Market research is one of the most useful tools in business the way in which organizations find out about what their customers and potential customers need want and care about

Table of contents INTRODUCTION MAJOR FINDINGS .3 I Survey method Primary data Secondary data II Market size: III IV Market trend and market growth: 15 Customer responses to current marketing activities 16 Marketing activities of three studied shops .16 The opportunities and threats of outdoor equipment business 21 V Lessons learned after doing the research 22 CONCLUSION .24 APPENDIX 25 Reference .30 Secondary data: 30 1|Page INTRODUCTION The UK Market Research Society says: “Market Research is one of the most useful tools in business, the way in which organizations find out about what their customers and potential customers need, want and care about” In this report, we have carried out a research about outdoor equipment for going backpacking with the help of three business namely Utrip shop, Army Box, Do Phuot VN By using different methods with various data as well as analyzing threats and opportunities of each business, we can complete two main objectives about market growth and customer response to current marketing activities From that, our group has a brief overview of what market research is and how it provides the information the business needs to grow 2|Page MAJOR FINDINGS I Survey method Primary data As we mentioned before in the background, the trend of going backpacking has been increasing significantly Therefore, after deciding to carry out a research in this market, we had to choose the most suitable techniques in order to get the best result of project In this report, we will identify and evaluate three types of techniques used: interview, survey and observation, which are also divided into two categories: qualitative method and quantitative method  Interview With the aim to get an overview of how the three businesses are running and how the consumers are responding to the product as well as the service, we chose to use interviews, which is a qualitative methodology of the market research On the very first days of the research, we came to the three businesses and interviewed three managers there All of them were very willing to answer the questions They provided a lot of useful information about the situation of their business, also the types of their product they were serving and the average number of customers In addition, thanks to their help, we could get an overview of what ‘backpacking’ means and the trend of it among young people recently The information provided by three managers also help us to kindly forecast whether this market would be going up or down in the next 12 months Besides, we also had the interviews with about 10 customers in three shops in order to know their opinions about the product as well as the services that the stores are providing They are all convenience sample, which means that they are all willing to help us with the questions Most of them answered that they were very satisfied with the products However, the price still seemed quite high to some of the consumers who are students Therefore, they expected the stores would have some changes in the price of items or some suitable discount programs in special occasions  Observation Another qualitative method used in this research is observation Our members spent three days observed at the three shops to see how they sell their product and how they satisfy their customers The amount of consumers coming each day was not stable However, the owner was still very happy and helping them willingly and carefully to choose the most suitable items for their trip This made all the ‘Gods’ comfortable  Survey 3|Page We chose to use survey to measure the market size and growth of this industry and the satisfaction of consumers of these three outdoor equipment shops We sent out a questionnaire in which includes 12 questions about the trend of going backpacking and what the consumers think about the product and services of the shops mentioned This help us to not only get the exact number to measure market size but also good information to say whether the customers are satisfied or not However, not all the 60 copies of questionnaire are fully answered We just got 45 papers correct and the other 15 were not fully filled in It was quite hard for us to get all the customers involved in our research and response to all of the questions Therefore, after collecting the questionnaire results, we had to divide them into two groups, which are response and non-response in order to have the most exact results Another point to mention is the secondary sources If those three types of techniques help us to find primary data for the research, secondary source will give us an overview of what backpacking is and how the trend is among Hanoi people This is also a very useful technique to us in order to measure the growth of the market in the next 12 months Evaluation Both qualitative and quantitative data helps us a lot while doing the research, typically those techniques mentioned above The reason why we chose interview, survey and observation is because those are easy to implement and the result is also quite detailed and valid Therefore, with the shortage of time, we decided to use so However, in order to get the best information that can be both valid and reliable, we had to use different ways of asking to get the same answers from both managers and customers To conclude, while these techniques can be time-loss and make us sometimes difficult in gathering all the data, they are still cost-saved and easy to implement which are useful to us in this market research Secondary data In order to have a general view and identify the market size and market trend of this business our group needs to collect secondary data Most of them are from the internet, tourism magazines and previous related research To have the overview of the industry, we search information of different popular kinds of tourism which use outdoor equipment A key term for the study is Phượt meaning backpacking tourism Most of the qualitative data are gathered from several online journals; facebook pages: http://giaoduc.net.vn; https://www.facebook.com/dulichkhampha and an article of Journal of Vietnamese Cultural Research written by Ms Ma Quynh Huong, Hanoi University of Culture Besides that, we get the information of the three businesses selected from their official websites or social networking such as: http://utrip.vn/; http://www.armybox.info/ and https://www.facebook.com/dophuot.vn 4|Page In term of the market size, outdoor equipment business seems to be a new industry in Vietnam so it is hard for us to find any quantitative data, statistic and figure illustrating the particular market size Therefore, we determine the market based on the statistics of domestic tourism Yet, we cannot find any statistics of an exact number of domestic tourism but international tourism on an official website of Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Vietnam There is not the same good statistical documentation and no surveys like in other countries There is only little information available and not any national survey which covers the general market segment, only few questions of expenditure had done Therefore we decide to gather quantitative data of the average expenditure of domestic visitor in a day in Vietnam from the research: Domestic Tourism in Vietnam, in 2008, written by Ms Le To Luong, bachelor in Geography – Hanoi National University of Science, Vietnam and master in Human & socio-economic geography - Hanoi National University of Science, Vietnam The qualitative data of different types of tourism in Vietnam including Health tourism; Sustainable Eco / Nature tourism; Mass / Beach tourism; Adventure & Sport tourism, Homestay tourism; Active tourism; Cruise ship tourism are taken from Greifswald Articles, International Edition, Volume (2006) in order to understand different features of each particular types of tourism, which identify the market demand toward outdoor equipment business The number of popular destinations and different terrains also decide the market size for this industry so we search the information on the internet An official website of VTC http://vtc.vn provides the top of 10 destinations most attract backpacking tourists in several recent years Vietnam has abundant types of terrains which diversify the products of outdoor equipment business In term of market trend, we gather quantitative data of domestic tourists in Vietnam from 1995 to 2009 from the official website of Vietnam Administration of Tourism in order to analyze the market trend and the market growth II Market size: There are common tourist groups: visitor by tour and self- arranging visitor Most of the backpackers are in the second group To define the market size of the outdoor equipment business, we should look at how much people spend on each kind of tourism For stainable tourism, Vietnam needs to develop both inbound and outbound tourism market However, domestic tourism recently has some troubles It’s not concentrated There is not the same good statistical documentation and no surveys like in other countries There is only little information available and not any national survey which covers the general market segment, only few questions of expenditure had done In structure of average expenditure, there are some big differences between two groups: visitors by tour and self- arranging visitors 5|Page The most difference is on the highest rate of money the two groups of visitors spent on While visitors by tour spent most of money on shopping, which is 47.6% in 2005 and 57.7% in 2006 from total money spent on a tour; self-arranging visitors spent the largest amount of money on transportation, which is 32% in 2005 and 31.8% in 2006).Secondly, visitors by tour spent a little money on accommodation, just 1.6% in total amount of money for an average tour in 2006 In contrast, this mount of self-arranging visitors is quite high, just lower than amount of transportation, accounting for 25% In addition, visitors by tour have trend spend a lower rate of money on food and sight-seeing, it made-up only 10.8% on food, 1.6% on sightseeing of the former while it made-up 17.8% on food and 3.6% on sightseeing of the later in 2006 However, the rate of money spent on entertainment and health is higher It indicates that behavior of visitors by tour and self-arranging visitors are quite distinct Regarding means of transport, most of visitors travel by car, made up 65.1%, while all other means of transport made-up only 35% in 2006, includes 11.4% of rail, 12.6% of air planes, 2.2% of ship, and 8.6% others It shows that car is the most popular mean of transport for domestic tourism because of convenience, domestic distance, and competitive prices This can be understood that most of the visitors by tour all have the timetables of the journey which are already prepared by tourism agencies They spent mostly on shopping and entertainment, otherwise, self-arrange visitors are more independent, they often concern about other essential points such as: accommodation, food and transport This leads to a more well preparation in term of outdoor equipment before the trip 6|Page Number of surveyed domestic visitor by tourist form and province By tourist form Structure (%) By SelfBy Selftour arranging tour arranging     Total 25161 2990 22170 11.9 88.1 Hà Nội 3995 418 3577 10.5 89.5 Hải Phòng 1784 126 1658 7.1 92.9 Lào Cai 599 74 525 12.4 87.6 Lạng Sơn 578 57 521 9.9 90.1 Thái Nguyên 574 572 0.3 99.7 Quảng Ninh 958 98 860 10.2 89.8 Điện Biên 596 96 500 16.1 83.9 Thanh Hoá 999 76 923 7.6 92.4 Nghệ An 986 78 908 7.9 92.1 10 Quảng Bình 816 294 522 36.0 64.0 11 Quảng Trị 806 805 0.1 99.9 12 Thừa Thiên Huế 799 100 699 12.5 87.5 13 Đà Nẵng 798 27 771 3.4 96.6 14 Quảng Nam 574 121 453 21.1 78.9 15 Bình Định 793 193 600 24.3 75.7 16 Khánh Hoà 785 168 617 21.4 78.6 17 Gia Lai 695 690 0.7 99.3 18 Đăk Lăk 699 698 0.1 99.9 19 Lâm Đồng 799 227 572 28.4 71.6 20 Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh 1898 35 1863 1.8 98.2 21 Tây Ninh 695 115 580 16.5 83.5 22 Bình Thuận 773 218 554 28.2 71.7 23 An Giang 798 10 788 1.3 98.7 24 Kiên Giang 780 72 708 9.2 90.8 25 Cần Thơ 796 148 648 18.6 81.4 26 Cà Mau 788 230 558 29.2 70.8 The number of self-arranging tourists is significantly higher than of the visitors by tour , which helps     Total (Person) us see the market potential for the business Besides, we can determine the market size based on some popular kinds of tourism which requires the tourists to have a well preparation in term of outdoor equipment 7|Page Type of tourism Mass (beach) tourism Features Mass tourism is the often consequence of opening up to any tourism types covering high visitor numbers such as beach tourism Mass tourism describes the piled manner of tourists on certain places, a high travel intensity including broad populations Unlike individual tourism it occurs in well-organised manner for bigger groups travelling to high frequency destinations Camping tourism “Camping is an outdoor recreational activity, in which the campers get away from civilization and enjoy nature by spending one or more nights at a campsite” Campers follow up different outdoor activities Long term stays to enjoy relaxing holidays are also possible such as the combination with hiking, biking or backpacking Nature tourism Nature tourism relates to all tourism based on nature with nature as significant attraction or environment for activities Nature tourism involves recreation in natural surroundings It combines recreational use of nature and tourism Adventure & sport tourism Adventure tourism is defined as “a type of niche tourism involving exploration or travel to remote areas, where the traveller should expect the unexpected” These all kinds of tourism are considerably trendy in summer 2012 According to the research of VTC http://vtc.vn providing the top of 10 destinations most attract backpacking tourists in several recent years 8|Page Cô Tô - a small queen island Cù Lao Chàm – blue pearl 9|Page Cà Mau Moc Chau - Flower Prairie 10 | P a g e are that the patterns of domestic tourists are much more complicated than reported, well beyond the simple descriptive statistics in national surveys and official government documentation Besides the domestic tourism has been growing because of two reasons:  Vietnam economics is developing rapidly, that means Vietnamese have higher ability of payment than their in the past  Labors have vacation every year and two days off per week, so Vietnamese leisure time raised since about 10 years ago Therefore, tourism demands of Vietnamese increasing However, the average expenditure of visitor in a day is not so high, it is 439.5 thousand Vietnam dong in 2003, and 506.2 thousand Vietnam dong in 2005, which means increasing 15.2 % Furthermore it is 550.8 thousand vnd, just grew 8.8% in compurgation with the number in 2005 Secondly, it bases on the growing-up of tourism, for instance, innovations in marketing, service supply of tourism As a result, the general trend shows the rate of visitors by tour increasing steadily The random survey showed that the number of the self-arranging visitors is higher than the number of visitors by tour over times Comparing the results of the 2003 and 2005 surveys, the rate of visitors by tour increases 2.1%, in 2006 in comparison with 2005, this rate increased 4.1% The number of outdoor equipment is also increasing following the trend However, the trend can be different based on the changes in external factors IV Customer responses to current marketing activities We have sent out 60 questionnaires to customers but have received back 45 ones However, with this figure, it is valid measurement In addition, our group has used both interview and questionnaire to ask customers about satisfaction for products and service of three chosen businesses The results from two methods are the same Customers always feel satisfied when purchasing and using outdoor equipment for backpacking at three shops It is clear that it has shown the validity and reliability of collected data Marketing activities of three studied shops  Product For the three shops, they have made all the strategies coordinately Generally, products of these shops have been chosen based on the needs of customers as well as the usability of trips Most of the products are imported from Guangzhou China, Thailand and a few of them is provided by Vietnamese brands with high level of quality that are appropriate for any customer whose purposes of trip are picnic, climbing, camping, sea traveling, etc It is obvious that customers can easily find the essential things that they need for a trip such as clothing, sleeping bags, sneakers, motorcycle or bicycle accessorizes in these shops 16 | P a g e The products of Utrip Shop 17 | P a g e The products of Do Phuot VN The product of Army Box  Price It is likely that customers prefer to buy product with the appropriate price, thus, they have tend to compare the prices of similar products with the same level of quality sold at different shops and choose the lowest one Therefore, the shops have to set the competitive prices in order to attract new customers, maintain loyalty customers and make more profits From the study, we find out that the three shops set similar cheapest price of 40,000 VND for a scarf, which is the most purchased product in the three shops Besides, the prices of products ranging from 80,000VND to 1,200,000 VND in these three shops  Place Located in the three small valleys in different streets in Hanoi, it seems to be difficult for people to find out Utrip, Army Box and Do Phuot VN It is, however, impressive to backpackers and people who like to explore the corner streets of Hanoi According to the manager of Do Phuot VN, no matter where the shop is, the customers who are interested in 18 | P a g e the shop’s products could find out the way to visit the shop On the other hand, for customers who have a little time or cannot go to the shop directly can order products via Internet or phone Therefore, choosing a place in the small corner street might be a good way for the three shops to impress the people who are passionate with explosion and saving costs  Promotion It can be said that promotion is usually the thing which customers see and seek for when they consider and buy any product For the three shops, there are many promotion marketing activities that attract customers’ attention However, because of the difference in sales strategies, these three shops have some differences in promotion marketing activities  Utrip Shop With the objectives of getting high profits, Utrip Shop often has some marketing activities that attract more attention of customers According to the interview with the shop manager, it can be seen that the shop has identified the targeted customers are the youngsters and people who would use the Internet as a common tool Therefore, it promotes the corporate images in the social network such as the official website www.utrip.vn, Facebook as the concentrate development Along with sales promotion, Utrip shop provides a lot of information about trips, hotel and air plane for customers Moreover, the shop often gives some discounts for loyal customers  Army Box Like Utrip Shop, Army Box uses social network as an effective tool to promote their corporate image Customers can also easily find out the information about products as well as the shop’s promotion activities via some popular website such as Facebook and forum www.phuot.vn Additionally, Army Box collaborates some famous newspapers and magazines such as Sinh Vien Vietnam, 2!, etc Army Box products appear in those newspapers attract the attention of readers Besides, Army Box also uses sales promotion as short-term activities to encourage customers to buy more products and increase the purchase of products and services Along with selling outdoor equipment, Army Box is also known as a coffee shop where backpackers and people, who are interested in backpacking, come and enjoy some cups of coffee sharing their experience and knowledge of some trips or some places that they wish to visit According to Army Box manager, there are some group meetings of backpackers before or after a backpacking trip at the shop in which they make a plan for the further trip or share the experience and photos of the place they have visited, the local people they have met Some of them then become dear customers of the shop 19 | P a g e A little corner of Army Box Furthermore, participation in events, exhibitions or flea markets of is another marketing activity of the shop By selling at events and exhibitions such as Vietnam Trade Fair II- The Green Circle, Chic Flea Market, the shop has advertised and introduced its brand and products Besides, Army Box has made use of the chance to attract the attention of people and study the business activities of other competitors From the interview, we can see that customers are satisfied with the products as well as the services of Army Box  Do Phuot VN Similarly to the two shops mentioned above, using social network is an useful way for Do Phuot VN to approach customers By sharing the photos and information about outdoor products on Facebook and some forums related to backpacking, Do Phuot VN attracts the attention of customers Originating from the passion of backpacking, the owners of Do Phuot VN wish to create a group in which people having the same passion can join and share experience of backpacking, building up good relationship with customers People who are keen on backpacking can make friend with Do Phuot VN on Facebook or the forum www.phuot.vn to join in the group and sometimes enjoy backpacking trips together Obviously, it is thanks to this passion that Do Phuot VN has more and more close friends as well as loyalty customers In addition, Do Phuot VN has some sales promotion activities as gratitude to loyal customers and attraction to prospective customers Along with price discounting 20 | P a g e