Student Sample #5 - Executive Summary

Executive Summary

Organizations worldwide are constantly researching new ways to maximize their profits. Companies attempting to implement creative ideas for profitable outcomes often find that the resulting ideas and innovations are difficult to establish and even harder to maintain. Our team has established a highly innovative idea that is seemingly self-maintained and forecasts a great profit, over $250,000 annually, for The University of Arizona Bookstore. Our initial desire was to find a way of extending U of A merchandise to incoming freshmen who may live out of state and not have access to the actual Bookstore. This vision helped us develop the idea of mail-order brochures selling select merchandise and apparel to be sent out to all incoming freshmen, with the target market also including their parents, relatives, friends, and U of A alumni.

Students, families, and alumni's pride in U of A are the threshold and key components of tradition. One way of showing this pride and tradition is to represent the U of A through the university's merchandise and apparel. Mail-order brochures could reach these markets before, during and even after students leave U of A, with the main target market being incoming freshmen and their families. The central idea revolves around the mail-order purchase of merchandise including such U of A products as T-shirts, sweatshirts, baseball caps, coffee mugs, and key chains. With such opportunities to purchase apparel and merchandise being sent directly to their households, the reinforcement of "We Welcome You to The University of Arizona" will give the incoming freshman a sense of open-armed invite as they are about to enter into a new college experience. Our sample brochure not only includes merchandise for sale, but also gives mention of the U of A Bookstore's online store. Through our research for this brochure, we found that nearly half of the 100 students we polled do not even realize they have the opportunity to order U of A merchandise online. We realized that sending out a brochure would also be a great way to advertise for the online store and direct more consumers to Internet purchasing. Being able to access merchandise quickly and easily through brochures and online makes purchases much more convenient for people nationwide, therefore vastly broadening the customer base and allowing for increased profit. The following report presents and explains the idea of selling U of A merchandise and apparel through a brochure as an important additive to the realm of profit for The University of Arizona.