Question 7: Evaluation of these businesses

7. Our group evaluation of these businesses-

(a)   Your group opinion and why you selected these two places

The two interesting, local and iconic foods that have been chosen by our group are Yau Kee Restaurant located in Kampar and Onn Kee Restaurant situated in Ipoh. Both of these shops are very famous to the locals. Thus, after a brief discussion, my group members and I decide to recommend these two places to the Malaysian online consumers including foreign tourists by providing some useful and relevant information to them.

The reasons for why we choose these two places are discussed as follow:

(i)                 Yau Kee Restaurant, Kampar

This restaurant is suggested by our senior who has tried their curry chicken bun before and satisfied with the taste. The members in my group are all come from different places such as Ipoh, Taiping, Gerik, Selangor and Sarawak, none of us is Kamparian. We all the way come to Kampar just to undertake our degree programme in Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Kampar. People like to say “No food, no life”, to make our university life more meaningful, definitely we will ask others to recommend the famous and delicious food in Kampar town for us in order to fill our stomach. Our senior has suggested this famous curry chicken bun quite a long time ago, but we are still unable to find a time to have a try on it. Hence, we take this precious opportunity to taste this chicken-curry-in-a-bun dish for our assignment purpose.

Furthermore, the other reason that causes us to select this place is that we have seen the links in Facebook that are shared by our friends such as “therakyatpost.com” with the title of “12 Must Eat Food in Kampar” and “daliulian.net” with the title of “Kampar Food”. When seeing others share the relevant links with the attractive titles and mouth-watering food photos, we tend to have a mind-set that we want to follow the trend and have a try too. Therefore, to be one of the followers, our group decide to go this restaurant to eat the well-known curry chicken bread and give some comments on the food for the local online consumers as well as foreign travellers.

(ii)               Onn Kee Restaurant, Ipoh

As I mentioned above, some of my members are from Ipoh so they as local residents are well aware of the delicious food that are famous in Ipoh. Onn Kee Restaurant which is famous with their chicken with beansprouts (more commonly known as taugeh ayam) is recommended by my group members staying in Ipoh. I think most of us know that the food that not to be missed in Ipoh will definitely be the chicken with taugeh. Yet, the question is just which shop is tastier and worth to eat since there is a lot of shops serving this kind of food. In fact, it is depends on individual preferences. My group mates introduce us this Onn Kee Restaurant because they have their lunch or even dinner here regularly. Due to the group mates’ highly recommend, thus we decide to choose this restaurant to complete our assignment. 

In addition, the China Press newspaper reported that a well-known Hong Kong actor named Chapman, To, tasted the famous food in Ipoh while visiting to this town for shooting new film. The chicken with taugeh in Onn Kee Restaurant is one of the foods that he had been tried. He also uploaded the photos regarding those shops and foods that visited and enjoyed by him to his Facebook. The power of celebrity is much stronger in this century. People will like to follow whatever done by their idol. As the fans of Chapman To, we also tend to eat the food that introduced by him. That is why we select this place for our assignment purpose.

  

(b)     Its classification of e-commerce by the nature of the transactions or interactions

Both the shops chosen, Yau Kee Restaurant and Onn Kee Restaurant, are not involved in any e-commerce strategy. They do not set up their own electronic storefronts for the purpose of selling their foods and beverages to customers over the Internet. It means that no online transaction can be carried out in these restaurants.

The restaurants are restricting the purchase or sale of their foods and beverages to brick-and-mortar only. Brick-and-mortar business refers to a traditional approach where company has established a constructed storefront in order to perform the business operations. Yau Kee and Onn Kee have physical presence since they have their own physical storefront located in Kampar and Ipoh respectively. Hence, the customers can visit their stores and buy the foods and beverages directly on the spot. Besides, brick-and-mortar provides face-to-face customers’ experiences. For instance, the employees can take order from their customers face-to-face in order to enhance the interaction between them and avoid any miscommunication. Other than that, the customers can reflect their opinions or feedbacks directly to the owners or employees of the restaurants. Furthermore, the customers are also required to make their payment immediately after they are having their meals in the restaurants.

For Yau Kee Restaurant, it has created a Facebook Page to increase the awareness of its business among the consumers, but the customers cannot buy their foods and beverages directly via Internet. Facebook is the most powerful social media marketing recently. Yau Kee utilises its Facebook Page to provide the details to the customers such as address, contact number, business hour, price range, brief description about its cuisine and etcetera. Besides, it also posts some photos and videos regarding its famous food in the page to attract the attention of the customers.

Same goes to Onn Kee Restaurant, even though it has set up its own website in order to advertise its business to a global customer base, however online transaction is not available for the consumers. For the website, it comprises of the history of the restaurant and its food, food gallery, recommended food, location, email address, enquiry form, contact number, operating hours and so on so forth.

Although Facebook page or website is developed by the restaurants, it is just to create awareness of and promote their business and no transaction is allowed via Internet. In brief, both the restaurants are conducted their business using traditional approach in which they sell their food and beverage directly to customers through their physical storefronts. It means that the transaction is only completed in the restaurants. The customers need to physically visit the restaurants, and the workers will serve them on the spot, then the customers will eat their foods in the shops and make payments face-to-face. The restaurants can even receive comment directly from the customers and might react to it instantly.

  

(c) Its Business models

A business model is the strategy conducted by a business to recognize revenue sources from operations, customer base, products and specific details of financing to move forward a successful operation of a business. The business model emphasizes on value creation and it provides the basic guide for a business to compete in the marketplace (Morris, Schindehutte, & Allen, 2003). Both Yau Kee Restaurant and Restaurant Onn Kee (Tauge Ayam) are applying brick and mortar business model. A brick and mortar business refers to a business that operates from a physical storefront, as opposed to other common retailing approaches such as mail order catalogs or online purchasing (“Brick and Mortar marketing,” n.d.). These restaurants have developed value propositions through their business operations that emphasize on communicating some unique value to their customers (Jao, 2014). Both of the restaurants generate revenue through the service or sale of food to consumers. They have their regular customers who support their business and some new customers also come along. They have many marketing and advertising tactics to increase their revenue.

Yau Kee Restaurant is using bricks and mortar business model to generate revenue and enhance reputation. Yau Kee Restaurant’s Facebook page shares what’s on the menu by showing images to attract customer to dine in their restaurant to have the meal. Besides, it shows what is selling out in stock and gives updates for community events in which it is engaged. Brick and mortar also brings benefit for the restaurant, it helps to leverage existing customer base (“Brick and Click: e-commerce meets the traditional store,” n.d.). Existing restaurants already have a base of sale, they can more easily obtain economies of scale in discount as it provides opportunities for face-to-face customer service and interactions with the customers. This can encourage customer loyalty and potentially bring huge contributor into increasing sales as it creates repeat purchases (Farbstein, 2012).

Same goes to Restaurant Onn Kee (Tauge Ayam) whereby it also uses traditional way of doing business, where a business is begun at a physical place where people approach, see or look through foods and purchase them as per their desire (“Brick And Mortar,” n.d.). One of the benefits of having a brick and mortar business is the physical location really provides as marketing in. Restaurant Onn Kee (Tauge Ayam) in brick and mortar business is able to provide good customer service than other type of operation structure. This can bring visibility and a sense of trust in customers as it shows that the owner of the business is financially secured sufficient to have a shop. Face to face customer service is considered huge contributor into increasing sales of a business. Research has shown that 86% of customers are willing to pay more for the meal if they have got great customer service (Gesenhues, 2013). Offline business increases the opportunities of customer walk-ins which eventually bring to higher amount of sales and build personal connections with customers. Restaurant Onn Kee (Tauge Ayam) can advertise on social media or put up its menu online, it is clearly cannot serve customers online. Besides, Restaurant Onn Kee (Tauge Ayam) ahas their own website whereby customers can search for information, inquire for more details, compare prices of similar food and seek bargains. Customers can come over to the restaurant to try the food and they can utilize the website to access after-sale-services after trying.

Both of the restaurants however still yet to expand into e-commerce growth, due to issues such as freshness, product damage, low margins compared to other consumer products and logistical challenges. They still retain their stores as distribution centres as this would stay the costs low and decrease shipping times to consumers.

  

(d) Its basic approach used in marketing and advertising

Both Restaurant Onn Kee (Tauge Ayam) and Yau Kee Restaurant enhance their reputation and generate sales by convincing people (word-of-mouth marketing) also known as viral marketing. Viral marketing has the potential to spread through the network and it is inexpensive or free marketing and helps both of the restaurants minimize the costs. It helps to make sure that people transmit the information from one to another and to recruit friends to drop by to their restaurant to have their meal in order to build customer base. Consumers tend to trust someone who provides them the recommendations and information about the services or products.

Besides, Yau Kee Restaurant presents via social network marketing and advertising like Facebook page, a social media platform to gain and attract customers.  Facebook has become the famous social media platforms and marketing technique to promote and advertise a business currently. Facebook check-ins is also one of the strategies which help Yau Kee Restaurant to promote their store. When someone approaches to the restaurant, they can check-in on their phone through their Facebook app. When someone checks in at a restaurant, it is a suggestion to the friends to go there. The check-in is associated to the Facebook page. When someone viewed that their friend checked in at a Yau Kee Restaurant, they can click on the link to be directed to their page. From there, they can obtain more information about that restaurant and choose to “like” the page. Liking and sharing are outstanding tools for them in achieving multi-level marketing. This means that once the page is liked, people will obtain updates made by business and their friends will be able to observe them and get directed towards the page. Yau Kee Restaurant has 1,105 “likes” in their Facebook page currently. In Facebook, it permits messages, images and videos to be sent and posted and it helps to persuade customers and followers to share with their friends, families and work associate. The restaurant can generate huge publicity when their restaurant get shared exponentially and can interact more   closely with customers.

Restaurant Onn Kee (Tauge Ayam) had been using online press releases method. “The Star” online newspapers dated 12^th of March 2015 had been advertised about the Restaurant Onn Kee (Tauge Ayam) in which it released the news all over the internet. Using a press release can lead to the business and news article be picked up and placed on those major sites such as Google News and Yahoo News. Newspaper advertising operates on the basic of building trust and confidence with the readers and it can reach more audiences.  Online press release is a promotional tool that can assist the business to gain more attention. It is because it permits to reach a large number of people in a given geographic area. When done effectively, it helps to attract attention that might be able to convert into more customers and sales. It does not incur any cost as it just requires to upload to the website, post to LinkedIn and email to the newsrooms that may be interested.

Search engine method is using by Restaurant Onn Kee (Tauge Ayam) to promote their restaurant. A website is the identity card of restaurant and also marketing tool for establishing communication with customers and promoting the restaurant. With a website, customers can easily access information about the business. It helps to supply information about prices, menu changes, working hours, physical address and announcements about events in the restaurant. Besides, it encourages visitors to provide feedback and is a great way to obtain feedback about what customers like and dislike about their restaurant. It also can give customers with an endless supply of photos showing the restaurant about food.

(e) Recommendations to improve businesses through e-commerce

As techno-logic keep improving, it has been came one of the most important things that people relied on it nowadays. Many business men started to use e-commerce in their business to attract consumers. E-commerce refers to the process of buying or selling products or service over the Internet. It is also used as a tool to spread the business latest news to consumer who are interested in the products. Besides, E-commerce allows consumer to search and contact to the vendor easily without wasting much time and effort (“E-commerce: Purchasing and Selling Online,” n.d.). Hence, our group would like to recommend on how Restaurant Onn Kee (Tauge Ayam) and Yau Kee Restaurant improve their business through e-commerce. Since e-commerce is convenient and easy for people to access and use.

Our group suggest that Restaurant Onn Kee (Tauge Ayam) and Yau Kee Restaurant should allow online transactions. We suggests Yau Kee Restaurant to create an official website to allow their customers to view their latest information and process with online transaction. The official website should include information about their own shop, menu, location, contact number, booking and delivery services. On the other hand, Restaurant Onn Kee which had an official website should enhance it by having an online transaction function. Restaurant Onn Kee’s (Tauge Ayam)  and Yau Kee Restaurant’s customers can view both restaurant’s menu online, then select the desired food to place in their cart for delivery purposes on certain selected area. Then, customers can confirm their placed order by viewing the cart and then process through the online payment via debit card, pay pal, online payment and more. Once the online transaction had been processed, both restaurants’ employees view through the confirmation order and start to cook and make their delivery.

Other than that, customers is also able make advance reservation for dine in purpose online through the website. The customers could choose the foods from the menu with the same steps as delivery procedure and select the preference date and time. After receiving the payment and confirmation of the customers, both restaurants’ employees could make earlier preparation at selected preference date and time. The convenient of online transaction could increase the business transaction of Restaurant Onn Kee’s (Tauge Ayam) and Yau Kee Restaurant (Braiton, n.d.).

Furthermore, both restaurant could create mobile application to attract new customer and retain loyalty customers. Customers could download the mobile application of Restaurant Onn Kee and Yau Kee Restaurant Mobile in order get more efficient services. When customers choose to dine in both restaurants, customers could use the mobile apps to see menu and then make order instead of waiting for the waiters to serve them. Before submitting the order to the kitchen, customers could use the mobile application to make payment by using online transactions. The order will then send to the restaurant kitchen and the waiter will deliver the food to the customers (Galloway, 2013).  In addition, this will increase the service efficiency of both restaurant and indirectly attract new customers and retain loyalty customers. Both restaurants can increase their business transaction through mobile application (Wang, n.d.).