a. Your group opinion and why you selected these two places.
Ipoh is a food haven. Everyone will think the most famous attraction in Ipoh is white coffee. Noodle dishes are the must eat in Ipoh other than white coffee. The reason why we choose Mapo restaurant and Tuck Kee restaurant is because Ipoh's noodles are known for its smooth and springy texture compared with other places.
Wanton Noodles is a local delicacy which is popular in Ipoh. There are numerous famous Wanton Noodles stores in Ipoh but we just want to feature one of them. Mapo Wanton Noodles is located in Bercham, Ipoh and just like many other famous food stalls, it only starts operating in the morning. The reason why we choose this place is because of the noodles. In order to achieve perfectly textured noodles, they tend to be handmade and do not add any alkaline water. By having procured the right noodles, they practice the traditional method in order to give the noodles a bouncy texture by pressing the dough of egg, flour and spring water, which is placed on a long bamboo log to mix the dough instead of using hands. Continuously pressing the dough by using bamboo log can make the noodles to have the springy texture better compared to using hands. Besides, the wantons they served here is not similar with those pathetically anorexic wantons where there is more skin than meat in other places. The wantons are as big as ping pong ball size and juicy.
The reason why we choose Tuck Kee is because it is fifty years of fried noodles specialist which. All their variety of fried noodles are at the level best and irresistibly yummy, it is only operating at night. One of the must order dish here is the baby octopus in soy sauce. The octopus is blanched and then poured over with hot oil and soy sauce. It then has garnished with spring onion and fried garlic. The octopus remains springy and succulent while the special made chilli sauce provides the saltiness to the otherwise bland tasting octopus. Other than that, War Tan Hor Fun is another must order dish. It is a flat rice noodle served in a starchy and eggy sauce. One reason why this dish tasted better in Ipoh is because the rice noodles here are really good and smooth. They fried separately before adding in the eggy soup filled with lots of veges, prawns and meat .Thick gravy with traces of egg strands coupled with the flat noodles resulted in a smooth finishing touch. The amount of accompaniments is quite reasonable for its pricing.
b. Its classification of e-commerce by the nature of the transactions or interactions.
The e-commerce classification of Mapo and Tuck Kee fall under the scope of business-to-consumer (B2C). It is an e-commerce model in which businesses sell to individual shoppers. It is also referred as the business and transaction conducted directly between company and consumers who are its ends users.
Even if Mapo and Tuck Kee are classified under B2C in selling their dishes to customers, however, their main business is conducted offline because both restaurants are under the click-and-mortar e-commerce organization. Click-and-mortar e-commerce organizations undertake some e-commerce activities often as an additional marketing channel. It means their business is a mixture of online and offline medium where the online is the marketing channel whereas the offline is the primary business transaction. As a result, Mapo and Tuck Kee apply both online and offline operations. Hence, this is why both restaurants perform their primary business offline, which is selling food. They only apply the online medium via Facebook as a marketing platform to attract customers. The nature of transactions of both Mapo and Tuck Kee is to sell and serve mainly food and beverages to their customers. The transaction occurs between the businesses (Mapo and Tuck Kee) to customers who dine in to their eateries. Mapo and Tuck Kee serve their dishes directly and physically to their customers. Their transaction takes place in a physical store. Many of the restaurants are adopting click and mortar business because it can assist the company to be more profitable. Another definition of click and mortar business model is to offer fast service to the customer either online or in a traditional way which is face-to-face service. This further proves that both Mapo and Tuck Kee are adopting click and mortal business model.
The term B2C often defined as those transactions happen between a business and its end consumer. There are some examples of B2C such as individuals shopping, ordering food in diners, enjoying meals in restaurants and etc. Mapo and Tuck Kee are selling customer-based products thus it implies that they are involved actively in B2C marketing. Both of the restaurant prepare and cook the dishes according to the customers' need and preference and serve it to the customers. Therefore, customers can enjoy their meals immediately when the food is served.
c. Its business models.
The business model is the way of conducting business by which a company can generate revenue to sustain itself. In Mapo and Tuck Kee restaurant, there are few business model that is relevant which are business model from service and manufacturing perspective, as well as value proposition, customer segment and customer relationship. Value proposition is one of the component under the business model which Mapo and Tuck Kee are adopting. There are a few elements that are going to discussed in this section which are affordability, variety of foods, food tastiness, consistency of food quality, experience and skills and environment.
Another business model from the service perspective is that both Mapo and Tuck Kee restaurant owners are mainly involved in preparing the dishes for the customers. Often times, it is very unlikely for business owners to go under and involve in the main operations instead they would settle for being at the cash counter. However, it is a different story for Mapo and Tuck Kee. Their business owners’ main job scope is to prepare the food. By doing this, the business owners have a sense of purpose and commitment as they will put their hearts into the cooking process. They become conscious of the food quality, freshness, ingredients, taste and hygienic preparation methods. They will be very meticulous in preparing the food as these business owners have been cooking the recipe passed on by their ancestors across generations. This consequently leads to a perfect dish being served to their customers. It further reinforces and creates a strong bond between the restaurant and the customers. Customers become more loyal as they will feel secure that the food is being prepared by the owners. By having loyal customers, Mapo and Tuck Kee are able to generate more revenues as the loyal customers will frequently dine in to their eateries. Not only that, when the loyal customers spread the word about the business owners involving in the cooking process to others, Mapo and Tuck Kee can attract new customers. Having high number of customers can increase their profits.
The second common business model that applied by Mapo Restaurant and Tuck Kee Noodles Ipoh is manufacturer business model. Manufacturer direct business model can be defined as the manufacturer take raw material, create their own product and selling their product directly toward the consumer. For both restaurants, the owners highly prefer to prepare and handmade their noodles rather than takes from the suppliers. Firstly, Mapo’s owner who is also the chief of the restaurant is more preferable to practice the traditional method in order to prepare their fresh handmade Wan Ton Mee which is not processed by the machine or from any suppliers. He wants to make sure that they are able maintain the texture of the noodles and serve the best noodles towards their customers. Furthermore, one of the factors that help the Tuck Kee to gain community trust is its noodles. Among the variety of noodles, one of the famous noodles and highly recommended by the existing customer was the Hokkien Dai Loke Mian (fat and thick rice noodles). The owner of the shop (Mr Zhao) in insists to use handmade Hokkien Dai Loke Mian which follows the recipe that was passed on by his father.
In simple term, a value proposition is a value to be delivered to and acknowledged by customers. Affordability of price is a subcomponent of value proposition. Affordability refers to the willingness to pay by customers. Mapo and Tuck Kee entice their customers by offering affordable and reasonable pricing for their dishes. That is, their dishes are neither overpriced nor underpriced. Despite having an affordable pricing, the quality of the food is still up to the standards. Hence, customers feel that they are able to derive the value offered as they get a good meal in return of paying it at an affordable cost. It shows that customers are not only willing to pay instead they are also happy to pay for the food.
Both Mapo and Tuck Kee serve a variety of foods in their restaurants. Having food variety might have a strong impact on the business’s profits. Different consumers have different quality valuations, tasted or budget constraints thus both Mapo and Tuck Kee strive to satisfy their customers’ needs by offering them a wide range of food. Mapo and Tuck Kee offering three different portion sizes of food and the restaurants able to cater the food according to the customers’ preference. When the restaurants offer many different food, the customers can get whichever food they prefer to have at the moment.
The reason we chose Mapo and Tuck Kee is because they are highly recommended by the locals in Ipoh. The tastiness and nice aroma of the food which are the reasons why Mapo and Tuck Kee have been so popular among the locals. The chef deeply focuses on the ingredients because they believe that only good ingredients can make nicer and tastier food. They cook the dishes with all their heart. They did not serve the dishes to the customers simply because they wish to earn money from that, instead they sincerely wish the customers will enjoy eating the food that they have prepared. When a chef prepares the food earnestly, the food will be tastier. The chef did a great job in maintaining the food quality consistently. They showed consistence in the amount and type of ingredients they used each time they prepared the dishes.
Besides, experience and skills is another aspect that adds on to the value proposition element. Mapo and Tuck Kee has been in existence for many years. Their authentic recipes were passed down by the older generations to the younger ones. Hence, the experience and skills were passed on by the older family members to the younger ones. Preparing the dishes according to the authentic recipe for generations has caused the business owners to master the skills and knowledge. The knowledge that they have inherited has become their learned capabilities. Hence, the business owners have a clear picture and direction of the proper methods of the food preparation accompanied with their abilities in cooking, Thus, this is what makes Mapo and Tuck Kee different from their others. Even if so many generation has passed, the food authenticity and uniqueness still remains as the experiences and skills have been well-documented.
Factors of restaurant environment is one of the significant factors that led us to choose Tuck Kee Noodles and Mapo restaurant as our targeted famous local food stall. Both restaurants carry on weekly cleaning to ensure their eateries are hygienic. The owner and the staff of the restaurant serve the customer politely, friendly and attentive. In addition, due to the large amount of the customers, restaurants have provided sufficient place or seating capacity for the customers. Hence all of this has created a warm ambience in the restaurant towards the customer. Hence, customers able to dine in to the excellent quality of tasty food in a relaxed and comfortable setting.
In addition, Tuck Kee Noodles and Mapo Restaurant have great value proposition by locating themselves in an ideal geographical location in which it enables them to attract the potential customers. For Tuck Kee Restaurant , it was convenient for its customer for parking and provides a lot of packing area for the customers as the location famous tourist spot. Additionally, Mapo Restaurant is also located in a residential area at Bercham. Most of the residents like to enjoy their food in that restaurant because it located nearby the resident area and it is convenient for the customer.
Customer segment also plays a vital part of business model because it dictates the restaurant’s direction of who they wish to serve. Generally, the main target segment for Mapo Restaurant and Tuck Kee Restaurant is non-halal customers from all income level due to their affordability in terms of food prices. With their well established reputation and history in food industry, apart from locals, they also target business travellers and tourists who travel from different states and countries who love to eat noodles.
Another business model of both restaurants’ is customer relationship. With wide range of customer segments to deal with, it is essential to have a model which ensures each segment of customers are properly communicated with to maintain customer overall experience in long term. In the scenario of these restaurants, these relationships are dependent on two motivations which are Customer Acquisition, and Customer Retention. Through Social Media Marketing method such as Facebook, they secured both motivations by updating customers with their dishes attached with tempting food photos. Such model ensures existing customers are kept in touch with and retained as well as attracting potentially new customers. They also closely monitor and engage to customer who leave feedback. Whether it is significant, it can show consumers that their concerns have been listened to and taken into account. Such approach further enhances the relationship with customer satisfaction.
d. Its basic approach used in marketing and advertising.
Marketing is a common word used to describe the means of communication and transfer of information between the company and the consumer audience. Marketing and advertising approach is a useful tool which focuses on building a long-term relationship with customers and the seller must have a deeper understanding of its customer.
One of the approach applied by Tuck Kee Restaurant and Mapo Restaurant was Social Media Marketing and Advertising. Tuck Kee has created their own Facebook page (to promote their restaurant and various foods. This was one of the useful approaches to target a larger group and worldwide potential customers. Besides, Tuck Kee Restaurant frequently changed their Facebook cover photo and uploaded new attractive food photos in order to improve the stickiness of the Facebook page as well as to attract more Facebook users or customers to access their page.
In addition, Mapo Restaurant also implemented the same method as Tuck Kee. Mapo Restaurant created their own Facebook webpage to attract potential customers and updated the latest information toward the customers. It has created a platform that allows the customers to give their feedback or exchange the opinion through Mapo Restaurant’s Facebook page. There are approximately 2 million small to medium business advertising on Facebook recently, which proves that there are various advantages of advertising on Facebook. Facebook advertising enables Tuck Kee and Mapo Restaurants' owners to enhance audience target in a lower advertising cost compared to the other advertising methods. Besides, Facebook advertising is more convenient and is easily reached by mobile and computer audience. In other words, customers can achieve ubiquity by logging into the Facebook page using their mobile device.
Secondly, Tuck Kee also applied reputation-based system which is also known as building web reputation system in order to market and advertise its business. Digital reputation is rapidly expanding under the real-world influence. Although Tuck Kee does not have its personal blog, many bloggers have promoted or posted Tuck Kee’s delicious cuisine and provided comments in their personal blog after they visited the Tuck Kee Restaurant. When the online users or blog readers visit their blog, they may feel interested towards the shop when Tuck Kee gets a high feedback score or is highly recommended by the online communities. Hence Tuck Kee is able to establish trust among the online users or new customers via aggregated positive feedbacks from thousands of strangers online from those blogs.
Lastly, Mapo Restaurant is using online word by mouth method in order to promote their shop. Through customer’s online feedback and participation in social media forums such as Facebook, the existing customers may share their experiences, feeling and interaction with parties with no prior knowledge of each other. Hence, the potential customers are easily influenced by the family members, friends and people that they trust. and are familiar with. Furthermore, the customers could gather enough information for a consensus about the quality of food, price, staff services and further information regarding Mapo Restaurant from friends , neighbours and family members.
e. Recommendations to improve businesses through e-commerce.
E-commerce can offer so much towards the food and beverages industry. It has expanded very fast as marketers of consumer packaged goods and as retailers. This has given the consumers the ability to do most of their transaction online which allows them to purchase whatever they want in a much shorter period of time and it is way more convenient. We have picked two restaurant for this assignment, the first is Mapo Restaurant and the second is Tuck Kee Restaurant. Both of these restaurants serve local Chinese food. Mapo Restaurant is famous for their various types of Wan Tan Mee and Tuck Kee Restaurant has a few signature dishes which are their noodles and their fried baby squid.
There are few ways Mapo Restaurant and Tuck Kee Restaurant can improve their businesses through E-commerce. Firstly, it is by having a website which has the details such as the location and the descriptions of their restaurant. It is one of a good way to advertise and promote their restaurant. This is because online advertising is usually free of charge, therefore they can save cost on advertisements and commercials. For example, Mapo Restaurant and Tuck Kee Restaurant can open a page on Facebook to promote their restaurant. They can put in the background of their restaurant, restaurant operating hours, locations, contact numbers and also their menu with short descriptions or recommended signature dishes.
Next, there are more and more food and beverage businesses which are leveraging the e-commerce capability to bring their businesses to a new height. Besides, the usual way of going all the way to the shop and ordering food from the physical shop itself, many food and beverage businesses are seeing the benefits of having an online ordering. So we recommend Mapo Restaurant and Tuck Kee Restaurant can have a B2C Electronic retailing (E-tailing). They are recommended to have an E-tailing business model such as the location-based e-commerce (I-commerce). Mapo Restaurant and Tuck Kee Restaurant can have an online ordering system where they can put an online menu on their website where customers can place their order online. Then the restaurant can deliver the food straight to the customers. The restaurants should also provide an easy online payment system where customers can pay upon delivery. The customers can pay through cash, coupon, credit/debit card.
There is another alternative which Mapo and Tuck Kee can have a try, which is assigning their delivery task to a third party or external courier company. Mapo and Tuck Kee can have full attention in preparing the dishes for the customers in shop and customers who order online. When the food is fully prepared, the third party courier company will deliver the food to customers’ door step. By deliver the food to customers, the courier company can receive commission based on charged value on the food he delivered. By outsourcing the delivery service to third party can assist the restaurant to increase the number of orders due to its user friendly inter-free and hassle free online order service. However, by doing this, the restaurants should always keep the menus of courier company updated to ensure a more smooth order flow. The customers can rate and comment on the delivery service, time taken to deliver and the taste of the foods through delivery. This is so much more faster and convenient for the customers. Especially with the hectic working hours and heavy traffic jam these days, most customers are too tired and lazy to go out to pack their food. This is an additional way to reach out to more new customers and increase sales.
Next, Mapo Restaurant and Tuck Kee Restaurant can promote their restaurant in Trip Advisor or even invite famous bloggers over to their restaurant to taste or try their food and write about it on their blog. This also allows customers that dined in their restaurant to comment on the blog page below and give positive or negative feedback about the food they ordered there.
APA Referencing
Ipoh Tuck Kee. [ca. 2009]. In Facebook [Group page]. Retrieved February 26, 2016, from
https://www.facebook.com/Ipoh-Tuck-Kee-395313370523668/timeline
Mapo Wan Ton Mee Bercham. [ca. 2011]. In Facebook [Group page]. Retrieved February 19, 2016,
from https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mapo-Wan-Ton-Mee%20Bercham/101804349906625?
fref=ts
“Moonlight Noodle - Yut Kwong Hor” Ipoh Tuck Kee (2016, February 23).Tripadvisor. [Web log
post]. Retrieved from https://www.tripadvisor.co.nz/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g298298- d7008452-i118796279-Ipoh_Tuck_Kee-Ipoh_Kinta_District_Perak.html
Restaurant Mapo. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://my.openrice.com/perak/restaurant/restoran-mapo-
ipoh-town/199088
What is ecommerce marketing? | Bigcommerce. (2014, October 14). Retrieved March 2, 2016, from https://www.bigcommerce.com/ecommerce-answers/what-ecommerce-marketing/
