Vigor Kobo

Day 4- Vigor Kobo

-Specialises in baking top of the line Taiwan cakes and pastries
-Target market: tourists
- Insists on top quality, use of fresh ingredients and attractive packaging to ensure great tasting, great looking products
-Takes pride in cakes and pastries and commitment to serve customers

From main website: http://www.taiwan-vigor.com.tw/front/bin/ptlist.phtml?Category=349745

-Conducts a walk tour for customers to see for themselves how pastries are prepared

-Conducts hands-on pastry baking

 Why pastries?
-Value of pastries surpasses that of bread
-Pastries are usually used as gifts and are exquisite, a must buy when travelling for friends and family back home, thus pastries are a marketable product

Leaning points from Vigor Kobo:

-Use of adorable trademark characters to create a strong market identity
-Ensures use of quality ingredients to maintain standards and thus stakehold in the pastry industry in Taiwan

 -Focus on attractive packaging to differentiate themself from the rest of the pastry market. I feel this aesthetics approach is an  especially important aspect of the business, especially for one which targets tourists as their main market.

-Quality service to enhance the entire experience at Vigor Kobo

-The hands-on walk tour and pastry baking is fun and definitely appeals to tourists who have time to spend. This tour differentiates Vigor Kobo from the other pastry retailers in the Taiwan market.

- Expansion only focused in Asian/ Chinese market.
Vigor Kobo believes in a specialised market expansion direction as it feels that the pastries will not be well received in European countries due to a different culture. I feel this is a good learning point as businesses always need to plan well, and bear in mind not to over-expand too quickly or in an over-ambitious manner and risk jeopardising the business.

-Innovation: variations of pastries with different price points. This is to cater to the uprising China tourists who often prefer to spend more on more exquisite products. This is another great learning point for me as Vigor Kobo has highlighted how innovation and creativity can be applied to cater to changing market needs.

- Media and advertising: does not use advertisements. Instead, Vigor Kobo uses news reports and variety shows to broadcast its company's products and name. Vigor Kobo believes this is cost-effective and is more reliable and persuasive to the consumers. This is a very interesting marketing approach.

- Vigor Kobo also caters to customers by being the first shop to allow change of currency. This gives Vigor Kobo a customer-centric competitive edge, especially with its main market being tourists.