HM397 Case Study 1 Duck Donuts PDF

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Case study on Duck Donuts. Writing is based on information spoken about by guest speaker....

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MEMORANDUM TO: SUBJECT:

All students in HM397 Duck Donuts Case Study

Summary The subject of this case study is a woman named Janet who franchised a Duck Donuts in State College. Janet was on vacation in Duck, NC when she first discovered Duck Donuts and fell in love with the product. With the thought of wanting to own a café always in the back of her mind, she decided to buy a franchise. She originally wanted to open it in Danville, PA where she lives but they decided the market there wasn’t large enough and ultimately settled on State College. The location they chose to open her Duck Donuts franchise was not ideal since it is located in the back corner of an unknown shopping center that rarely gets any foot traffic and her business was failing. The contract with Duck Donuts didn’t allow her to make an Instagram account to promote her business and the borough of State College wouldn’t allow her to put signage on the main road. She then decided to open a second franchise on Penn States campus in the Pegula Ice Arena. She had a verbal agreement with Penn State in which they told her she would be able to put up signs, be open all the time, and cater to tailgates during football season which ended up never happening. Eventually, she decided to sell the business because commuting to State College from Danville (4 hours round trip) multiple days a week for a failing business wasn’t working with her. Advertising One thing that she was unsuccessful in doing was advertising. When she discovered that she could not put-up signs or have an Instagram account dedicated to her Duck Donuts location she should have worked on finding other ways to get the word out. When she would go to the apartment buildings and give them free boxes of donuts to give to residents this was not a good resolution to the issue of her “hidden” location. Instead of giving boxes of free donuts, she should have given out vouchers or coupons to the apartments to give to residents so that they would have to go to the store to claim the donut. Even though she would still be giving away her product for free, this at least brings people into the store. This way, people know where the Duck Donuts is and when inside will be able to see the full menu and will be intrigued to purchase more items or come back a second time. Location Purchasing the second location when her first one was already failing was not a smart idea. She should have made sure Penn State put the verbal agreement into the physical contract before signing anything. Another option was instead of purchasing the second location, she should have sold the first location and gotten a second one on E College. Even though the rent was high, the foot traffic in this area is tremendous and business would significantly increase. Conclusion In conclusion, there were many issues that Janet faced when franchising Duck Donuts. Unideal location and lack of freedom in advertising were two of the most prominent problems she encountered. When she first decided to buy a franchise, she should have read the contract more thoroughly and she would have known she couldn’t have her own social media accounts. She also should have made Penn State put their verbal agreement into writing and done more research before purchasing the Pegula location (which I believe she shouldn’t have done either way considering her business was already failing....