I. Executive Summary

Fast-n-Fresh is an online grocery store located in Saint Louis’s Central West

End that seeks to serve the Saint Louis area with its online product offerings. The

company is based around the idea of convenience. Fast-n-Fresh will market its

services primarily towards time constrained individuals which includes families,

business professionals, and college students. The company will reach its targeted

demographic primarily with online advertising methods since Fast-n-Fresh is

already an online business. Online advertisements will be conducted through social

media sites, online news websites, and e-mail. Additional marketing will come

through paper advertisements such as doorknockers and magazines/newspapers,

and radio station commercials. With Fast-n-Fresh utilizing its advertising methods

to reach its key demographic, the company can expect sales revenue between

$1,428,00 and $3,704,000.

The online grocery market is a popular trend with several large retailers

(Walmart, Target, and Amazon) already offering online grocery options to their

customers. The younger consumer generation, in particular, has been eager to take

advantage of online grocery shopping. Fast-n-Fresh’s human resources department

will address five key areas: customer service, IT/IS, inventory, distribution, and the

executive board. Additional personnel will need to be added to Fast-n-Fresh’s team

as the business grows and develops. Fast-n-Fresh will use a warehouse located in

Saint Louis’s Central West End as its base of operations. The warehouse will have

two main sections. The first sections will be where customers pick up their

groceries, and the second will be where Fast-n-Fresh stores its merchandise. In

addition to the two main sections of the warehouse, there will be a portion of the

facility set aside for white-collar office spaces, and a customer service center. Other

facility necessities will include carts, customer parking, RFID scanners, and other

miscellaneous equipment.

II. Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………………………. 1

Mission Statement…………………………………………………………………………………….. 1Concept and Company………………………………………………………………………………. 1Management Team…………………………………………………………………………………… 1Product……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 2

MARKETING STRATEGY…………………………………………………………………………….. 3

Demographics…………………………………………………………………………………. 4Trends……………………………………………………………………………………………. 5Market Penetration…………………………………………………………………………. 8Potential Sales Revenue…………………………………………………………………… 9

FINANCING THE BUSINESS………………………………………………………………………… 10

Summarized Income Statement for First Year………………………… AppendixSummarized Balance Sheet for First Year……………………………….. AppendixCash Flow Analysis………………………………………………………………... Appendix

FACILITIES PLAN……………………………………………………………………………………… 11

HUMAN RESOURCES PLAN……………………………………………………………………….. 14

WORK CITED……………………………………………………………………………………………. 19

III. Introduction

Fast-n-Fresh is a grocery store that will be operated almost entirely online

and located in Saint Louis’s Central West End. Potential customers will be able to

access the grocery store through an easy to operate online interface, order their

groceries, and have the option to either pick the groceries up themselves from Fast-

n-Fresh’s distributing center, or have the groceries delivered to their homes. Fast-n-

Fresh will be built around the idea of convenience. In such a fast paced world, many

people simply do not have the time to visit a traditional grocery store. Fast n’ Fresh

will facilitate this increasing need. It is the mission of Fast-n-Fresh to be the premier

supplier of groceries to the city of St. Louis by providing a convenient online shopping

experience to the time constrained individuals of this fast paced area.

Fast-n-Fresh will be led by an upper level administration that consists of nine

executives. The organizational chart (located below) clearly delegates the hierarchy of

authority and includes the division of labor for each executive. As a start-up company in

a new market, we decided to have a traditional hierarchy where each subordinate answers

to his or her immediate superior. This provides more time for upper level management to

focus on the completion of long term company goals. Fast-n-Fresh is a fast growing and

perpetual company which will require plenty of room for expansion. The traditional

hierarchy chart has been the most efficient for fast growing companies because it leaves

the span of control narrower than other structures.

The product that Fast-n-Fresh will be selling is traditional grocery store

items. The store will sell over 40,000 private and store brand labels online for our

customers to select from. Customers will use the Internet to access Fast-n-Fresh’s

website, FastnFresh.com. FastnFresh.com will be easy to navigate and user friendly.

It will include a search bar at the top of the website (pictured below) that customers

can use to search for specific items, and tabs along the side that include major food

groups to streamline the shopping experience (“vegetables”, “fruit”, “chicken”, etc.).

As customers select items, they will be put into a virtual “shopping cart” (pictured

below) in the top right corner of the website. The shopping cart includes a tallied

dollar amount to show customers how much they have spent.

When customers are ready to check out, they will choose to either pick up

the items from Fast-n-Fresh’s distributing center, or to have the groceries delivered

door to door. If they choose to pick the items up themselves, customers will select a

time range (ex. 5:30pm-6:30pm) to collect their groceries that fits their schedules. If

individuals choose to have their groceries delivered, they will be charged an

additional $10.00 fee, they will enter delivery information on the website (name,

address, phone number, etc.), and select an option from a list of specific delivery

times. Customers can choose to have their groceries delivered between 4:00-

5:00pm, 5:30-6:30pm, or 7:00-8:00pm. It will be the customer’s responsibility to be

present at their home during the selected delivery time to receive the groceries. If

the customers are not at their homes at the time of delivery, the groceries will be

brought back to the distribution center and delivered at the same time the next day.

Delivery will only be available within the Saint Louis City limits.

Once delivery or pick up has been selected, customers will then pay for their

groceries (and delivery if applicable) using debit, credit, or Paypal. When the

payment has been received, a digital receipt will be given which customers can save

or discard. Customers that are picking up their groceries from Fast-n-Fresh’s

distributing center will either need to produce the receipt, or some form of

identification to pick up their groceries.

IV. Marketing Strategy

The demographic that Fast-n-Fresh will market its services to is primarily

time-constrained individuals. “Time constrained individuals” can incorporate

several different subgroups, the first of which is families. Families are busy with

children, household responsibilities, and jobs. The lack of time that many families

face makes this group a key demographic for Fast-n-Fresh’s marketing strategy. The

City of Saint Louis has 147,076 households to potentially market to (Area Connect,

2013) . Over 52%, or 76,976, of the households in Saint Louis have identified

themselves as a “family” (Area Connect, 2013). These statistics are optimistic as

they provide Fast-n-Fresh with a large supply of families to successfully implement

its convenience based marketing strategy.

The next demographic that Fast-n-Fresh will target is business professionals.

Business professionals, much like families, have responsibilities with their jobs that

can create time crunches. Consequently, business professionals would be more

likely to respond positively to Fast-n-Fresh’s campaign, which is aimed at

convenience. To gauge this demographic, Fast-n-Fresh will use statistics that relate

to education in Saint Louis to assess the amount of business professionals that are in

the city. The logic behind this assumption is that with more education, people will

likely have higher paying jobs that require more of their time. Saint Louis has a large

proportion of people with bachelor and graduate or professional degrees. Over 28%

of the population 25 years and over has a bachelor’s degree or higher (City-Data,

2013). An additional 11.8% of the 28% have gone on and achieved graduate or

professional degrees (City-Data, 2013). This 28% represents a large pool of

potential business professional customers that Fast-n-Fresh can aim its convenience

based marketing strategy at.

Finally, “time constrained individuals” certainly incorporates college

students. College students have homework, projects, test, etc that can make simple

things like shopping for groceries an inconvenience. Saint Louis has several colleges

with large student bodies for Fast-n-Fresh to aim its convenience based marketing

strategy at. Saint Louis University has a student body population of 16,086 (Forbes,

2013). Additionally, Washington University, located in suburban Saint Louis, has

11,967 undergraduates and graduate students (Washington University , 2013). The

student bodies of these universities provide a large assortment of potential

customers for Fast-n-Fresh to market to.

Online grocery shopping is becoming an increasingly popular trend. In fact,

one third of consumers reported buying grocery items online in the past month

(Integrated Marketing Services, 2011). The younger generation, in particular, is

responding positively to online grocery shopping. “Gen Y is just becoming a true

grocery demographic, and its members have a preference and aptitude for digital

technology that make online shopping a natural fit” (Integrated Marketing Services,

2011). Some large corporations have already started to adopt an online grocery

strategy to further satisfy customer’s needs. Large retailers such as Amazon, Wal-

Mart, CVS, and Target have all begun to establish a presence in the online grocery

market. Amazon introduced its online delivery service “Amazon Fresh” in Seattle in

2011. Similarly, Wal-Mart has been testing “Wal-Mart to Go” in San Jose since 2011.

Wal-Mart has an advantage over companies like Amazon because of the thousands

of stores that it has located around the country (Integrated Marketing Services,

2011). Wal-Mart is able to use its stores as delivery points to fulfill online grocery

orders.

Online grocery shopping is becoming an increasing popular trend because of

the potential benefits to consumers. These benefits include better prices, free

shipping, same-day service, better product selection, and many more (Integrated

Marketing Services, 2011). Customers are keenly aware of these potential benefits.

Baby boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y all listed “better prices” or “free

shipping” as incentives that would attract them to conduct more online grocery

shopping (Integrated Marketing Services, 2011). In order to capitalize on this trend,

companies are encouraged to start the marketing process immediately, develop a

digital presence, have an easy-to-use website interface, and promote themselves

(Integrated Marketing Services, 2011).

Fast-n-Fresh’s plan for optimal market development is strategic

advertisement. Since our target market is business professionals, college students,

and families, the advertising will be set up to specifically target these individuals

groups. The channels through which this will be achieved are websites, paper, and

radio. Since Fast-n-Fresh is an online grocery store, the key aspects of the

advertisement campaign will be conducted online.

Even the most time-constrained families find time to check their social media

sites. Therefore, Fast-n-Fresh’s advertisements will be found on social media sites

(Facebook, Twitter, MySpace) of residents living in the city of St. Louis. The second

form of online advisement will be conducted on online news websites. Since it is

important to business professionals to know what is going on in the business world,

the best method to reach this demographic is through advertisements on frequented

business news websites. The third and final form of online advertisement will be via

email, which will be aimed primarily towards college students and business

professionals. Most universities have university sponsored email accounts in which

Fast-n-Fresh could reach college students, and almost all business professionals use

e-mail.

Paper advertisement will also be an important way for Fast-n-Fresh to

develop the online grocery market. “Doorknockers”, in particular, are a useful paper

advertisement method to share information with college students. Since most

students live on campus or close to it, doorknockers that are strategically placed

around dorms will play a vital role in Fast-n-Fresh’s paper advertising campaign. In

addition, many students living in dorms will not have transportation to a traditional

grocery store and would appreciate Fast-n-Fresh’s delivery options. A second paper

advertisement option is magazines and newspapers. This will be limited to St. Louis

publications including, but not limited to: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, FEAST

magazine, St. Louis magazine, and Sauce magazine. These popular publications will

appeal to all of Fast-n-Fresh’s targeted demographic.

The final form of advertisement will be through radio station ads. Sometimes

the only free time individuals have is the car ride to work, school, and errands.

Therefore, the only chance Fast-n-Fresh has to advertise to its “time constrained”

demographic might be while they are listening to the radio. It is very crucial to

advertise to even the busiest of potential customers, and this opportunity will

present itself during radio commercial breaks. The radio stations that Fast-n-Fresh’s

radio advertisements will be played on include 93.7 KSD, 92.3 WIL, 94.7 KSHE, and

103.3 KOLU, and Z107.7. The advertisements will be played during the morning, at

lunch, and at work time rush hour (4-5pm) because these are times that potential

customers will be traveling and most likely to be in a car.

Fast n’ Fresh can expect a sales revenue between $1,428,000 and $3,704,000.

This number was calculated based on the sales revenue of Wal-Mart’s online

grocery service and the average sales revenue of all online grocery services in the

United States. Below is a more detailed description of how the sales revenue figures

were reached:

Wal-Mart online sales were $7.7 billion. Groceries accounted for 51% of Wal-

Mart's $258.2 billion in U.S. sales last year. Assume 51% of 7.7 billion will

account for online grocery sales, then divide by the total number or Wal-

Mart’s stores (2,750 supercenters in the U.S). 3.927 billion (51% of 7.7

billion)/2,750= 1,428,000. (Talley, 2010)

Overall grocery market has $6 billion in revenue. There are 1,620 grocery

store businesses in the United States. By dividing the $6 billion/1,620

businesses = $3,703,703.70 (IBISWorld, 2012)

V. Financing the Business

As a cutting edge grocery distributor in a new market, Fast-n-Fresh has been

financially successful receiving a net profit of $133,119 during its first month of

operation and maintaining a steady profit throughout the year. The company continues to

flex its financial muscles with a calculated gross profit of over $2.2 million by the end of

2013. Fast-n-Fresh is extremely efficient because its inventory turnover is using a just-in-

time method that has sold more than $136,000 worth of groceries with no remaining

inventory in 2013. A summarized income statement of Fast-n-Fresh for the year ended

December 31st, 2013 is located in the appendix (Appendix A) of this business plan.

The first month of operation went extremely well for our company. Fast-n-Fresh

embarked on a new and still untouched market in the Saint Louis area. Since there is little

to no competitors is in this market, Fast-n-Fresh is reaping the benefits. The company

generated $150,000 in cash sales along with $150,000 in sales on account. By the months

end our total assets reached $300,000, which has almost doubled our original projected

income. A summarized balance sheet for the month ending January 31st, 2013 is located

in the appendix (Appendix B) of this business plan.

VI. Facilities Plan

The Fast-n-Fresh distributing center will require specific equipment in order

to successfully operate. The company has chosen to rent a warehouse in the Central

West End of Saint Louis to be our base of operations. This warehouse will include

two sections. The first section will be where customers pick up their placed grocery

orders. This first section will also be designed with loading stations that all

customers will park at. After parking in the designated area, our Fast-n-Fresh

employees will quickly load the vehicle with the ordered merchandise. This will be

a fast and efficient method for customers to pick up orders.

The second section of our warehouse will be where Fast-n-Fresh's inventory

is stored. This part of the facility will be organized by using shelves to store the

company’s products. The items on these shelves will be organized by food type and

then in placed in alphabetical order. Fast-n-Fresh will routinely take inventory of

shelved merchandise to update and ensure that we have a well-stocked store. The

store will use RFID scanners on shelved inventory to track merchandise and base

customer transactions. These scanners will help keep an accurate inventory, and

will also be useful in providing the company with a fast method of making accurate

transactions.

Cameras will also be installed throughout our store for security purposes.

The cameras outside of the store will provide us with more security and may help

prevent theft. The cameras located inside of the warehouse will be monitoring

employees and observing issues from operations. Forklifts will be needed in order

to move large skids of merchandise throughout our store. The skids will cut down

on manual labor costs and will efficiently deliver inventory from one place to the

next. Another section of the warehouse will be a designated storage freezer. This

area will house all of our frozen foods that we keep in stock. In addition to the

storage freezer, a smaller freezer room will be installed to temporarily keep cold

food item orders frozen until the arrival of the customer.

Fast-n-Fresh will also require additional equipment in order to operate

effectively. First, we will provide customers who have not placed an order with

checkout tablets. Customers may use these devices to place an order on site. Fast-

n-Fresh will also require our employees to wear matching bright green uniforms.

The reason for this color is to easily notice workers during the potentially

dangerous loading phase. Fast-n-Fresh will also need order carts to gather items

from a particular order and organize them by customer. The store will also require

the purchase of delivery trucks for our delivery service. These employee-driven

trucks will enable us to expand our services to additional customer bases in the

Saint Louis area.

Some space in the warehouse will be designated for Fast-n-Fresh’s office of

operations. This area will be a workstation for both the general manager and

company owners. Our office space will be connected directly to our employee break

room. In addition to the management office, we will also have a customer service

and call center room. The call center will be added onto the original building and

will be directly accessible to customers from outside the warehouse.

The rest of Fast-n-Fresh’s facilities are part of the miscellaneous category. We

will need to construct a restroom for both male and female employees.

Furthermore, a break room will be constructed for our employees to eat, and to take

work breaks. Fast-n-Fresh managers will all be equipped with a device that will be

used to effectively communicate with other managers and employees, and receive

job-related information.

o Warehouse:o Shelveso Item Scanners (RFID tags)o Food Supplieso Cameraso Forkliftso Storage freezer/ Temporary coolero Warehouse Utilities (Water, Electricity, ect.)

o Operating Equipment:o Checkout/ Order Tabletso Employee Uniformso Order Cartso Delivery Carso Office Room/Supplieso Customer Service Room

Miscellaneous Equipment:o Employee Restroomso Employee Break Roomo Manager Communication Device (Blackberry)

VII. Human Resource Plan

For Fast-n-Fresh to succeed, Human Resources will need to address five main

portions of our business: customer service, IT/IS, inventory, distribution, and the

executive board. These five components will require a large amount of human resources

to maintain operations and provide customers with quick and convenient service.

Customer service will require a call center for any questions by phone, a location

where customers can come in if needed, and management to maintain efficiency. IT/IS

will need technicians and IT professional to maintain the website and help customers

with technical problem. IT/IS will also be involved in developing internal programs for

inventory and distribution. Inventory will require people to unload and stock shipments

from suppliers, clerks to record purchases and schedule shipments from suppliers.

Distribution will require delivery truck drivers and workers to prepare the order for

delivery or pick up. The executive board will be in charge of the major decision-making

and strategy development for the company. These five components are necessary for our

business to achieve its goals.

Suggested Approach

Prioritized Initiatives1 Customer service

o Provides feedback and information to customers and helps to improve customer experience. Customer service also collects valuable information about the target market and how to better the organizations business strategy.

Goal: To provide a friendly and helpful environment to the costumer

Strategy: Hire four customer service representatives to staff a two

person customer service location. Hire four call center representatives to operate a two person

call center.

Request an automated answering system from IT to process routine requests.

Hire one customer service manager to oversee the customer service location and call center.

2 Maintaining IT/ISo IT/IS is in charge of maintaining the computer systems that collect and

organize information about the customer, suppliers, and employees involved in the organization.

Goal: To provide customers and employees with up to date information and technical support.

Strategy: Hire 3 IT/IS technicians to provide computer maintenance

and technical support to employees and customers Hire 2 programmers to provide up to date software and

operating systems. Hire one IT/IS manager to oversee the IT/IS department

3 Maintaining Inventoryo Monitoring the supplies on hand and scheduling deliveries with suppliers

when needed. Goal: To maintain a constant flow of products into the

store. Strategy:

Hire four stock clerks to receive shipments from suppliers and record inventory for accounting and Supply Chain Management data.

Hire one supply chain management professionals to insure efficient inventory purchases to keep up with demand and to improve communication and relationships with suppliers

4 Maintaining Distributiono Insure that delivery of products arrive punctually and are recorded for

inventory. Goal: Maintain a constant flow of products out of the store.

Strategy: Hire four drivers for the three delivery trucks Hire one delivery manager to schedule deliveries and

operate the storefront

Human Resource Cost AnalysisDepartment FT employees PT employees Cost of WagesCustomer Service 1 8 $70,000.00 IT/IS 1 5 $100,000.00 Inventory 1 4 $60,000.00 Distribution 0 5 $70,000.00 Executive board 9 0 $108,000.00 Total 12 22 $408,000.00

Customer service, IT/IS, inventory, and distribution must be maintained and

improved for Fast-n-Fresh to succeed. Human Resources will need more funding to keep

up with increasing demand and maintain these four portions of our company. Human

resources will also need to address employee training and a possible benefits program for

tenured employees. Human resources is committed to maintaining a productive and

happy work environment to achieve Fast-n-Fresh’s goal of quick and convenient

groceries.

Appendix

Appendix A

Appendix B

Work Cited

Area Connect. (2013). St. Louis Missouri Population and Demographics Resources. Retrieved from Area Connect: http://saintlouis.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm

City-Data. (2013). St. Louis, Missouri. Retrieved from City-Data.com: http://www.city-data.com/city/St.-Louis-Missouri.html

Forbes. (2013). #381 Saint Louis University. Retrieved from Forbes.com: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/94/best-colleges-10_Saint-Louis-University_950254.html

Integrated Marketing Services. (2011). The New Aisle: Emerging Trends in Online Grocery Shopping. Retrieved from Path to Purchase Institute: http://www.integratedmarketingservices.com/images/pages/2012_new_aisle_paper.pdf

Washington University . (2013). About WUSTL. Retrieved from Washington University in Saint Louis: http://wustl.edu/about/facts/students/

Talley, K. (2010, March 31). Wal-mart's grocery sales expand. Retrieved from

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304252704575156043280712972

IBISWorld. (2012, October). Online grocery sales in the us:Market research report. Retrieved from http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/online-grocery-sales.html