Chocolate Industry Essay Example for Free

Chocolate Industry Essay Quality Crafted Chocolate is an online business selling luxury, crafted chocolate our chocolate products are a boxed assorted chocolates for Holidays, birthdays, and more, we believe chocolate is a versatile gift for many occasions. As an online based company we have the opportunity to use our technology to tailor our packaging to our individual customers in ways never before possible. There are two good things to report about the chocolate market. Firstly: Consumer demand for chocolate is on the rise worldwide. Secondly: competition is developing steadily . The according to NCA estimates, based on the U. S. Census Bureaus annual Confectionery Report, retail sales of chocolate confectionery in all channels reached $18 billion in 2010. Annual sales have increased 3 to 4 percent per year for the past several years, and market research firm Packaged Facts forecasts the industry will grow to $18 billion by 2011. The undisputed leader for North American sales of chocolate products, the U. S. has a market share estimated at over 86 percent. But behind the encouraging headlines, many companies are battling to stay on top of a rapidly shifting marketplace, as fast-growing economies and empowered consumers demand more from their products. The constant change in the market structure, shares and prices, due to the emergence of new chocolate manufacturers, demonstrates a threat for the existing chocolate and confectionery companies like Quality Crafted Chocolates. Part of our market research was to do a search volume estimate for the US market using Google AdWords. We first searched the broad keyword â€Å"chocolate† and below are the results with the top five keywords ranked in order of high to low based on amount of searches. |Keyword |Competition |Global Monthly Searches |Local Monthly Searches (United States) | |chocolate |0. 31 |30400000 |9140000 | |gifts |0. 77 |16600000 |9140000 | |chocolate chocolate |0. 31 |30400000 |9140000 | |the chocolate |0. 31 |30400000 |9140000 | |candy |0. 37 |16600000 |7480000 | When we then did a search in the google search engine for the highest ranked keyword â€Å"chocolate†, the company that ranked #1 was www.godiva. com a major competitor in the industry. Second was www. ghirardelli. com which is also a worthy competitor. The third was www. cadbur. co. uk but they would not be considered a competitor since their company was based in the UK and had products that were not directed towards the same consumer. This was followed by www. hersheys. com another major supplier in the industry. Another very relevant competitor was www. sees. com carrying much of the same product was ranked #7 in the searched google keyword. The second highest searched keyword from the Google AdWords results was â€Å"gifts† these results were vastly different from the previous keyword. None of the company website associated with this keyword in the google search engine were related in any way to the chocolate industry. The third searched keyword â€Å"chocolate chocolate† results in google ranked #1 www. chocolate2. com a competitor in the quality crafted chocolate market for special occasions. Then was www. chocolatedc. com another direct competitor with. Third was www. chocolatechocolate.com a close competitor with a very similar product line of molded novelties chocolate. After researching each of the searched suppliers we narrowed in on those companies that operated in the same market, offering similar products and targeting similar customers. The top three were Godiva www. godiva. com, world famous Belgian chocolates available online for the U. S. market only. Compared to Quality Crafted Chocolate this supplier is one of our toughest competitors. Godiva Chocolatier was brought to America in 1966 and has been the leader in premium chocolate ever since. Godiva owns and operates hundreds of boutiques worldwide specializing in fine chocolates and chocolate gifts. The second is the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company www. ghirardelli. com, a leading manufacturer, marketer and retailer of premium American chocolates and chocolate beverage mixes, controlling the entire manufacturing process. It distributes its products nationwide. Their customized crafted chocolates make them stand out in the market. The third company is Sees Candies www. sees. com a manufacturer and distributor of candy, particularly chocolate, in the western United States. The company is known for it’s quality chocolate and chocolate gifts with their unique approach of allowing their customer to choose their own selection of chocolate to be packaged. Their motto is â€Å"Create your own assortment of boxed chocolates send chocolate gifts to family friends! † A true competitor in the chocolate market, with a similar product of gift boxes of premium quality chocolate for that special occasion. | | | | |Company Website |Rank (US Market) |Global Rank | | www. godiva. com |10,998 |37,423 | |www. ghirardelli. com | 20,916 |62,163 | |www. sees. com |13,015 |35,780 |.