4.1 Data collection from Market Research
4.1.5 Criteria to choose a spa (question 15)
Table 4-1: Criteria to choose a spa
Criteria Point
a – Quality of services/products 3.59
b – Facilities 2.72
c - Price 3.26
d – Reputation 2.97
e - Location 2.45
(Source: Author’s survey)
As the result show in table below, clients care most about an particular spa are quality of service which average score is 3.59 (max score 5) and price (average score 3.26), following are spa’s reputation (average score 2.97) and facilities (average score 2.72). The lowest criteria is spa’s location (average score 2.45).
4.2 Market Segmentation
Our market will be divided into two segments: Spa customers and Zen &Yoga customers.
Spa customer will be from every ages and gender, however, because the Spa and Zen &
Yoga will be in direct association with each other, we hope that the Spa segment and Zen
& Yoga segment will greatly effect each others. In fact, our potential market segment will be male and female professional or retirees, from the age 23 with average incomes greater than 12 Million VND per month. Another important market segment is foreigners who are tourisms or oversea people live in Vietnam.
Consider to the result of survey as the potential market in geological aspect, we target that our customers will be the people who live or work mainly in the area of district 1 and district 3, beside we estimate that a part of potential market segment will be the people who live or work in neighbor district with radius about 4km from our place. (Example:
district 4, district 5, Binh Thanh district, Phu Nhuan district, Tan Binh district, etc)
Analyze the survey results which mention about the purpose of customers who come to Day Spa, we can divide them into 4 groups:
People who love pampering themselves
• People who have luxury money in hand/high disposable income
• Some of them deal with chronic pain or old injury issues
• Go to Spa/Massage House 1 – 4 times a month or more for enjoying and relaxation
• Huge anti-aging and care much about their look (especially women)
People prefer alternative health care
• Use massage as a method to prevent health care
• Sometimes use other alternative practices – example acupuncture, herbalist.
• Try to have massage service as usually as they can – often once per month
People who recovering from sick, accident or injuries
• Usually also practice with physical therapist
• Easy to become regularly clients after therapy process
People who love Zen or Yoga
• Normally in age of 30 or more
• Deal with stressful in professional/personal life
• Tend to enjoy the peace/relax atmosphere
4.3 Target Market Segment Strategy
The members of these market segments have high income and lead with the professional lives filled with stress at a consistent level. Nowadays, the demand of relaxing and enjoy healthy life increase in a direct proportion with the growth rate of the Economic which make people more stressful and depressed. Because of that, naturally, the demand relate to health service which include Day Spa will also increase rapidly, especially in a young potential city with high grow rate like HCMC.
As analyzing above, our customers tend to fall into one of four categorized group: Self- Pampering, Recovery from Sick/Injuries, Alternative Health Care and Zen & Yoga clients.
This division is not only affecting to the differences of service types which preferred by each group but also affect to the marketing and retention method applied for each group.
Moreover, the booming of rejuvenation/anti-aging market is additional momentum builder.
The clients from Self-Pampering/Relaxing group are the core of our long term customers.
The customers in this group might come to Spa 1-4 times a month or more for years and they usually refer their family and friends to use the services like them. These kind of clients are ready to pay a big money if they feel satisfy with the services which they enjoy but it will be difficult to find this type of clients. Basically, this type of clients might be attracted if we show that our products/services are excellent/original and different from the others.
Thusly, in order to attract those clients, we need a marketing method which emphasize strongly to showing how is original/sophisticated of the products/services which offered by us. Sometimes, these customers might ask for an extraordinary requirement but they often show that they are the most open-handed clients whom we can expect, too.
The clients from the Sick/Injury group might introduce to try the treatments by their Doctor or Physical Therapist or they also can be referred by other clients who have tried and found that our treatment can help for their sick/injury recovery. These clients tend to be patient trying the therapy and they might be come regular clients if they found that the therapies can help them in recovery process. The amateur of professional athletes can occupy a large amount in this group. There are a lot of people love sports and practice everyday, some of them even uses massage/other therapies to boost for their performance.
Marketing method for this group can be directly or indirectly through the referred parties such as Doctor, Physical Therapist or other clients who know or tried successfully the therapy. Basically, the most favorite services by this group is acupressure massage and Tibetan/Japanese massage can solve it well since this method has showed widely that it can affect very well for the process of sick/injury recovery. In addition, Eco Hot Bed is also an excellent choice for this group since the anti-oxidant technology has proved widely that it can help to prevent or stop the improvement of many dieses, even cancer dieses
The clients from Alternative Health Care group are the people who tend to believe and prefer for the natural methods such as acupuncturist, massage, herbalist rather than using modern medicine. Since we offer many different therapies in our spa such as Eco Hot Bed, Tibetan style massage, herbalist bathing, etc.., we believe that these clients can find the appropriate naturally therapy to prevent their health as expect. This group of clients might become our long-term customers, too.
The final group is the people who love Zen & Yoga. In Vietnam, Yoga seems to be more popular than Zen and it often held in Sport Center with many styles. Zen is more difficult to follow than Yoga because it requires the practitioner has the ability to keep concentrate in mind which is very hard for almost people. Therefore in our place, beside the normal Zen & Yoga courses like other places, we also design a total new course which combines Yoga and Zen in one package. Tibetan Yoga style with hard action will be used as
warming up step to prepare for Zen. Zen is difficult to follow but once you can catch it, it will be very wonderful.
Base on the result of survey, the clients in Yoga & Zen group are almost professional male/female in age of 30 or more. Basically, they come to Yoga & Zen classes to relax from stressful and depression in their professional or private life. We expect that once they come to our spa for Yoga & Zen, they might also interested by another services offered in our place and vice versa the clients who use Spa’s services might be interested to become attendees in Zen & Yoga classes.
4.4 Service Business Analysis
Industry participants are those who offer Spa service and Yoga & Zen classes. Spa offer the services which adapt demand of body relaxing and rejuvenation such as massages, face works, etc, while Yoga & Zen take care for mind relaxing
There are about 4 major types in health & beauty industry which we are a part of them:
a. Salon & Day Spa: Stores which offer mainly service about hair care and limited spa services (normally facial massage)
b. Day Spa: Stores focus mainly in body treatment through variety services and products (body massage, foot massage, steam – bath, sauna, etc,.).
c. Sport Center: Places where people come to exercise (running, gymnastic, normally in those place they hold courses of Yoga, few places offer Zen class also d. Medical Spa: focus mainly in non-surgical cosmetic but also offer massage therapy.
Basically, Clients choose a Spa base on some certain reasons such as good quality or exceptional services or the proximity to their daily commute. Another important factor is pricing. No matter what the price is high or not, clients are ready to pay for high price if they think that it is worth to the quality of service as they expect.
4.4.1 Typical Competitors:
There are many spas within HCMC areas and they are divided into different classes. In this topic, I just analyze some examples which relate to our spa: the luxury, the high class and medium class.
a. The luxury spa: The spa which has luxury facilities and high standard services combine with famous international brand name in spa industry. Qi spa is a typical example of this kind of spa. In HCMC, Qi spa located at Caravelle and Movenpick hotels which are the most luxury hotels in the city. They offer both spa services and salon services with full options. The strength of Qi is international brand name which belongs to Shiseido corp combine with high quality luxury services/products in a luxury space which has high standard in decoration. However, because this is an international luxury spa thus the service price is very expensive (the standard package service including sauna + massage in 1 hour is set about USD 54) and it just suites for customers stay this hotel or high class people in society.
b. The high class spa: The spa which has luxury facilities and high standard services but they don’t have the international system in the spa industry to be considered as the luxury class. Anam QT spa is a typical example of this kind of spa. In HCMC, Anam QT spa locates at 26 – 28 Dong Du street, district 1. They provide full option of spa services and a part of salon services. Their strength is high quality standard services/products in an elegant space plus high quality facilities, beside, their location in the centre of city where concentrate many offices, hotels and shopping centers is another advantage. About the price policy, at Anam QT spa, they set the standard service (sauna/steam bath + massage) at the price USD 33 and it is suitable for the customers in mid-upper and high class. In fact, we also set our spa as high class spa like Anam QT spa.
c. The medium class spa: Ngoc Anh spa system is a typical example of this segment. In HCMC they have 5 centers which operated in franchising business type and they offer full options of spa services. Their strength is a well-known brand name in middle segment of Day Spa market within HCMC area. Their services/products are quite good but the facilities are far lower compare to the luxury and high class spas which mentioned above.
They set a standard service (including sauna/steam bath + massage in 1h15’) at the price of VND 180,000 thus it is suitable for the customer in middle class.