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Case Study - TIME MERCHANTS

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Attached case study on the time merchants. Following questions to be answered , Limit your answers to 4-5 sentences per question.

1. How does their executive summary explain how their service will fundamentally change the way their consumers live?

2. What unique features does Time Merchants offer that will account for their proposed market penetration?

3. How realistic is their assessment of the strengths and weaknessess of their competetitors?

4. What potential customers have expressed interest in their service? Why? Why are people not interested?

5. What are the strengths and weakness of the pricing of their Referral Service?

6. How do they plan to focus their marketing efforts as their busines grows?

7. Are the benefits that Time Merchants beleibes they can provide to their Key Strategic Alliances equal to the benefits they will get from these alliances? Why/why not?

8. Why is their analysis of Critical Risks of interest to potential investors/lenders?

9. Which parts of their 5-Year Comprehensive Financial Statements appear unrealistic? Why?

10. If you were an investor and had $10 million, would you invest in this company? How much? Why/why not?

Again Limit your answers to 4-5 sentences per question.

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1. How does their executive summary explain how their service will fundamentally change the way their consumers live?
The executive summary explains the two fundamental needs of the target consumer that is time and convenience that Time Merchants intends to address. By de-fragmenting home purchases, the company intends to make home purchases for the consumer more convenient and fast.
2. What unique features does Time Merchants offer that will account for their proposed market penetration?
The unique features that Time Merchants offers include free referrals to reputed and reliable home service providers as well as a comprehensive weekly delivery system. The unique selling points include facilities to place online orders and the option to change orders up to 24 hours of delivery. The de-fragmented delivery includes grocery, dry cleaning, film developing and package posting for a monthly fee of $50.

3. How realistic is their assessment of the strengths and weaknessess of their competetitors?
The assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of their competitors is faulty. 1) traditional grocery stores and home improvement centers, 2) the Yellow Pages, 3) manufacturer service contracts, 4) property management firms, and 5) on-line grocery delivery service companies are the main potential competitors. Traditional grocery stores are usually understaffed and are not interested in offering a personnel intensive service. Home improvement centers would not be interested in referring customers because they would not like to be responsible for the actions of the service providers. TM is not targeting customers who are not quality conscious, so the question of yellow pages does not enter the picture. Manufacturers who offer service guarantees do not bring about de-fragmentation. Managements of housing complexes have limitations which do not make them good competitors, they may in fact use the services of TM themselves and online grocery stores have low credibility because of indifferent quality.
4. What potential customers have expressed interest in their service? Why? Why are people not interested? The assessment of the consumer interest is not realistic because TM has surmised from the market research report that respondents who have been surveyed are willing to use the new services offered. In reality what happens is that customers have in their own capacity tested their own service providers and know who are reliable from their perspective. So they may be open to the idea of trying the referral service because it is free and there is no obligation to try. In addition, those who have an annual income of more than 60 K would not mind spending 50$ just once to try a new offering. What is important is that these individuals may not remain loyal customers. People are not interested for several reasons, ...

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