Trap-Ease had generated much publicity by winning the contest in National Hardware Show and being featuring in some magazines, press and trade publications. Besides, the company had targeted women as their major consumers by running limited market research. Therefore, the company decided to distribute Trap-Ease directly through large retailers in order to avoid any wholesalers or other middlemen. However, the company still placed a few advertisements in some “home and shelter” magazines. By looking at these attributes, we can find out that the company is actually applying product concept. “It holds that consumers will favor products that offer the most in quality, performance, and innovative features” (Kotler & Armstrong, 2016, p.34). …show more content…
This involves identifying possible positions for products within each target segment and then producing, adapting and marketing them towards the target market” (Proctor, 2000, p.192). To distinguish Trap-Ease with standard mousetrap, Trap-Ease had been created with many features. For example, consumers could use Trap-Ease safely and easily as it posed no injury or poisoning threat to users, children or pets. Furthermore, it can be reused or thrown away without “clean-up” problem. This is definitely a good mean for American women to deal with the mouse problem in their houses. Nevertheless, despite having many attractive features, Trap-Ease was sold with suggested retail price of $5.99 which was five times more expensive than standard traps. Therefore, we can conclude that Trap-Ease positions itself as a premium product in mousetrap …show more content…
The company is strongly recommended to divide their market with geographical segmentation. Since residents in different places will have different needs of using mousetrap, they must segment their market according to rural and urban areas. For example, people who are living in high buildings will have lesser demand for mousetrap whereas people who are living in landed houses will need a bigger and durable mousetrap.
Apart from that, demographic segmentation should also be used in the mousetrap market. Undeniably, gender and income is the most important part to segment consumers in this market. It is possible that higher income people will be interested in a mousetrap which have more convenient features while lower income people may be looking for a mousetrap which is cheap and have basic functions of catching mouse. Besides, timid people will need a mousetrap which can be simply thrown away after using it.
In order to choose the best target, the company may conduct a SWOT analysis before targeting. “Remember that for every weakness and threat, there are opportunities lurking for those who look for them” (Garberson, 2015,