Foundation in Natural and Built Environments
Introduction to Business (BUS 30104)
Charity Drive Event Report
By members of Too Too Store
Group members: Natalie Ki Xiao Xuan
Jack Too Mun Fai
Maximilian Lim Jake Yang (0319604)
Ng Yi Yang (0319688)
Objective
We have chosen to dedicate our donations to the Kechara Soup Kitchen Buddhist
Organization. Kechara Soup Kitchen’s main purpose is to provide food, sustenance and medical care
for the homeless and needy people in Malaysia. The committee of Kechara Soup Kitchen is a group
of privileged and well-to-do people who devote their lives to helping the homeless and the needy to
get through their daily struggle.
We chose this charity organization because the four of us, as food lovers believe everyone
should have the opportunity to enjoy food. We often see homeless and hungry people on the streets
of Malaysia struggling to survive and find food every day. Hence, we would like to lend a helping
hand to these less fortunate people to live a better life. We often hear cases of people especially
children from third world countries facing famine and poverty, and we would like to avoid such
situations in Malaysia.
As a group dedicated to help the homeless and needy in our country, we decided to set our
target donations high by reaching RM2000 of net profit. We have decided to divide our expected
profits from the variety of products we had plan to sell, such as pizzas, cupcakes, onigiris, keychains,
sandwiches, and beverages.
Target Market
We chose not to be fussy towards our choice of customer; we cater to anyone who is thirsty
and hungry. We tried to focus on the students from our own campus, Taylor’s University Lakeside
Campus, because a portion of them come from well-to-do families and may be willing to spend on
charity and help the less fortunate. Our customers are interested in presentable products. Hence,
our packaging has to be attention-grabbing and appetizing to entice them to buy our products. We
have chosen to sell exotic novelty food from Japanese and Western cuisines to sate our customers’
exotic appetites.
Not only that, our customers also emphasize on the hygiene and edibility of our products.
Hence, we acquired sanitized gloves and took typhoid shots for each of us. We also focused making
products mobile and convenient so that our customers can enjoy our food on the go. Our customers
also look for affordable, cold and refreshing beverages to quench their thirst in our current hot
weather. We also had to make sure that our food can stay fresh for a long period of time because
the majority of our customers are students who constantly have classes to attend to every day. That
is also why we have to make a new batch of our products every night to keep customers satisfied.
We also tried selling our products to customers outside our campus in an attempt to hike up
our profit. People walking on the streets during the day are more likely to buy our cold drinks
because of the weather. However, we had to take the initiative to approach and promote our
products to them because they are more likely to avoid us.
Competition Analysis
Like any other business areas, we also have our fair share of competitors to deal with.
Among the handful we will be facing, the more challenging ones are Pizza Cottage and the humble
vending machines littered all over the campus.
The perks of Pizza Cottage is that they provide a wide range of flavours for their pizzas and
they also sell pastries like burgers and sandwiches which also come in a variety of choices. However,
they charge their customers a higher price because they are a well-renowned company which
specializes in these sorts of food. The portion of their food is also relatively small compared to other
pizza restaurants outside of campus.
On the other hand, the vending machines sell a wide array of food and beverages at an
affordable price and they are also convenient in a sense that they are placed all over campus.
Nonetheless, the foods they sell mostly consist of snacks and titbits which are extremely unhealthy
for the students of Taylor’s Lakeside Campus. The beverages they sell are also mostly carbonated
drinks which are also harmful towards the health of the students in campus.
After conducting a thorough research on our competitors, we had decided to counter their
strategies by selling affordable and healthy products to reduce negative impact on their health and
wallets.
Product and Packaging
As mentioned earlier, we required products that are a novelty in Malaysia to attract our
customers’ attention. Hence, we went online to learn steps on how to make our products, such as
pizzas, cupcakes and onigiris. We also researched on how to package our product so that they have a
good aesthetic value yet is cost effective to reduce our expenses.
As for drinks, the parents of one of our teammates, Ng Yi Yang, was kind enough to sponsor
us seven boxes of healthy packaged drinks from Yeo’s and Seasons. Due to this privilege, we had the
upper hand in our beverages department because we did not have to produce or package them
ourselves.
Customers want to buy our products because most of our foods are freshly-made every day
and we conducted the quality control ourselves. For example, we would eat a slice out of every
batch of sandwiches we made to ensure that it taste delicious. For the pizzas, we have made a few
batches of prototypes until we have obtained the perfect recipe for our homemade pizzas.
As for the packaging of our products, we had decided to use typical plastic sandwich
containers to contain our sandwiches. As for pizzas, we used ziplock bags to contain them in order to
ensure long freshness. Besides that, we wrapped our onigiris in plastic foils to keep the air and
harmful bacteria out. Also, we used fun-sized ziplock bags to package our onigiri charms. Last but
not least, to give our store an identity, we have designed and printed our very own custom Too Too
Store logos to be placed on all our products.
Onigiri packaged with plastic wrap
Sandwich packaged in a plastic sandwich container
A photo of our three varieties of sandwiches together: Egg mayo, tuna and chocolate sandwich
A Photo of our pizza
Photo of our cupcake Our varieties of onigiri charms
Pricing
We had quite a hard time deciding how much we wanted to sell our products for due a
handful of factors. The first one being whether or not people will consider spending their money on
our products if we set the prices too high. And we also had to keep in mind that we have a target
profit to achieve within a very limited time. Ultimately we decided to sell our pizzas at RM3 which
would give us a profit of RM1.50 after deducting the cost. As for the sandwiches, we charge a fair
price of RM4 because of its high demand and this product costs RM1.10 so we managed to earn
some money there. The onigiri charms cost us RM0.80 to make and we decided to sell it for RM2.00
because of the tedious workmanship required to make these charms. We also sold wintermelon and
soya packet drinks for only RM1 because it was sponsored by our teammate’s parents.
Among all the products we sold, the onigiri is definitely one of the more popular ones
because it is very hard to find on the market and to top it off, it is also homemade by our teammate,
Natalie Ki. Besides that, our packet drinks also sold very well because it was very cheap and we also
offered chilled ones rite from the icebox. We had a bumpy start during the first two to three days
because we were still adapting to our business location and most of us were still learning how to
promote. However business gradually improved over the next couple days, after we have gotten
used to our environment and because we started going out to sell our products. We faced a
shortage of onigiris on the fourth day because we did not anticipate that it would sell so well, hence
we made more for the next day.
Promotion
Our main marketing message was “To feed the poor and homeless” because we were
donating our profits to a soup kitchen. One of our main tools for promoting our products were
through our Facebook page which we set up two weeks prior to this charity drive to function as an
advertising tool to attract the attention of the younger generations. We also digitally prepared
posters and price labels to promote our products on our booth. We used these methods because
they were extremely cost efficient and not hard to produce. As we had time restriction issues, we
opted for the fastest and most effective ways to get our message out to the public. We chose to
make the posters also because we have experience with making posters digitally through the other
modules we had before this charity drive. As for the Facebook page, it was very easy to make
because we were so used to social networking and we could promote our store directly to our
friends and relatives on Facebook.
Our posters:
Our Facebook page:
Sponsors
We would not have reached our goal if we did not get the sponsors and donations we got
both before and during the charity drive. We started by asking our closest family members and
relatives for sponsor or donations. Natalie’s father managed to acquire some from his clients and he
also donated some of his own money. As for Ng Yi Yang, he has requested his parents to sponsor us
with the packet drinks to decrease our product expenses.
We have also sent out sponsorship letters to a few companies, such as Yeo’s and Nestle but
they have not replied us and some have promised to get back to us but never did. We did however,
manage to get sponsorship from the company that helped us make our Too Too Store stickers in the
form of a discount. In the end, we got ourselves a good sum of sponsorship money to aid us in
achieving our goal.
Distribution
There are a number of places we went to sell our products. Mainly we focused on selling to
the students of Taylor’s Lakeside Campus because it is convenient for us as our stall is located there.
Not only that, the people are more approachable because most of them would easily believe that we
are students conducting a charity drive and were not attempting to scam the people. In campus,
there were two ways on how we distributed our products. The first way is when people approach
our stall and they pay for their items to us. Secondly, is when we approach the people instead. Every
two hours, we routinely walk around level 1 and level 2 in campus and around ‘Syops’ as a team that
consists of two people, asking people for donations and promoting our products to them. One of us
is tasked to carry a basket filled with some of our products and the other is tasked to carry a
donation box.
This method is an efficient and an instantaneous way to deliver our products to our
customers as these products are specifically designed and packaged as on-the-go products.
Customers are only required to choose the items they want to buy and pay for these products
following the price of each item.
Furthermore, we also attempted to sell our things outside of campus because there were
not many students in campus during that period of time as most of them were still having their
semester breaks. As a group of three, we attempted to sell our products near campuses, specifically
near Inti College and Taylor’s College, where there were many students walking in the commercial
areas. We also tried to visit Sunway Pyramid, a popular shopping mall as an attempt to ask for some
donations and sell our products. Based on our experience, this method is time-consuming and it is
not a very easy way to make profit as most people would ignore us.
Moreover, we also provided a delivery service via phone calls or texts. Students from a
secondary school, SM Sri KDU, bought a 14 Onigiris and we were told to deliver the items to them in
school. Through delivery services, it would take a day to prepare the items for them and time
(depending on the location) to deliver these products to them.
Green Measures
A portion of our consumable products are environmentally-friendly such as, the
bread used for the variety of sandwiches and the sauce and dough for the pizza. Clay, as an
eco-friendly material, was used to make the onigiri charms.
The products are packaged in 100% recyclable and reusable materials as our packaging are
mainly made of plastic. For example, all the various types of sandwiches are packaged in a typical
plastic sandwich container that can be recycled and reused. Onigiris are packaged in plastic wrap,
pizzas and charms are given out with plastic ziplock bags and packaged drinks can be recycled as
paper materials.
After customers are done with the foods, they can simply throw the plastic packaging into
the bin. Customers are even given the choice to reuse the plastic sandwich containers or the ziplock
bags for their own purpose.
Our consumables are sealed in these air-tight containers so that harmful pollutants from
the air will not be able to contaminate our products. Because of this, we did not need to worry about
our food being exposed to pollution.
As we sold our products, we provided a service to heat up the customers’ pizza slice using
a toaster oven. Doing this, we consumed an amount of electricity through the socket found near our
stall. To reduce the consumption of electricity, we only turned on the toaster oven only if when we
use it. Moreover, we also used a large bag of ice to keep the drinks cool and fresh. To avoid buying
more than one large bag of ice per day, we ensured that the ice is long-lasting by storing it into an
ice box with the packaged drinks. Doing so will not only keep the ice stored at a suitable
temperature, but will also keep the drinks chilled and cool.
Human Resource Planning
Tasks were distributed according to our individual skills and commitment towards it. Natalie, as the
project manager, distributed these jobs to us and planned each week in an organised manner. As the
accountant, she also calculated our expenses, profit made each day, our loss and sponsorship
money. Jack was in charge in designing a stall layout to keep our stall look neat and attractive. He
also manages the stall and made sure that our stall is kept clean and consistently presentable to our
customers. Max was tasked to contact companies that may be willing to help our cause by
sponsoring their products to us or are eager to donate some money to our charity organization. He
was also responsible in asking people for donations. Yi Yang was undertaking the job to design
posters for our stall to promote our products to people and convince people to support us through
advertisements.
Natalie Ki Xiao XuanProject
manager/Accountant
Jack Too Mun FaiStall manager/Stall
designer
Maximilian Lim Jake YangSponsorship
manager/Marketing executive
Ng Yi YangMarketing/Advertising
executive
Evaluation of results
Profit and Loss report:
Mistakes we made: Not enough sponsors to support us
: Some unattractive packaging and products
: Disorganized time management
What we have learned through our experience: Better time management in our work
: Conduct a taste test on food products before selling them
: Experiment products and whether or not they will be able to sell well or not.
: Importance of sponsorships depending on the people in the area.
Link to our reflection videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k65M_-bd4JY&list=PL_UVigc-
rB9XOupR0_6CveFDBV_V-NdTH&index=3
Appendixes
Sponsorship letters
Our Typhoid injection receipts:
Charity Organization donation receipt:
