer extension fits into another ones gap.

SWOT Analysis
Praktrik
Strengths
Mainstream prices
Unique products
Easy to ship
Can be produced quickly(if need be)

Weaknesses
Weak research and development
No showroom
Not universal for every lifestyle

Product
Stimulates thinking, creativity

Assembling can be time-consuming

Fun to build
Eco-friendly
Can be dissasembled easily
No additional tools required
Opportunities
New names

Threats
Substitute products
Product can be damaged during delivery
process

Increasing the portfolio(product - line)


Change names
Strengthen social representativity

A lot of competitors on the market


Change in tastes
Decrease in avg income

Improve website

Increase in raw material prices;

Business proposal
Our business proposal consists of three parts. We believe that working on
one or all of these parts will definitely improve Praktriks image and help
them penetrate the UK market. Based on the SWOT analysis, the statistics
we found online, and the feedback from the interviews, we were able to
conclude that people in the 21st century have access to different media
and can gather all sorts of information on the current trends and
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BUS 362c: Marketing Research


Team: Inception
innovations in the industry online, which is why they are stricter when
choosing a product.
Praktriks products offer a completely new trend in the furniture
industry in the UK by introducing the puzzle technique. Its an innovative
and unique way to inspire creativity and challenge ones mind, while
having fun, for a reasonable price.

Step 1: Website
Praktrik has a very minimalistic and simplified website, which is not
necessarily good, especially in their case. When looking for furniture
online, customers want to get as close as possible to feeling the piece of
furniture theyre looking at. Praktriks website offers a couple of pictures
for each item, but not really a realistic image of what the customer is
currently looking at. Most of the well-known furniture retailers offer a 360view for the majority of the pieces of furniture they offer, and our team
believes that including that option will improve the customers experience
on the website and maybe bring the buyers one step closer to actually
buying the product. Another thing we believe should be improved is the
shopping cart. We understand that once again its the simplistic view of
the website that Praktrik has focused on, but some parts of the website
look vague and confusing. The option of having an image next to the name
of the item you ordered is also an idea to be considered, because
especially with Praktriks similar names, one can get easily confused.
Additionally, there has to be an option for double-checking before you
order. Last, but not least, as we have already mentioned in our SWOT
analysis, we believe that the names of the products can be changed with
more catchy ones that will be easier to remember.

Step 2: Social Media


The social media campaign is not going to be the main focus of our
business strategy, but it does play a crucial role in it. We believe that an
active Facebook/Twitter/YouTube page will generate more interest in the
product and thus more customers. An improvement of the YouTube page
might be adding more videos of the product in real environment, or videos
of people assembling the furniture and having fun while doing so, so that
potential customers can see that if they do research on the product.
Another part of our proposal is including a game in the Facebook page.
After all, this type of furniture is more or less aimed towards people who
have at least a slight interest in puzzles. Including a puzzle-related game,
in the Facebook page can be a good way of winning future customers. In
addition, there can be a weekly or a monthly rating of the users who got
the best scores, which will grant them different gifts for example
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miniature versions of one of the sliding models, or maybe even a promo
code for discount on their order.

Step 3: Advertising in magazines/online issues and


furniture exhibitions
Our primary and secondary gatherings proved that as much as the online
purchase of furniture is increasing in the last couple of years, a lot of the
people are still not ready to buy without first seeing the product. However,
we believe that Praktrik still doesnt have enough products in its portfolio
to have a personal showroom. Whats more, the UK customers are not
familiar with the brand, so it wont be advisory to open a showroom
without first introducing the brand on the market. A good way to make this
happen is the furniture exhibitions held in London. We found detailed
information about the May Design Series , as well as two other
exhibitions, part of the London Design Festival.

What is May Design Series?


Taking place on the 17-19 May 2015 at Londons ExCeL, May Design Series
is the most commercially focused interiors trade event in the UK calendar.
The setting is London: the design capital where the newest creative talent
meets the most powerful industry buyers.
The time is May: the business end of the European show season, at the
point when products are posed for market and orders are ready to be
placed

Who attends?

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What does it take?

London Design Festival


100% Design
When and where?
23-26 September 2015 in London
What is it about?
100% Design is the largest and most prestigious design trade event in the
UK.
How to participate?
You can send an enquiry about stands and their prices on their website.

Designjunction
When and where?
24-27 September 2015 in London
What is it about?
designjunction has become recognized as the leading destination for
design and has cemented its reputation for presenting world-class cuttingedge design against challenging industrial spaces, breaking the mold of
the traditional trade show.
How to participate?
You can send an enquiry about stands and their prices on their website.

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Team: Inception
In addition to showing the furniture, Praktrik can give out business cards
that contain a QR code with link to a puzzle game or a promotional code
for discount on orders.

Magazines/Online issues
Advertising in magazines is another very good and not so expensive option
in the UK. Our research on the most popular furniture issues in the UK
showed the following:

Heart Home Magazine


What is Heart Home Magazine?
Heart Home is the leading, fully digital magazine in the UK interiors sector.
Packed full of affordable inspiration for its readers it also has distinct
advantages for the advertiser. Launched in September 2011, British
Interior Design magazine Heart Home is a quarterly digital publication
celebrating interior decor and lifestyle.

What does it cost?

Other options:
Website advertising options:
1) Sponsored posts in their main editorial stream. This appears on their
front page and is then archived and searchable. Heart Home Magazines
work with its customers to tailor the content to their audience, then tweet
it out to followers. 2) Email newsletter promotion. 3) Other sponsorship
opportunities including events. 4) Normal banner advertising: square
banner MPU (300250). 5) Competitions. 6) Takeover including email,
banner, competition and editorial sponsorship.

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BUS 362c: Marketing Research


Team: Inception
Blog sponsorship:
Heart Home magazine has a fantastic blog too! With daily posts and a
team of bloggers, the Heart Home blog is a great source for daily
inspiration in between magazine issues. They offer a variety of options for
advertising and sponsorship.

Appendix
Puzzle furniture. (n.d.). Retrieved December 9, 2014, from
http://www.praktrik.com/?lang=en
Marks & Spencer. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2014, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marks_&_Spencer#Plan_A
MS_PlanA-Rep14. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2014, from
http://planareport.marksandspencer.com/downloads/M&S-PlanA-2014.pdf

Statista - The Statistics Portal. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2014, from
http://www.statista.com/
Furniture Retail Reality - infographic. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2014, from
http://cylindo.com/blog/news/furniture-retail-reality-etail/
May Design Series 2015 - May Design Series - The UK's definitive international
interiors show. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2014, from
http://www.maydesignseries.com/
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Team: Inception
100% Design 2014 - Welcome. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2014, from
http://www.100percentdesign.co.uk/
Designjunction - London | Milan | New York. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2014,
from http://thedesignjunction.co.uk/
To Advertise. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2014, from
http://www.hearthomemag.co.uk/advertise/

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