Module:

Fundamentals of marketing

Assignment 2: Portfolio

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DECLARATION

I, [B00?????], the author of this assessment, hereby declare that:

I have read and understood Regulations 3.49—3.55 of Chapter 3 of the regulatory framework of the University of the West of Scotland regarding cheating and plagiarism.

This assessment is the result of my own work, except for those parts that are explicitly referenced, and contribution of others is clearly indicated.

No material presented in this assessment has been written, wholly or in parts, by any other student.

This assessment has not been submitted — partially or in full — in support of the completion of assessment(s) on any other module, regardless of previously or the current academic year (self-plagiarism).

Date 31/03/2023

1. Market overview

The market you are analysing is the UK fiction book market. However, you can narrow it down to the extent you are comfortable with. For example, you can take just Scotland or any other part of the UK; you can choose the fiction book market for children, or focus on sci-fi, or even just analyse illustrated fiction novels – these are all parts of the assigned market. Indicate the exact definition of the analysed market on the title page in the table. Remember that the market is the sum of all consumers for a particular type of product.

If you chose to narrow down the market like in the suggestion above, please indicate exactly what part of the market you are analysing in this section before you proceed to 1.1.

Market volume calculation

Here you indicate the market volume for the market (depending on how you chose to define it above). You can calculate the number yourself using a formula from the presentation slides or find an existing estimation and support it with critical analysis and understanding of why it fits the task.

If you decided to look for the number online:

Look for reports and statistics online to find out exactly how many products were bought in that market in 2022. The result could be in sales value (money), in sales volume (books) or in consumers (readers). When you find the number, you have to show an explanation of how it was calculated to make sure that it really measures what you claim it measures.

Independent of the choice:

If you want to earn all the possible point for this part of the task, you can also do a triangulation of data. This means that you find and present alternative market volume estimations (from different sources) and critically analyse their differences. In the end, you either argument your choice of one of the found numbers or calculate a mean.

Make sure you use sources for all of your calculations.

Trend analysis

What are the trends in these markets? Find out what was particularly popular or new in the period of analysis, what new trend is emerging. This could be about consumer preferences, or the market structure, or the general product features, and so on.

Find at least two trends using internet sources and describe them. Don’t forget to include the sources. Next, compare the trends in terms of a set of criteria chosen by you. Present the comparison in a form of a table. These could be the criteria in the table or any other. If you choose other criteria, please describe them.

Trend comparison table

Criteria:	Trend 1 – name	Trend 2 – name	Trend 3 – name
Importance	Very important	Medium importance	Low importance
Impact	Negative impact	Positive impact	Negative impact
Pace	Slow	Fast	Very fast
Other

2 Market segmentation

2.1 Defining segments, comparing them

Define 3 or more market segments by using 2+ segmentation criteria of your choosing (e.g., age, gender, book series, favourite author, etc). Describe and justify the choice of criteria and segment division. Name each segment in a way that clearly describes which consumer they relate to. It is advised to use a pie chart for this, but you can use other visualization as well.

Next, compare the segments using the criteria you have chosen before in a form of a table.

Comparison of segments

Criteria	Segment 1 – name	Segment 2 – name	Segment 3 – name
Criteria 1	Describe differences between the segments in terms of the chosen criteria	Describe differences between the segments in terms of the chosen criteria	Describe differences between the segments in terms of the chosen criteria
Criteria 2	Describe differences between the segments in terms of the chosen criteria	Describe differences between the segments in terms of the chosen criteria	Describe differences between the segments in terms of the chosen criteria
Criteria 3	Describe differences between the segments in terms of the chosen criteria	Describe differences between the segments in terms of the chosen criteria	Describe differences between the segments in terms of the chosen criteria

Choosing segment/segments for targeting

Next you will only proceed with an analysis of 1 or more of these segments. Clearly indicate which 1 or more segments are chosen for further analysis. Describe this choice clearly. The choice could be justified by economic factors, trends or personal choice.

3 Competition analysis

3.1 Defining main players of the market

Define 5 or more main competitors for the chosen segment/s. Justify the choice. Indicate the type of competitors to each (direct, indirect, substitute, etc). Do it in a form of a table.

Competitors and types.

	Type of competitors	Justification (why this type?)
Competitor 1 – name
Competitor 2 – name
Competitor 3 – name
Competitor 4 – name
Competitor 5 – name

3.2 Classifying and rating competitors

Now it is time to compare the competitors – who is stronger? Choose 3 or more comparison criteria for competitors and clearly describe them (e.g., market share, number of authors, number of top selling books, awards, etc.) explain your choice.

Next, use these criteria to compare all of them. Make sure you list all sources of data used.

Comparison of competitors

	Competitor 1 – name	Competitor 2 – name	Competitor 3 – name	Competitor 4 – name	Competitor 5 – name
Criteria 1
Criteria 2
Criteria 3
…

4 Dissecting a market strategy of a chosen market player

In this section you chose only one of the competitors from previous section and analyse the use of 4 Ps in their strategy on the example of 1 or more of their products.

4.1 Product strategy

What is the product portfolio of this competitor?

Are there any peculiarities of packaging/appearance of the products?

What can you tell about the product (portfolio) lifecycle? (e.g., how often they release books, how these releases related to each other?)

Do you agree with the way the competitor makes decision about the product? What are the benefits and risks of doing what they do?

Don’t forget to cite all sources.

4.2 Pricing strategy

What is the pricing strategy?

Do they use of sales promotion (give-aways, discounts, etc.)?

Do you agree with the way the competitor makes decision about the price? What are the benefits and risks of doing what they do?

Don’t forget to cite all sources.

4.3 Promotional strategy

How does the competitor use advertising, PR, sales promotion, direct sales?

Do you agree with the way the competitor makes decision about the promotion? What are the benefits and risks of doing what they do?

Don’t forget to cite all sources.

4.4 Place strategy

Which channels of distribution the competitor uses (online and offline, which retailers, etc)?

Do you agree with the way the competitor makes decision about the place? What are the benefits and risks of doing what they do?

Don’t forget to cite all sources.

5. References

References should be in Harvard format and these must include all the sources referred to in the main body of your report.

6. Appendices

Anything that doesn’t fit into the main body of the paper goes here, Appendices are not counted in the word count.