So for my design studies enterprise project we had to create a company or service for a post consumer audience. After a week or so of research my group came up with a typical post consumer profile through brain storming and mind maps. We as a group met every Thursday afternoon from 12:30pm to 5:00pm and on occasions arranged to meet on other days. We created a facebook group page to allow us to file share with each other and to keep in contact about meetings and progression on the business proposal.
We found out that they are usually 30plus to middle aged, own their own homes and perhaps have an allotment to grow vegetables. They are influenced in the way they live by recycling, concerns for the planet and environment, fairtrade products and modest consumption. They are not influenced by advertising and rely on word of mouth and recommendations from friends and family to influence their decisions. We found out that through being a post consumer they are trying to achieve reduced waste. Encouraging others to do the same and to help change the habits and cultures of many individuals and businesses. They also try to educate others in their belief that ‘money does not equal status.’ Post Consumers shop in charity or second hand shops and use online resources such as sharing websites to help reduce their costs.
Coming up with a business proposal to suit the target audience for a post consumer proved to be harder than we had first predicted and in the beginning we took some time deliberating over a few small ideas and working out there pro’s and con’s for the post consumer and for ourselves as a successful business. We came up with a list of a few ideas detailed below:
A City Allotment - allowing people to grow their own vegetables
Community ‘Buy in Bulk’ service - to save money and waste
Collecting peoples unwanted food - delievering to homeless shelters
An app - allowing the consumer to scan items to se their sustainability ratings
Restaurant - selling meals prepared with fairtrade and local products
A Community Sharing Service - we would store everyones items from their garage/loft and rent them out when needed.
We decided on the final idea here of creating a Community Sharing Service. The idea and concept behind this business was to have a sense of community. We understand this is a very important factor in a post consumers way of life so tried to use this as our main point of focus within our business. Our scheme allows for people to reduce waste, save space and money and have access to a wide range of products all under one roof. Initially our target market would be post consumers but after a year or so in business we would hope to branch out to a wider audience. We did some research into existing companies who also offer some sort of community service. Examples of these existing companies are: Couch Surfing, Split Stuff, Fitness Takeaway, Preloved, Freecycle, Ecobees and borrowme.com.
In order to gain some primary information we took it upon ourselves to organise some trips to local companies around Dundee. We split off into two teams and one of us when to the recycling centre and spoke to the owner Doug who gave us a great insight into the runnings of the centre and how they deal with broken equipment and on the premises repairs. We also asked about the buying of spare parts from them if we needed to fix an item belonging to ourselves and they have a wide selection of ‘spare parts’ we would be able to choose from.
With ‘The Communitay Attic’ being a sharing/renting out service our other team went along to the University Library and the Photography Equipment Studio. We asked about how effective the system is of booking equipment out, how they deal with late fee’s and damages. We also spoke with the owner of Spooks in Dundee who agreed to help us with any bike repairs we had. One member of our team also emailed B&Q to see if they would be interested in donating items to our catalogue.
To finalise all the financial and costs of running this business Ross took it upon himself to looking into memberships fees of similar companies. He also looked at costing of purchasing a van and its running and maintenance. I looked into locating a premises in Dundee for our warehouse and gave Ross the rental prices and this was taking into consideration when we worked out our financial budget and projected costs for the next 3 years.
To finish off our business idea we put together a presentation and presented it infront of our design studies lecture. Overall we worked very well as a team, we had certain people who has strengths in particular areas who put them to great use when needed. We all bonded well together making our meetings fun aswell as productive and in the end I think we created a very well thought out company which if it ever happened would hopefully flourish into a successful business.
