Section A: Identify and Justify Two Sources of Information

Nowadays, the competition among businesses in food and beverage industry of New Zealand has become highly intense. Furthermore, it is no longer easy for small companies to attract new customers and retain the old ones (Lei & Moon, 2015). Organizations operating at small and large level seek for developing effective marketing plans and strategies through which they can sustain in the marketplace.

    The present research report is based on a small scale company which is The Baby’s room. The business offers different types of products to wear, sleep, play and it is located in Wellington region. Further, The Baby’s room is presently operating with a staff of ten personnel’s. This research report outlines the key information needed for carrying out marketing decision. In addition to this, factors affecting the buyer behaviour are also highlighted in the present study.

The Baby’s room is offering different types of products and services for children within the age group of eight years. The product range of company includes toys, clothes, gifts, sleeping blankets, sleeping gowns, etc (The Baby’s room , 2017). At present, The Baby’s room is looking forward to ensure that whether it has adopted effective marketing strategy for a particular product (Baby clothing) or not. The two sources of internal data and market intelligence which can be used by the selected company for its current and future marketing decision are mentioned below as:

• Internal Data– The internal data for decision-making can be extracted from two primary sources which are employees and financial statement. The employees of The Baby’s room can provide information about the present demand of customers within regards to baby clothes. On the other hand, the financial statement can be used to gain information about the increase or decrease in sales of baby clothing range (Lilien, Rangaswamy, & De Bruyn, 2013).
• Market intelligence –The report of children clothing industry and customers, can be considered as two major sources through which market intelligence can be carried out. The reports published and clients will be able to provide more accurate and reliable information to The Baby’s room.  

At present, the kids wear industry of New Zealand is growing with a very good pace and there are many small and big players operating in this industry. Furthermore, it is expected that the kids clothing industry will witness high growth in the coming years because of increasing demand of branded clothes for kids under age group of eight years (Veríssimo & McKinley, 2016). The trend in the market has also changed to a great extent. This can be justified by the example that earlier people use to prefer local stores for shopping products related to kids. Nowadays, branded stores and online websites are preferred to purchase kids clothes.

At present, the competition among business in children clothing retail industry of New Zealand has become highly intense. Further, it is not easy for companies such as The Baby’s room to sustain in such highly competitive marketplace (Moriarty, Mitchell, Wells, Crawford, Brennan, & Spence-Stone, 2014). The business is required to understand the key factors which influence the decision-making of customers or people in the market. By information collected, The Baby’s room can carry out changes in products, marketing strategies, and services. The reaction of customers with regards to three different factors is mentioned below as:

• Internal –The internal factors are also considered as personal factors, and they play a fundamental role in influencing customer decision-making process. Internal factors such as motivation encourage customers to buy product or service of one particular brand operating in the market (Kuuru & Tuominen, 2016). On the other side, internal factors such as negative perception towards a company restrict customers to buy products and services offered by a particular business.   
• External – Customers response towards external factors such as social and culture also affect the entire buying behaviour to a great extent(Nufer, 2015). For example, family, peers and reference group may encourage people in the market to buy clothes and toys for their children from The Baby’s room. On the other hand, the culture of people also influences their process of decision-making and selection of product (Ang, 2014).   
• Situational factor –It can be expressed that the decision of The Baby’s room’s customers can also be affected by different types of situational factors. Some common factors include the location of the store, layout, opening hours, etc. For example, people may prefer to buy toys and clothes for their children from The Baby’s room because of its good store location and attractive layout.

The SWOT analysis of The Baby’s room children clothing is mentioned below as :

• Strengths– Uniqueness and quality can be termed as the biggest strength of The Baby’s room clothing range for babies. The small business enterprise introduces new stock in every fifteen days, and this helps in attracting new customers and retaining the old ones (Plewa, Conduit, & Quester, 2016). Apart from this, The Baby’s room is dealing in variety of brands and thus, customers are available with large range of options to choose from. The section of influencer will be affected by The Baby’s room’s strength and the rationale behind this is that the strengths mentioned above will encourage or influence customers to buy the baby clothing range offered by The Baby’s room.   
• Weakness– Operations at small scale can be termed as the major weakness of The Baby’s room. It can be expressed that small operations had resulted in creating several restrictions about achieving higher growth and success (Saunders, Barrington, & Sridharan, 2015). Another weakness of The Baby’s room is that as compared to other market players, it lacks high presence in the global market. Initiator is the member of buying centre which is going to be influenced by these weaknesses (Armstrong, Kotler, Harker, & Brennan, 2015). The reason behind this is that at present The Baby’s room has limited physical stores and this can restrict customers to initiate and buy the clothing range offered by the company.
• Opportunities- The Baby’s room has the opportunity to expand its business operations in New Zealand and other international market. This will help the selected company to attract new customers and enhance its existing market share. Apart from this, introducing new clothing range for children above age group of eight years is also a potential growth opportunity available for the business (Sheth & Sisodia, 2015). The decision maker is the member of buying centre will be mostly concerned with this factor. The reason for this is that here, the decision maker will be taking decisions in terms of whether products of The Baby’s room should be purchased or not.   
• Threats -Increasing competition among children clothing industry is the major threat to the company (Brown, 2015). This threat has adversely affected the volume of sales and profitability of The Baby’s room. Another threat which the company is facing is linked with increasing trend of online shopping as now customers are less interned in purchasing baby clothes through physical stores (Veríssimo & McKinley, 2016). Again initiator is the member of buying centre who is going to be affected by these threats. It can be expressed that these threats will act as an obstacle regarding influencing the buying behaviour of customer decision-making.       

To carry out international expansion, it is suggested that India is the most suitable and potential market for The Baby’s room. At present, the selected business organization is operating within New Zealand market and achieving higher sales and profitability, the company should seek for carrying out international expansion (Canhoto, Clark, & Fennemore, 2013). The rationale behind suggesting Indian market can be termed as the growing children wear market of Asia Pacific region. This can be justified by the fact children wear market of Asia Pacific is considered one of the fastest growing markets in the entire world. At present, the market is worth €44.1 billion, and it is expected that the market will be worth €65.1 billion by the end of the year 2020 (Abnett, 2016).

Section B: Customer Reaction to Internal, External, and Situational Factors

On the other hand, the kid wear industry of India is also growing with a very good pace and the net worth of industry is amounted to 38,000 crore, INR (Chaturvedi, 2011). Furthermore, it is also expected that the market will be growing by 20% in the coming five years. The kids wear market of India has been segmented into five different categories which are super premium, premium, medium, economy and low. Brands such as Gucci, Chicco, Tommy Hilfiger, Lilliput, Mom & Me, Kidology and Mothercare are already operating in this market, and The Baby’s room will be directly competing with the mentioned above brands (Walker, 2014). It can be expressed that the Indian children and kids clothing market is so huge that the company will not face issues or difficulties in attracting the desired number of customers.

The impact of different factors on decision making of The Baby’s room is mentioned below as:

• Culture – The Company will be required to carry out changes in its existing product or clothing line before entering the new market(Carins & Rundle-Thiele, 2014). The Baby’s room will need to decide on changes in clothing range according to Indian culture.
• Social –The Baby’s room will be required to decide to carry out market research and identify the changing demand and needs of parents or customers in the India market. In addition to this, the price of products offered will also be affected, and the company will be required to decide on reducing its prices (van Scheers & Makhitha, 2016). The rationale behind this is that majority of customers in Indian market lies in the middle income level of society, and therefore, high price strategy will not be suitable during expansion in the Indian market.
• Legal and political- The brand will also need to decide appropriate entry mode for international expansion. The operations and business practices will be required to carry out according to the laws and regulations developed in India.
• Economic – The economy of India is growing at a very good pace, and it will provide The Baby’s room with adequate opportunities for growth and development. However, the company will be required to appropriate decision linked with the selection of store location to carry out best utilization of economies of scale(Challagalla, Murtha, & Jaworski, 2014).   

Market segmentation can be termed as the process in which companies use different variables to divide their entire marketplace into various subsets of potential customers. Segmentation is important because it helps organizations to develop more effective and result oriented strategies to attract customers (Gordon, 2013). The segmentation of market can be carried out by The Baby’s room by different variables such as geographic, demographic, psychological and lifestyle (Lodish, Morgan, Archambeau, & Babin, 2015). However, it is suggested that The Baby’s room should carry out segmentation which is based on the variable, i.e., demographic. Here, the company can target people who fall into the category of the middle and upper-middle income level of society. Furthermore, newly married couples and households can be targeted to buy clothes for their kids and children.

The practical characteristics of customers are going to be age 23- 40 years and people who are married. On the contrary of this, it can be critically argued that all the marketing and promotional strategies will be developed and implemented with an objective to attract people from the mentioned above market segment (Lei & Moon, 2015). Regular changes in the marketing and promotional strategies will be carried out to maintain the interest of people in the target market in best possible manner.  

The target market strategy of business can be classified into different categories which are undifferentiated targeting, differentiated targeting and focus targeting (Frederiksen, Solomon, & Brehony, 2013). Further, it is suggested that for a company like The Baby’s room differentiated targeting strategy will be more suitable as compared to other strategies of targeting. Here, the business enterprise will need to carry out promotion of its children clothing range by using different ways of marketing and promotion (Kuuru & Tuominen, 2016). Here, The Baby’s room will be targeting parents and married couples in the country through effective marketing and promotional campaign.

In targeting strategies such as undifferentiating, the same promotional message is used to target different market segments whereas, in the suggested targeting strategy, the promotion will be carried out differently. It can be stated that the use of differentiated strategy will help The Baby’s room to meet the need and demand of customers in this particular market segment (Hastings & Domegan, 2013). In addition to this, the company is required to carry out market research at regular intervals. The rationale behind this is that market research will support in identifying the changing need and demand of people in marketing (Chernev, 2014). Further, The Baby’s room will be able to determine potential gaps in the market through research. Based on the information collected, the business can offer products and services to attract more and more people from the target market.  

Section C: The Theoretical and Practical Characteristic of Consumer

Positioning can be defined as the way in which a company places itself in the marketplace. Furthermore, The Baby’s room is facing tough competition from brands such as Grey and wild, kid republic, Rockies, etc. The company is facing obstacles concerning achieving higher profits and sales. The mentioned above positioning map reflects tha (Canhoto, Clark, & Fennemore, 2013)t The Baby’s room has positioned itself as a brand which offers high-quality products at high prices. This strategy has resulted in developing a strong sense of satisfaction among customers as they perceive the product of The Baby’s room as value for money. Grey and wild is termed as the direct competitor of the selected business enterprise as it is also offering unique and quality products at high prices (Kuuru & Tuominen, 2016). Apart from this, kid republic and Rockies are the other competition of The Baby’s room in the kids clothing market of New Zealand. The selected small business emphasize on ensuring the fact that the best quality of products and services are delivered to people in the marketplace. At the same time, effective quality measurement tools are employed by The Baby’s room to maintain the quality of all its products and services (Kleinaltenkamp, Plinke, & Geiger, 2016).  

Conclusion

From the above-conducted research report, it can be inferred that marketing strategies and plans are essential for long-term success of companies such as The Baby’s room. At present, the company is operating within New Zealand only, and in future, it may carry out operations in international markets such as India. The rationale behind this is that the kid wears industry of India is growing at an excellent pace, and at the same time a limited number of companies is operating in this market. It can be concluded that The Baby’s room can segment its market by variables such as demographic and it can target parents and newly married couples to sale its children clothing products.

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