EPC Business Comparing Report

COFFEE SHOP ENGLISH 2 ( 30605 ) Page 1 of 32

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT
PRESENTATION TITLE: COFFEE SHOP
GROUP MEMBERS:
Names Presentation Roles
DARREN SIA HANG YIN
( 0318253 )
ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)
LECTURER: CASSANDRA WIJESURIA
SUBMISSION PRESENTATION DATE:
2 DECEMBER 2014
DESCRIPTION ABOUT WHEELER’S COFFEE
LEE YIH
(0318340 )
DESCRIPTION ABOUT COFFEE COTTAGE
LOVIE TEY YIQING
( 0318155 )
DESCRIPTION ABOUT WHEELER’S COFFEE
LOW EN HUEY
( 0317889 )
EXPLANATION ABOUT STRATEGIES , FUTURE
PLAN AND WAYS TO SUSTAIN OF WHEELER’S
COFFEE
SIMPSON CHIN JIUNN YIH
( 0318154 )
NATURE OF BUSINESS, PRODUCTS, BEST
SELLERS, FUTURE PLANS

TABLE OF CONTENT
1. Key Summary
2. History of the trade
3. Description of the business
4. Comparative Analysis of the businesses Competitive Traits
5. Recommendation
6. Bibliography
7. Appendices
8. Reference

Summary
Café is coffee houses that allow people enjoy their coffee in different environment depend on the
theme of the café. The special café we chosen are Wheeler’s coffee café and other is Coffee
Cottage. Wheeler’s coffee is located at Love Lane, Penang. It is a very special café because the café
has unique decoration and theme. The theme of the café is bicycle; the café is fully decorated by
bicycle. Coffee Cottage is located at SS15, Subang Jaya. It is also a very special café because the
café allows people to pet and play with the cats and the cats in the café are moving freely. That’s
always have competitors everywhere included Wheeler’s coffee café and Coffee Cottage. Both of
the café using their own strategy to maintain or increase the customer a day.

A description of the history of the trade/business and what it involves.
A café is a type of restaurant that serves coffee, snacks and dessert. In Malaysia, traditional coffee
and breakfast shops are called kopitiam. Menus typically feature simple offerings: a variety of foods
based on egg, toast, and coconut jam, plus coffee, and tea. Kopitiams are commonly found in
almost all residential areas as well as some industrial and business districts in Malaysia. They often
appear as an aggregate of small stalls or shops. However, some may be more reminiscent of food
courts. All kopitiams share a similar appearance and are steeped in tradition and nostalgic memories
in the past.
A true kopitiam embraces a feeling of tradition and culture. Old fashioned kopitiams are steeped in
tradition, with its own unique history. The tradition kopitiams are often family owned and handed
down from father to son from generation. However, these days for many old fashion kopitiam
owners, their craft ends at the moment they retire because for a lot of them, their children have been
educated and are not willing to carry on the family business. The traditional kopitiam serves as a
social nucleus, where everybody interacts with each other, communicate and make friends with
everyone there.
Now, branded coffee houses have emerged, thus evolving the humble kopitiam in accordance to
modern society’s desire to move forward. This is a new age where a new breed of kopitiam has
emerged. – Café. The smell of roasted coffee has changed ever since. The coffee scene has changed
into one that is synonymous with lifestyle. It has become a necessity to the work-life balance that
brought fashionable terms such as “Latte” and “Frappe”.

Brief Description of the Businesses
The name of the café that we have chosen is Coffee Cottage. It is located at 1-1, Jalan
SS15/8A, 47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia. Currently, Coffee Cottage does not have any
branches. However, the enterprise group do have another Cottage Group, called the Pets Cottage
Group, which includes Kitten Cottage, Puppy Cottage and Groomers Connection. They are all very
suitable for pet lovers. Then, in Coffee Cottage itself, there are 7 workers working per day. 3 full-timers
and 4 part timer, which are then divided into roles of Team Leader, Manager, and Staff. Only
full-timers can be promoted to Team Leader and Manager. The main products that they are selling
are coffee, tea, and cake and desserts. The best selling beverages include Nutella Latte and
Chocolate, and the best selling cakes are Crunchy Nutella, Red Velvet cake, and Thai Milk Tea.
Note that Thai Milk Tea is not a drink, it is a name of a cake. The layer of tea in the cake was
imported from Thailand. Besides that, their teas are all made of tea leaves from the famous TWG.
Then, the main service in Coffee Cottage is catering. They cater a stress-free environment for the
customers. The environment is said to be stress relieving because there are pet cats in the café that
you can play with. The estimated current number of customers is roughly about 35,000 since
opening, averaging about 130 customers per day. Coffee Cottage was established in March 2014.
The café was founded by Mr.Warren Lim, who is in the group of enterprise as Kitten Cottage,
Puppy Cottage, and Groomers Connection. Founders of Coffee Cottage are just a bunch of animal
lovers who wanted to step into the food and beverage industry. Owner Warren Lim said that, a lot
of people like pets but they do not want the responsibilities of owning one, so they visit them. Then,
three-quarter of the cats in Coffee Cottage are rescued cats. They are then fed, groomed, and gave
proper medical by the professionals in Groomers Connection before transferring them to Coffee
Cottage. So, the business also acts as a new home for the once-stray animals.

The other cafe we chosen is Wheeler’s coffee café; the café is located at No. 67, Love Lane,
10200, Georgetown, Penang. The business of this café started on June 2014, the owners of this
café started planned this business since starting of the year but they couldn’t started their
business early is because the renovation and the decoration of the café took a long time. The
founder of this café is Steven, he opened this café is because he is a coffee lovers and also a
bike lovers. He wants to spread the culture of coffee to everyone and hope everyone understand
the knowledge of coffee and love coffee.
The theme of Wheeler’s coffee café is bicycle and the tagline of the café is “The bicycle is a
simple solution to some of the world’s most complicated problems”. The owner chosen
bicycle as the their theme is because cycle bicycle is a healthy activity that brings us healthy
body and healthy mind, the owner wants people to drinks a healthy coffee in a healthy
environment like cycling that will brings us healthy body and healthy mind. There are no
branches for Wheeler’s coffee café because the owner of this café thinks that they have to settle
down and stable their main café before have any branches.
In this café, they provide different kinds of coffee, tea, juice, soda, salad, sandwiches,
breakfast, lunch, dinner and also cakes. They always provide set breakfast, lunch and dinner for
customers because Wheeler’s coffee café want to provide a valuable set for customers. For the
café, the best sellers of the beverage are the Toffe Nut latte, for those sweet lovers and also
Deluxe Tiramisu.
Wheeler’s coffee café have two owners, one of the owner named Steven, he used to study
information technology and he also a coffee lover and the other owner named John , one team
leader manager, five part times workers, the part-time workers will be trained as cashers or

waiter waitress. In the café, they total have five full time workers, they have two chefs in the
café who in charge of cooking western food, one bakers, one casher and one barista that have a
good skills of making latte art and making a good coffee.
The estimated customers on Wheeler’s coffee café are 400 per days. In the coffee café, usually
people who are youngster visit the most because the environment of the café is suitable of
people to chill to relax or to hang out with their friends.
In this café, they provided bicycle rental and darts machines for people. Starting of the
business they always provided bicycle rental but slowly they do not rent any bicycle because the
shop nearby are also provide bicycle rental and other reason is people may steal the bicycle or
do not return back the bicycle. The other service is darts machines, the owner of the café
provide darts machine is because they want people to understand darts machine in a healthy
places not in somewhere that are not healthy such as pub or club that have bring bad to our
body.

Comparative Analysis of the Businesses’ Competitive Traits
Wheeler’s Coffee Analysis Aspect Coffee Cottage
48 Number of
competitors
58

1.Espresso Lab
Located at the heart of Subang Jaya,
right beside of Coffe Cottage,
EspressoLab SS15 is a specialty
coffee house aiming to provide the
best experience in coffee, cakes and
ambience. This coffee shop owns a
two-storey shop lots, they provide
services such as takes reservations,
walk-ins welcome, good for groups,
good for kids, take out and waiter
service, and even free wifi. As the
name would imply, they specialises in
brewing coffee using their own brand
of coffee beans served in all manners
imaginable; espresso, macchiato,
cappucino, latte, piccolo latte, mocha,
etc. To vary their options of for
costumers, they provide food such as
lasagne, spaghetti and cakes as well,
one of the main product is Red Velvet,
served with cream cheese frost as the
topping, red velvet and cheesecake at
the center. The wall of this cafe is
painted black and dim light is used to
decorate, it has large spacing which
can comfortably seat up to a crowd of
20 at most.
Top 3 Competitors 1. China house
China house is a café at Victoria Street
in Georgetown. The special feature of
China house that attract customer is that
this café spread across three heritage
houses linked by an open air courtyard.
It is also converted into 14 spaces
comprising of shops, cafes, restaurant,
galleries, live music and bakery which
patrons find the shop is unique with that
feature. The shop opens daily, from 10
o’clock in the morning to 12 midnight.
China house serve great pastries and
cakes besides coffee. They have variety
choices of cake to be sold every day,
approximately 30 different kinds of
cakes. The price of the cakes range
from RM8 to RM12. Their top seller
for cakes are carrot cake, tiramisu and
chocolate cake. However, the price for
main course is slightly higher than
normal price. The great heritage taste
and environment of the shop has
attracted many customers especially
foreign tourists. Locals also love to
gather at China house because of its big
compound of which consist of 14
different space. China house provides
various kinds of entertainment like live
band during the night, wifi services,
hipster bar and board games.

2. Tryst Café
Tryst Cafe resides in a more unassuming
zone where there is less traffic and
crowd, it is an espresso bar/café that
endeavour to provide special spaces for
people to dine, relax and unwind. It
doesn't appear as a very appealing place
to hangout but pretty decent for some
food, coffee and tranquil conversations.
Their cuisine is mainly focus on New
American, Asian Fusion, Breakfast, Soul
Food and Tex-Mex varies from espresso
based drinks, teas, sodas, cakes, pastas,
steaks, pancake meals to Tryst specials.
It is a hipster cafe featuring a mix and
match of colours along with wooden
furnitures, even having a bar-like table
for a different seating. Lights are pretty
much dim here but the basking of
natural sunlight from both the front and
rear of the shop is sufficient to
illuminate the cafe. For the convenience
of public, the nearest train station is near
to Subang Parade via KTM commuter to
visit the shop.
Competitors
2. Café 55
Café 55 is located at the intersection
of Chulia street ad Stewart Lane in
Georgetown. It offers
Mediterranean- inspired cuisine in
an informal setting. The heritage
café opens daily for breakfast from
8 o’clock to 11 o’clock in the
morning and it is closed during
lunch time but reopens at 2 o’clock
in the afternoon until 9 o’clock at
night. The environment for this café
is relaxing, comprised a mixture of
modern design and traditional
design. It is revived from a prewar
house into a heritage unit.The café
is famous for its 3D coffee which
made the café stands out from the
others. Their 3D coffee is unique in
Penang and the idea of it has attract
new customer to the café. The price
of the coffee range from RM6 to
RM 15. Their top sellers are Café
Latte with Biscotti, Caramel
Macchiato and Chocolate Chips.
They also serve nice tapas. Café 55
is a nice spot for gathering and
reading as the environment is cozy.

3. Cosans Coffee
Located same row as Canai in SS15,
Cosans Coffee is a more deep-pocketed
coffee house that strives for soothing
slickness in a calculated, crowd-pleasing
fashion. Cosans Coffee serves good,
mild coffee with the foam which is
always perfectly steamed, that gives us a
great texture of drinking it as well as the
nice mocha in terms of taste and texture.
The menu for coffee and other
beverages is extensive, covering items
such as chocolate, smoothies and teas as
well as frappe. They also want to fulfill
customer’s taste needs by producing a
selection of delicious foods such as
dessert and other delectable treats.
Cosans Coffee is an ancient British
designed cafe which is considerably
spacious, classy, and stylish. Despite its
large capacity, it is often full house at
the weekend's midnight and additional
table seats will be placed in the aisle
outside. Although it is a bit pricey in
comparing with other cafes, but its
quality and the portion given might
worth
Competitors
3. The Mugshot Café
The Mugshot café is located at
Chulia street in Georgetwon. It is a
rustic and rather hip café. The
location of the café is excellent
because it is situated beside the
Rainforest Bakery which is famous
for their bakeries, customers would
come to the Mugshot Café to have
some coffee in the morning. The
operating hours for the café is from
8o’clock in the morning to 9
o’clock at night. The café is famous
for its excellent coffee and freshly
made Bagel Muffins. Their coffee
price range from RM6 to RM 12
whereas the Bagel muffins cost
RM10 per piece, which is rather
expensive. The nice interior and
cozy setting of the café has gained
them a lot of loyal customers.

Coffee Cottage competes with all the above
cafes in terms of locations, which is SS15.
SS15 is easily accessible via Federal Highway
and New Pantai Expressway (NPE). It is also
just minutes away from the townships of
Petaling Jaya such as Bandar Sunway, Ara
Damansara and Bandar Utama. However, there
are around approximately 48 coffee shops
open in SS15 and 8 coffee shops within one
row of shop lots. This diverts the attention of
customers because every customers have their
own choices of favour to hang out.
The strategy that Coffee Cottage used to
compete with other coffee shops is through the
outstanding theme of the cafe. Coffee Cottage
has a natural unique selling point which is,
Cats are free to prowl the cat area of the café,
and can be groomed and petted. Customers can
also buy food for the cats, and eat alongside
the five friendly kitties. It is not a pure-breed
cat café but both a cat and coffee café, and
aims to serve both the pet lover as well as
those who just want a meal and coffee. Besides
of that, Coffee Cottage also serves coffee and
cake at the basis of medium range price range
from RM 7 to Rm 16. This is due to most of
the customers are university students with low
economic condition and are hence less
affordable.
Today, Coffee Cottage is one of the popular
cafe in SS15, it is full of crowd especially at
night. The customers favor this smaller,
independent establishments that offer cozy
atmosphere and good coffee at affordable
prices.
Strategies used In order to compete with the other coffee
shops in Georgetown, Wheeler’s coffee
applied few strategies to attract more
customers. Firstly, unlike the other cafes,
they provide set lunch for the customers
but only on weekdays. Their set lunch
consist of a main course, choices of
drinks and free ice cream. The set lunch
only costs about RM 16 – RM20, which
is at a reasonable price. They provide set
lunch only on weekdays because there are
more students and working people. The
pricing for their coffee are at normal
price, not too expensive but affordable,
which is from RM 5 to RM15. Thus,
customers get to enjoy quality coffee at a
reasonable price. Wheeler’s Coffee serves
their cakes in an aesthetical manner,
where they draw drawings on the serving
plate. This can attract attention of the
customers.
Secondly, the decoration of the café also
attract customers, especially tourist and
bike lovers. Wheeler’s café used
countless bicycles as decorations. There
are many group posters about coffee and
bike hanged on the wall and some of the
chairs are designed like the seat of the
bicycle. There are a few sections in the
café, a section that can accommodate for
group gatherings, dart machine section, a
section for people to host small events
and a section which is open air for
smokers. People think that the
arrangement of section has restored some
privacy for them. Great lightings and nice
furniture have also attracted many young
people nowadays because of the trend,
which is taking the photos of food and
beverage and post them on social medias
like Instagram.
Next, Wheeler’s Coffee provides several
services to satisfy and attract customers.
For example, Dart Machine, it is an
entertainment service where customers
get to enjoy their meals while playing.
The next service is bike rental which suits
the theme of the café. Tourist get to rent
their bike from the café to cycle around
Georgetown. Wheeler’s coffee also
provide free wifi service for their
customers so that they could surf the
Internet at the shop. Lastly, the café
allows people to host small events like
birthday parties at the second floor of the
café. The staffs are helpful to decorate the
area if requested.
Last but not least, the owner of the café
hires experience coffeemaker and chef to
produce quality and delicious food. This
is to ensure that the coffee that they
brewed are at a good standard which the
customers are satisfied with it. They also
hires good chef with good cooking ability
to create an enjoyable dining experience
for the patrons.

It is hard for businessman who wish to open a
new cafe in SS15, they face a lot of obstacles
from market to financial and management. In
terms of market risk, there are already a group
of potential customers locked up by
competitors, this will be difficult to gain
customer momentum. This is because the
market in SS15 is overly saturated with 48
cafes providing the same services and products
which can be detrimental to a new business’
ability to gain significant market share.
Besides of that, the financial standing of a
business can often make or break a company’s
ability to succeed. New business owners tend
to fail financial projections planning or create
working budgets. Sufficient capital is
necessary to pay for the owner’s living
expenses until the business turns a profit. In
addition, most coffee shops need inventory,
brewing equipment for coffee beans,
decorations in the cafe to run effectively.
The organizational structure of a new business
is another risk in starting a new business. New
business owners with little or no management
experience face significant challenges in
running a coffee shop. Entrepreneurs who need
to hire a manager to lead the cake bakers,
barista and cashier work in the cafe.
Obstacles faced One of the main obstacles to start a new
café in Georgetown, Penang is the
increase of competition in that area. There
are a lot of cafes in Georgetown,
approximately 58 of them. Each of the
cafes has their unique style and special
features. As a result, they have to compete
from their pricing, advertising and quality
of products. Some of the cafes that are not
able to be at par with those famous cafes
will lose a huge amount of customers.
Thus, the cafes in Georgetown will have
to keep up with the current trend and
always update themselves in order to
survive in the market.
Another obstacle is finding the right and
experienced staff. Thus, in this market,
the right staff would be the chef and the
coffeemakers. They are the ones that are
in charge of the distribution of food to the
customers. Hence, it is important to get
the right staffs who are skilled and
professional in this area. Despite high
employment, many cafes struggle to find
the right talent with the skills that they
wanted for their business. Finding the
right staff would definitely attract more
customers as the quality of food is higher
and customers would be highly satisfied
with the food. Wheeler’s coffee’s
coffeemaker and chef are experienced.
However, there are less number of them.

Nature of Market
Coffee Cottage’s and Wheeler’s Coffee’s market conditions areknown as oligopolistic competition.
This is a situation where a handful of large firms account for a relatively large market share. This is
due to there are various cafe in the same area selling similar products and all the coffee shop
businesses equal of size.
Apart from that, customer focus is also one of the marketing strategy used. They receive comments
from customers and improve from it so that the cafe satisfies the needs or wants of the customers.
For example, Coffee Cottage provide sandwiches and pastries after being requested by the customer
whereas Wheeler’s Coffee provide spaghetti and other main course to increase the choices of food.

SUMMARY TABLE
COFFEE COTTAGE WHEELER’S COFFEE
SIMILARITIES
CAT THEMED THEMED CAFE BICYCLE THEMED
MARCH, 2014 ESTABLISHED IN YEAR 2014 JUNE, 2014
WEDNESDAY - MONDAY
12 PM - 12 AM
CLOSED ON EVERY TUESDAY
WEEKDAYS
9 AM - 10 PM
WEEKENDS
9 AM - 12 AM
PARTNERSHIP OF FOUR OWNERSHIP PARTNERSHIP OF TWO
DIFFERENCES
SS15, SUBANG JAYA ,
SELANGOR , MALAYSIA
LOCATION LOVE LANE, GEORGETOWN ,
PENANG , MALAYSIA
TO BRING IN THE UNIQUE
CULTURE FROM OVERSEAS
MISSION TO PROMOTE CYCLING
CULTURE AMONG PEOPLE
YOUNGSTERS
( UNIVERSITY STUDENTS)
PET LOVERS
TARGET MARKET
STUDENTS
TOURISTS
YOUNGSTERS
• FOOD AND CATERING
• CATERS STRESS-FREE
ENVIRONMENT
• ANIMALS INTERACTING
ENVIRONMENT
NATURE OF BUSINESS
• PROMOTE ADVANTAGES OF
COFFEE
• SELLS COFFEE, BAKED
GOODS AND FOOD
• TO PROMOTE BICYCLE
CULTURE
• BIKE RENTAL SERVICES
• UNIQUE SHOP
• CURRENTLY ONLY THREE
CAT THEMED CAFE FOUND
IN KLANG VALLEY
• VERY HARD TO FIND IN
MALAYSIA
• HUGE VARIETIES OF FOOD
AND BEVERAGES
• ANIMAL INTERACTING
ENVIRONMENT
STRATEGIES
• PROVIDES INFORMATION ON
PROCESS OF MAKING
COFFEE
• PROVIDES SET LUNCH
DURING WEEKDAYS
• DRAWING BESIDE CAKES TO
ATTRACT ATTENTION
• PROVIDES ENTERTAINMENT
SUCH AS BICYCLE RENTAL
AND DART MACHINES
• UNIQUE INTERIOR DESIGN
• BY USING PARTS OF
BICYCLE AND BICYCLE AS
PARTS OF THE INTERIOR
AND EXTERIOR DESIGN
RANGE BETWEEN RM 7 - RM
18
MOSTLY ARE PRICED
BETWEEN RM 12 - RM 13
PRICING
RANGE BETWEEN RM 5- RM 15
* ALCHOHOLIC DRINKS NOT
INCLUDED *
THROUGH CHARITY ADVERTISING METHOD THROUGH DESIGN

Which is more commercially successful?
Based on our analysis, we found that Wheeler’s Coffee is more commercially successful firstly
because of its location in Penang, where Georgetown is a famous tourist spot in Penang. Secondly,
their financial status is more stable because they owned a two storey shoplot compared to Coffee
Cottage which is located above another shop.

Recommendation for Wheeler’s Coffee
The first recommendation for Wheeler’s Coffee is to hire a live band to perform at night. This can
provide another alternative of night activities for customers. Customers can enjoy listening to the
music from the live band and play dart machine at the same time.
Another recommendation is to increase the choices of food in the menu. This is to provide more
choices of food for customers to choose and for the regular customers, they will not feel bored
eating the same food again.
Recommendation for Coffee Cottage
The first recommendation to improve competitiveness among Coffee Cottage is to promote monthly
featured flavours. Customer’s curiosity about the flavour can more coffee. Pumpkin Pie at
Halloween, Red Hot Cinnamon on Valentine’s Day, Egg Nog on New Year’s Day are some of the
suggested nifty names.
Secondly, the another improvement is to offer package deals. Offer a package deal which includes
popular items bundled together at a lower price than the individual items can make it easier for the
customers. Breakfast Wakeup Special of a cake and a coffee, or an Afternoon Tea for Two Special
of Smoothie and spaghetti. Such packages make the decision making process easier, and easier
makes for more sales.
The last one is special customers club to make them feel important. Your regular customers should
feel appreciated for their faithful patronage of Coffee Cottage. Frequent Customer Special days with
discounts can be offered using the Frequent Customer Card. This can be done by using even a
simple Frequent Customer Card rewarding them with a free drink after purchasing 10 cups of coffee
lets them know that their loyalties are much appreciated which keeps them coming back regularly.

APPENDICES
Appendix 1 - Survey questionnaire and results
1) When was the business founded?
-March 2014
2) Who are the key founders?
-Mr.Warren Lim, owner of Coffee Cottage
3) What prompted the founders to start this business?
-Mr.Warren Lim said the idea sparked when he visited cat cafés in Japan and Korea. It was also a
natural fit with his pet boarding and grooming business that has been running for seven years, as
well as his passion for rescuing stray cats.
4) What are your main products?
-Coffee, Tea, cakes and dessert
5) Who are your customers?
Youngsters (Uni students), Pet lovers
7) How many branch offices/stores do you have (if applicable)?
-No branches, however they do have other cottages such as Puppy cottage, Kitten Cottage and also
Groomers Connection.
8) Can you provide us a brief history of your business and its most recent developments?
-Recently, we added a few more new members to the feline family. Three quarter of the cats in
Coffee Cottage are rescued cats.
9) Do you have many competitors? Who are they? Who are your top 3 competitors?
-Yes they have. There are 48 different cafes in the area and all of them hold a certain degree of
competiveness to Coffee Cottage. The top 3 competitors would be Espresso Lab, Cossan’s Café,
and Tryst Café.

10) Is the business constantly facing strong competition from other competitors? What
strategies have they used to compete with you?
-For example Cosans café, they invited the famous Ms.Jane Chuck to help them advertise, and we
are at a great disadvantage.
11) How much capital is required to start this business? What, if any, specialized field of
knowledge do you need to run this business?
-The owner has to know how to take care of the animals, giving them proper care and medication if
they are sick. Also, the worker has to have certain knowledge of coffee making and latte art.
12) Generally, do you feel it is easy or hard to enter this market? Why?
-I think that it is quite difficult to enter the coffee market because there are all kinds of different café
all around the world, with all different kinds of unique and taste food. You have to open a shop that
has your own unique selling point in order to attract customers.
13) How do you compete with your competitors i.e. what strategies do you employ to divert
customers away from your competitors?
-This was the question that faced Lim but, luckily, his Country Cottage Cat Café has a natural
unique selling point. Cats are free to prowl the cat area of the café, and can be groomed and petted.
Customers can also buy food for the cats, and eat alongside the five friendly kitties.
14) How often do you release a new product (this assumes the business sells differentiated
products)?
-4 to 6 months

APPENDIX 2: Suggested List of Interview Questions (Non-Exhaustive)
1) When was the business founded?
June 2014
2) Who are the key founders?
Mr. Steven, the owner of coffee Cottage
3) What prompted the founders to start this business?
Mr. Steven said that he wants everyone understand the knowledge of the coffee and also
want to spread the culture of coffee in Malaysia.
4) What are your main products?
Coffee, cakes, desserts and spaghetti
5) Who are your customers?
Youngsters, Tourists and Coffee Lovers
6) How many branch offices/stores do you have (if applicable)?
No branches because they want to settle and stable their own café before open any branches
but they not planning to have any branches for their future plans.
7) Can you provide us a brief history of your business and its most recent developments?
Recently, we added a few more special desserts for customers and also added more choices
for the set so that customers.
8) Do you have many competitors? Who are they? Who are your top 3 competitors?
Yes, they have. There are full of café around the Love Lane and one of the competitors is
LoveLatte located at the corner of the shop lot. Second would be the Green Town café
located beside of the Wheeler’s coffee cafe and China house located nearby of the Wheeler’s
coffee café.

9) Is the business constantly facing strong competition from other competitors? What
strategies have they used to compete with you?
For example LoveLatte, their café is located at the corner of the shop –lots that attracted a
lot of the tourists before walk pass the Wheeler’s coffee café.
10)How much capital is required to start this business? What, if any, specialized field of
knowledge do you need to run this business?
The owner has to know how to make a prefect coffee and understand the coffee bean to
make sure the coffee bean are suitable to make a good coffee for customers. Also, the
worker has to have certain knowledge to make coffee and also making a beautiful latte art.
11) Generally, do you feel it is easy or hard to enter this market? Why?
I think that is really tough for me to enter the coffee markets because there are so many
different café all around the world will different kind of delicious foods. We also need to
have the knowledge of the coffee before serve a cup of coffee to customers.

Appendix 2 - Photos
!
The barista is brewing coffee in Wheeler’s Coffee using the machine.

!
Group Photo with the owner of Wheeler’s Coffee, Steven. Picture from left : Low En Huey, Darren
Sia, Steven, Simpson Chin, Lee Yih

!
We are preparing for the interview session at Coffee Cottage.
!
Group Photo of us with the team leader, Alex.

Appendix 3 - Contact Information
1. Wheeler’s Coffee
Steven, Manager.
Phone number : 012-462 0728
2. Coffee Cottage
Alex, Team Leader
Phone number : 03-5613 0078
Email : coffeecottagemy@gmail.com

MINUTES OF THE MEETING
DATE: 8 NOVEMBER 2014
TIME: 12.30PM - 1.00 PM
VENUE: CHILL , TULC
NAMES OF GROUP MEMBERS TUTORIAL GROUP ROLE
DARREN SIA HANG YIN WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM RESEARCH ON
QUESTIONS TO BE
ASKED ON THAT
DAY
LEE YIH WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM RESEARCH ON
QUESTIONS TO BE
ASKED ON THAT
DAY
LOVIE TEY YIQING WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM RESEARCH ON
QUESTIONS TO BE
ASKED ON THAT
DAY
LOW EN HUEY WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM RESEARCH ON
QUESTIONS TO BE
ASKED ON THAT
DAY
SIMPSON CHIN JIUNN YIH FRIDAY 8AM - 10 AM RESEARCH ON
QUESTIONS TO BE
ASKED ON THAT
DAY
NO. ACTIVITY ACTION TAKEN BY
1 Introduction on brief Whole Team
2 Understand the brief Whole Team
3 Works given out to individual Whole Team

TIME: 3.30 PM - 6.30 PM
VENUE: WHEELER’S COFFEE
DARREN SIA HANG YIN WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM INTERVIEWER
LEE YIH WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM CAMERAWOMAN
LOVIE TEY YIQING WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM LIGHTING
LOW EN HUEY WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM NOTE TAKING
SIMPSON CHIN JIUNN YIH FRIDAY 8AM - 10 AM NOTE TAKING
INTERVIEWER
1 Find cafe’s location in Penang Whole Team
2 Read brief Whole Team
3 Starts interview Whole Team

TIME: 12.00 PM - 2.00 PM
VENUE: COFFEE COTTAGE
DARREN SIA HANG YIN WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM CAMERA MAN
LEE YIH WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM INTERVIEWER
LOVIE TEY YIQING WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM LIGHTING
LOW EN HUEY WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM NOTE TAKING
SIMPSON CHIN JIUNN YIH FRIDAY 8AM - 10 AM NOTE TAKING
1 Find cafe’s location in Subang Whole Team
2 Read brief Whole Team
3 Starts interview Whole Team

TIME: 10.00 AM - 5PM
VENUE: CLASSROOM E3.09
DARREN SIA HANG YIN WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM ANALYSE THE
COMPETITIONS
AMONG ONE OF
THE BUSINESS
LEE YIH WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM ANALYSE THE
COMPETITIONS
AMONG ONE OF
THE BUSINESS
LOVIE TEY YIQING WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM REPORT
LOW EN HUEY WEDNESDAY 10AM - 12 PM REPORT
SIMPSON CHIN JIUNN YIH FRIDAY 8AM - 10 AM REPORT
1 Collects Information from everyone Lovie Tey
2 Combination of whole research Whole Team
3 Check works again Whole Team

REFERENCES
1.Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors
Published: 1980
Author: Michael E. Porter
2.Advanced Selling Strategies
Author: Brian Tracy
Genres: Economics, Business
3.Business Adventures
Published: 1969
Author: John Brooks
4. Ken Hunts Food.Ken. Retrieved from http://www.kenhuntfood.com/
5. China House. Retrieved from http://www.chinahouse.com.my/
6. Ramli,A . (2012, September 4).Raw and naked: The Coffee evolution. FMT News. P.13
7. Michael, K. (2014, April 7). SS15 is fast becoming a popular destination for those seeking good
coffee. The Star Newspaper, p. 23A.

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