Our evaluation of the businesses

Group opinion and reasons to select the stalls

In this blog, both of the places we chose were located at Ipoh, Perak which is only around 30minutes driving distance from Kampar. They are both a good places for us to take a rest and have some good food in the town. Both the owners of the stalls are kind and friendly. All of us had some past great experience by having a meal in the stalls. The services in both stalls are so efficient and the foods provided are always fresh and quality. This is why we choose the stalls as we wanted to show them our support and this is how their hard work payoff. 

Nowadays, people are willing to spend for a delicious meal. However, both of the prices of the food available in the stalls are reasonable and affordable for public. For ‘Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun’, it is only cost RM2.30 to RM3.80 for three different serving size of ‘Chee Cheong Fun’. For the “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar”, a piece of fried material cost RM0.80 only and it is reasonable for public as well. We had chosen these stalls because we wanted to promote the foods with reasonable price for public which included the students like us. Good food might not cheap but cheap food might taste good.

Based on the information, most of the locals are familiar with the boss of “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar” and it has a lot of loyalty customers around the town or even from other states. Another reason that we choose the stall is to prove whether it is as delicious as others said or it is just a rumour. In contrast, “Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun” is actually an old stall located in residence area which might not as famous as “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar” but we wish to expose it to the public since the food in the stall worth the price we pay for it. However, it is actually not so hard to see the pictures of these foods in social media like Facebook and Google. People in this era used to take a picture before they start their meal and this is how the stalls getting more and more famous in the internet.

Classification of e-commerce by the nature of the transactions or interactions

Electronic commerce (E-commerce) is a type of business model that enables a firm or individual to conduct businesses over an electronic network, normally through the internet. E-commerce can be categorized into four major market segments: business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), and consumer-to-business (C2B). The local foods we have chosen to promote in our blog are both located at Ipoh, Perak which are “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar” and “Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun”. Both stalls are using the same business model which is brick-and-mortal to carry out their businesses. They are selling their foods offline and do not involve any sales through online or internet. Therefore, by knowing the nature of the transactions of both stalls, it can be categorized into two types of classification for “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar” and “Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun”. 

Business-To-Consumer (B2C) 

Business-to-consumer (B2C) is business or transactions conducted directly between a company and consumers who are the end users of its products or services. This model is slightly different with business-to-business (B2B), as B2B is referring to the transactions between two or more businesses. In such case, “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar” and “Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun”, both stalls are selling their foods directly and physically to their customers which mean that their customers are able to obtain the tangible products from the stalls once they purchased. 

Consumer-to-Business (C2B) 

Consumer-to-business (C2B) is an E-commerce model in which individuals use the internet to sell products or services to organizations or individuals who seek sellers to bid on products or services they need. For example, a consumer writes a review on an existing product or provides ideas for new developed products. The reason both stalls can be classified in this model because some well-known bloggers or “YouTubers” will promote their foods through the blogs or videos in the YouTube channel, write an overall review on the foods of the stalls or even provide some recommendations for the owners of the stall to improve in the aspects of taste, environment, etc. The owners of the stalls can choose either to receive or adopt the reviews and recommendations from their customers or not to do so, as the contents of the blog are based on the personal opinion of the bloggers which might or might not have the professional level.

Business Model 

Based on the information, both “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar” and “Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun” that we choose are brick-and-mortal organizations. In the other mean, they are considered an old-economy organization that performs their primary business offline, selling physical products by mean of physical agents. Both of them have a physical presence and offer face-to-face customer experiences. They tend to offer services and products directly to the walk-in customers. This model usually used to contrast with a transitory business or an internet-only presence, such as an online shop, which have no physical presence for shoppers to visit and buy product directly. In these stalls, customers are required to make an order at the stalls and received the services and products on the spot. The customers might not be able to get the products or foods though the internet. 

There are some benefits of using brick-and-mortar in businesses. First of all, face to face customer service can be a big contributor in increasing sales of a business. A kind and friendly owner or employees might able to give a great impression to the customers and encourage them for repetitively visits and purchases. Based on our observation, employees of the stalls are all friendly and helpful. Their working performance and great services provided might bring more customers to the stalls and increase the sales. Besides, research has shown that 86% of customers willing to pay more for a product if they have received a great customer service. 

As we know, the foods served by these stalls are suitable for public with all ages. Hence, face-to-face interaction seems to be much more suitable for them. The elderly are used to a more traditional approach when it comes to purchasing and prefer to have some sight or explanation before any purchase made. Most of the customers might enjoy the personal interaction with the employees. In these stalls, the employees might explain the variety choice of foods to the customers so that they can have a picture in their brain before they make a choice. They might also introduce foods to the customers based on the customer’s personal characteristic or taste. This will not only help the customers but also the sales of the stalls themselves. The customers might feel warm to have their meal there and make repetitively visits. 

Since both of the stalls are using the same model, they have their own store front as well. An attracting storefronts and point-of-purchase displays can also strongly influence customers to make an impulse purchase. Concerns such as foot traffic, storefront visibility, and appealing interior design might help the stalls to attract walk in customer and generate more sales. Location of the stalls is also important for a brick-and-mortal business since most of the customers are walk-in customers. In this case, “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar” seems to have a much more strategic location and the visibility of the stall is higher compared to “Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun”. However, “Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun” also has their own advantages on its current location as it can target the villages staying in the specific area. Since “Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun” do not have a wide area for customers to dine in, it focuses more on take away business. Due to this issue, its location is actually have not much effect on its sales. 

Basic approach used in marketing and advertising 

Nowadays, there are various types of marketing and advertising approaches can be used to promote the products to the market. The basic approach used in marketing and advertising by both “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar” and “Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun” is social advertising. Social advertising can be defined as advertising on a social networking site such as the most famous SNS in the present, Facebook, which enables the advertiser to target ads based on friends using the same product. Viral marketing is one of the advertising methods in social advertising, which is defined as word-of-mouth (WOM) method by which customers promote a product or services by telling others about it which are normally their friends and family. As the customers of both stalls have high satisfactory on the quality of the foods, they tend to promote the foods verbally to the others. Both of the stalls are well known by public now since the locals used to promote them direct and indirectly. 

Photo 1 – This is an example of social advertising. 

Instead of advertising through the mouth, those customers can also use viral blogging or viral video which is also one of the methods in social advertising. Viral blogging is the viral (word-of-mouth) marketing done by bloggers; while viral video is any video that is passed electronically, from person to person, regardless of its content such as using YouTube or other social presentations sites for advertising. In such way, their customers are substituting their mouth with social networking sites (SNS) for the purpose of advertising the foods by writing a review with pictures of foods in their blogs or video. Besides, post the pictures of foods and environment in Facebook or ‘tweet’ some text in Twitter is also another advertising and marketing tool used by “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar” and “Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun”. Through this advertising approach, it is beneficial to the owners of the stalls in terms of money, as it does not require extra expenses for the stalls to advertise, at the same time, the popularity can be increased not only in Ipoh area, but also the counties that near to Ipoh. 

Photo 2 – This is an example of viral blogging. 

Last but not least, mobile advertising is also used by both of the stalls in their businesses. Mobile advertising is a way of conducting marketing on or with a mobile device. In this new era, it might not difficult to have a food applications (apps) in a mobile phone. There are various type of food apps which introduce the foods around the world to the public. Fourquare is one of the well known food apps in Malaysia. Foursquare is a search and discovery service mobile app which provides search results for its users. 

Photo 3 – Foursquare of “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar”

Photo 4 – Foursquare of “Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun”

As shown in the photos above, we can see that both the stalls had already advertised their own business by using a mobile apps named foursquare. From the apps, public can get all the information of the stalls included their address or even their opening hour. By using this apps, public can avoid a lot of misunderstanding and problems that lead to a bad reputation for the stalls. It is also convenient and cost saving for the public as what they need to do now is just switch on their phone and have a look on it.

Recommendations to improve businesses through e-commerce 

From the nature of the transactions or interactions of by “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar” and “Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun”, we figured out that both stalls are brick-and-mortar (old economy) organizations, which only perform their primary business offline and selling their foods physically to their customers. Due to the intervention of technology, today, everything can transact online even a food stall. Therefore, by “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar” and “Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun” can try to change from brick-and mortar organizations to click-and-mortar (click-and-brick) organizations, which can be defined as a type of business model that includes both online and offline operations, which include a website and a physical store. A click-and-mortar organization can offer its customers the benefits of fast online transactions or traditional face-to-face service. By carry out the business as a click-and-mortar organization, the services that can be added are creating an official website for its stall and providing the delivery service for the customers. By establish this new system to the stalls, it might able to retain the existing customers and attract the potential new customers as it is much more convenience for the customers now. As mentioned above, teenagers or potential new customers might found the webpage of the stalls online and hence lead to an increase in sales of the stalls. 

Based on the previous part, we knew that the basic approach used in advertising and marketing of by “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar” and “Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun” is the social advertising. By implementing this approach, both stalls are actually in a passive position because the one who help the stalls to promote their foods to the others is their customers through the viral marketing (word-of-mouth) or social networking sites (such as YouTube, Facebook). Therefore, instead of being the passive one, the owners of the stalls should be much more aggressive. In other words, the owners can attempt to create their own Facebook page for their own business purposes. By taking this course of action, the admins of the page can upload some pictures or videos of the foods or announce some promotions in special festivals on the page. An active and attractive page can surely grab the attention of Facebook users. To get the latest information about the stalls, public might have to follow the page. By this, the stalls are taking some sort of advertising to promote their stalls, foods and etc. 

Photo 5- This is an example of Facebook page created by “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar”

Besides, due to the advanced technology, social networking site (SNS) is also a useful and powerful mechanism in marketing and advertising especially Facebook. The result of using this approach is very effective as the message can be delivered from person to person in a short period and it does not incur a very high cost of using. Based on the statistic, there are around 1.4 billion monthly active users in Facebook. This is definitely a great or even best platform to advertise the products. 

Another method that can be used to improve the businesses of “Restauran Choong Kee Pokok Besar” and “Pasir Pinji Chee Cheong Fun” is web advertising. Web advertising is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the internet to deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers. Web advertising is also known as online marketing, online advertising or internet advertising. By using this method, its cost is relatively cheaper compared to the other ways. In addition, the ads can always be updated or amended at any time with a minimal cost. Richness of format of the ads is also one of the key factors of choosing web advertising, as the ads can be in the form which is a mixture of text, audio, graphics, video, animation, entertainment and promotions. Some might even create the ads in the form of game. Creating the ads in the form of games is not only able to advertise the foods, but also able to create the bond with the customers through the interactions during the game. The flexibility of ads is also one of the important factors. Owners of the stalls might need to make a decision on choosing the targeted groups or individuals, time and locations to publish or the interactive content of the ads. All these information might indirectly affect the effectiveness of the ads. Moreover, by creating a linkage between the online ads and the storefront such as GPS location, address or attracting point, customers can easily get to the stalls within a short period of time.