The Business Plan of Opening an Asian Market in Kearney， Nebraska

Peilin Zhang

Abstract：This paper centers on making a business plan to open an Asian Market in small city such as Kearney， Nebraska. The store will be selling international snacks and groceries， especially Asian groceries. The mission of the Asian Market is to provide the residents and visitors of Kearney with a combination of high qualities and large quantities of hard to find snacks and groceries. Friendly service and pleasant atmosphere will be a top priority of the Asian Market as the market is striving to target all the residents in Kearney， especially for Asian residents.

Key Words：Business Plan； Asian Market； Kearney； Market analysis

1. Introduction

The total US retail sales has increased by 5.45% from 2017 to 2018， and the Asian market grocery sales also followed by this 5.45% growth.① This particular data indicates that the Asian Market industry is gaining market share in the retail sector in the United States. Kearney， Nebraska is a small city in United States. The local population estimated to be 33，520 and rated as the 5th most populated city in the state of Nebraska. The largest Kearney racial groups are Caucasian （87.3%） followed by Hispanic （7.8%） and Asian （1.9%）.② In Nebraska， the overall medium-sized market retail sales rose 4.2% in the recent years. The size of Asian residents grew 8.4% last year. The Asian Market will serve the entire consumer population of Kearney and the residents from nearby town.

2.Anaylze the local market

2.1 Target Market Segment：

Due to the need for a high-quality Asian Market in Kearney that will bring forth hard to find Asian products， Asian Market will target the entire consumer population mainly in Kearney with the primary focus of Asian customers who have needs to purchase their home countries’ groceries.The target consumer segment would be the Asian students at local university， which is about 62% of the total Asian population in Kearney. Their age range is mostly 18 to 30， and they are predicted to be the largest consumer segment of the Asian Market. From interviewing 30 Asian students， about 90% of Asian students （27） are nostalgic of home country snacks and meals， and they expressed their excitements about the new Asian Market.

2.2 Competition：

The main competitors of the Asian Market are medium-sized grocery stores that have Asian grocery selections such as Familyfresh Mart， Grand Central Apple Market. These grocery stores that carry many healthy food choices and some ethnic choices， but they do not offer many options for Asian food. Another main competitor is online shopping websites. After interviewing 30 international students， 80%（24） of international students are buying Asian snacks from Yamibuy.com. This website contains four categories of Asian products： snacks， beauty， health， and home supplies. Each category serves a variety of related products.

The Asian restaurants and convenience stores are also indirect competitors of the Asian Market. In Kearney， there are many convenience stores and coffee shops such as Dollar General， Boogaarts Food Store， Little USA， Walgreens， numerous gas stations containing convenience mart like Shell， and Caseys’ General Store， etc. From analyze the strength and weakness of Asian Market， we can figure out since the Asian Market is a new type of grocery store in the area， its competitive edges will be the varieties of products and the distinguishable shopping experience that it will provide to the consumers.

2.3 Marketing Strategy：

The marketing strategies of the Asian Market will consist of running promotional advertisements in local newspapers， yellow pages， and mail-in flyers. Since the target consumer is the Asian students at local university， we could provide students discounts on the presentation of the student ID such as a five percent discount on spending purchases over $25. We also plan to support some of the Asian student events to catch the attention of the Asian students. The Asian Market also will be giving free samples to our customers and introducing our products by offering cooking recipes for them.

3. The products and supply chain：

The Asian market will not only serve similar products compared to other local markets， but will also serve the following hard to find selections of Asian products： hard to find desserts， candies， vegetables， meat， drinks， kitchenware， microwaveable meals， instant noodles， seasonal foods， bread， Asian seasoning， and a good selection of frozen meals， etc. The groceries will include merchandises that best represent the popular food and snacks from the following counties： Korea， China， Japan， Malaysia， Singapore， Vietnam， Thailand and the United States.

The Asian Market will maintain good relationships with its suppliers. The grocery products such as snacks， beverages， instant meals and other non-frozen Asian grocery products will directly supply from Mountain Foods， LLC. The frequency of ordering supply items will be twice per month. The Asian Market will be ordering supplies on Tuesdays. The other grocery products supplier is Luck International Trading， Inc. （L.I.T.， INC）， which is located in Kansas City， MO. Asian Market will supply the frozen meat and meals from L.I.T.， INC and deliver the frozen products twice per month on Wednesday of supplying week.

4. Inventory：

For the inventory， Asian Market will use certain computer system such as POSGuys.com Preferred Retail system for tracking. The system includes QuickBooks POS 2013 Pro software that can provide advanced reporting. The inventory status and customer data can be imported from Microsoft Excel spreadsheets， eliminating time lost from manually entering data.③ From scanning the barcode of the product， the manager could check the remaining inventory through the system. Also， the system could avoid running out of stock and could also locate out of stock products， prices， expiration date， and manufacturer of the products. The reorder orders can be automatically generated when inventory hits pre-set reorder levels， making the inventory management process quick and safe.④

From the system， the manager can quickly figure out the slow sellers based on the number of sales and duration of purchase. The manager could consider putting the slow sell products on sale or moving out the products to put the money into more popular products. For the fast selling products， the Asian Market will increase the order quantities or set in a special order to take advantage of the selling surge. At the end of the year， the final inventory should match the annual physical inventory.⑤

5. Conclusion：

To opening a small business such as Asian Market in small-size city like Kearney should be careful and well-planed. From the above analysis， we believe that Asian Market will have potential growth in the market share of the retail stores in Kearney in the next five years. The population of Kearney is expected to grow at a rate of 2% over the next ten years. As is the fifth largest city in Nebraska， Kearney will have continuing economic growth. In the grocery industry， reasonable price and availability are the two critical factors to success. The Asian Market will offer extensive selections of Asian products with high quality and low price， which will help to compete with the existing competitors.

注釋：

①“US Retail Sales Growth” www.multpl.com， January 12th， 2018

②“Kearney Demographics Summary”www.nebraska- demographics.com， December 2017

③“QuickBooks Point of Sale 2013 Pro POS Software”， https：//posguys.com/point-of-sale-software_35/Intuit-QuickBooks-Point-of-Sale-2013-Pro_1237/

④“QuickBooks Point of Sale 2013 Pro POS Software”， https：//posguys.com/point-of-sale-software_35/Intuit-QuickBooks-Point-of-Sale-2013-Pro_1237/

⑤Ronald L. Bond， what you need to know about managing retail inventory（2013）www. Entrepreneur. com/article /228008

Faculty Mentor： Dr. Jeong Hoon Choi.