Is this the right kind of research to do for a food business?

dartboardio · 30-01-2017 4:47pm #1

When people say to do your own market research on a premises you'd like to plan on owning in a few years time, say you want to open your own cafe/restaurant,

before you start/plan anything, would it be a good idea to do your own personal research? yes obviously but what does this include?

What am I missing? I presume (please correct me if I am wrong) that going around to different small shops/cafes day to day, looking at the amount of customers and how much they are spending and on what at different times of the day..

Like for instance today I went to 4/5 different cafes at lunch time and took note of the amount of people, amount of items roughly bought at certain time... and I should return a couple of times a week to see what it's like daily?

Is this a good way of going about it or what else is included in primary market research?

Thanks.

dartboardio · 30-01-2017 4:48pm

And please no silly unnecessary bashing such as ''If you're asking that question you definitely shouldn't be thinking of doing this'' etc, for all you know this could be a college project!

So serious answers only please

Emerg · 30-01-2017 4:52pm

I would look at footfall, Average spend per customer, Competition within a certain radius and also its worth mapping out your target audience by age/ gender etc.

dartboardio · 30-01-2017 5:04pm

Thanks Emerg, I'm eager to learn all aspects of what I need to do and want to know whether I'm starting on the right foot, for instance looking at today why Insomnia coffee had 5 people in it at 12:45 pm but the local book centre café and debenhams café had 15-20 that were excluding the lunch rush..coincidence or repetitive obviously I will find out if I keep my eye on it.

pedroeibar1 · 30-01-2017 5:50pm

dartboardio wrote: »

..... to do your own market research on a premises you'd like to plan on owning in a few years time, say you want to open your own cafe/restaurant,.....................Is this a good way of going about it or what else is included in primary market research?

In doing so you would be learning about doing market research, what to look for, etc., and how to evaluate the data you obtain. You (hopefully) would spot the type of detail to look for, or digging into the data would provoke other questions. However, the data you obtain would most likely be meaningless for a particular location due to changed demographics, road/traffic systems, etc. that would occur "in a few years time". It's no harm as a learning tool.

Is this the right kind of research to do for a food business?

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