Customer service costs and shipping costs

I. Introduction
What product are you introducing to this country and why? Short is good.

II. The Target Market (revise if necessary, otherwise cut and paste)
A. Describe the target market and rationale for target market choices. 15-65 for age is too broad. Use Euromonitor for exact age numbers.
B. Size and characteristics of target market
Calculation of target market How many people in the target market? Use at least 3 segmentation variables. Show calculations.

III. Product (Use the topics that best apply to your product, in any order)
A. Product name and Logo- rationale
B. Package sizes/types (Include copies of labels and/or package mockups). Does your package comply with labeling requirements (especially food and liquor)? Are there warning requirements?
C. Product features (variations like flavors)
D. Warranties / Service if needed

IV. Distribution
How does your product get from the contract manufacturer to where customers buy it? Where are they going to buy it?
A. What are the distribution costs to get your product to the country if you are making it somewhere else? This cost is often added to COGS before determining the price.
B. Wholesalers (How does the product get to the retailer? How will they be paid and motivated?) If you do not have a wholesaler/distributor you will need to estimate costs to get product to the retailer (warehouses, trucks).
C. Retail outlets (What type and what are their names? How many are there and why are these appropriate? Where does a customer go to buy your product?). Does your distribution comply with distribution laws (especially alcohol)?
D. Is the product going to be sold online? If you are selling both on-line and at stores consider implications on revenues and costs.

  1. Through retail stores that you sell to (the easiest-especially for alcohol) or
  2. Online retailers (what do they charge?) or
  3. Third party (like Amazon-what do they charge?) or
  4. Web page (customer service costs and shipping costs?)

V. Price
A. What is COGS? Use the markup chain to determine the wholesaler price, price to retailer and price to consumer. What markups are you using (use citations)? Relate to distribution methods, if you have a wholesaler and retailers you need a three-step markup chain. The wholesale price is what is used in determining revenue in the financials. If you are making the product in another country, the costs of that are often included in COGS before determining the price to the wholesaler. Be sure to explain price you sell to wholesaler, price to retailer and price to consumer. Numbers should be estimated (and explained)- Not made up!
B. What is the online price? How did you determine that? Does it account for shipping?
C. Is price to consumer a price that consumers are willing to pay? (Relate to per capita income and competition)

VI. Promotion – Non-digital Advertising
A. Include at least two types of non-digital advertising (TV, radio, print, outdoor or direct mail). Discuss your message. What is your emphasis in traditional ads? This should reflect your positioning strategy, the culture of the country and your story telling.
B. Copy of each of the two types of Advertisements. One must be video or storyboard (here or in digital) and then one additional non-digital ads.
C. Discuss ads in the paper. Ads should be in English but tell me which language they would be in.
D. Media mix
Where are you placing ads? Which magazines, which type of TV show, which time slots, what time of year, etc.? Are you handing out flyers? Outdoors on bus stops or billboards? Why? Does your advertisement comply with advertising restrictions (esp. liquor)?
E. Budget- How many ads do you get for your money (for each type)?
Be specific, how many ads per week / month? All budget information then needs to be used in the financials.

VII. Promotion – Digital Advertising
Internet/Mobile Advertising
A. Placement of internet ads
B. Search Engine Optimization. Google Ad words
C. Discussion of internet/mobile ads. Copy of internet/mobile ad.
D. Budget: How many ads do you get for the money?

VIII. Promotion – Social Media
A. What are the most important Social Media in this country? How do they match your target market?
B. Copy of Social Media page. Video or story board can be here. What type of content (story telling) will be included? Instagram filter. Line (Japan) Stickers
C. Are you using a social media influencer? How much do they cost? What will they do?
D. Budget: How many ads do you get for the money? Salary of person managing social media and writing content. (Coordinate with sales promotions and PR).
E. Digital manager- Salary of person managing social media and writing content.

IX. Promotion – Sales Promotion
A. Sales promotion activities
B. If you use coupons- you must justify their use in this country. Most countries do not use coupons-retail stores do not accept them.
C. Budget: How much will the sales promotions cost? Discounts and give-aways cost money. Often need to pay promotion people like Brand ambassadors or sales promotion teams to attend events

X. Promotion- Personal Selling
A. Personal Selling Roles

  1. Sales people typically work 9-5 and go to retail stores to convince them to carry your product.
  2. Customer service representatives if you have online through your own website.
    B. Budget- How many salespeople do you need (relate to size of your target market and number of retail stores they must visit)? What is their salary (look up average salary)? They do not typically run sales promotion events (that would be under sales promotion).

XI. Promotion – Publicity/PR
A. Publicity/ PR- Events & Budget- What do you spend your money on? How does it relate to your social media? Need to do something interesting enough for the media to want to report on it.

XII. Profit and Loss Statement and Budgets
A. Marketing objectives

  1. Expected percentage of target market(s). Assume 2% the first year and a 1% increase the following years.
  2. How often do you except people buy your specific product (not the whole product category) in a year?
    B. Marketing budget (These numbers should be explained in earlier sections)
    Do not use % of sales to determine your marketing budget.
  3. Advertising/sales promotion/personal selling/publicity expense
  4. Distribution expense (if needed)
  5. Product costs (COGS)
  6. Do not include general company costs such as overhead, costs of money or costs not related to making and marketing the product
    C. Profit-and-loss statement (show how this is calculated-what price are you using? – usually the wholesale price). If you have store sales and internet sales may need two revenue streams. Don’t forget income taxes. Ignore sales or VAT tax in financials.
  7. Year 1-5. Assume COVID crisis is over and you are starting in Jan. 2022.
  8. Discussion and explanation in the body of the paper
    D. Financial Conclusions
    It is OK to not make money.

XIII. Conclusion
Would you introduce this product into this country?

XIV. Works Cited (MLA)
List your sources alphabetically on the Works Cited page and be sure that citations are included in the body of the text. Strong sources are those from a journal or newspaper or a government report. If your source does not have a date or an author (a government agency is fine) then it is not a strong source. You can also use interviews. They must also be cited. Cite yourself (like an interview) if you are using your own experience.

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