Picture: One of exhibitor's stand in Berlin
Every year Berlin hosts the biggest European trade exhibition of fruits and vegetables. 9000 participants and more than 50000 visitors: it is very Große. We decided to visit it to talk with our future customers, learn about their approaches and just get the sense of trading environment. We went there with the list of questions in our writing pad but for us the most important question was: What should we do to price our kiwifruit (whenever we start to export) according to its quality and taste and not according to the perceptions about the country of its origin.
What are we talking about here? Well, while quality of the product is important, the quality is not the only factor and buying side will try to justify lower bidding price if the product comes from less known country, or less known country for that product category. Example: one Venezuelan chocolate and cocoa beans producer El Rey supplies leading European chocolate makers with its high quality cocoa but is not able to sell its own chocolate at the same or even similar prices of European chocolates made on the same very cocoa. This is called Provenance Paradox and you can get more examples and more analysis on this from Harvard professor Rohit Deshpandé here http://tinyurl.com/2bhw23x
Is this barrier impossible to overcome for Georgian companies(well, for really quality Georgian companies)? As we talk about Provenance Paradox it is worth mentioning that Swiss watches, German cars and French wines gained and keep their unrivalled reputation through continuous and uninterrupted delivery of quality and over and over and over, every single year since 1855 Château Lafite and Mercedes Benz since 1886 deliver highest imaginable and possible customer satisfaction. Customers just get used to these brands' qualities. Countries are also like brands. So we think that constant delivery of quality leads to absence of any doubts and customers start to affiliate certain products to certain companies and countries.
Georgian companies and particularly their owners and managers should "just" define quality of product as their N:1 priority, make and always keep it. Quality for customers is like a promise which you either keep or break.
Let's give an example. We see in Georgian supermarkets how some X brand puts a nice product promotional display. They look very sophisticated but if we look at some other Y company's display, we see wearing facing materials, edgy corners, glass not being rounded(one can cut a finger) etc. Customers of course notice these differences and make judgements. These judgements are in favour of the company which did not stop just at making a good chocolate and went further to offer a better display or a better packaging i.e. gave more to customers. Quality of even simple product such as fruit consists of 20, 25 or 30 nuances and all these nuances should be thought after from first year, every year.
To Contact the blogger, email:
nergeta@gmail.com
Is this barrier impossible to overcome for Georgian companies(well, for really quality Georgian companies)? As we talk about Provenance Paradox it is worth mentioning that Swiss watches, German cars and French wines gained and keep their unrivalled reputation through continuous and uninterrupted delivery of quality and over and over and over, every single year since 1855 Château Lafite and Mercedes Benz since 1886 deliver highest imaginable and possible customer satisfaction. Customers just get used to these brands' qualities. Countries are also like brands. So we think that constant delivery of quality leads to absence of any doubts and customers start to affiliate certain products to certain companies and countries.
Georgian companies and particularly their owners and managers should "just" define quality of product as their N:1 priority, make and always keep it. Quality for customers is like a promise which you either keep or break.
Let's give an example. We see in Georgian supermarkets how some X brand puts a nice product promotional display. They look very sophisticated but if we look at some other Y company's display, we see wearing facing materials, edgy corners, glass not being rounded(one can cut a finger) etc. Customers of course notice these differences and make judgements. These judgements are in favour of the company which did not stop just at making a good chocolate and went further to offer a better display or a better packaging i.e. gave more to customers. Quality of even simple product such as fruit consists of 20, 25 or 30 nuances and all these nuances should be thought after from first year, every year.
To Contact the blogger, email:
nergeta@gmail.com
