The Toddler Warehouse is a start-up business.  A comprehensive marketing plan and effort will be instrumental in developing visibility and generating sales.  The Toddler Warehouse offers Salem, Ore. a full-service child care and child development facility for toddlers.  These services will be differentiated from the competition through advanced training and learning systems.

Market Summary

Through a lot of research, The Toddler Warehouse has accumulated good information regarding the market and are aware of many common attributes of key customers.  The Toddler Warehouse will leverage this information to continue to study who is served, their needs, and how The Toddler Warehouse can best communicate with them.

Market Analysis

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Market Needs

The Toddler Warehouse is providing Salem parents with a full-time child care service that utilizes a sophisticated learning development system.  The Toddler Warehouse will fulfill the following benefits that are important to their customers:

• Selection: A complete service offering of child care and learning development for toddlers age three to five.
• Accessibility: The facility is centrally located and is open from 6 a.m.- 7 p.m.
• Customer service: Treating the customer like they are the most important customer that The Toddler Warehouse has is reinforced in all employee training programs.
• Competitive pricing: The pricing is reasonable relative to the services offered.

Market Trends

The market trend in child care is an increased utilization of child care by parents.  This is fueled by the parents desire/need to go back to work generating income for the family.  While this trend fuels the need for more general child care facilities, it also generates demand for facilities that offer child development.  As the parents are spending less and less time with the children, they have less time to help them develop.  The trend is moving demand away from solely babysitting child care to child development care.  This will benefit The Toddler Warehouse because they offer state of the art learning systems.

Market Growth

In 1999, the national child care industry had $11 billion in revenues.  The industry is estimated to grow at 9% for the next several years.  This growth can be primarily attributed to parents going back to work, creating two income households.  These parents need a service provider to care for their children, and more parents are turning to child care services as opposed to a babysitter or live in nanny.

SWOT Analysis

The following SWOT analysis captures the key strengths and weaknesses within the company, and describes the opportunities and threats facing The Toddler Warehouse.

Strengths

• A sophisticated and effective learning system.
• Excellent training programs that all employees must participate in.
• An educated customer base who recognize the benefits that The Toddler Warehouse offers.

Weaknesses

• A lack of visibility due to the newness of the operations.
• The ability to attract and keep well trained employees.
• The inability to perfectly forecast demand of services relative to the number of employees on staff at any one time.

Opportunities

• A growing market with a large percentage of target customers not yet aware of The Toddler Warehouse.
• Increased revenue as more and more people are working, thereby unable to care for their children during the day.
• As the number of children served grows, fixed costs are spread thinner over a larger customer base.

Threats

• Competition from already established facilities that improve their service offerings to be more competitive to The Toddler Warehouse.
• Unfounded "public scares" regarding child care.
• Legal liability issues, either one large suit against The Toddler Warehouse, or significant increases in premiums due to changes within the operating environment of the industry.

Competition

There are many different competitors in the child care space.  The Toddler Warehouse will only detail the direct, or reasonably direct competitors, and will not detail the myriad of other service providers that offer some sort of child care option.  The direct competitors are:

1. Established, often franchised, child care centers. These are typically larger facilities that offer care to a wide range of ages.  The number of children serviced is usually quite large.  The child care is adequate, although somewhat impersonal by virtue of its large size.
2. Small, home-based child care. These competitors are people that have a child care facility based out of their house.  The quality of these ranges considerably, some are great, some are sub par.
3. Medium-sized companies. These are typically independently owned facilities.  Some will handle a wide range of ages, others will specialize with a specific age group.

Service Offering

The Toddler Warehouse offers Salem, Oregon upper-end child care for toddlers aged three to five.  The Toddler Warehouse offers a low teacher to student ratio, custom made facilities, and innovative learning programs.  The Toddler Warehouse hours will be a wider range than normal business hours to accommodate the working parents, the target customer.

The two income families have children, yet both parents work.  The Toddler Warehouse is an innovative solution that acts as virtual parents, broadening the children's skills during the day.  This is no baby sitter facility.  The children are engaged throughout the day, learning new skills and reinforcing already acquired ones.

Keys to Success

• Superior customer attention.
• Immaculate care of the children.
• Professionalism.
• Safety.

Critical Issues

The Toddler Warehouse is still in the speculative stage as a child care facility.  Its critical issues are to continue to take a modest fiscal approach; expand a reasonable rate, not for the sake of expansion in itself, but because it is economically wise to; and continue to build brand awareness which will drive new customers. 

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