INDUSTRY AND MARKET ANALYSIS by Zainol

Original Gimbab is a food business engages in the perfect competitive market that serves IIUM community with a combination of Korean culture type of food with a local Malaysian taste. The stall is located at one of the booths at KENMS during Entrepreneurship Week.

There is a lot of food business at the university as we compete in a fragmented market where there are a lot of small players and less key players that monopolize the market. Easy market participants allow new competitors to compete in the same industry. This will strengthen or threaten existing market share or profit.

This is the main reason why we have to be aware of the prices set by the food sellers specifically with the seller that have homogenous type of food with us. Our focusing product is Gimbap. It is not common food item that available in IIUM community compare to the market outside IIUM. Therefore less competitors for this product in IIUM. However, there are a few stall outside IIUM that sell the same type of food product. The differences are the price, menu and taste. Outside market they sell like same type of food called sushi which is same type but different look. They sell that type of food with a common menu compare to us that we try to make a little transformation with change the menu with local taste which is to attract our customer to have a try with our product.

We also set our price with affordable price compare to the market outside IIUM. This is because we mainly focus on how customer will react to our transformation menu on this type of food. So that with affordable price that we offer, IIUM community will be able to try our food product and gives their feedback for us to improve. This is different way from stall outside IIUM which is they already have their own menu with specific price that already known by customer. Other word we can say that they all are not beginner in this market compare to us.

Market Segmentation

There are four main types of segmentation, namely geography, demographics, and behavior. For our business purpose, we take into consideration on demographic segmentation in terms of country and culture. For demographic segmentation, mainly we are focusing on local Malaysian IIUM community in KENMS since our booth located at KENMS. Since Korean culture is very popular related to the type of food that we provide it will attract they to buy and try our food product.

Target Market Selection

Based on demographic segmentation, we define students as our potential customers. We offer reasonable prices for all our products, as low as RM4 each. Based on our analysis, students tend to be more interested in buying products at low prices especially related to food. Therefore, this is our opportunity to attract customers. Also, we know that most students have financial problems. Therefore, by providing unique delicious food at affordable prices, it will give an advantage to our business. In addition, staff and lecturers also include our prospective clients. This type of group is quite different from students in terms of financial stability. For people who work like them, they have no financial constraints like students. Therefore, we can attract them to buy our products in large quantities because the price is quite low.

Buyer Behavior

Usually, the IIUM community rests at noon from 1.00 pm to 2.00 pm. This is a very short break especially for students or staff who have classes at 2.00 pm. Their tendency to eat simple foods for lunch is high, so they can buy our products without skipping their lunch. Also, they prefer to buy our food rather than long queues at the cafe. It can save them valuable time as well.

Competitor Analysis

In our situation, we evaluate on indirect competitors which is the substitute of our product. This is because we can see that other sellers sell sandwich which is can be substitute product for our customers. So that we need to compete with the seller that sell sandwich with our unique menu, presentation of making our Gimbab and also our affordable price.