Assignment Sample on Conducting Situational Analysis
Introduction
The UK greeting card market has an invaluable benchmark in the economy. Gifting cards to people started from the British culture and a total of three-quarters of adults in the UK have purchased greeting cards in the year 2019. Moon pig, an internet-based company is located in London and Guernsey. They are known for their personalised greeting cards, flowers, and gifts. The following study will be highlighting the situational analysis of the company in the UK market. It will also highlight the competitors in this market. The segmentation and the position of the company in the UK market will also be discussed.
Situational Analysis
Market analysis
Market trend-The greeting card industry of the UK is wide and has observed a long term trend in its decline. However, the trend of the personalised card has grown in the market where the retail sales is $7.5 billion. On an average, a total of 144 million greeting cards are sold form just a small proportion of 7 billion greeting cards are purchased on average (Salience, 2021). From the digitalised perspective, in 2016, greeting cards were sold on the online platform were $393 million in revenue, and this helped it to create a new market for more than thousands of people in the UK market.
The Moonpig, being in the topmost brand in greeting card brands has been able to make a difference of a total of 10% development in the UK greeting card market. It also holds the greatest brand reach score. They have increased in the e-cards and personalised cards that have helped in the development of the company. They also lie in the 5 fastest greeting cards brands. The total sales revenue of single cards sales in the UK covers £1.526bn in 2016. Also the sales worth has also increased from its worth of £1.178.8bn to £28.7m (The Printing Report. 2021). In addition, in festivals like Christmas the sales rate of greeting cards in the Moonpig are £230m. This can be helpful for the growth of Moonpig in the UK market.
Product range- The Moonpig provides a range of products starting from unique and personalised cards, flowers and gifts (Moonpig, 2021). It has the products such as the personalised champagne, personalised letterboxes, giant birthday Cadbury, letterboxes for birthday’s balloons and other various varieties, which are unique in its own self. In addition, they have varieties for their both gender that can help in the development of the company.
They also have delivery services, such which cost delivery charges from £2.99 and above. They also have the provision for the e-cards not only for birthdays but also provide for anniversaries and good luck celebrations. They have facilities to provide cards via email, which makes it much more interesting (Card Factory, 2021). They offer a reasonable variety of products, including colour choices, typefaces and layout. By providing these vast varietyof choices, it can be helpful for the company to develop more in the UK market.
Consumers/Customers types- The greeting card is favoured by all. They are good gestures to give to a person on a special occasion. The target customers of the greeting card industry in the UK are ranges from the young generation to elderly people. The market value of a single greeting card has increased in the UK to a worth of 1.57 million in the year 2018 (Ecommercedb.com, 2021). After the effect of the pandemic, customers are more inclined towards e-cards and personalised cards. This has attracted mostly the younger generation where a total of $933 million during Valentine’s Day and $894 million this year had seen increased sales.
It is a stable and resilient market where the market value has seen to be at a rate of £1.3bn in the upcoming few years. The total sales by range is 2% for the box card and 46% for the complementary ranges and 52% for the single greeting card industry. This attracts many customers of all age groups. The average card buyer in the UK was 22 cards in 19, which in total counts to 16 cards per capita (Statista, 2021).
TOWS matrix
SWOT ANALYSIS
| Strengths | · skills in management
· technologically sound |
| Weakness | · They are costly
· People are not familiar with the development |
| Opportunities | · Large number of valued stores
· valued stores |
| Threats | · weakened the industry
· only based on online platform |
Table 1: SWOT analysis
(Source: Created by author)
TOWS
| Strengths | Weakness | |
| Opportunities | ● Moonpig has high skills in management that helped it to make more new customers (Vinuales et al. 2019).
● The online sales of the company have also increased, including a variety of products and other engraved champagne products. ● They have technological sound objects that have helped to make different kinds of products for the customers (Sijabat, 2019). ● They have a large number of valued stores that also works as an opportunity for the company to evolve more and bring out products that are more new. |
● They are costly at times, but the variety in products may be helpful to lessen down these problems.
● This can also be affecting the industry, as many people are not yet familiar with the development within the greeting card industry. This may also be resolved by making media that are more social (Vinuales et al. 2019). ● Limited card range is a weakness on the online platform but the complementariness such as the flowers, gifts, champagne and other products can be proven to be a benefit for the card industry. |
| Threats | ● They have limited card manufacturers, and this way the market areas are not growing much.
● Moon pig can be utilising the social media platform to make people aware of their products along with the complementary that can help the company to grow (Prentice et al. 2020). ● In addition, online retailers are growing at a high pace, which is beneficial for Moonpig as it is an online company, and can be able to provide proper products and other complementaries. |
● This can weaken the industry of the Moonpig Company by raising its delivery products (Sijabat, 2019). It can also be problematic for the company to make people understand the products who are not much interred in gifting cards.
● Having limited card designs can affect the fourth of the Moonpig as it is only based on the online platform. |
Table 2: TOWS matrix
(Source: Self-created)
PEST analysis
By undergoing the political, economical, socio-cultural and technological development of the card industry in the UK market, it can be evident to understand the position of the moonpig in the UK market.
| FACTORS | IMPACT | |
| POLITICAL | Government interventions in the UK are performing well. It has several manufacturing policies that can affect the growth of the card industry (Sijabat, 2019).
Also, the administrative system of the country has developed to a peak that has helped in the development of democracy (Prentice et al. 2020).
|
This can help in the development of the Moonpig in the UK market as it has facilities to grow in the market. Also, the manufacturing policies in the company for the raw materials can also be proved to be positive for the Moonpig. |
| ECONOMICAL | The GDP rate of UK is 1.5%
It has diverse economy that provides an equal economy and adds values to the customers The FDI rate of the UK is £1.6 trillion (Commonslibrary.parliament.uk, 2021). The inflation rate of UK is 0.04% The unemployment rate of UK is 3.8% |
From this perspective, it is also beneficial for the Moonpig to develop in the UK market and make a definite position. It also possibilities to make more customers (Prentice et al. 2020). The inflation rate also might help in the development in terms of their product and the quality that they are providing to their customer.
The Moonpig can also provide an opportunity to the people by providing them job roles within the company (Sijabat, 2019) |
| SOCIO-cultural | The population of the UK is 6.6 cores.
Income level of UK has also decreased to a total of 5% (Commonslibrary.parliament.uk, 2021). |
This can also be an opportunity for the Moonpiog as they can bring in more employees and technically train them to help in the development of the company (Sijabat, 2019). |
| TECHNOLOGICAL | The UK have attracted £28bn in technology that can help in the investment of any company | This can be helpful for teh Moonpig to make development in the market and train the employees. It will also be beneficial for the tem to bring out more new different products in terms of the technical development (Prentice et al. 2020) |
Table 3: PEST analysis
(Source: Self-created)
Competitive analysis
The Moonpig has a significant position in the UK market. It has varied products and other technological advancement that has helped to make a proper development in the market. The overall sales of the Moonpig in the UK market have been £1.526bn in 2016 (Reports.mintel.com, 2021). The different products also included the e-cards, different complementary products that have also helped to provide technical advantage in the Moonpig. Some of the competitors of the Moonpig are Clinton Cards and Scribblers. The overall sales of the Clinton Cards are £253.64 million and the overall sales of Scribblers has also increase (Clintonsretail.com. 2021).It can be noticed that the company has provided 10% discount in their different products but does not consist of many different kinds of products (Scribbler.com, 2021).
The Moonpig on the other hand has a provision for a wide variety of products that can help it to emerge in the UK market. The global net sales of Moonpiog areUS$108.1m and it has the global rank of 1.101. This way it has a high advantage in comparison to its competitors in the market (Moonpig, 2021).
Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning
Segmentation-
Demographic perspectives it can be seen that the Moonpig has attracted wall ae and gender of people as they have products to satiate each and everyone’s needs and demands.,It has also been able to provide different complementary products for both the male and female which helps it to attract more customers (He et al. 2019).
The people of the UK have many Beliefs and values towards greeting cards. This can be very beneficial for the Moonpig to develop and make a position in the maket. They have wide varieties of cards and complementary those are beneficial for any kind of occasion.
Psychographics perspectives as it can be noted that after the pandemic, the UK people are more inclined towards e-cards and other personalised gifts. This has helped in the development of the company as they are known for their personalised gifts only (Sijabat, 2019).
Targeting- The target market of the company comprises the people of all age groups as. The market size of the company is around 7.5 billion which makes it easier to bring out more variety of products and make a position in the UK market (Jan et al. 2019).
Positioning- The Moonpig is known for its high quality and low price products. It produces a variety of products that have a consistent effect on its customers. Also in case of the competitors it is noted that the Scribblers have high quality but high prices. This may decline the total number of customers who are not able to provide a high variety of products and no such proper online services are also provided. It can also be seen that the Clinton cards the products are not upto the mark and their price in comparison is very high (Clintonsretail.com, 2021).
Conclusion
From the above study, it can be concluded that the Moonpig has made evident development in the UK market. It has provided a wide variety of products such as e-cards, birthday cards, and other complementary products that can be helpful for the development in the UK market. It has also been able to provide the customers with high quality low price products that are effective in comparison to the other competitors. It has also been able to make subsequent development by focusing in the criteria’s of both the genders.
Reference list
Card Factory. 2021, The greeting card market. [online] Available at: <https://www.cardfactoryinvestors.com/what-we-do/the-greeting-card-market> [Accessed 24 March 2021].
Clintonsretail.com. 2021, Greetings Cards & Gifts for Every Occasion | Clintons. [online] Available at: <https://www.clintonsretail.com/> [Accessed 24 March 2021].
Commonslibrary.parliament.uk. 2021, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Statistics. [online] House of Commons Library. Available at: <https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8534/#:~:text=In%202019%3A,down%20very%20slightly%20from%202018.> [Accessed 24 March 2021].
Ecommercedb.com. 2021, moonpig.com revenue | ecommerceDB.com. [online] Available at: <https://ecommercedb.com/en/store/moonpig.com> [Accessed 24 March 2021].
He, B., Gan, X. and Yuan, K., 2019. Entry of online presale of fresh produce: a competitive analysis. European Journal of Operational Research, 272(1), pp.339-351.
Jan, A.D.A. and Victor, D.S., 2019. Measuring the Effectiveness of Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning Strategy of L’oreal Products in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. IJO-International Journal of Business Management, 2(09), pp.68-79.
Moonpig. 2021, Terms & Conditions | Moonpig. [online] Available at: <https://www.moonpig.com/us/terms-and-conditions/> [Accessed 24 March 2021].
Reports.mintel.com. 2021, Greetings Cards & Personal Stationery Retailing – UK – May 2019 – Market Research Report. [online] Available at: <https://reports.mintel.com/display/919522/#> [Accessed 24 March 2021].
Salience. 2021, 2020 Greeting Card Industry Report | Free Market Analysis // Salience. [online] Available at: <https://salience.co.uk/insight/reports/greetings-cards/> [Accessed 24 March 2021].
Scribbler.com. 2021, Sale. [online] Available at: <https://www.scribbler.com/Gifts/Sale/> [Accessed 24 March 2021].
Sijabat, R., 2019. Macro-environment analysis of the tourism industry in Indonesia: findings from the PEST analysis. Innovative Issues and Approaches in Social Sciences.
Statista. 2021, UK greeting card market value | Statista. [online] Available at: <https://www.statista.com/statistics/500956/greeting-card-market-value-united-kingdom-uk/> [Accessed 24 March 2021].
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Vinuales, G., Magnotta, S.R., Steffes, E. and Kulkarni, G., 2019. Description and evaluation of an innovative segmentation, targeting, and positioning activity using student perceived learning and actual student learning. Marketing Education Review, 29(1), pp.24-36.
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