Marketing Of An Innovative Idea Essay, Research Paper
The number of people in the United States that work on their own automobiles continues to increase. This is evident by the continuing number of auto-part stores that are opened every year. New stores, new chains, the competition is fierce. One reason for this is that the cost of taking your automobile in to the shop, to change something as simple as a $10 gasket, can be very expensive. It could end up costing you a couple of hundred dollars do to labor. Labor can make up anywhere from thirty to ninety percent of the bill. The other problem is finding a place to go that you can trust. There are a lot of crooked mechanics that seem to find more problems or even make more problems with your vehicle than what you originally brought it in for. Another issue with using a service garage is that you usually have to leave you vehicle the whole day in order to get the work done. This usually turns into quite an inconvenience. You end up having to wait at the shop or having to find someone to pick you up and take you back. It is no wonder that people are becoming more involved with working on their own vehicles. Budget conscientious people will not pay for high labor and better yet, unnecessary labor. Actually, lots of people enjoy, and prefer to work on their own automobiles. You can save a lot of money from the cost of labor and unnecessary maintenance. Doing it yourself also gives you reassurance of the job being done thoroughly and correctly the first time. Not all work though, is considered feasible to be done by the do-it-yourself mechanic. An average person is not going to take an engine out of the vehicle and do an overhaul. What they can do though, is change parts, filters, fluids, tires, and perform many other routine maintenance tasks. A lot of these jobs involve having to lift up the vehicle. Usually what you have to do is get a jack, lift up the vehicle, place a stand underneath, and then lower the vehicle on to it. The stand is necessary if you need more than one corner of the vehicle lifted at once. This could be a time consuming process. The first thing you usually have to do is find that jack from the trunk. Once you do that, you then have to figure out where it goes on the vehicle to properly lift it. Using some of these jacks that come with the vehicle is sometimes a chore in itself. Either you have to crank the handle a hundred times or it slips off and your knuckles get scraped. This can be a frustrating task and somewhat discouraging from doing the job yourself.
An innovative idea would be a remote controlled automatic hydraulic lifting system for passenger vehicles. There would be a hydraulic piston, that is capable of extracting and contracting, installed underneath and near each wheel of the vehicle. The system would be electrically powered by the vehicles battery system. It would be controlled with the simple use of a remote control. The remote would have five buttons on it. One button would coincide with each corner of the vehicle. The fifth button would be for simultaneous lifting. A special designed piston would have a flat base foot at the end of it and would be able to lift the necessary weight. The units would be designed to fit different automobile makes and models. It would be easy to install. It would consist of a few nuts and bolts and wiring to tap into the battery system. The units would contract enough to leave plenty of clearance when driving the vehicle. They also would be special coated to protect against rusting and freezing. This would prolong the life of the product. This innovative product would be a great opportunity to take advantage of this growing economic market of people working on their own vehicles.
Proper marketing of this product would be very important for its success. Demographic segmentation would be a likely start. It would not make sense to target high-income individuals or families. People who drive Mercedes and BMWs are not likely to work on their own cars. Beside the complexity of these vehicles, money for maintenance and service is not usually an issue. Your target for income level should reflect that of the average do-it-yourself mechanic. Another target market would be by gender. Most of your do-it-yourself mechanics are males. There is a huge female market that should be considered. With the hydraulic system installed, changing a tire can be as easy as one, two, three. With the simple use of the remote, the vehicle is simply lifted and the tire is ready to be changed. No more hassle trying to find the jack, figuring out where it goes, and then cranking it back and forth to lift the vehicle. Safety would be a very important factor that would need to be stressed. Being able to activate backup safety locks for each unit with the remote or by manually inserting pins reinforces confidence in using the product. Another important factor to push would be convenience. With the push of one button, the whole vehicle can be lifted off the ground. You would now be able to rotate tires with in a matter of minutes or work on the whole braking system at once. With the vehicle completely lifted, you would also now have plenty of room to work underneath the car. You could insert backup safety pins for reassurance when doing so. The marketing of this product would concentrate mostly of the savings of time and money and convenience of use. The product would be very affordable and easy to install yourself.
Marketing to the end user would not be the only possibility. A larger market that could be reached is automobile manufactures. The product would be easy for these manufactures to install, add only a slight increase to total cost, and be a great additional selling feature for the vehicle. The product could be custom designed to properly fit different makes and models. For many reasons though, this would most likely be a difficult sale. Manufactures have dealerships that have their own service garages and most likely prefer for their customers to bring in the vehicle every time work needs to be done on it. It s usually the most expensive place to go, so profitability is most likely high for them.
Either way, the success of this product could have a significant impact on various markets. Companies that manufacture standard hydraulic jacks could see the largest decrease in their market shares (Especially if the product was to become a standard part of the automobile). With the installation of the new system, people would no longer need to purchase a manual hydraulic jack for their vehicle. A reduction in jack stands is also possible. The new product would be equipped with safety features allowing individuals to be and feel safe to work underneath their vehicles, thus replacing the jack stand for this type of use. If automobile manufactures were to adopt the new system, they would no longer have a need for the standard crank jack that fits in the side of most trunks. Toeing services could also see a reduction in business with fewer calls do to people being less reluctant to change their own tire. A simple use of the remote will make lifting the vehicle a breeze. With the product making it a lot easier and perhaps even safer to lift the vehicle, an increase in sales for auto-parts stores could be seen. People would now have easier access to changing parts like a starter. This is a part that usually consists of just a couple of bolts and wire connections. The hardest part of changing it usually is accessing it. It usually is underneath the car, which would now be easy to get to. You could also do things like change the transmission fluid, filter and gasket. This is a fairly easy job for the do-it-yourself mechanic and would now be even easier with the automatic hydraulic lifting system.
The idea of the automatic hydraulic lifting system will probably not revolutionize any industry, but could have a positive or negative impact on a few markets. Auto-part stores would be in favor of the idea where as manual hydraulic lift manufactures would most likely not be. The fact is that a lot of people like to work on their own vehicles means that they would most likely embrace this new hydraulic system. The key to its success would be for it to be made affordable, reliable, as well as proven durable and safe for use.