Product development

The HOME Kit

Executive Statement:

“The H.O.M.E Kit” is a company that focuses on the inconveniences of moving into a new

apartment or house for younger adults (primarily college students). We will focus on supplying

the consumer with simple non-perishable goods that are often looked over when making a move.

This service will ensure that when the consumer moves into their new living situation all of the

small details will be taken care of. Our core goal as a company is to provide ease of mind to the

consumer so they can focus on the more important things they need to get for the upcoming

school year. EX: books, school supplies, food, furniture etc…Moving into an apartment or house

for the first time can be very stressful at times and most college students are likely to miss out on

some of the smaller details they forgot until they are finally moved in and go to look for

something and it is not there. Recently the popularity of bundles or kits have become more

apparent. For example, there are a wide array of services that offer pre made meals for people

that find gathering all the ingredients and preparing the meal may take too long for someone with

a busy life. We figured we would replicate this type of product but in the form of necessities

needed when moving into a new college living situation. Young adults now are seeking the

aspect of ease and simplicity so this product will align perfectly with that trend.

Situation Analysis:

H.O.M.E kit product is a bag filled with either cleaning tools or cooking tools. This is a new

product in the market produced by our company that was founded in November 2019 in

Delaware. The company’s goal is to put the basic essentials needed on moving day into the hands

of new movers when they need them the most. The company expects to take advantage of an

increasing demand and desire for easy and professionally packed essentials especially for

students on their move-in day. Although there are other companies both large and small that

compete in this market, our company has the expertise to create and market superior products

that will appeal to its target market.

Internal Environment; Mission Statement, Organizational Culture and corporate culture:

H.O.M.E. mission statement is to meet the need and demand of the handiest and easily carried

moving day essentials. H.O.M.E. organizational structure comprises of five young entrepreneurs

who are its founders. Jack the founder and co-president, chief financial officer, Michael, Hannah

sales manager besides Patrick who also advises on product development, Najma maintains the

company relationships internally and externally. With innovation and creativity as the core

corporate culture. The company’s beginning was based on a desire to provide a kit that includes

all the essentials and it’s the company’s decision to consistently emphasize this mission.

Past and Current Marketing; Current products, current market, pricing and distribution:

Our H.O.M.E. kit product is new to the market since we are producing it for the first time, we

don’t really have data for any previous products. However, we believe in our company’s

production process and we are determined that our product will be a success. H.O.M.E is

basically a bag filled with either cleaning tools or cooking tools like cups, plates, pot, pan, grater,

cutting boards, utensils, flashlight, towel, dustpan, and spray bottle etc. It could also be a

customizable kit where the customer can mix and match tools by themselves. The bag has two

sizes, a medium size H.O.M.E kit that can carry 21 products and a large size H.O.M.E kit Plus

that can carry additional contents like a mini-vacuum, lightbulbs, batteries, and a toolkit. Each kit

comes in a considerable weight that can be easily carried. Also, H.O.M.E label is represented in

every kit.

Our company’s current market comprises mainly college students and other clients in the highly

populated areas and in wedding registry items. H.O.M.E. positions itself through competitive

price strategies and product differentiation. Our current market comprise anyone who cares about

making moving day less stressful. Since H.O.M.E. is launching a new product in the market, it’s

not easy to forecast how this product will perform hence the need for a product strategy. Before

launching H.O.M.E we had candidates who were willing to participate in our survey about the

kit’s idea. The results revealed that half of the candidates usually tend to forget 2-4 important

items when moving into a new place. Therefore, this proves to us that our kits would save

everyone who wishes to move in the hassle. For pricing, the suggested retail prices after

penetration for our products are $60 for H.O.M.E kit and $90 for H.O.M.E kit Plus.

To reach its target market, the company places primary distribution emphasis on college students,

couples, and families. H.O.M.E. distribution strategy involves the use of retail stores like Bed

Bath & Beyond, Home Goods, and Macy’s. We can start by developing relationships with these

companies through individual contacts by company personnel. As well as, making contacts with

manufacturers’ agents who are individuals who sell products for a number of different

non-competing manufacturers. This could help expand our product in various geographic

regions. We also intend to use online orders, deliveries to apartments, use of kit displays on retail

stores, and the option of partnering with colleges to order to university apartments and dorms.

External Environment: Economic, Technological, Political, legal and sociocultural

Environments:

H.O.M.E faces several different levels of competition. Its direct competitors include companies

that also market these kits like Moving Day Survival Kit, moving care package, other smaller

manufacturers as well as individuals who make these kits as gifts for their friends and families.

Economically, our product is expected to gain momentum and increases its sales steadily. With

the continuing improvement of the economy, we hope for more growth opportunities.

Technological advances have had minimal impact on the firm’s operation. Nevertheless, the use

of current technology has enabled and enhanced many of our activities i.e. the company uses the

internet to enhance its promotional strategies that involves the use of twitter and Instagram Ads,

YouTube Ads, and print ads in textbooks. Other promotional strategies include; free shipping,

trade shows, roommate deals and summer sales. H.O.M.E is environment friendly. We make sure

to provide products that reduce the use of plastics, and ones that can be recycled. We are working

hard to provide our clients with products that are safe for their use and for the planet as well. On

the other hand, since we are distributing our product nationally at the moment, we are focusing to

follow our country-specific regulations and not worry about global markets regulations. As well

as, conforming to regulatory guidelines for our product campaigns. H.O.M.E tends to use

marketing research to monitor and follow the consumer environment. The research shows that

even though the idea of making kits are very popular and familiar to people, there are still

students and couples who would rather spend money to get a kit that contains the essentials when

moving. Also, the trend towards gifting newlyweds, couples or students a ready move in kit that

has everything in it has increased dramatically for the past years. Therefore, you usually find

these kits in stores or online more often and people are becoming more aware of that.

SWOT Analysis:

The SWOT analysis provides a summary of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

identified by H.O.M.E through the analysis of its internal and external environments.

Strengths:

H.O.M.E. have creative and skilled employees who ensure its products are of high quality and

are practical products that provide essentials to movers with customer’s convenience as a top

priority. The company also has a strong network with its distributors, agents and manufacturers

and enjoys increased reputational growth for its high-quality products. Low cost products, as

well as strategic business location helps the company command huge sales and wider market

share.

Weaknesses:

Limited financial resources for growth, lack of advertisements funds and other marketing needs

have been the company’s main undoing toward low cost production. There is need to ensure

H.O.M.E. has access to loans and other financial resources that will better its operations.

Opportunities:

Increased trends in customer’s shopping remains the main opportunity for H.O.M.E. The

company therefore have good chances to ensure profitability, and its sustainability is assured in

terms of availability of customers. As well as, after a successful sale of the product, the company

wishes to sign contracts with college bookstores to have the permission to sell H.O.M.E kits.

Threats

Increased competition from companies that market like moving day survival kits and an

increase in popularity of moving day kits were identified to be the company’s main threats. The

company also faces a threat of bad debt and cash flow issues due to provision of low cost

products which need mass production to satisfy demand.

Objectives:

While there are many objectives we hope to accomplish, our main one is to make the

H.O.M.E kit the #1 item on every student move in list and make all of our customers as happy as

they can be. We (as college students) know how difficult move in day is, it is stressful and you

feel like your list just keeps getting longer. We want to do our part and make move in day as easy

as it can be and relieve you of all your stress. To make this happen we have created a bundle that

checks off many items on a move in list and at the same time saves you money.

The H.O.M.E kit includes kitchen utensils (Plates, Utensils, Cups) as well as every day

use items such as a flashlight, towels and a dust pan. This kit will ensure that all the small details

are taken care of before moving into your apartment. Since move in day can be especially

stressful, we try to take care of all the things that can be easily forgotten or misplaced when

moving.

Our starting price is 60$ which is half if not less than other pot and pan bundles which

can range from $100 to upwards of $200. With our low pricing we aim to attract many young

customers (especially college students) that are struggling with money or do not have a lot to

spend on unnecessary items for their apartments/houses. We developed this product based off the

needs for college students, and with that in mind, we wanted to create to the cheapest alternative

possible.

Lastly, we want to make the ordering process the easiest and most efficient on the market.

Our website will be simple and straight to the point, just as we would like your moving

experience to be. We have given our customers two standard options to choose from, the

H.O.M.E Kit and the H.O.M.E Kit plus. this is convenient for college students instead of having

to put multiple things in an online shopping cart or travel to many stores, you can have the

H.O.M.E kit shipped to your door in just one click.

Marketing Strategy:

Target Markets and Positioning:

Moving on to the marketing strategy of The H.O.M.E. Kit, several traditional and unique

strategies are planned to be put in place. Starting with identifying our target markets, it is clear to

us that most of our purchases will come from new apartment or home owners, especially those in

college, so college students are our primary target market. We also feel it could be effective to

target areas that are urban with high populations as they have young populations and a high

amount of apartments, but we will primarily focus on the college student market. Our positioning

strategy will naturally focus on separating ourselves from any potential competition. One of the

ways we will do this is by implementing a positioning strategy that closely works with our target

market. We plan to create an image for the company that will cater to the college students we are

targeting, which can be done by having a large social media presence and by making our product

well known and seen as an essential purchase for any new apartment owner. We also plan to

position ourselves in the market through pricing strategies which we will expand upon shortly.

The most effective way we can position ourselves however, is by differentiating ourselves from

other brands by offering cheaper and more reliable items. College students are not going to be

looking for top quality cooking and cleaning products, and the H.O.M.E. Kit aims to reflect this

while still offering durable and reliable items.

Product Strategies:

There are many product strategies in place for the H.O.M.E. Kit. We plan to offer regular

and “plus” models to start, with the plus model having larger additional items such as a small

vacuum and a toolkit. There is also the opportunity for more models to be offered in the future

which could include outdoor themed items or even a travel kit. Another product strategy was

mentioned briefly before and that is to have the items in the kit be cheaper alternatives. This

would mean utensils would be a strong plastic., the pots and pans will be of cheaper material,

and things like the tool kit and vacuum will be smaller alternatives. This caters to our target

market of college students who don’t necessarily need the best quality items, rather affordable

ones that will “get the job done”. One more product strategy for the H.O.M.E. Kit will be to

make sure each item in the kit is non-consumable- our company aims to make sure the kit is

something that can be used for a long time so we want to offer items that can be used over and

over again. While a kit may be added in the future that changes this, it is important to us that our

core product is one that students can benefit from for a long time.

Distribution Strategies:

Distribution strategies are an important part of the H.O.M.E. Kit’s marketing plan. Rather

than offer our product from a company owned website, we plan to have it offered in home good

stores which include Bed Bath and Beyond, Home Goods, Macys, JCPenney, and the like. These

stores already have respected reputations as retailers which offer products for homes and

apartments, and or kit will fit in well with what is sold at these stores. Despite not having a

personal website, we expect for a large amount of our sales to come from online orders on the

websites of our retailers. It will be very helpful for college students to be able to order their

H.O.M.E. Kit and receive it at their new apartments or houses rather than transport all the items

themselves, and the common deliveries will be a reason our retailers will want to carry the

product. In addition to this, we hope to have partnerships with universities themselves and have

the schools offer the product to incoming and returning students as part of their room and board

plan as many campuses have apartment-style dorms and most of the items could still be helpful

in regular dorms. One more part of our distribution strategy will be to have the entire kits on

display by the retailers, but to have the actual boxes they come in be plain cardboard, as it would

save money and any design on the box would not necessarily increase sales, as it is more

important to see the contents in person or in photos than on the actual box.

Pricing Strategies:

Pricing strategies are an important part of the H.O.M.E. Kit’s marketing plan. As briefly

mentioned before, our pricing strategy will be integral to starting our business. We plan to use a

penetration pricing strategy and to build a reputation for ourselves early on when many people

are buying the product at a discounted price. We still plan to keep the price of the H.O.M.E. Kit

relatively low after we complete our penetration strategy, as this will appeal to our target market

and is in line with the fact that the contents of the kit will be cheaper alternatives. Typical 21

piece cooking kits can range from $80 to $200 dollars on average, and these do not include the

additional home items that our kit offers. The cost of goods sold for the regular H.O.M.E. Kit

will be about $25. We plan for the price of this product after penetration to be $60, which is well

below the average prices mentioned before. This gives our company a profit of $35 per

H.O.M.E. Kit sold. As for the H.O.M.E. Kit Plus, cost of goods sold will be around $45. After

penetration, pricing will be $90 for this kit which includes everything in the first kit plus a

vacuum, toolkit, rechargeable batteries, and lightbulbs. This puts our profit at $45 per H.O.M.E.

Kit Plus, purposely more than that of the regular kit.

Promotional Strategies:

The final part of our marketing plan is our promotional strategy. We plan to advertise

through YouTube Ads, Instagram Ads, and Twitter Ads. We feel that these three locations will be

the most effective in reaching our target market, as a television or billboard ad may be

overlooked by the younger generation. We also plan to promote ourselves through the

aforementioned potential partnership with universities, who will already have a great outreach to

our target market. Similarly, we hope to place ads in SAT, and other test prep books which most

college or soon to be in college students will own and look over several times. We also plan to

offer promotions which lower the price of the H.O.M.E. Kit and entice consumers. A roommate

deal could be effective in which roommates have a choice of getting several H.O.M.E. Kits at a

discounted price per kit, or for the roommates to split the price before delivery to share the items.

We also plan to offer more discounts in the summer when we expect fro more kits to be bought

in order to win over any skeptical consumers. Lastly, we plan to offer free shipping on all orders

during “move-in months” to further entice the target market into buying our product.

Buzz-building activities are also planned which include a “H.O.M.E.-coming” event when

parents are visiting schools and we can set up tables to offer the product to be purchased for their

children at discounted prices. We also hope to hire representatives to stand by the product in

stores a few times a month to persuade consumers into buying the kit.

Implement & Control the Plan

Action Program:

For our action plan, we needed to figure out the layout of how we can manufacture and distribute

our product that will generate the most revenue and draw the attention of college students that

are planning on moving to college in the near future and will find The H.O.M.E kit to be the best

moving kit to purchase rather than similar competitors. Because most students move into college

in the fall, we think that we should start our action plan around the summertime so when fall

approaches and most students are planning on moving to college, we can have our product

readily available for purchase in large department stores. We hope to be advertised through

YouTube Ads, Instagram Ads, and Twitter Ads from July through early September, when going

to school is on our target audiences mind. They will see our ad and realize how convenient our

kit will be so they do not need to go through multiple retailers with full carts and still possibly

forget essentials that many people may tend to look over.

Responsibility:

The founders of the company will be responsible for making sure that the action plan takes place

the way it should be. This seems like the ideal strategy as opposed to hiring employees to do it

because we have not generated any revenue yet. Once we launch and make a profit and decide to

continue manufacturing the H.O.M.E kit, then we may hire employees to take responsibility for

more minor operations as our company grows. Because we plan on selling through retailers, we

do put some responsibility on the retailers to make sure that our product is being promoted

enough and has captured the attention of our target audience.

Timeline:

Our first step of the plan, making initial contact with multiple department stores to discuss

selling our product on their online store and displaying the kit in store, will take place March 1st

and end July 1st so we have enough time to contact the stores but also will end when we need to

start preparing which retailers we want to sell our product through. On June 1st, we plan to

prepare and design our social media ads and end on July 1st, so when we are ready to launch the

ad we can capture an audience that is thinking about moving to college around that time. We will

contact universities to promote the kit starting in July, so we have enough time to secure the

universities we are selling from once the fall semester starts. Finally, we will launch our ads on

July 31st, just a month before school begins to get students thinking about our product and

purchasing it to make the moving process easier.

Budget:

Our budget for one sale of the regular H.O.M.E kit will generate a $60 profit and once subtracted

from our cost of goods sold, will give us a profit of $35 on each sale we make. We think that this

is a decent amount of profit to make once we compared the cost of goods sold and how much

time and effort is needed to make one kit. For the H.O.M.E kit Plus, we budgeted a $45 profit

once we subtracted our expense costs of $45 to our sale price of $90.

Measurement and Control:

One of the metrics we used for measurement are time college students spend on Twitter,

Instagram and Youtube to see how much coverage our ads will get. Another metric we plan on

using is determining Customer Acquisition Cost after buzz building activity to predict how our

product will do through larger audiences once they become promoted on large retailer websites.

The last metric we plan on measuring is Return On Investment from retailers vs social media to

sell which platforms bring the highest return on investment. One of our main focuses of control

is ensuring that ad cost does not exceed profit once we launch the kit. We also are focused on

controlling the amount of commission we are paying retailers to make sure we are generating a

decent profit still and the cost of products used to make the kit and compared to amount of profit

from sales. These two measures will make sure we are not wasting profit but are rather investing

our money for more promotion to bring about more profit. Once launched, we will determine

which retailers we generate the most revenue from and try to obtain distribution agreements to

keep a high sales rate through their store.