INTERNSHIP REPORT ON

Repositioning, Market Development and

Promotional Mix: A Critical Review of
Parmeeda.com

Exam Roll: 142337

 Internship Report on
Repositioning, Market Development and
Promotional Mix: A Critical Review of
Parmeeda.com

Prepared for:
Chairman
Internship Placement Committee

Prepared by:
Exam Roll Number: 142337
4th year, 8th semester
BBA Program, Batch: 23rd
Academic Session: 2013-14

Date of Submission:

08 July, 2018

Institute of Business Administration (IBA-JU)

Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka 1342
 Letter of Transmittal
July 08, 2018

Chairman

Internship Placement Committee

Institute of Business Administration

Jahangirnagar University,

Savar, Dhaka-1342

Subject: Submission of the internship report

Dear Sir,

With due respect I would like to inform you that, I have successfully completed my three-month long
internship period at Parmeeda Enterprise. Now, I would like submit my internship report on
“Repositioning, Market Development and Promotional Mix: A Critical Review of
Parmeeda.com” as a partial fulfillment of 8th semester of BBA program for your kind consideration.

I hope my effort would succeed to get your satisfaction. Please contact with me at any time of your
convenience to discuss any issue regarding this report.

Sincerely,

_____________________

Examination Roll: 142337

4th Year, 8th Semester,

23rd Batch,

BBA Program

Academic Session: 2013-14

 Acknowledgement

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to the Almighty Allah for giving me both physical and
psychological strength and capabilities to complete this report. I would like to convey my sincere
gratitude to my respected teacher and also my internal supervisor Dr. Mohammad Baktiar Rana,
Professor, Institute of Business Administration, Jahangirnagar University for his kind guidance,
supports and advises during my internship and report preparation period.

I would like to express my gratitude to my external supervisor, Mr. Abu Darda, CEO of Parmeeda
Enterprise for his kind guidance and inspiration. I would also like to thank my team members in
Parmeeda.com who helped me to collect valuable information and shared their knowledge and
experience with me during my internship period. The knowledge I’ve gathered while working with
them contributed a lot into the making of this report.

I would also like to thank my family members and friends for giving me moral support during the
preparation of this report.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to all faculty members of IBA-JU and the writers of many
articles whose contributions have helped me reach this point and make this report.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary .......................................................................................................................... V

Chapter 1: Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Origin of the Report ........................................................................................................... 1

1.2 Problem Statement ............................................................................................................. 2

1.3 Objective of the Report ...................................................................................................... 3

1.4 Scope of the Report............................................................................................................. 3

1.5 Methodology........................................................................................................................ 4

1.5.1 Data sources .................................................................................................................... 4

1.5.2 Sample Design ................................................................................................................. 4

1.5.3 Data analysis ................................................................................................................... 4

1.6 Limitation of the Report..................................................................................................... 4

Chapter 2: Organization Overview: Parmeeda.com........................................................................ 5

2.1 History of Parmeeda Enterprise: ............................................................................................ 5

2.2 Mission ...................................................................................................................................... 6

2.3 Key Value Propositions ............................................................................................................ 6

2.4 Product Lines ............................................................................................................................ 7

2.5 Customer Segment.................................................................................................................... 7

2.6 Business Model: Supply Chain ................................................................................................ 7

2.6 Organization Structure ............................................................................................................ 8

2.7 Branding/Marketing ................................................................................................................. 8

2.8 Partners ................................................................................................................................... 10

Chapter 3: Literature Review.......................................................................................................... 11

Chapter 4: Current Situation of Parmeeda.com ............................................................................ 12

4.1: What is Brown rice? .............................................................................................................. 12

4.2: Benefits of Brown Rice: ........................................................................................................ 12

4.3 Parmeeda.com and Brown Rice............................................................................................. 13

 4.4 New Promotional Mix ............................................................................................................ 14

Chapter 5: Towards the Objectives: Data Analysis ....................................................................... 16

5.1: Current Performance of the Marketing Activities .............................................................. 16

5.1.1: Customer’s Source of Awareness about Parmeeda.com..............................................16

5.1.2: Parmeeda.com’s Brand Image in the Potential Customer’s Mind ............................17

5.2 Impact of Repositioning and Market Development Strategy................................................17

5.2.1: Impact of Market Development Strategy on the Monthly Brown Rice Demand..... 18

5.2.2: Impact of the Market Development Strategies on New Customers ...........................19

5.3 Loopholes of Repositioning and Market Development Strategy ......................................... 20

5.3.1 SWOT analysis of the repositioning and market development decisions ..............20

5.3.2: Understanding the Underlying Reasons Behind Non-Buying Potential Customers 21

5.4 Customer Satisfaction Level .................................................................................................. 22

Chapter 6: Findings.......................................................................................................................... 24

Chapter 7: Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 26

Chapter 8: Recommendations ......................................................................................................... 27

References ........................................................................................................................................... 1

Appendix A ......................................................................................................................................... 1

Appendix B ......................................................................................................................................... 1

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Table of Figures
Figure 1: Supply chain model of Parmeeda.com ................................................................................. 7
Figure 2: Organogram of Parmeeda.com ............................................................................................. 8
Figure 3: Customers’ source of awareness about the brand ............................................................... 16
Figure 4: Parmeeda.com's Brand Image in Potential Customer's Mind ............................................. 17
Figure 5: Changes in the Demand of Brown Rice ............................................................................. 18
Figure 6: Underlying reasons behind purchasing decision of Brown Rice ........................................ 19
Figure 7:Reason behind not purchasing from Parmeeda.com ............................................................ 22
Figure 8: Customer Satisfaction level ................................................................................................ 23
Executive Summary
This report contains a critical review of the repositioning, market development and the new promotional
of Parmeeda.com, an e-grocery business which is currently trying to complete its Start-up phase of the
business. Since its journey from 2014, Parmeeda.com has always been trying to established its brand
image as an “Organic”, “Safe” and “Authentic” products provider. However, due to the existence of a
good number of strong direct competitors who are also trying to establish themselves with the same
type of brand image, the top management of Parmeeda.com sensed the need to go for further
differentiation. Therefore, they decided to add another element to their brand image which is “The
number one Brown Rice Provider”. They selected the product Brown rice because none of their direct
competitors offered this product, they sensed a huge latent demand for this product and they had a
strong supplier base for this product. However, only repositioning alone was not enough to increase the
customer base and ensure the growth of the company. Therefore, they also took market development
approach and identified new target segments that has a huge latent demand. To facilitate the
repositioning and market development strategy, they also created a new promotional mix.
This report includes the descriptions of the changes Parmeeda.com is going through due to this
management decision. It also includes the new elements of the promotional mix that Parmeeda.com is
planning to execute in the near future.
This report also includes several data analyses derived from a survey done on 60 respondents – 30 new
customers and 30 potential customers who has the awareness about Parmeeda.com but still have not
purchase decision from Parmeeda.com. Secondary data from the company’s internal report was also
used for data analysis. The data analysis has addressed several questions regarding repositioning,
market development and promotional mix.
The data analysis showed that Social media (Facebook) marketing is creating most awareness among
the potential customers of Parmeeda.com than other promotional activities. Also while most of the
customers and potential customers view Parmeeda.com as a source of “Organic”. “Safe” and
“Authentic” product, as a result of the past three months’ promotional activities which emphasized on
brown rice, they have become successful to include “Brown rice provider” image in the mind of 3.33%
respondents. The data analysis also showed that the repositioning and market development strategies
are having a positive impact on the monthly demand of the brown rice and people from the new target
segments have already started to purchase brown rice from Parmeeda.com. This report also included
the SWOT analysis of the repositioning and market development strategies. The data analysis which
was done to understand the reason behind not making a purchase decision in spite of having awareness
about it matched with the threats predicted in the SWOT analysis. It showed that most of the non-
buying respondents think that the price of the product in Parmeeda.com is high and they felt more
comfortable to purchase groceries from offline stores. The customer satisfaction level measurement
from the Likert’s scale reveals that while most of the new customers are satisfied with Parmeeda.com’s
product quality, competitiveness of the price, quality of customer service, speed of delivery and ease
of ordering process, there were also some dissatisfied customers and most of the dissatisfactions were
concentrated on the speed of the delivery system.
The findings of this report concludes that, Parmeeda.com should focus on increasing traffic in their
website; with their resources, they are currently able to satisfy their new customers. However, to grab
the future opportunities presented by the repositioning and market development strategies, they need to
overcome their organizational weaknesses and come up with plans to face the threats which might
surface in the future. Also, fully executing their new promotional mix might become successful to
achieve their repositioning and market development objectives. This report would help Parmeeda.com
to understand better the areas improvements in their business and strategies.

v
Chapter 1: Introduction
Repositioning refers to the major change in positioning for the brand or product. To successfully
reposition a product, the firm has to change the target market’s understanding of the product. A
repositioning is usually effected through changing the marketing mix. A firm usually goes for
repositioning in response to the changes in the market or due to the failure to reach the brand’s
marketing objectives. (Repositioning, 2018)

Market development is a growth strategy that identifies and develops new market segments for current
products. This strategy targets non-buying customers in currently targeted segments along with new
customers in new segments. When a company uses this strategy, they try to expand their market through
new user or new uses for their existing products. Market development process involves proper market
research to know which new segment is worth perusing and a strong promotional strategy to penetrate
the new market. (Grimsley, 2015)

The promotional mix is the blend of promotional variables chosen by marketers to help a firm reach
its organizational goals. (Louis Boone, 2010) It can also be identified as a subset of the marketing mix.
The marketers always look for an optimal way to allocate their limited budgets for the different
elements within the promotional mix to achieve best marketing results in reality which is very
challenging to figure out. Activities included in the promotional mix of a company can be advertising,
personal selling, sales promotion, publicity, direct marketing, social media marketing etc. The
promotional mix of a company may vary depending on their target customers and competitors.

1.1 Origin of the Report

The report titled “Repositioning, Market Development and Promotional Mix: A Critical Review of
Parmeeda.com” has been prepared as part of the Internship Program in the 8th semester of Bachelor of
Business Administration program of Institute of Business Administration, Jahangirnagar University.
The report has been prepared under the supervision of the internal supervisor Dr. Mohammad Baktiar
Rana and the external supervisor Mr. Abu Darda. The report is prepared after three-month long
internship tenure at Parmeeda Enterprise

Page 1 of 40
Background of the report:

Online retail business is gaining popularity rapidly in Bangladesh. According to a report, around 2
million user shop online every year and the growth rate is 20 percent. (Islam, 2017) Currently many
small and big online retail companies exist in the market. According to e-cab, there are more than 7,000
e-commerce websites that sell their products on their website or Facebook page. (Islam, 2017)Due to
the popularity and rapid growth of online business platform, many local and foreign investors and
companies like Daraz, Pickaboo etc. are entering the market. While different online retail businesses
offer different type of products to their customers, some common features most of them includes are
Home Delivery System, Cash on Delivery, and Return Policy. As there are many online retail
companies out there and it is easy for customers to check and compare products from different online
retail shops, the online shops always try to differentiate their products and offering to gain competitive
advantage over their competitors.

Established in 2014, Parmeeda.com is an online retail shop which is trying to differentiate itself in the
online market by offering and promoting “Safe” and “Eco-Friendly” products to the customers. While
it falls under the “Super Shop” category in terms of the variety of products it offers to the customers, it
has focused on the “Eco-friendliness” of their products and moving towards the direction of
distinguishing itself as the “Eco-Super Shop”. As they are offering “Eco-Friendly Products”, they are
going for niche marketing. This niche marketing has saved them from going head to head competition
with the largest shareholder of the e-grocery market, Chaldal. (Bangladesh e-commerce sector to grow
to Tk 900cr this year: report, 2017) Still it still faces intense competition due to the presence of
competitors like KhaasFood, DirectFresh, Dokani etc. who has targeted similar niche market segment
with similar “Eco-Friendly” offerings and promotions. In this competitive market, in order to further
distinguish itself from its current direct competitors and to increase its growth, Parmeeda.com is trying
to going for a marketing strategy which includes repositioning and market development growth strategy
while focusing on one single product, brown rice.

1.2 Problem Statement

Parmeeda.com started it journey with the brand positioning “Organic” and “Safe” food providers and
successfully attracted a fair share of customers. However, with the emergence and the existence of
competitors with similar brand positioning has forced Parmeeda.com to look for other alternative ways
which would help them to attract more new customers and create strong brand awareness among the
potential customers. As a result, currently Parmeeda.com is trying to reposition itself as not only an
organic safe food and authentic products provider, but also the largest retailer of high quality brown
rice in Dhaka city. As they have decided to take this bold move, to gain success in their repositioning

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efforts, they have also taken market development approach for the product brown rice. To facilitate the
repositioning and market development strategy, Parmeeda.com needs a well-blended promotional mix
that will help Parmeeda.com to create maximum customer awareness and draw new customers within
their limited marketing budgets. Parmeeda.com is viewing their repositioning and market development
decisions as a game changing step for their organization. They have put the plans into motion from the
second week of the April, 2018 with several business structural changes and with the use of a new
promotional mix. However, it is important for Parmeeda.com to monitor closely the changes occurring
into the customer demand and customers’ mind due to the changes in their promotional mix and whether
it is going according to their plans or not. If the results they expected from their strategic decisions and
new promotional mix, they need to find out the loopholes and solve them to reach their strategic
objectives.

1.3 Objective of the Report

The broad objective of the report is to understand how an online retail shop can apply repositioning,
market development approaches to increase its customer base and what sort of promotional mix can
facilitate them to reach their strategic objectives.

The Specific objectives of this report are

 To identify which type of promotional activities are creating more awareness among the
customers so that Parmeeda.com can consider focusing or refocusing on that activities
accordingly
 To understand whether Parmeeda,com’s repositioning and market development strategy are
having any impact on the buying behavior of their customers
 To identify the loopholes in their repositioning and marketing development strategies and
recommend some solutions
 To identify the areas of improvement to increase the satisfaction level of the new customers

1.4 Scope of the Report

This report will help the reader to understand how the repositioning and market development strategy
can be applied in online retail market, what type of promotional mix they should use and how much it
can contribute into the growth of an online retail shop like Parmeeda.com. It will also help to identify
the loopholes and areas of improvement which Parmeeda.com has in their strategies.

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1.5 Methodology
Descriptive research is used to describe characteristics of a population or phenomenon being studied.
As this report mainly tries to give a detailed description of the phenomena of repositioning, market
development and promotional mix of Parmeeda.com, therefore, essentially this report is a descriptive
one. However, some quantitative data was collected to understand the preliminary effect of
Parmeeda.com’s business strategy on their new customers and potential customers, along with an
understanding about their customers’ satisfaction.

1.5.1 Data sources

Primary data is collected through computer assisted telephone survey method. The phone numbers
which have been used to conduct this survey were collected from the company’s product order sheet
(April-June) and phone number collected during different events over the past three months (April-
June). It is to be noted that only the phone number of the new customers will be used from the
company’s product order sheet for better understanding the effect of the repositioning, market
development and promotional mix of the company on its new customers. Also company’s internal
reports were used as secondary data sources for the analysis. Observation during the internship period
and informal interviews with the founder and CEO of Parmeeda.com are also used in this report.

1.5.2 Sample Design

The total survey sample is consisted of 60 respondents. 30 respondents are new customers of
Parmeeda.com over the past 3 months (April-June) and 30 respondents are the potential customers who
have awareness about Parmeeda.com but have not purchased anything from Parmeeda.com yet.

1.5.3 Data analysis

Microsoft excel and Google Form (Survey software) were used for the data analysis.

1.6 Limitation of the Report

Following are the limitations of the report

i) Unavailability of necessary information

ii) Time constraint
iii) Small sample size

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Chapter 2: Organization Overview: Parmeeda.com
Parmeeda.com is an online based business startup. By the nature of business, it is an e-grocery shop
where customers can place orders online. Parmeeda.com does not have any physical store. However,
they have a warehouse in Ibrahimpur, Mirpur-14, Dhaka where they stock non-perishable goods and
goods with longer shelf lives for a short period of time. Like most of the regular grocery shops, they do
not produce any products themselves. They buy wholesale products through their partners from
different part of Bangladesh and sell them in retail price after packaging and branding (sometimes co-
branding) them with their own logo and stickers. Currently, they have one dedicated websites named
Parmeeda.com and where they sell their products. They also have three Facebook pages-
Parmeeda.com, Super Kids, Parmeeda Women which they maintain and monitor regularly by posting
about different products and offers and replying to customers queries in the comment section. They
also take orders from customers via Facebook inbox. They’ve installed a bot that connected their
website and Facebook pages in a way so that it can give instant reply to customers when they are
searching for some product or trying to place an order while the sales representative is away. This use
of bot has enabled Parmeeda.com to give instant replies 24/7 to their customer queries. Aside from
using Facebook where they directly take orders from customers after short conversations, they also take
orders through phone calls. They also sell their goods through third party online sellers like Daraz,
ajkerdeal.

2.1 History of Parmeeda Enterprise:

Parmeeda Enterprise started it journey in 2014 with the name Mangrove Enterprise. The founders of
the startup- Abu Darda and Rashida Hossain, faced problem regarding the availability of safe and
organic foods themselves in the first hand. Specially during that time, the death of children due to food
adulteration had reached its peak point and alarmed the whole country about how serious it was
becoming. Sensing the need of safe food among the peer groups, the founders started their business
with one single product- mango. The founders tried to check the sustainability of the business with a
single product and the customer response from their target group. After seeing a very positive result,
they further searched for more safe food providers/suppliers and expanded their product list. After,
being assured about its sustainability, profitability and market acceptance, Parmeeda.com graduated

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from its “Seed” stage by officially registered itself on February, 2017 under the name Parmeeda
Enterprise and started its “Startup” stage of the business life-cycle

2.2 Mission
The mission of Parmeeda.com is serving their customers’ daily necessity with right product. To
Parmeeda.com, the right products for the customer are the safe, organic and authentic ones. This
mission statement clearly shows how much customer centric the organization is.

2.3 Key Value Propositions

Parmeeda.com offers the products from authentic sources to ensure the safe fruits and vegetables
without chemicals and all other artificial process. They only get the products from reliable suppliers.
Their other key value propositions include:

• Consumer centric: Parmeeda.com prioritizes their customers’ need and satisfaction above
everything. Therefore, they continuously improve their product and service quality using the
customers’ feedback

• Top graded products: Parmeeda.com only aims to supply top graded products whether it is
fresh food products or other household items. They relentlessly search for better suppliers of
top graded products. They also do quality check before delivering the items to avoid serving
defected products.

• Excellent customer service: As a customer centric business, Parmeeda.com tries to offer best
customer service possible to the customers. The dedicated sales representatives are always
responsive and easy to contact. From helping out customers to find their right choice of product
to taking order, they deal everything in a professional manner.

• Same day delivery: Parmeeda.com offers the fastest delivery system to their customers. They
make same day delivery if the product ordered by the customer is in stock and does not charge
extra for the express delivery.

• Safe fruits & Vegetables: Parmeeda.com started its journey with a promise to its customers
to provide safe foods to them. To fulfil that aim, they have started building the producers’ base
maintaining partnership with producer base organizations across Bangladesh, to establish a
simple supply chain management that can bring the rural product to the customers’ doorsteps
without much time elapsed in the supply chain and also without any use of harmful chemicals
or preservatives using on them.

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 • Open longer hours: While the sales representatives actively take orders and receive phone
calls from the customers from 8 am to 12 am, the home delivery service starts from 10 am to
10 pm.

2.4 Product Lines

Parmeeda.com has three main product lines. They are-

i. Parmeeda Grocery: This product line includes regular grocery items for daily life. From
different categories of rice to fresh vegetables, fish, seasonal fruits, spices to organic soap,
shampoo falls under this category.
ii. Parmeeda Women: This product line includes women clothing and accessories from various
brands. The accessories are usually imported from different countries while the clothing are
from various reliable SME suppliers who strictly maintain product quality.
iii. Super Kids: This product line consists of child and mother care products from international
brands like Avent, Chicco, Kodomo etc, imported toys, stationary items and kids clothing.

2.5 Customer Segment

The target segment of Parmeeda.com are educated, health conscious people who have both knowledge
and money to afford safe, organic and authentic products of Parmeeda.com. The age group ranges from
18 to 65. Usually the higher middle income and higher income group of people are their main
customers.

2.6 Business Model: Supply Chain

Following is the business/supply chain model of Parmeeda.com which clearly shows how the supply
chain works in Parmeeda.com.

Parmeeda
Enterprise

Producers Online Seller

SME Suppliers Website

Parmeeda
Warehouse Customers
Distributors Facebook
-Inventory Page
-Chilling
Large Company -Packaging Phone Calls
-Labeling

Figure 1: Supply chain model of Parmeeda.com

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2.6 Organization Structure

Following is the organization structure of Parmeeda.com:

CEO & MANAGING

PARTNER (ABU DARDA)

MANAGING PARTNER
(RASHIDA HOSSAIN)
Head of
Head of Admin & Accounts
(Business Development)

ACCOUNTS AND
ADMIN MANAGER ASST MANAGER
(SALES & BUSINESS. DEV)

Executive Order Mgt. EXECUTIVE SALES SALES

(IT & Digital) EXECUTIVE EXECUTIVE
Procurement Executive
(KIDS) (GROCERY)

Warehouse Maintenance and Order Management Delivery Assistant

Procurement Assistance Assistant

Figure 2: Organogram of Parmeeda.com

2.7 Branding/Marketing
Parmeeda.com continuously operates different promotional activities for the branding/marketing
purpose. Some of the major activities include:

 Logo: Logo is an important of brand marketing and brand identity. A successful logo design
can effectively convey the brand message and image to the customers. Parmeeda.com uses two
separate logos for its two different product lines- Parmeeda Grocery and Super Kids. It is to be

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 noted that Parmeeda has brought a slight change in their Parmeeda Grocery logo to enable it to
reflect their brand image more effectively. Following are the current logos of Parmeeda.com
that they use to represent their brands

 Facebook Marketing: Parmeeda.com gets 70 percent of its orders through Facebook page.
Therefore, most of its promotional activities are conducted on the Facebook platform. They
write regular posts on their Facebook pages about their different products with various
attractive pictures. They also post in different Facebook groups about the importance of
consuming safe and organic foods. On different occasions, in order to boost up their sale they
conduct promotional campaigns like free home delivery, discount offers etc. Also they use
Facebook page boost, post boost etc. tools for marketing.
 Blog Writing: Parmeeda.com also does marketing of their products through writing blogs on
ecological living and healthy lifestyle on their own website.
 Participation in Fairs: Parmeeda.com participates in various fairs from time to time. They
give stalls in the fairs, distribute leaflets and coupon to the potential customers and offers
sample food items which were made using their organic products to the customers as part of
their marketing strategy. They also sell products in those fairs.
 Participation in Farmer’s Market by JATRA: Parmeeda.com also participates in Farmer’s
Market by JATRA a physical retail where Parmeeda.com’s products are available. There
customers can physically see the product before buying them. Parmeeda.com maintains their
collaboration with JATRA for their branding and marketing.
 SMS Marketing: Parmeeda.con sends SMS to their customers regularly to let them know
about their latest offers and products.
 Customer Outreach Campaign: Parmeeda.com gives samples of new products to their old
customers as a gift sometimes and also to potential customers during different events.
 Sponsorship: They have also sponsored events like art competitions for kids, Yoga workshops
 Documentary on safe food production: They have also made documentary for safe food
production and shared them on different social media platforms like Youtube, Facebook etc.

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2.8 Partners
Some of Parmeeda.com’s notable partners are-

Parmeeda’s banking and courier partners are-

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Chapter 3: Literature Review
The current size of Bangladesh’s e-grocery market is only $4-5 million, or about 0.03 per cent of the
country’s overall grocery market. (Bangladesh e-commerce sector to grow to Tk 900cr this year: report,
2017). However, analysts are predicting that Bangladesh’s e-commerce market will surge to $20 billion
by 2020 according to Goldman Sachs. Sensing the opportunity in e-grocery market, new e-grocery
shops are entering the market each year and trying to grab the already small market share in e-grocery
market. Therefore, it has become important for the existing businesses to expand their target segment
and bring in more new customers in the market. To bring new customers for the existing products,
powerful promotional mix is important which will convince the customers

A study done on the e‐strategy in the UK retail grocery sector: suggested that retailers have tended to
follow an incremental approach towards the development and expansion of their online service
provision by trialing of new ideas, keeping close watch on the competition while endeavoring to
introduce innovative new services to capture consumer interest and deliver customer benefits. (Fiona
Ellis‐Chadwick, 2007). As an online retail shop, Parmeeda.com is also following this method. While
the repositioning decision is a big decision for the company, the application of this decision is being
done using incremental approach by taking one step at a time to change potential customers’ mindset
towards the product. The new marketing mix they are planning to use involves both online and offline
promotional activities and so far after taking the decision, they are applying the social marketing to
attract potential customers. A study found that social media activity positively affect brand success in
emerging economies (Olotewo, 2016) Parmeeda.com is using a single product Brown rice for its
repositioning and market development strategy. This product has latent demand and lack of trusted
supplier. According to a study on marketing mix, customer value, and customer loyalty in social
commerce, reciprocity, community, social proof, authority, liking and scarcity- the six components of
social commerce marketing mix have significant effects on social consumer value. Also the customer
value positively influences customer loyalty in social commerce (Ya-Ling Wu, 2018) As
Parmeeda.com has covered all six components of social commerce marketing mix through their
promotional mix, there is a probability that this will lead them to success.

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Chapter 4: Current Situation of Parmeeda.com
After facing various challenges and trials and errors the top management of Parmeeda.com reached to
the decision that they need to walk towards the completion of the “Start-Up” stage of business life-
cycle on March, 2018. They are planning to hit the “Growth Stage” by the end of the year. Over the
past year since its registration as an authorized business entity, it has researched and developed the
product category they will be able to serve the customers profitably. It has also successfully created a
loyal customer base who repeatedly purchase from Parmeeda.com for their daily necessities. Each
month they serve around 675 customers on an average through their various supply chain and have
already served more than 2000 customers over the past few years (Parmeeda.com, 2018). However, the
existence and emergence of various new small and large startups with similar “Organic” and “Safe”
offerings they realized that they need to come up with some strategies to meet their business growth
goals.

On April,2018 the CEO of Parmeeda.com attended “Scale up Bangladesh” a one-month long

accelerator program designed to help the promising startup companies to move forward towards the
growth stage. The program helped the CEO to generate the idea of focusing their business on a single
organic, healthy and safe product, “Brown Rice”.

4.1: What is Brown rice?

Brown rice is either un-hulled or partially hulled type of rice, which means the bran and germ that are
known to have various beneficial properties stays intact in those rice.

Brown rice is a good source of magnesium, phosphorus, selenium, thiamin, niacin and vitamin B6, and
an excellent source of manganese. Brown rice does not contain any cholesterol and has only trace
amounts of fat and sodium. (Szalay, 2015) Brown rice also contains an antioxidant called anthocyanin,
a compound that has various health benefits. (Saxena, 2018)

4.2: Benefits of Brown Rice:

Brown rice contains various health benefits. Some of the notable ones which Parmeeda.com is currently
using to attract more customers are-

 Good for Heart Patients: Brown rice contains high level of magnesium content which is an

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  important mineral for regulating blood pressure and offsetting sodium in the body. According
to American Heart Journal and Harvard University School of Public Health consumption of
brown rice is associated with healthier carotid arteries, reduction of arterial plaques, controlled
blood pressure levels and lower risk of heart disease.
 Controls Diabetics: Brown rice is beneficial for diabetics and hyperglycemic individuals. It
has a low glycemic index which is helpful in reducing insulin surges and assists in the
stabilization of blood sugar levels in the body. (Keiko Kondo, 2017)
 Good for Digestion: Brown rice contains 88 percent of the recommended daily amount of
manganese which is an important mineral that helps digest fat. It is also high in fiber that keeps
the bowel movements regular by reducing constipation, and helps keep bowels healthy.
(Szalay, 2015)
 Good for Weight Management: Several research studies showed evidence that brown rice
consumption is associated with weight reduction for over-weight women who replaced their
white rice with brown rice.
 Risk Reduction of Cancer: Brown rice is associated with lowered risk of colon cancer,
prostate cancer and breast cancer. Brown rice is a good source of selenium, which according
to a large scale study published in the International Journal of Cancer, is associated with
reduced risk of colon and prostate cancer. Selenium is known for its contribution in repairing
the damaged cells and eliminating abnormal cells of the body. Some research also shows that
the fiber in brown rice may help reduce the risk of colon cancer. Also the manganese protects
the body against free radicals, which are cancer-causing agents. (Szalay, 2015)
 Boost Immunity: The presence of significant amount of vitamins, minerals, and essential
phenolic components in brown rice boosts the overall immune system of the body. It nourishes
the body, accelerates healing, and enhances its ability to fight infections.
 Good for Autism Patients: The diet plan for autism patients also include brown rice because
children with autism have bodies that have to fight to keep nutrients, because of poor digestive
abilities, and brown rice helps in digestion. Also brown rice boosts Nervous System
Functioning which is helpful for autism patients. (15 Impressive Benefits Of Brown Rice,
2017)

4.3 Parmeeda.com and Brown Rice

Parmeeda.com has been offering two variety of Brown rice- Lal Birui and Baula Digha to their
customers since December, 2016 and recently they have included Afsara and Idurshal variety in their
product list. (Parmeeda.com, 2018) This is something which none of their direct competitors are

Page 13 of 40
currently offering to the customers. While his time away he conducted some preliminary research
through the Assistant Manager of Sales and Business Development to check the feasibility of this idea
by checking the current demand of Brown Rice among the current customers, current supply and the
supply capacity of the wholesale suppliers. The research report also included the pricing of Brown Rice
in the local wholesale markets and super shops like Meena Bazar, Aagora, Shwapno, to determine the
pricing of the potential competitors for this single product. The report also included that although the
pricing of the Brown Rice in local wholesale shops are lower than Parmeeda.com, the products from
the local shops are mostly subjected to food adulteration. After evaluating the primary research report,
the top management came to the conclusion that they should aim for repositioning their brand as the
number one Brown Rice provider in the Dhaka City. However, they also realized that with the current
market demand, being the number one Brown Rice provider will not be enough for the future growth
of Parmeeda.com. Therefore, they decided that in order to facilitate their repositioning decision, they
need to take the market development approach for Brown Rice to create new customers and market
demand for this particular product.

4.4 New Promotional Mix

Previously, Parmeeda.com’s target group of customers were health conscious educated people who
proactively search for safe, organic and authentic product and willing to pay the amount needed to get
such products. However, while keeping the market development strategy in mind, the top management
decided that they need to reach out to the potential customers who does not know about the benefits of
brown rice previously and should purchase brown rice because of their health conditions like cardiac
problem, diabetics, over-weight, pregnancy, digestion problem, autism etc. as brown rice has been
proved to be beneficial for people with such conditions. (Szalay, 2015)

In order to reach out to these new segments, Parmeeda.com needed a new communication/promotional
mix. Previously, their promotional mix only included advertising, publicity, sales promotion, personal
selling and direct marketing through Facebook and other social media platforms and their own website,
direct marketing through SMS marketing. They also attended different events like on different
occasions where they did personal selling. As, this new strategy required them to go to the customers
who are unaware of their needs, they needed more offline marketing which would include sending sales
representatives to the society or groups of their new target segment for publicity and personal selling.

As part of their new promotional mix, they have included

 Visiting Diabetic Association of Bangladesh during their monthly meetings and giving a short
sales speech on the benefits of brown rice.

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  Opening temporary stalls in the Diabetic Association of Bangladesh during weekend and
selling small samples
 Visiting Autism related societies like Society for the Welfare of Autistic Children, Autistic
Children’s Welfare Foundation etc. and giving leaflets on brown rice’s importance in autistic
children’s diet.
 Promoting brown rice through special Facebook groups for diabetic patients, heart patients,
diet related groups, autistic children related group.
 Giving away leaflets and selling rice samples once a month during the morning hours 5am-
6am in Parks where the target group of people has high probability of going for morning walks.

Their new promotional mix also included some improvement in their old promotional strategies. They
changed their post contents by adding punch lines which emphasized not only the nutritional values,
but also the taste of it. They also specified the group
of people for whom Brown rice should be included in
their regular diet.

They also started giving brown rice benefit related

awareness post in their Super Kids page while
changing the contents of the posts about how its
beneficial for the kids’ growth and health.

They are still trying to bring changes into their brown

rice packaging. Currently they are using Parmeed’s sticker on a foil package for the packaging purpose.
However, they are trying to come up with a brand name for the Brown rice and an attractive packaging
design. Also as part of the promotional activity, they have already distributed and free rice samples to
their old customers and to their potential customers in various events. Moreover, in the comment section
of the posts, they always encourage skeptical customers to order small amount of rice packages (200
gm pack) which costs only 20 BDT to check the product quality.

All these promotional activities, specially the offline promotional activities require a great amount of
fund and human resource. As currently, they are still developing the package design and brand name
for the rice, they have kept the offline promotional activities from the planned new promotional mix to
a minimum level. Out of all the new offline promotional activities they were planning to do to facilitate
the repositioning and market development, in past three months, they have only visited the Diabetic
Association of Bangladesh once to give there a sales speech.

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Chapter 5: Towards the Objectives: Data Analysis
5.1: Current Performance of the Marketing Activities
As discussed earlier, Parmeeda.com is trying to bring some major changes in their marketing
approaches and has already started working on it to some extent. Over the past three months they have
changed their way of approaching customers on social media, specially, Facebook. They have also
attended 6 events where they had temporary stalls for selling and promoting their products. Therefore,
before going for further changes and investments in different areas of marketing, it is important for
Parmeeda.com to periodically monitor the performance of the marketing activities and identify which
marketing activity is being more successful than others.

5.1.1: Customer’s Source of Awareness about Parmeeda.com

The 60 respondents who took part in the survey and had awareness about Parmeeda.com were asked to
identify the source from which they first became aware of its existence. As the contact number of the
respondents were collected over the past 3 months, it is assumed that the respondents become aware of
the existence of Parmeeda.com over the past 3 months.

Customers' Source of Awareness about the Brand

0

21.70%
40%

38.30%

Social Media Search Engine Event Referral Other Campaigns

Figure 3: Customers’ source of awareness about the brand

From the pie chart, it is clear that most of the respondents (40%) who took part in this survey become
aware of the brand through their various promotional activities in social media. After social media,
most of the respondents (38.30%) became aware of Parmeeda.com by their promotional activities

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during events. Rest of them (21.70%) became aware of it through referrals, which means through
friends, family or peer groups. It is important to notice that neither search engine nor other offline
campaigns were the cause of the awareness for any of the respondents about Parmeeda.com.

5.1.2: Parmeeda.com’s Brand Image in the Potential Customer’s Mind

Since its establishment, Parmeeda.com has been trying to establish itself as a source of “Organic”,
“Safe” and “Authentic” products providers. However, over the past three months, it has been trying to
add another element into their brand image, which is the “Brown rice provider”. Following data analysis
of the survey done on 60 respondents can be used to see how much Parmeeda.com has been succeeded
on the matter so far.

Parmeeda.com's Brand Image in Potential Customer's Mind

3.33% 6.67%
11.67%

22%

56.67%

Typical online grocery shop Reliable shop with authentic Products

Organic Products Safe food item provider
A place where I can get brown rice

Figure 4: Parmeeda.com's Brand Image in Potential Customer's Mind

From the chart, it is clear that most of the respondents (56.67%) thinks Parmeeda.com as a source of
organic products, while 22% views it as a safe food item provider. Only 11.6% of the respondent view
Parmeeda.com as a reliable shop with authentic products. It is to noted that 6.67% potential customers
still view Parmeeda.com as a typical online grocery shop without associating any brand image with it.
Only 3.33% customers out of the 60 respondents view Parmeeda.com as a place where they can get
brown rice.

5.2 Impact of Repositioning and Market Development Strategy

To understand whether there was any impact of the repositioning and market development strategy
taken by Parmeeda.com over the past three months on the company and its customer base, could be
known through the observations of some variables like the changes in the monthly demand for brown
rice, percentage of new customers whose first order in Parmeeda.com included brown rice over the past

Page 17 of 40
three months, and also whether these customers fall under the new segments that their market
development strategies are aiming towards or not.

5.2.1: Impact of Market Development Strategy on the Monthly Brown Rice Demand
To understand the impact of the market development strategy on Parmeeda.com, a regression analysis
is done below. Here, X axis is the months and Y axis is the monthly demand of brown rice from January
to June. This analysis shows whether the demand of Brown rice in Parmeeda.com increased with the
passing months specially from the April (4) month and afterwards as Parmeeda.com executed their new
market development strategy from that time and started using new promotional mix to facilitate the
development effort.

Changes in the Demand of Brown Rice

350
300
y = 47.086x - 9.8
250 R² = 0.7019
Demand (Kg)

200
150
100
50
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Month

Figure 5: Changes in the Demand of Brown Rice

Here the regression formula is, Y=47.086X-9.8

This means with the passing of each month, the demand of brown rice increases by 47.1 kg. Also as
the trend line has a positive slope (47.086), this means, the demand of brown rice has a positive
relationship with the months.

The R² value is 0.7019 which could be considered as a high R² value which indicates that the model
explains most of the variability of the response data around its mean.

While more data is needed to come to any clear conclusion about the effect of the market development
strategy on the demand of the rice. One think is clear from the figure above is that from the month of
March, the demand of the Brown rice has increased drastically. However, the decrease in demand
during the June month might be the cause of the seasonality due to the Holy month of Ramadan and

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Eid. More, data is needed and research is needed to come to any clear understanding about the fall in
the demand during that particular month.

5.2.2: Impact of the Market Development Strategies on New Customers

To determine the extent of the impact of Parmeeda.com’s repositioning and market development
strategies on their customers’ mind, it is important to observe how many of the new customers are
ordering brown rice and whether the underlying reason behind their purchase decision aligns with
Parmeeda.com’s market development strategies or not.

From the customer survey answers it could be seen that out of the 30 new customers who took part in
the survey, only 4 customers (13.33%) did not order brown rice from Parmeeda. However, due to the
lower number of participants, the probability of error is high in this calculation. Therefore, it would be
superficial to come to the conclusion that (86.67%) most of the new customers of Parmeeda.com are
purchasing brown rice. (Chart in Appendix B)

However, the survey results also reveal the underlying reasons behind the purchase decision of the new
customers. In the survey questionnaire, 30 new customers were asked to answer the reason behind their
purchase decision. They were given options to choose multiple reasons from the checklist box and were
asked to mention any other reason which was not included in the options.

Underlying reasons behind purchasing decision

It is good for autistic kids 3.33%
I buy it for my baby 16.67%
I wanted to try out something new 10%
I love the taste 16.67%
My peer group suggested it 26.67%
My doctor refers it 6.67%
It helps losing extra weights 3.33%
It is good for digestion 6.67%
It is good for health 80%
It is good Diabetics patients 20%
It is good for cardiac patients 3.33%
0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00% 80.00% 90.00%

Respondents

Figure 6: Underlying reasons behind purchasing decision of Brown Rice

From the bar chart above, it is quite clear that 80% of the respondents are purchasing brown rice because
it is good for health. However, that is not the sole reason for making the purchasing decision for all.
26.67% of the respondents purchase the brown rice due to the suggestion of their peer group while

Page 19 of 40
6.67% purchases it from doctor’s referral. Another notable thing is that 16.67% of the respondents
purchase it not for their own consumption, rather for their kids. While 16.67% replied that they loved
the taste of brown rice, it is safe to say that they have previously tasted brown rice before making the
purchasing decision. Also 10% of the respondents purchased brown rice to try something new, which
means they have not tasted Brown rice previously and made the purchasing decision out of curiosity.
The special group of customers who Parmeeda.com was mainly targeting with their market
development strategy, from the data analysis it can be seen that they have somewhat became more
successful into making the diabetics patients purchase the Brown rice than other groups as 20% of the
respondents purchases it because it is good for diabetic patients. On the other hand, the percentage of
respondents who purchased it because it is good for cardiac patients, helps losing extra weight and good
for autistic kids were all 3.33%.

5.3 Loopholes of Repositioning and Market Development Strategy

The decision of repositioning the brand image and going for a market development strategy is not
without any risk. It has some drawbacks which ranges from internal weakness to outside threats.
Therefore, a SWOT analysis should be done to see find out the weaknesses and threats that might create
loopholes in their repositioning and market development strategy. Also this section will try to shed
some light on the reasons behind the failure of convincing potential customers to make a purchase
decision from Parmeeda.com in spite of them having awareness of Parmeeda.com.

5.3.1 SWOT analysis of the repositioning and market development decisions

Strength:

 None of its direct competitors (e-grocery shops) are offering Brown rice to the customers.
 It has comparative price advantage over the indirect competitors (Super Shops) who are
currently offering Brown rice.
 It has a strong and reliable group of brown rice suppliers.
 They already have a health conscious customer base who proactively look for healthy food
options.
 Strong customer relationship established through the social networking with the target group
of customers
 Flexibility of the organization and business structure to quickly react according to the changes
in the market
 Established membership with Bangladesh Organic Agriculture Network (BOAN) and
International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM)

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  Working relationship with government organization like Bangladesh Agricultural Research
Institution (BARI)

Weakness:

 Lack of proper data explaining the fluctuations in the customer demand

 Lack of funds to execute the new promotional mix right away.
 Lack of human resource to conduct the offline promotional activities.
 Lack of storage space
 Lack of human resource in the delivery team
 Delivery cost exceeding the delivery charge inside Dhaka city when bulk purchase of brown
rice is done by the customers

Opportunity:

 A large new customer segment

 Increase of the middle income group of people
 Increasing health awareness among the middle income group who are looking for healthy
alternatives to regular white rice

Threat:

 Change in packaging might increase the price of the product and as a result it might lose its
price advantage over the indirect competitors (Super Shop)
 Future emergence of new brown rice supplier in the market
 Lack of trust among the new target group of customers who are not used to with online
shopping
 Resistance from the new target group of customers who are not used to with online shopping

From the SWOT analysis, it is clear that Parmeeda.com has some organizational strengths which will
facilitate them to grab the future opportunities. However, before going for large scale supply of
Parmeeda.com and fully execute their market development strategy, they need to overcome the internal
weaknesses. Overcoming the weaknesses will also facilitate the organization into overcoming the future
possible threats.

5.3.2: Understanding the Underlying Reasons Behind Non-Buying Potential Customers

While all of the respondents has awareness about Parmeeda.com, 50% of them did not purchase
anything from Parmeeda.com. These non-buying respondents were asked to include the reasons why
they did not make any purchasing decision from Parmeeda.com. 43% of the respondents claimed that

Page 21 of 40
they felt the price of the products in Parmeeda.com is not competitive. It is important to note that
33.33% customers replied that they prefer shopping from super shop/local market. This means they fall

Reasons behind not purchasing from Parmeeda.com

6.67% 13.33%

33%
43.33%

0
3.33%
They do not have the product I need Price is not competitive
Complex ordering process Customer service team is not responsive
I prefer shopping from super shops/local market I don't know much about them

Figure 7:Reason behind not purchasing from Parmeeda.com

under the group of customers who are reluctant to do grocery shopping online. 13.33% of the
respondents replied that Parmeeda.com did not have the product they need. Only 6.67% respondents
replied that they do not know well about Parmeeda.com and 3.33% claimed that the ordering process
was complex.

5.4 Customer Satisfaction Level

Parmeeda.com is successfully attracting customers with their products, offerings, new market
development strategies and promotional mix. However, it is important for Parmeeda.com to understand
whether they are being able to satisfy the customers or not and to what extent. To understand the current
customer satisfaction situation and looking for areas of improvement, 30 respondents who were the
new customers of Parmeeda.com were asked to rate their satisfaction level using Likert’s scale. In the
scale 5 meant highly satisfied and 1 meant highly dissatisfied while 3 meant moderate satisfaction.
Customers were asked to use Likert’s scale on 5 variables which are- product quality, competitiveness
of the price, customer service quality, speed of delivery system and the ease of ordering process.

Satisfaction level on Product Quality:

From the figure below, it could be seen that majority of the customers (60%) are highly satisfied with
the product quality and 30% of the customers are satisfied of the product while only 6.67% of the
customers showed dissatisfaction about the product quality. It is to be noted that none of the new
customers were highly dissatisfied with the product quality.

Page 22 of 40
 Customer Satisfaction Level
1.2
1
0.8 36.67%
0.6 46.67%
0.4 60%
30%
0.2 30%
0
Ease of
Competitivenes Customer Speed of
Product Quality Ordering
s of the Price Service Quality Delivery System
Process
Highly Satisfied 60% 16.67% 23.33% 3.33% 50%
Satisfied 30% 46.67% 60% 36.67% 30%
Moderate 3% 26.67% 3.33% 36.67% 13.33%
Dissatisfied 6.67% 6.67% 13.33% 16.67% 3.33%
Highly Dissatisfied 0 3.33% 0 6.67% 3.33%

Highly Dissatisfied Dissatisfied Moderate Satisfied Highly Satisfied

Figure 8: Customer Satisfaction level

Satisfaction level on the Competitiveness of the Price:

Majority of the customers (46.67%) were satisfied with the competitiveness of the price and 16.67% of
the customers were highly satisfied with the competitiveness of the price. Only 3.33% of the new
customers showed high level of dissatisfaction with the price, while 6.67% expressed that they were
dissatisfied with the price.

Satisfaction level on the Customer service quality:

60% of the customers expressed that they are satisfied with the customer service quality while 23.33%
expressed their high level of satisfaction on it. On the other hand, 13.33% customers expressed their
dissatisfaction regarding the customer service quality. It is to be noted that none of the customers were
highly dissatisfied with the customer service quality.

Satisfaction level on the speed of Delivery system:

36.37% of the customers noted that they were satisfied with the speed of the delivery system while only
3.33% customers were highly satisfied with it. On the other hand, 16.67% customers expressed their
dissatisfaction about the delivery speed and 6.67% stated that they were highly dissatisfied with it.

Satisfaction level on the ease of ordering process:

50% customers were highly satisfied with the ease of ordering process while 30% were satisfied with
it. On the other hand only 3.33% customers expressed dissatisfaction and high level of dissatisfaction.

Page 23 of 40
Chapter 6: Findings
From the data analysis of the previous section following findings were revealed-

 The type of promotional activities which are creating more awareness among the customers are
the social media (Facebook) based ones. Also in spite of Parmeeda.com’s being an online
grocery shop, none of the respondents became aware of it through search engine. This signifies
that there must be some lacking in their search engine optimization for the website as it failed
to create awareness among the potential customers through their websites.
 From the data analysis it is quite evident that Parmeeada.com has successfully created the
brand image they wanted to create in their customer’s mind over since the beginning of its
journey. However, when it comes to the question that how successful it has been over the past
three months in creating the new brand image they want to establish in their customers’ mind,
at a glance the result from the data analysis might not look promising. However, as
Parmeeda.com has yet to fully execute their new promotional mix, even though the lowest
percentage of the respondents think Parmeeda.com as a place where they can get brown rice,
the result looks promising.
 From the impact of market development strategy on the monthly brown rice demand, it is clear
that the monthly demand for brown rice has started increasing from March and reached the
pick point on May. However, the drastic sudden fall of the demand for brown rice on the month
of June does not have any explanation due to the lack of required data to do trend analysis. If
the sudden fall can be considered as an outlier, it could be said that the demand the demand of
brown rice responded positively with the new market development strategy of Parmeeda.com.
 Most of the new customers who bought Brown rice from Parmeeda.com, made their purchase
decision because of the health benefits associated with this. Also the presence of a significant
percentage of the new target customer group of Parmeeda.com shows that Parmeeda.com is
slowly but surely gaining attention from their targeted segment of their new market
development strategy.
 The SWOT analysis of Parmeeda.com’s repositioning and market development strategy
showed that due to the presence of a strong supply chain, a good current customer base and a

Page 24 of 40
 lack of direct strong competitor in this area, Parmeeda.com has a high chance of monopolizing
future opportunities which are predicted to arise in the future due to socio-economic changes
in Bangladesh. However, before going for a full scale operation, Parmeeda.com needs to
overcome their resource related weaknesses as these weaknesses might increase the threat level
in the future and consequently lead the whole strategy to failure.
 The data analysis regarding the reason behind the not making purchase decision by the potential
customers with awareness about Parmeeda.com supported the threats mentioned in SWOT
analysis as a large percentage of respondents showed reluctance in doing their grocery
shopping online. Also most of the respondents’ thought that the pricing of the products in
Parmeeda.com are not competitive.
 The data analysis part on customer satisfaction level shows that they were successful to ensure
satisfaction for most of their customers in terms of product quality, competitiveness of the
price, customer service quality, speed of delivery system and the ease of ordering process.
However, majority of the dissatisfaction was concentrated on the speed of delivery system.
This result also supports the weakness mentioned in the SWOT analysis.

Page 25 of 40
Chapter 7: Conclusion
Parmeeda.com has taken repositioning and market development approaches to create awareness about
Parmeeda.com among potential customers and to increase their customer base thus increasing
profitability and growth in the long run. In order to communicate the re-positioned brand image to the
customers, and reach out to the new customer segment, they have also created a new promotional mix.
So far, the social media (Facebook) marketing is creating more awareness in potential customers’ mind
about Parmeeda.com than other type of promotional activities. However, as an e-commerce business
Parmeeda.com should also ensure that their promotional activities through search engine and website
are also creating similar, if not more awareness among the customers. Also the as the preliminary
impact of the execution of some of their new promotional activities positive results are becoming visible
with the increased demand of Brown rice among the customers and the presence of new target group
of customers among the new customers. However, because Parmeeda.com is still a startup, it has some
organizational weaknesses which has created some loopholes like slow delivery speed, lack of enough
fund and human resources to execute the promotional mix properly etc. In spite of these drawbacks
Parmeeda.com has so far managed to satisfy most of its new customers. If Parmeeda.com manages to
overcome their organizational weaknesses soon and fully execute their planned promotional mix, they
have a high chance to grab the future opportunities that lies within their decisions.

Page 26 of 40
Chapter 8: Recommendations
The survey questionnaire included some open ended questions which took valuable opinions from the
respondents where they pointed out some areas of improvement for Parmeeda.com. Following are the
recommendations based on the answers from the respondents’ opinions and also based on the findings
of the reports.

 They should do some research to find out the underlying reasons that causes the fluctuations in
the customers’ demand of brown rice. More data should be collected to do a thorough research
about customers’ buying pattern from Parmeeda.co
 They should give posts in the Facebook and write blogs in their website explaining why
Organic and safe products are relatively costlier than other alternatives as many potential
customers thought the price Parmeeda.com is charging for their products are not competitive.
 They should work on their bot which sends confusing auto messages while placing online order
via Facebook inbox. The internal communication between the sales executives also needs
improvement to increase the quality of the customer service.
 They need to ensure the timely delivery of the products. In case of emergency, they should pro-
actively inform the customers about the delay. This will help to reduce dissatisfaction created
in customer’s mind regarding the speed of the delivery.
 . More secure packaging should be done while sending grocery items via courier so that the
products do not get damaged.
 They should do search engine optimization to increase the website traffic
 They should start monthly subscription for the regular customers of Brown rice. That way they
would be able to keep better track of the monthly demand of the Brown rice and the reason
behind any fluctuation in the demand will be better traceable.

Page 27 of 40
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Appendix A
Customer Survey Questionnaire
Thank you for agreeing to take part in this important customer survey measuring the customer
satisfaction for Parmeeda.com. It will take 3-4 minutes to complete this survey. It is to be noted
that this survey is done for the academic purpose only and all your personal information will
be kept confidential.

Name:

Age:

Occupation:

i) How did you learn about Parmeeda.com?

 Social Media (Facebook, Instagram etc.)
 Search Engine (Google)
 Event
 Referral (Friends, Family members etc.)
 Promotional Campaigns
ii) When you think about Parmeeda.com, what comes to your mind?
 Typical online grocery shop
 A reliable shop with authentic products
 Organic products
 Safe food items provider
 A place where I can get brown rice
 Other
…………………………………
iii) Have you noticed their different marketing campaigns?
 Yes
 No
 iv) Have you ever shopped from Parmeeda.com?
 Yes
 No

If you have, then answer the questions from iii-viii

v) Have you ever ordered Brown Rice from Parmeeda.com?

 Yes
 No
vi) Why did you purchase Brown Rice? (Multiple answers can be given)
 It is good for cardiac patients
 It is good Diabetics patients
 It is good for health
 It is good for digestion
 It helps losing extra weights
 My doctor refers it
 My peer group suggested it
 I love the taste
 I wanted to try out something new
 Other
…………………………………..
vii) Why did you order it from Parmeeda.com?
 Product Quality is good
 Competitive Price
 Online ordering is Convenient
 I get home delivery
 I didn’t find it elsewhere
 Other…………
 viii) Scale your satisfaction level about your experience with Parmeeda.com

Highly Highly
Dissatisfied Moderate Satisfied
Dissatisfied Satisfied

Quality of the products

Competitiveness of the price

Quality of the customer

service

Speed of the delivery

system

Ease of Ordering process

ix) Do you have any suggestion for Parmeeda.com on which they should work on for
improvement?

………………………………………………………………………………………………

If you haven’t ever shopped from Parmeeda.com, then answer the questions from ix-xii

x) Why didn’t you shop from Parmeeda.com?

 They do not have the product I need
 Price is not competitive
 Complex ordering process
 Customer service team is not responsive/proactive
 I prefer shopping from super shops/local market
 Other…………………………….
xi) Would you like to order from Parmeeda.com in the future?
 Yes
 No
xii) What are the factors that should be maintained by Parmeeda.com for you to
consider ordering from them?

………………………………………………………………………………………
Appendix B
Percentage of customers who have ordered Brown Rice from Parmeeda.com

Have Ordered Brown Rice from Parmeeda.com

13.33%

86.67%

Yes No