You are a marketing consultant that has been retained by a small shoe company. This small shoe company designs and manufactures shoes for big department stores such as JCPenney's, Macy's, Dillard's and Von Maur. The small company designs the shoes and outsources the production to an overseas company that ships the shoes to the department stores. You do have competition for store space by other shoe companies and it is important that your shoes sell well in their stores.

One year ago, you launched a new line of shoes targeted at working women who are between the ages of 25-40, with better than average income, who have busy schedules, and who want fashionable dress shoes that are as comfortable as their favorite pair of tennis shoes - that they can wear for up to 12 hours a day without feeling the stress of pounding the pavement. 

Problem:

After the initial launch, you designed a successful marketing campaign that promoted the brand to the users and found that the response you received from this prime market was better than anticipated. Sales were strong and growing and demand was high. This product truly was a star. However, one year later, your finding that sales have declined dramatically and your marketing efforts are not seeing results. The product is now categorized as a question mark. You've noticed that there are some competitors that have introduced similar lines with some success. (Refer to textbook to read about the BCG matrix)

You are not quite sure at this point if you should suggest getting rid of the line altogether, or modify something about the product that would again appeal to that target market. You need to decide what to do quickly because the company is spending a lot of resources keeping this product alive. The small shoe company is operating on a limited budget, however is a new and significant problem and you believe specific research will be needed.

 Questions

What do you do? 

Assume you need to gather primary data - Determine which research technique you will use. Read the above problem characteristics carefully. Explain why you chose this technique over the others 

Explain exactly how you will go about gathering the data for this scenario. 

What are some of the problems you might encounter using this technique? 

What basic type of questions will you use for your survey questionnaire and why did you choose that type?

 Design a set of 5 questions for your survey that are intended to help you determine a recommendation to the problem. 

What will you do with the data? How will you implement the research results?