A Business Plan for Awkward Moments

A Business Plan

For

Awkward Moments

Part II- Industry, Market

&

Competitive Analysis

Presented by

Kimberly Guinn

Submitted to

Professor Henry Johnson

On

5/17/15

Table of Contents

I.         General Environment        3

II.         Industry Analysis        4

III.         Porter's Five Forces        6

IV.        Target Market Analysis        7

V.        Competitive Analysis        10

V

I.         References        12

General Environment

Physical and Natural Environment

As the world becomes more environmentally conscience, people are starting to look for ways to be eco-friendly, and take care of our natural resources. In looking at the greeting card market, there are signs that eco-friendly considerations are becoming the norm. The popularity in the use of recycled card stock reduces the amount of trees needed to create greeting cards^[1], helping to sustain our natural environment. With this trend, there is a great opportunity for AM to advertise their use of recycled card-stock to attract the environmentally conscious customer and encourage recycling.

Demographic Environment Socio-Cultural Environment

The industry trends are moving away from old-fashioned mass market greeting cards and towards high-end, custom designed and unique cards^[2].These trends are attracting a younger consumer demographic than ever before ^[3], resulting in a divergence from traditional messaging, to a more humorous, unusual, witty content.

Economic Environment

The 2008-2009 economic recession reduced consumer demand for greeting cards and tightened access to disposable income. Since that time, the global recovery has been slow and relatively weak. As a result, the recession has affected the greeting card industry as consumers had fewer discretionary dollars to spend. Although, as the economy continues to improve, consumers are more likely to spend their discretionary dollars on higher quality luxury cards because of their more distinctive offerings^[4]. This is an opportunity AM plans to take full advantage of and the economy recovers.

Political/ Legal Environment

There is very little regulation and restrictions within the greeting card industry. Although, in order to protect all intellectually property, AM intends to copyright all in-house designs to keep others from using them, and keep the uniqueness of AM’s offerings.

Global Environment

Unlike the plateauing US greeting card industry, the global greeting card industry is on the rise. Within the UK alone, the industry has seen a 6.1% growth from 2013-2014^[5]. These results indicate a great opportunity to expand within the global market.