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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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