Digital Learning 10/Marketing & Entrepreneurship 9: Spring Market Reflection:

Describe your experience:

We marketed, and sold gaming mice at the PMSS Spring Market. We technically had three products, however since we only had one (each) for two of them, we truly only had one main product. We sold the Alpha 1000-X gaming mouse as our main product. I decided to work with Thomas for my project, as we have many shared interests, especially in this area of business. We decided to sell gaming mice because we both have a strong interest in gaming, and as an extension, gaming mice. We also felt that there was a strong market for gaming mice at PMSS. I feel that if we had gotten gaming mice with side buttons, and started marketing earlier, we would have made more sales at higher prices, which would have in turn lead to higher profit overall.

Examine your experience:

Were any academic concepts utilized to reach the goal you were trying to accomplish? How?

Yes, many of the principles of business that we learned about in business were utilized during the market. The formulas and equations we learned for calculating profit/loss/cost were incredibly important to this experience. We needed to split and divide our work, and we found that one of the easiest ways to do that was using the different areas of business. I mainly managed marketing and finance, while my partner handled most of the rest. We also utilized many of the marketing concepts which we learned in class, in order to increase our sales.

Did you need to change your approach after new information and experiences were presented to you?

Yes, we needed to change our approach many times through the market, due to the experiences we had. Originally, we had to change our marketing and pricing strategy based on our survey results. We then had to adapt again after the first day, due to low sales. We continued to change our approach throughout the market, and by the end, our approach had changed immensely. We had gone from selling mice at a high price, in low quantity, to selling more mice at a lower price. We also adapted our strategy based on information and feedback given to us by our peers and customers. I learned quite a few things about business, however I drew three main conclusions from this activity. My first conclusion was that things will most likely not go according to plan. We had put quite a bit of effort planning out our financial plan, using our surveys (as well as simply asking people) to guide our decisions, however; in the end we needed to change our strategy completely. The second conclusion was that business is hectic. We had to adapt as we went, or risk going out of business. I learned that adaptation is key for a business, because as your market and environment changes, you need to change as well. The final conclusion that I made, is that business is far more challenging than expected. Although my survey said that we had many potential customers, on the first three days, making sales was tough. We learned that we need to be aggressive with marketing in order to find customers, otherwise we would not have made any sales. We needed to be confident in our delivery, and we needed to make our display interesting in order to attract people to our stand. Overall, I learned that business is very different from how I expected it to be.

Did this experience differ from your initial expectations? How?

Yes, the experience which I had was very different from what I expected. We expected to sell many more mice at our initial price, which is why our strategy did not do a complete 180 until the last day. We also expected for the market to be far busier than it was, which lead to our estimates being inaccurate. The experience was overall more hectic than I expected, which I believe more accurately reflects the real world of business. Learning on the spot, and adapting were crucial. Everything that I learned was from being “thrown into the fire”. I had no past business experience, and I needed to improvise on the spot, and learn as I go. Although I learned quite a bit in the theory phase (in class), I feel that the most valuable knowledge came from learning on the spot, and in the moment. I feel that I will be able to apply the knowledge that I gained in order to succeed more in the future, and to be a better businessperson overall.

Critical Thinking Reflection:

Throughout the market, we had to constantly come up with new ideas in order to sell more product. Whether it be a new digital marketing campaign, or a new price point and sales strategy, we came up with many new ideas during the market. One notable one was our final price reduction.  We noticed that our mice weren’t selling too well, however people who were interested in our mice normally had friends who were also interested. This is why we chose to make a bulk pack, which ended up being our best selling product. We also had to work on our ideas and improve them throughout the market. One area where this was crucial was in our marketing. Our first post on Instagram was simply our logo, which did not attract many customers, and did not lead to much interaction. Comparing this to our last post, a picture of our mouse with clear information and prices, it is clear that improving our marketing made a huge difference. We noticed that our last ad attracted many more customers than the first, and lead to significantly more interaction with customers via Instagram comments and direct messages. This was most likely a combination of in person advertising at the market, and an increase in our ad quality. Overall, we generally liked our ideas, and we feel that we used critical thinking skills on a regular basis during the market. Our digital marketing material will be posted below, in the order in which it was used.