suzy’s zoo 1
TRANSCRIPT
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SUZYS ZOOSUZYs ZOO
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A Greeting card company, located in San Diego,California
Owner Suzy Spafford, founder and president
Started the business in 1960s, working towards herbachelor of fine arts at San Diego state university.
To earn extra money for school, she worked summersand weekends at local artmarts creating colorful pastel
and water color drawings She sold her drawings for $3 per piece generating
$3000 4000 per month
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Bill Murr, a Berkley, California, medical
instrument manufacturer, saw spaffords work.
He propose to team up and start a small
greeting card company.
Initially Murr funded $600
Spafford created 8 card designs and agreed to90% (Murr) and 10 % (Spafford) split.
Suzy Zoo was officially launched.
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Area of distribution
Spafford worked from home, created designs thatwere shipped to Murr, who supervised theprinting then boxed and distributed them to localstationary stores, thse mom and pop stores
became the bread and butter. The cards immedately sold well in the Bay area
and on a smaller scale in Washington andOregon.
Within 2 years, the cards were selling throughoutCalifornia
Sales increased steadily in initial years.
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The companymaintained themerchandising policyfor sales no fancy,plain, honest business.
But in todaysenvironment, tooperate under thispolicy is little morechallenging.
Retailers expect deals,discounts,merchandising, andguarantees from themanufacturer to takeback unsold stock.
Suzys zoo products are
sold internationallythrough licenses,distributors and directsales.
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Participated in trade shows.
The two big national shows, nationalstationery gift show in New York and Los
Angeles gift show. The way to expose the product line to
different retailers.
Also participated in regional trade showsthrough participation by its salesrepresentatives orgnz.
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creative and driving force behind the
menagerie of characters that make up Suzys
Zoo.
Zoo consists of 35 cartoon characters
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Companys operations
Human Resource
Nonunion operation with approx 50
employees.
Minority owner and vice president Mr. Ray
lidstorm
An office staff of approx 12 is maintained foraccounting, marketing, purchasing credit, and
customer service functions.
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Finance
Initial finance was funded by Murr $600
Share of 90% (Murr), and 10% (Spafford)
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Operations
Currently operating at a two-story, 52000
square foot warehouse/office suite in the Mira
Mesa area of San Diego
Operations includes product design,
marketing, warehousing, and shipping
No manufacturing is done on site : rather,
manufacturing is accomplished through
subcontractors.
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Products at Zoo
Greeting cards
Coloring books, calendars, gift wrap, party
paper.
Coffee mugs
T-shirts
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Market segmentation, targetting and
positioning
Segmentation
Geographic
Psychographic Demographic
Behavioral
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Porters five forces model
The threat of entry of new competitors (new
entrants) the greeting card market is
competitive because barriers to entry are very
low
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The threat of substitutes - low
The bargaining power of buyers - high
The bargaining power of suppliers - low The degree of rivalry between existing
competitors - high
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Key Success Factors
Key to early success was to keep the company
small enough to produce on demand.
No warehousing costs and low overhead
allowed to Suzys Zoo to completely turn its
inventory three to four times per year, a
routine the company still tries to practice.
Innovation and creativity are success factors
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What lies in future
Hiring talented people who can draw forspafford, she feels that talented people arerequired to move further.
Product Innovtion - Turning the charactersinto story books, animation, videos
Expanding future through joint venture
arrangements. Want to attract Disney company for television
broadcast of her shows.
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