Pet Tracking Solution in India

Pet Tracking Solution in India GPS enabled chip in the collar called Pet Tracker, which is designed specifically to track, Identify your pet if it gets lost.[1] Customer Analysis Pets fulfill a larger role than just being a companion they are part of the family, and in some cases, considered as your children. For such owners loss of a pet becomes a traumatic experience as it is difficult to locate and recover a lost pet and the whole exercise becomes a nightmare. Another problem being faced by a large number of pet owners is that, while on vacation, or in their absence at work, there is no way to keep a track on their pets since most of the time the pets are either kept in a local shelter or with their neighbors. Pet industry in India is a multimillion dollar industry and has grown to approx. $900 million with a steady double-digit growth every year (Euro Monitor, 2011).[2] According to an estimate, in 2011, there were around 10 million pets in India and the number is growing by approximately 600000 per year in the Indian pet market. Some of the reasons for this growth can be attributed to the increase in pet adoption, rising incomes coupled with the increased trend for companionship, interest in owning pedigree and growing awareness amongst the owners to take proper care of their pets. Target Pet Owners will be our target market. We also understand that not all pet owners will be buying our product as such; we will target the segment that consciously needs the safety and security of their pets and who are looking for a solution to get a peace of mind in this regard. There is, however, no set age group that we can target, as owners of all ages would need this facility: the following groups of pet owners will be our primary target: Ardent pet lovers like Child-less and working Couples Owners of Pedigree dogs and high-end expensive pets People who already have pet Collar but do not have real time tracking facility Pet Groomers and Premium pet food buyers We will initially target customers in the middle and high-income group living in the four major metropolitan cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Calcutta in India. The estimated market size for premium pet care product is around 144 Million USD [3] which includes products like daily hygiene, premium pet food, pet sitting, pet parties, spas and other Premium services. We are confident that our product will attract most pet lovers in this segment; however, Even if we get around 1% of the targeted customers, we should be able to make a sizeable entry into the market in the first year and as the customer base grows we will try to increase our market share in the future. We do underhand our product may not succeed or Store owners may not keep our product and we have create a strong brand via delivering quality and amazing customer service.[4](Threats). The main pains or frustrations I see for this segments are; Unable to track their lost Pet. Dont have an easy and accessible one-stop solution to secure all safety and security requirements for the pet. The major gains that customer would be looking for are; Have one solution for identification and tracking of their pets and be able to use the information in user-friendly way. Get a peace of mind while on vacation, or busy at work or having a Pedigree Pet. Value Proposition / Positioning Product: The proposal is for Pet Tracker smart phone App that works with a micro chip which will be sold with a plain collar or can be installed on any existing collar. This chip will be installed in a way that it is not easily identifiable. If required it can also be implanted on to the pet, however, this method may not be acceptable to most pet lovers. The app will store all the information about the owner and the pet. Each pet will be allotted a unique identification number for updating all information in a user-friendly way, and tracking the location of the pet. We hope to please all pet lovers who are looking for a way to keep their pets safe and secure. See Appendix 2 [5] Collaboration: Our App will be based on GPS tracking system; we will collaborate with GPS service providers like Google maps for real- time tracking. Competition: Our product will have a comparative advantage over the others in the market as it will allow users to additionally track their pets. The existing collars in the market do not provide this facility. Real time tracking of pets will be the Unique selling Proposition for our product. [6] Price: Two pricing solutions will be offered; Identification For customers who only want to use the app and the Collar and do not need tracking, the app/Collar will be sold through Apple and Google play stores at a onetime nominal charge of $100. Tracking For customers who want both identification and tracking the app and the collar would be free but the customer would sign a contract for a monthly subscription of $7 or yearly subscription of $50 will be charged for tracking purposes.[7] Distribution We will offer our app and chip through the following channels; Pet supplies stores Pet grooming boutiques Vets and animal shelters Online through our website Media Based sales,, e.g. Facebook, twitter (for wide coverage) We will use various methods to determine demand through a survey of buyers intentions, past sales analysis and market-test method. Promotion Since we are providing a new product in this market we will aggressively promote our product through, print and other media, physical display at vantage points, and live demonstrations at pet stores etc. Appendix -1 Customer Motivation (Jobs Pains and Gains) Job to be done 1: Provide safety and security for Pets 2: Provides Tracking Facility and identification 3: Storage of all information about the pet and owner. Pains Have to spend lot of time and money to look for lost pet Difficult to prove the identity when pet is recovered at Kennel Cant keep a track of my pet when left with a pet sitter. Gains Gives pet owners a peace of mind that their pet is safe and secure Helps one focus on other things rather the pet during vacations or when at work Easy to track and identify the pet when it found at the local kennel or animal shelter. Proposal We plan to introduce a GPS enabled collar called Pet Tracker which is designed specifically to track and protect a pet from getting lost. Pet Tracker is an innovative creation keeping the specific requirements of the pet owners in India and will be very useful for this class of pet owners. Pet Tracker will cater to all breeds of pets and will be available in multiple collar sizes and designs. Appendix -2 Customer Behavior Motivation Safety and security of the Pet and an assurance that the pet can be tracked real time, is the main motivation for a pet owner to go in for this product. The pet owners can concentrate on other important issues without worrying about the safety of their pets. Consideration -Threats In India there are Apps that provide a collar for the identification part of our product, but do not provide for the Tracking. If our Tracking Maps are not precise and efficient, we may not be able to get customers to sign up for longer periods. We will also have to constantly up grade and fine tune our product to compete with the new entrants in the market. New and innovative schemes will be implemented to keep our loyal customer base. Our product will have to have an edge always over the other similar products in the market. The market threats will have to be timely identified and intelligently overcome. Our main focus would be on delivering quality and customer service so that we are able to make a brand image in the market. We have to convince the Pet Store owners via the word of mouth effect where customers start demanding our product and then the pet stores will be eager to put our Collar in their Shelves. Evaluation As there are no products currently in the market which provide tracking of pets, the challenge therefore, will be to position our product ably on the attributes which show how it can provide value addition over the existing products. The key Attribute and emphasis will be on the tracking information. Appendix -3 Actions Controls Action The decision to purchase our product would be entirely based on the individual pet owners. Not all pet owners would be interested in our product. Some may just by the Collar and the Chip for identification purposes and others may buy a collar with tracking facility. Controls We will measure marketing performance to increase efficiency of our resource allocations. As marketing costs account for a large portion of the total operating budget, setting up methods to evaluate and measure these marketing efforts will be a proper use of the businesss budget. The outcome of these measures will benefit us in the long run by becoming more profitable with increased sales and decrease in expenses and costs. The goal will be to sell enough units by projecting sales targets (monthly, quarterly and annually) to achieve a break-even point during the first year. A large portion of the budget for advertising will be allocated during the first year of business, to ensure product survival and prepare for the possible increased competition in the following years. Continued product improvement and RD will be another important factor kept in mind. Appendix 4 Break Even: analysis Manufacturing Cost The cost of producing a pet tracker collar (includes the chip) is anticipated to be $35 ($1= INR70) taking into account all expenses on material, research, administrative costs. Variable Costs (VC) $15 (Promotion, Distribution etc.) Cost of production (FC) 5000* 35 = $175, 0000 Overhead (staff, server, rent) = $40,000 a year Sales Price for the Collar and Chip (P) = $100 Estimated breakeven= FC / (P-VC) = $215000/ ($100-$15) = 2550 Customers approx. This shows that we will break even if we have at least 2550 customers against the estimated 5000. Revenue GPS Tracking = 1000*$50 = $50000 a year The revenue is based on our ability to get 1000 customer to sign up for tracking service in the first year. This number will grow in the following years. Appendix -5 Penetration = Market size 1: Its going to a small market = around 1% of the total customer base. 2: There is no age group that we can specifically target. Pet owners of multiple age groups would use our product. 3: There are some Apps already available in the market, however, these are only for identification and none of them offers a solution for tracking. 4: We will continue to update our product and bring in new features to achieve and retain a number one position in the market. [1] Please See Appendix 1 for Proposal [2]http://www.euromonitor.com/pet-care-in-india/report [3] http://www.iiptf.com/aboutus.php?page=About_Fair http://www.petfoodindustry.com/articles/3180-indian-pet-care-market-to-reach-us-144-8-million-by-2015 [4] Please see threats to our product in appendix 2 [5] Please see Appendix 2 for Customer MotivationÂÂ   and Threats to our Product [6] Please see Appendix 3 for Controls [7] Please see Break Even analysis