Part 1: Introduction and Product/Service Description
Advanced technologies and digital techniques have entered every business sector increasing organizational efficiency and improving strategic management capabilities considered the key backbone for organizational growth and sustainability. Caper AI that is popularly known as Caper is one of the fast-growing and highly reputed software technologies in the USA market. This company has achieved a significant marketing position by developing smart products and services through smooth strategic decisions and management among highly established competitors. This company is going to develop and launch an AI-powered self-checkout trolley to enable customers and the company to utilize smart features and technologies with lower efforts and better monetary values (Caper.ai, 2022). Therefore, this assessment aims to conduct a critical analysis of the marketing including marketing trends, position, customer identification, and marketing STP to make this product-launching journey smooth. Some strategic recommendations also have been developed in this assessment for addressing and reducing the marketing issues.
The description of the AI-powered self-checkout trolley product of Caper includes the entire features and uniqueness in terms of achieving higher marketing share and profitability. This product can enable customers to scan and place their grocery items or other commodities and pay easily without facing crowdy counters at shopping malls or superstores. An automatic sensor associated with this smart trolly can easily visualize the prices of commodities. This AI-powered self-checkout trolley works on scanning barcodes through checkout kiosks in conjunction with the loyalty cards of customers. By using this smart trolly, customers receive receipts after paying at checkout kiosks. About 150 million shoppers use to visit several malls, groceries and superstores in the USA market (Statista.com, 2022). Thus, superstores are facing key issues such as customer prioritization, billing, scanning products individually and generating receipts accordingly in managing this large size of the consumer market. In this condition, the core uniqueness of this product such as speeding up the orders and process rates reduces additional staffing and allows consumers to order and pay rapidly and smoothly. As stated by Panchenko et al. (2019), these additional values or features can help to identify and enlarge the engagement of potential consumers.
Part 2: A Critical Analysis of the Market Context
2.1 Brief marketing analysis
Caper AI is going to develop and launch its new featured product named the AI-powered self-checkout trolley within the highly demanded and rapidly expanding USA market. The entire Grocery and Supermarket stores are estimated at $811.5 billion in 2022 which is expanding along with increasing consumer demands and buying intentions (Statista.com, 2022). Therefore, this market is targeted to develop and launch this smart trolly at standard prices. However, the growth rate of this marketing is 2.6% in 2022 creating opportunities to expand the business boundary and marketing of this product with greater sustainability and profitability (Statista.com, 2022). Walmart, Target, Costco, Ahold Delhaize and Kroger are the giant retail chains serving customers with a variety of groceries and commodities capturing a significant area within this market.
2.2 Key market trends
Barczak et al. (2021), mentioned that marketing trends are the core aspects that retail sectors are largely accepting to improve their current position and marketing status as per consumer attitude and purchasing behaviour. Omnichannel marketing, DTC (Direct-to-Consumer), Visual Search and ML/AI focus are the major trends in the USA retail chain. However, these trends can assist to launch AI-powered self-checkout trolleys as about 32 million daily consumers are rapidly moving towards accepting smart products and services in this industry. Based on these trends, the marketing growth is estimated to be about 2.6% in 2022 increasing larger opportunities and growth advantages for this product (Statista.com, 2022).
Key competitors and their positioning
| Competitors | Factors (Lowest= 1, Highest= 5) | |
| Service attractiveness | Promotional expenditures | |
| StandardCognition | 2 | 3 |
| Grabango | 4 | 5 |
| AiFi | 3 | 2 |
| Corp.Narvar | 4 | 1 |
| Focal Systems | 5 | 1 |
| Tracxpoint Ltd | 5 | 4 |
Table 1: Competitor positioning
(Source: Self-developed)
Competitors are the major influencers of businesses who affect supply and business activities from diverse angles. Caper AI possesses some highly established competitors such as StandardCognition, Grabango, AiFi, Corp.Narvar, Focal Systems and Tracxpoint Ltd in the highly competitive USA market (Ventureradar.com, 2022). These smart cart maker companies are the key competitors of Caper AI for serving consumers with effective products and services at lower costs. As mentioned by Teece (2019), these competitors can be positioned by considering their service effectiveness and promotional expenditures as mentioned in the table above.
Figure 1: Position mapping of competitors
(Source: Self-developed)
2.3 Summarize the current customer attitudes/behaviours in this market
The success and failure of a business depend on the purchasing intentions and buying attitudes of customers largely. About 32 million customers visit grocery stores, shopping malls and supermarkets in the USA (Statista.com, 2022). Marketing provides significant contribution to the country’s economy and industrial growth significantly. The habitual purchasing of customers can be focused in terms of identifying the situational requirements and needs in this market. The Consumer Behaviour theory can be focused on to identify the purchasing behaviour of this large consumer circle in the USA market. This theory works on enabling marketers and businesses to capitalize based on the behavioural predictions of consumers by identifying their decision-making ways. By using this theory, product buying from the same brand can also be tracked for defining the variety-seeking behaviour of consumers as per situational needs.
2.4 Identification of the issues and opportunities
The development and launching of AI-powered self-checkout trolly can encounter both marketing opportunities and issues providing a significant impact on the entire retail sector (Hunger, 2020). Some major product development challenges such as ideation, market viability, workflow management, pricing policy and roadmap problems can reduce the potential of this product in this highly competitive USA market. Similarly, fulfilling the consumer-company gap, easy usage, AI-powered features and lower operational costs are key opportunities that can support this product development and profitability increment in this market. As criticised by Bogers et al. (2019), considered major ethical and social issues, these challenges can create barriers to organizational growth and sustainability by engaging larger consumer and employee circles within the supply chain boundary.
Part 3: Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning (STP)
3.1 Base of segmentations
This type of marketing strategy is one of the processes that can improve the marketing structures through using three simple steps that can assist them in enhancing them to maintain a suitable business structure. In this case, the carper company is trying to develop its marketing process by upgrading its marketing structures due to developing tier trolley services by including the automation process. As suggested by Ferracuti et al. (2019), the segmentation process can provide support for developing their marketing investment process or area that can guide them to manage four different segmentation processes such as “Geographic segmentation”, “Demographic segmentation”, “Behavioral segmentation”, and “Psychographic segmentation”. The geographic segmentation process can divide their customer based on the customer’s country, region, state, province, and other attributes. The demographic segmentation process can divide their markets based on the customer’s age, gender, and other aspects; however, they can also divide their customers based on the behaviors of their respective customers that are known as the behaviors segmentation process. In the end, they can also divide their marketing segment based on customers’ hobbies, lifestyles, and other activities that can assist them in identifying their target markets.
Figure 1: Grocery markets share in the USA
(Source: Statista.com, 2022)
In this case, this company is trying to develop a demographic segmentation process and psychographic segmentation based on their segmentation performances. In this case, they can invest some amount of money in every segmentation process that can help them to identify the target markets. Based on these results this company can develop its demographic markets by providing discounts and including these new features of the automation process that can help them to attract more customers and implement sustainable business progress. In this case, they are mainly investing their money in demographic segmentations and psychographic segmentation processes due to the market share of supermarkets being 803.05 billion U.S. dollars in USA markets that can assist them to creates an opportunity for developing their sales or revenues (Statista.com, 2022). This type of data can help them to identify their target markets for upgrading the customer experiences and updating their existing products by including this automation system that can provide assistance to develop their supermarket’s business models and improves their entire business performance.
3.2 Summaries the profile and persona of your target market
The target market is defining the entire business structure by using three different types of aspects: market size, profitability levels, and reach ability in the markets that can assist them to implement a suitable marketing performance in the markets. In this case, researchers are trying to develop their target markets based on the segmentations process performances in the markets. In the earlier days, this company used geographic segmentation that can help them to collect revenue of $1 million in 2019 which can assist them to improve the overall business progress. This company has also risen to fund from different companies $13 million, which can assist them to upgrade the overall business progress. Due to this pandemic situation, consumer perspectives are changed due to this digital transformation in different industries (Forbes.com, 2022). Due to this reason, this company is trying to develop this type of product to upgrade the consumer’s experiences during purchasing and provide the support to follow the social distance from different people.
Through this type of structure, the company can develop its entries business model and improve its customer experience, and improve its feedback through the word-of-mouth process that can support them to implement sustainable business progress. Due to this reason, they can develop their marketing structures by using the demographic and psychographic process that can help them to maintain the CX (customer experiences) strategies of the company and can guide them to implement sustainable business progress (Mandolfo et al. 2020). These two segmentation processes can help them to develop their positioning process by developing their brand images through customer feedback on social media and other factors that can attract big players such as Tesco, Walmart, and other companies to their business and can assist them to implement strong business implement structures. The main reason behind including this automation process is to develop some innovative ideas to attract a maximum number of customers into the different shops that can help the company to increase the number of customers in their respective business.
3.3 Benefits and different problems
The product of a self-automated trolley that the respected organization tends to launch in the business market has some extensive features that will assist the brand to get maximum customer engagement in the business. Considering the health and needs of the respected customers, the technical authority and the management team of the organization have decided to launch a new product that can perform automatically and effectively.
On the other hand, the respected organization has successfully managed to develop the customer experience and at the same time, an enhanced user-friendly panel has also been put into the trolley. According to a report the company has found that many people face issues while they carry a trolley in marts and other places for personal use (Akpan et al. 2021). Considering this particular factor, the respected organization has availed an automatic user panel that works automatically by pointing a switch only. A particular computerized user tab has been put on the upper side of the trolley that allows the users to select the things they need for them. With automatic assistance, the trolley can stop where it needs to be and increase the rate of satisfaction for the users. All these extensive elements and services will help the brand to be loved by most people across the marketplace.
Through this process, the carper company can try to upgrade its brand image in the markets and develop its entire business models, which assist them to maintain suitable business progress. It can also develop the customer experience and solve the customer problems of waiting in lines for checking out. Moreover, it can also provide assistance to the different supermarkets by improving their productivity level that updates their business performance in the USA and across the world. Due to these reasons, they can also develop their market positioning and upgrade their places in the markets in terms of increasing the amount of revenue and profitability structures.
Part 4
4.1 Traditional marketing mix elements
Marketing mix has a classification through four adequate groups, which are considered the 4 Ps of marketing such as; price, product, and place along with promotion. The various companies need to deliver the value proportion by creating satisfaction with marketing offerings which are in the form of products and services (Anjani et al. 2018). On the other hand, they must have a residence through the amount they can charge for the particular product with the introduction of a pricing strategy for the product with later thinking about offering the product towards the consumers in the market. However, lastly, they would need to engage a large amount of target audience through offering pursuing strategies leading to promotion. Apart from this, it is important for a firm in blending the various marketing mix tools in integrating their promotional program which connects the expectation in value towards the chosen consumers.
Figure 1: Marketing Mix
(Source: Tech-talk.org, 2021)
4.1.1 Product
The automatic self-checkout shopping carts or trolleys will be provided under the brand Caper. Caper is known for its Artificial intelligence-powered shopping solutions helping various customers to spend more time with lesser waiting in lines. However, the organization is a software technology firm which has a providence of application of AI-Based software to various retailers, convenience stores, grocers and others (Dost et al. 2019). It has important for a tech solution to make the most of efficient quality through the satisfaction of customers. As this will be Capers’ first product with a strategic application through total quality management as it will work as a helping hand in having a constant improvement over product quality. However, the new product of automatic self-checkout trolleys will provide a better and smoother convenience by having a barcode scanner, and credit-card swipe along with an automated image recognition system increasing the comfort of various customers. The automated self-checkout trolley will have distinct features. In case, there are issues which are a point of concern for the product such as customers can be confused with high software glitches can take place. However, adding extra features through easy accessibility by customers with leading to a competitive tool differentiating from other products.
4.1.2 Pricing strategy
The first pricing strategy will have an introduction to selling automated self-checkout shopping carts will be done through the pricing of market skimming, since there will be a new automated product every year they will start at a relatively high price by working their way down to the new advanced solutions. For example; in 2022 models will be introduced such that in 2023 more new models will be introduced which will lead to lower prices for 2022 products (Cooper, 2019). However, Caper will have used optional pricing of products such that the customers will be able in choosing various features and colors with the inclusion of more advanced technologies such as automated movement with customer’s sensors and premium techs. On the other hand, the specific firm will use premium strategic pricing in setting at a higher as the new advanced technologies.
4.1.3 Promotion Strategy
The advertising along with the promotional strategy that caper uses will be used in a similar way over its automated self-checkout trolleys. However, it is optimized the specific strategy will be done through direct marketing with a digital marketing strategy (Bouncken et al. 2018). On the other hand, these strategies underpin online through various platforms of social media. Such that e-mails will be sent towards various consumers who have used automated carts over the past and acknowledging them with a new self-checkout experience which will promote the specific tech solution. Apart from this, digital and direct marketing can be a well-defined strategy whose main goal is creating a better engagement of customers with coordination through their needs. The other promotional strategy which can be used is personal telling which will be used in selling the solution carts and finalizing the sale towards various shopping malls and retailers, this can lead towards building better customer relationships.
4.1.4 Distribution strategy
It is seen that the company of Caper has adequate operations in the United States; it uses dual strategies in the form of selection and exclusive. However, the firm has us over the exclusive form of distribution by helping to have better funding and dealerships. On the other hand, it can be optimized that the organization also has a selective strategy for the distribution through which they provide the older solutions to retailers of carts (Ferrell et al. 2021). On the other hand, the recommended distribution for launching the new innovative product of an automated self-checkout trolley strategy should have a similar flow and activities in matching with its normal cart solutions over the past decades. In case, they should follow an already established distribution and system of the supply chain in leading towards their sales of new products to various shopping falls, retailers and others.
4.2 Services marketing mix elements
4.2.1 Process
The company of caper in launching the new product of automated self-checkout carts will need to check and evaluate the needs of various customers in improving their shopping experiences with continuing improvements and technological advancements in accessing them. On the other hand, the firm will first establish a prototype by testing it leading to a better investigation of risks by removing its defective parts. In case, there can be a better configuration of products for the firm in optimizing the case of adding smart sensors for more efficiency in buying products for various customers (Najafi-Tavani et al. 2018).
4.2.2 People
It is important for Caper in making surety through awareness of various employees in specific, the various employees that are working on a direct basis over an exclusive sector of distribution are skilled, happy, along with higher motivated and will be able to serve different customers positively leading towards a better establishment in building relationships. On the other hand, the company will have an extension of hiring new skilled workers for those who have technical knowledge and understanding. Apart from this, the organization will also need to follow an adequate mission by recognizing its better collaboration with various customers and companies by helping them by providing better support (Gao and Bernard, 2018). In case, the firm will also have better management of coordination towards the target audience in influencing their mindset toward using the automated shopping cart. Through this, the company will have a good introduction to the uniqueness of its competitors which have advanced in producing similar products as the firm.
4.2.3 Physical evidence
Physical evidence can have relevance for Caper in launching the new product in the market through the form of automated self-checkout carts as the firm will have a providence of various technological support for its different customers regarding flexibility, and convenience that can be seen as a piece of physical evidence. This could also have a better extension of the market mix approach for the firm by allowing more high-tech solutions such as easy access through touch screen mode with can be a user-friendly option which can help the customers in getting an attraction through new offers of products and simplifying their buying conditions (Wahyono and Nurjanah, 2020). On the other hand, there can also be an evidential intervention in the form of creating mindsets of retailers on how to improve their smooth activities. In introducing the new product, there will be a better reading of information for the customers and check their new features in the form of pictures through the website.
Part 5: Discussion of implementation issues
Some of the issues through the implementation of the new product can be in the form of resources which will be needed in moving ahead with executing the specific project. On the other hand, this is because the various companies can have better accessibility by entering various segments leading to the creation of customer value along with gaining a competitive advantage in the market. Apart from this, it can be evaluated that the first automated tech solution which will be implemented by the company Caper will need in making sure in having positive coordination between all the departments with moving towards the right direction with the various strategies of marketing. Moreover, in case the company Capers employees were in using an internal form of marketing in helping to enhance the effectiveness of the organization, they can have used proper training in removing their internal uncertainties and moving ahead in the market and competition (Thabit and Raewf, 2018).
Additionally, the specific firm is known for its renouncing of innovative technological solutions thus it can be a positive idea for the company in putting its resources into partnering with a software organization which has a providence of better technical software a need which can lead to the better initiative of corporate social responsibility (CSR). In case, it is seen that through recent cases the top software-making company have breached its giving faulty software to firms thus, the firm Caper needs to have an analysis before partnering with a company. This can effectively advance it in executing its planning for the right CSR along with improving its market reputation and earning higher profits.
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