Kudler Fine Foods Frequent Shopper Program Essay

Kudler Fine Foods is a local and upscale specialty food store with a total of four stores in La Jolla, Del Mar, and Encinitas California with their main base store in San Diego, California. Each store maintains and sells high quality bakery, pastries, fresh produce, meat, seafood, specialty condiments, packaged foods, cheeses, and dairy products. Kathy Kudler owner and founder of Kudler Fine Foods is looking to expand her company and market her products to new prospective clients, along with improving her services to her current clientele. Since the opening day of Kudler Fine Foods in June 1998 the business has become sustainable and profitable. Ten years later Kathy wants to implement a frequent shoppers program not only to reward her current loyal customer base but also to draw in new clientele. Installing a business system for this initiative would allow Kudler the ability to track purchasing patterns of individual customer’s. This would give the company a better understanding of what products are sellers and what products do not move or sell as fast. Alternatively this would give customers the opportunity to receive points from their past purchases geared toward rewards products. According to the Kudler’s sales and marketing departments research this type of system will increase revenue and cost reduction for Kudler. Kudler identifies that knowing exactly what the customers purchasing habits, supply needs, and preferences are would enable Kudler to purchase only what will be sold. Therefore, it will stop Kudler from stocking on items that do not sell and are not attractive to the customer. Kudler has different types of options on how they could advertise the new shoppers program. Because these types of programs are commonplace within any market, Kudler needs to develop a complete database system, with including current and former customers. This database is used specifically for advertising of the new program and data collection of sales. Kudler would need to update or create a new website to add this new program and help customers understand the benefits of registering for the program. Legally Kudler needs to stay within the boundaries set up for E-commerce. The rules for online business and e-mail advertisement are very far-reaching some of which include an opt-out link that allows any consumer to stop receiving e-mail advertisements. This must be easily viewable and verifiable to the recipient for online spam advertisement. Electronic contracts are legal and binding along with electronic signatures, these forms of agreements must have legal disclaimers visible for the customer to read. These are just a few of many other legal ramifications that Kudler would need to investigate and consider before moving forward. Ethical considerations are also vital to both the customers and Kudler Fine Foods when implementing the shoppers program. Any customers who register with Kudler’s shoppers program understand that all personal information given to Kudler will not be given or sold to another company without the express approval of the customer. Kudler has to take into consideration that registration online has to be implemented with the highest security software on the market. Protection of sensitive data is vital to the success of any online purchases or programs. Pornographic material and anything refereeing to pornography is prohibited by law. Breaches of contractual agreements are also considered unethical. Therefore, Kudler must have strict policy and procedures in place to alleviate any of the above issues. This would keep Kudler ethically stable and help with any other issues that will come into light. The main understanding that Kudler Fine Foods would have to embrace is that the company is fully responsible for what is placed on their website and also what they are offering to their customers as an incentive. Kudler Fine Foods has to identify within the scope of this project the development of the frequent shoppers program specific security measures. The main initiative is to secure private data and deter any unauthorized access. The main and formidable issue here is that the Frequent Shoppers Program will enable Kudler Fine Foods to still make a profit. The return on the investment with this new program has to exceed its monetary cost factor to stay viable. The stores have to identify other cost saving measures for this program to stay solvent for years to come. Keeping up to day records in a management system will also help save time and money while understanding where money is spent and where it is saved. Investing in the Shoppers program will take considerable money to start with. The long-term gain if managed properly can make Kudler Foods more lucrative in the future. Managing the marketing and advertising expenses must be a number one priority along with investing in upgrades of the website and possible market research. Concluding this program will rely on reports regarding expenditures, which should be collected over a period several prior years. This will give Kudler a baseline for future gains or losses. This will also let Kudler Fine Foods see if the program is profitable from each succeeding year. Gains and losses, extreme scrutiny and constant tweaking of the program its website and security infrastructure will have to be made in order for this program to be a success. Reference Apollo Group, I. (2007, 2010, 2011). Kudler Fine Foods. Retrieved November 26, 2012, from Sales and Marketing: https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/secure/aapd/cist/vop/Business/Kudler2/intranet/marketing-overview.asp