Analysis for increasing the competitive ability of kinh văn hoa bookstore on hcmcs market

Chapter 2, the writer introduced the Kinh Van Hoa bookstore and its current situations, establishment, development, and business activities in the competitive situation in HCMC market..

ANALYSIS FOR INCREASING THE

JUNE, 2015

Firstly, I am very grateful to my parents and my elder brother for always standing

by my sides and encouraging me during the process of research implement Whenever I was in troubles, they were the ones to listen and gave me the best advices Without their support, it is impossible for to finish my graduate education seamlessly I would like to send my gratitude to the Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Languages and Information Technology and the Intemational Business Administration Depatiment for giving me the chance to experience and conduct my desired thesis.

Secondly, I am deeply indebted to my advisor, Ms Nguyen Duc Hoai Anh, Ph.D., who spent time to read and provided the useful suggestions and evaluations about this thesis She also instructed me how to write a paper professionally, how to search literature and how to collect data She was a hard-working lecturer and I believe her academic achievement will continue to increase.

Thirdly, special thanks are given to Kinh Van Hoa bookstore for supporting and facilitating me to collect the data and helpful information to understand clearly the business activities I am also grateful to the writer Nguyen Nhat Anh, for his valuable infom1ation as the guidance of my research.

Last but not least, during the time of writing this research, my friends for always being there when I need and giving assistances in many aspects that I cannot list them all because of limited space Especially, I would like to acknowledge my special friend for spending his time to help me collecting the surveys and stimulating me whenever I was in pressure.

Best regards,

Tran Tuyet My

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Again, I have this oppOltunity to work and study with excellent students of the Department of Intemational Business Administration as an advisor on the preparation of their graduation papers Therefore, I would like to say thanks for all the chances that the board of management gave me to palticipate in this event.

I have been appointed to give instmction to Trim Tuyft My in researching and completing her graduation paper with the title: "Analysis for increasing the competitive ability of Kinh Van Hoa bookstore on HeMe's Market "

As we know, Vietnam now is the 150th member of World Trade Organization, more difficulties and challenges are ahead for domestic firms as well as foreign companies Moreover, Vietnam now becomes one of the fastest - growing economies in the world, it also leads to the growth of the education Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experiences, values, contextual infOlmation, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experience and infOlmation It originates and is applied in the minds of knowes So, we can get knowledge from various ways that we can And reading books for getting knowledge is one of familiar ways that

we usually use every day.

Kinh Van Hoa Bookstore is not a known brand like FAHASA or Nguy~n Van ell"

in HCMC, however, it was established by a very famous writer - writer Nguyen Nhat Anh who wrote the most interesting detective series of his literary career "Kinh Van Hoa" about 15 years ago for teenagers Therefore, a research on competitive ability is quite important for small business that are coming to upgrade to the professional firms in order to compete and survive in HCMC market.

The graduation paper is divided into three parts, and each of them undertakes its content to provide this research Chapter I provided the generalization about brand, competition and market segmentation, especially focused on the product and product strategy concepts Chapter 2, the writer introduced the Kinh Van Hoa bookstore and its current situations, establishment, development, and business activities in the competitive situation in HCMC market The same time, in this part, she tried her best to collect and manage necessary data via survey for highest achievement Lastly, she provided, analyzed data and information with purpose to increase the competitive ability of KVH bookstore In my opinion, the outstanding point of the paper that the writer used her knowledge to analyze, compare, and give her opinion of the company's marketing mix strategy, especially in products aspect with the methods that she studied in the university.

In brief, the paper is good and worth getting a good mark.

ADVISOR'S SIGNATURE AND NAME

DBA Nguylll Dft'c Hoai Allh

bookstores, this research also mentions the customers' awareness, demand and opinions

in selecting books and evaluation about these bookstores, especially KVHB

THE BOOK MARKET IN HCMC AND THE POSITIONING

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CHAPTER 3: SUGGESTION FOR INCREASING THE COMPETITIVE

LIST OF FIGURES

4 Figure 2.4: The income of respondents 26

5 Figure 2.5: The frequency of going to bookstore or 26

surfing the book selling websites

6 Figure 2.6: The rate in books selections 26

7 Figure 2.7: The frequency of using channels in purchasi 27

books

8 Figure 2.8: The frequent selection of bookstores 28

9 Figure 2.9: The information source of traditional bookstores 29

10 Figure 2.10: The popular book selling websites 29

11 Figure 2.11: The infonnation source of book selling 30

15 Figure 2.15: The information source of traditional bookstore 39

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KVHB

respondents)

business of KVHB

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LIST OF PICTURES

bookstore

house

bookstore

followers between Ca Chep and KVHB' fan page

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INTRODUCTION

1 THE RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

From the bureaucratic economy to the market economy, Vietnamese businessesalways survive in the competitive environment and some other strict rules of economy.Therefore, businesses must be aware of their advantages in finance, human resources,teclmology, etc and especially the use of marketing tools to be able to survive and grow

Ho Chi Minh City is one of the centers have vibrant economies and most developed andcrowed place in Vietnam, especially with the presence of almost fields of business One

of the important fields is the book business - the essential convergence of human

improvement and development, this field became more diversified than before, so thathuman could easily and quickly receive the knowledge

Nowadays, in HCMC, technology development also creates competition betweenmodes of e-commerce business with the traditional ways of doing business Living in themodem life, people usually tend to use the convenient things, such as smart phone,internet, tablet, etc instead of newspaper, traditional books, etc Really, the developedtechnology directly impacted and changed habits and tastes of customers The customers,especially the youth are very sensitive to new consumption trends In the book market, E-book is one of the new trend with much convenience that is the other indirect competitor

of traditional paper books

Establishing on March, 2012, Kinh Van Hoa bookstore (KVHB) which is the placefor readers come, enjoy and purchase the literature books With the customers who havethe hobby of reading literahlre books of Nguyen Nhat Anh writer, Kinh Van Hoa would

be the interested bookstore for them to come with not only books but also other relatedproducts as T-shirt, backpack, postcard, etc Through 3 years of running business, thisbookstore has many issues that need to be improved, so that the competitive advantages

of it could be utilized effectively This research would provide some analysis KVHB andits competitors' activities in order to find out suggestions to help this bookstore develop itcompetitive ability on HCMC's market

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2 SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH

This research focuses on evaluating the competitive activities of bookstores inHCMC only Moreover, the writer just concentrates on the traditional book type onlywhich is sold at KVHB in two methods of trading - selling at bookstore and on website.There are various standards of estimation toward the competition of businesses In thisresearch, the writer carried the 5 competitive forces of Michael Porter, marketing andbrand concept to analyze the competitive ability of KVHB After that, the writer providedsome appropriate suggestions for helping KVHB develop its brand and increase theadvantages in competing with others by marketing mix method

3 RESEARCH METHOD

In the first pati, the writer applied the brand concept such as brand definition, therole of brand, brand equity Besides that, the market and competitive definitions are takenfrom famous websites, business specialized books In the second part, the writercombines the secondary data and primary data in order to analyzed and provide opinion

improving the competitive ability of KVHB will be done base on the knowledge andexperience which learnt through business books and expelis

4 CONTENTS OF THE RESEARCH

The research is divided into three chapters Chapter one is the general knowledgeabout the brand, market and competition definitions Chapter two includes three mainsub-parts The first one is the general introduction about the book market in HCMC Thesecond sub-pali is the introduction about KVHB and the last one is the research analysis.The chapter three mentions the suggestions for increasing the competitive ability ofKVHB on the book market

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According to the Department of Industrial Propelty of Vietnam, the term "brand" isused for objects which are in the industry and it describes:

Secondly, the origin of product is regulated by Civil Code in the atticle number 786(Socialist republic of Vietnam, 1995): "The appellation of origin is the geographicalname of the country or locality, which serves to identify the origin of a productmanufactured in that country or locality which gives it the specific characters and qualitybased on the unique and advantageous geographical conditions including those derivingfrom natural and human factors or a combination of both."

Thirdly, according to the article 10 of degree No 54/2000/ND-CP, the Protectablegeographical indications are information on geographical origins of goods and meet allthe following conditions:

"a/ Being expressed in a word, expression, sign, symbol or image used to indicate anation or a telTitory or a locality belonging to a nation;

bl Being displayed on goods, goods packing or transaction papers related to thegoods purchase and/or sale, in order to indicate that such goods have the origin from

a nation, tenitory or locality, whereas the quality, prestige and reputation or otherproperties of such goods are principally attributed to their geographical origin."

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Finally, the trade name is detennined in the article number 14 of the

54/2000/ND-CP decree (Socialist republic of Vietnam, 2000): " A protectable commercial name is theproper name of an organization or individual used in his/her/its business activities andmeets all the following conditions:

a/ Being a combination of alphabetical letters, which can be accompanied withnumerals and pronounceable;

b/ Being capable of distinguishing the business subject bearing such name fromother business subjects in the same business field

Besides that, according to the American Marketing Association, "brand" is a name,word, signal, icon, picture or the combination of all those elements in order to specify aproduct or service as well as to discriminate the brands which are in the similar category.Furthermore, brand portrays the image of cultural, physical, emotional, intuitive andexclusive characteristics that people usually associate when mentioning a specific goods

or a company Additionally, "brand" is not only the absolute commitment to quality ofmerchandise but also a product that its effectiveness has been certified by customers'satisfaction

In brief, the tenn "brand" which is approached in the legal, financial aspect involvesthe design, registration, protection, disputing activities when that brand is being violated

On the other hand, in marketing field, "brand" contains the essential mean in building,spreading and impressing the brand's image in the customers' mind In brief, the mainfunction of brand is the confirmation and differentiation about the product or service'sorigin in order to protect that company and help the customers in against fake brand inthe market

1.1.2 Roles of brand

1.1.2.1 Roles of brand to companies

Fundamentally, besides being called, brand name is also to be distinguished in themarket As the result, this factor could lead the companies to compete with other rivals todevelop its sales and increase profit Besides that, brand building is a process to get trustand loyalty from customers which seems to be the asset of the brand Moreover, thebrand could demonstrate the grade of itself, so that a product which is ranked clearlywould approve that product or service in its market segmentation prosperously Being a

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.: Brand awareness

In developing process, the first and important step is creating brand awareness If a brand could get high level of this factor, it would become more famous and have 0ppOliunity to be the option in customers' choices For instance, in supermarket, in front

of amount and various brands of products, consumers often tend to prefer the brand that

a member of the WTO since 2007, there are many brands both domestic and foreign one

in the Vietnam market Finally, if a product has a distinct brand name or it is known widely, that company could reduce its cost in marketing programs, trade promotion activities for the extension policy of that brand and the product distribution could be conducted favorably.

1.1.2.2 Roles of brand to customers

Basically, almost revenue pmis of a company come from its customers This is the reason for putting customers in center while developing a brand and roles of brand need

to focus on the benefits of them, likewise Firstly, the brand could make the buying decision process of customers become convenient and diversified They could have many suggestions to select as well For instance, previous days, "Kh6ng dQ" is the single choice, up to now, "C2", "0Long" have appeared so that the consumption is much more various Secondly, according to the obvious origin address of brand, consumers could reduce the risk when using products, affirm the personal value and feel secured with the quality Thirdly, in some cases, consumers could distinguish the real and fake products

by brand name Lastly, the function of brand also includes protecting the legitimate interests of consumers and satisfying the customers' demand.

they have known through people around them or have used previously To raise the brandawareness, the organizations should concentrate on brand recognition and brand recall.Firstly, brand recognition means the brand could be distinguished from the otherswhen a customer is making decision process or he/she will recognize the brand byobserving logo, packaging image or hearing that brand name Because the brandawareness plays a major role in buying process of consumers, for brand recognition, theimage of product is extremely significant for being attracted For instance, beforeshopping, a buyer usually takes note the kinds of products which they are going to buyinstead of writing down the exact names of them This behavior of consumer leads to thebuying decision based on the characteristics of goods, especially the packing

Secondly, the brand recall will be established if consumers are able to retrieve orgenerate the brand in their memory Additionally, in some pressing and necessary

advertisement has responsibility in consumer's memory retrieval by making them recalland buy product in a short period of time For example, in some urgent cases, the buyerswould not have time for inspection to find out which one is suitable Instead of that, theytend to buy the products or services that impressed them before, such as advertisements

on TV, in magazines or through banners

•: Brand association

The association that connects to the customers' memory whenever mentioning thename of brand According to this establishment, the companies could create thedifferences in brand positioning, the positive feeling and opportunity to develop the sub-brand in the future As the result, the more the positive associations, the more advantagesthe brand has for competing with other rivals There is an instance of this definition,when mentioning Vissan, the consumers associate with the place that provides manykinds of fresh meat and food which is processed by meat

in relationship with paliners and consumers by the huge contract to receive higher profit

or paying low display and promotion cost

Finally, when loyal rate is at the top, the companies not only have a stable number

of consumers but also have the ability to attract new purchasers, so that its market could

be expanded larger Such as, nowadays, Coop-mart is the first choice of most consumersinstead of other smaller supermarkets This expected result of Coop-mali has been builtfor a long period of time to create the consumers' loyalty as we can see now

1.2 CONCEPT OF MARKET COMPETITION

1.2.1 Market concept

Market is described as a process which performs the buying decision of customerstoward a product or service as well as a companies' resolution about quantity, quality,design, etc in addition, that is the relationship between the demand and supply in entirety

of each kind of merchandise

However, in the perspective of Marketing, "market" term just refers to a group ofcustomers who have the certain demand and expectation This means, although marketpaliicipants have both sellers and buyers, the marketers consider the combination ofsellers is called manufacturing supply, just the group of buyers takes shape of the market

Besides that, there are other concepts that the market is the trading field in which buyersand sellers compete with each other to determine the cost of goods and services On thewhole, the market is the place that buyers and sellers seek to each other through theexchange, exploration and exposure to get the answers that each party desires to aware

In explanation, the main purpose of the businesses is how to increase their profit as

much as possible The companies base on the market to seek the solutions for belowproblems:

Additionally, the customers also could recognize:

1.2.2 Competition concept

1.2.2.1 The concept of competition

Competition is the battling process to take the favorable conditions in the

production and consumption of products In addition, business competition which aims at

Production and business activities of enterprises usually have to stay under pressure ofcompetition Therefore, the ability of business firstly requires cognitive ingenuity towardthe opportunities in order to raise its income by taking the right estimation andrecognizing its advantages

Competitive advantage is the essential factor for the success and long-term survival

of a business, having competitive advantage, businesses will have different benefits thatother competitors desire to own, favorably operate many activities that other businesses

could not do In sum, holding and maintaining competitive advantages are the basics of

business strategy

1.2.2.2 ThefOl°ces of competition

Michael Porter, the top strategic and competing planner in the world today, hasprovided a theoretical framework in which he modeled the businesses and assumed thatevery business would have to bear the impact of the five competitive forces (Figure 1.1).Nowadays, the companies is searching the dominated advantages from the competitors

Picture 1.1: Five forces of competition by Michael Porter

The power suppliers shown in many characteristics, such as: concentration ofsuppliers, the importance of the number of products to providers, the difference of thesuppliers, influence of the inputs to the cost or product differentiation, the existence ofalternative suppliers, the risk of strengthening the unity of the vendor, the cost ofproviding comparing with the total income of the sector and cost of conversion ofenterprises in the similar sector

Alternative risk embodied in the cost of conversion in the use of the product, trends

in the use of substitute goods customers and the relationship between price and quality of

the items replaced The business should have the clear strategy in the future to have thesolutions whenever having the other new products that could replace its products.

The barriers to entry are included some elements: the absolute cost advantages,understanding of the market cycle oscillation, access to the inputs, the policy of thegovemment, economies of scale, the capital requirements, the specific characteristics ofthe trademark, the cost of business transfonnation, access to distribution channels andability to retaliation, the proprietary products When the new entrepreneurs appear, the

companies should have well prepared plans for maintaining and developing the sales

• Threat of customer power

This factor would affect the business through the amount of customers, theinformation from the customers, the sensitivity toward the price, the bargaining power,etc The customers are the main source in deciding the sales of businesses, so that theyshould be concemed in running the business

In traditional economic model, the competition among rival firms usually pushes

the profit of each other as low as possible However, today, the businesses are not

"gentle" to let their revenue decreases passively Actually, most brands try to hold at leastone competitive advantage by creating the distinction when comparing with theiropponent The intensity of competition is adjusted based on different segments and thestrategic managers quite remark these dissimilarity

1.3 THE MARKET SEGMENTATION

In general, markets are almost not identical, so that companies could rarely connect

customers in different and various sections of market In addition, customers are analyzed

and classified through dissimilar aspects depending on particular traits After that, thebrand should find out which segmentations it could serve and adapt the customers'

infonnation and fully understood the customers' behavior and strategic thoughts, sincethere were marketers who had wrong decision is chasing the same segmentation tocompete with other rivals, as the result that they omitted other sections which had muchmore potential in eaming revenue for them

Additionally, to compete more effectively, many companies are trying to do thetargeted marketing instead of performing the dispersed marketing This means, thesebusinesses tend to concentrate on the customers that they have the greatest opportunityand ability to satisfy them in order to achieve the best outcome, there are 3 tasks thatneed to be adapted:

and hobby (market segmenting)

about companies' products or services (market positioning)

In previous days, mass marketing was a very popular and effective method for thebrand which would like to expand its market This strategy is about production,distribution and advertisement in mass dimension For instance, Coca-cola has appliedthis mass advertising technique by producing only one kind of Coke size (6.5 ounce) orHenry Ford had applied the T-Ford black model in the year 1908 FUlihermore, one of themost benefits when following this mode is that the business could get a large possiblemarket with lowest cost of marketing activities This leads to an opportunity in forminglowest expense or the highest profit margin Up to now, the mass segmentationpenetration is hard to be perfonned, especially the mass media plan, since the market issplat into patis highly

1.3.1 Segment marketing

Fundamentally, this is the process to distinguish the different groups of customersbased on their demand or desire Moreover, the marketers could divide their customersbased on the various motivations in decision making of shopping, selecting brands ofmerchandise, etc Next, the customers could be differentiated according to their needs(strategic needs, unmet needs, unsatisfied needs) and behavior Finally, the companiescould arrange customers into groups with the similar element selecting when purchasingmerchandise or service

Segmenting process also reqUires the marketers to understand the reasons ofcustomers' choices and the popular trend of customers in the market Thereupon, thecompanies could recognize the basis for competitive advantages According to market

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segmentation, marketers could seize opportunities in the market through the analysis ofthe needs of each customer group Thanks to this benefit, the business could offer thesame product but with different utilities, different packaging, different prices, etc to caterfor different needs of different customers

Furthermore, market segmentation is the basic premise to build market strategy ofthe business Depending on the capacity and real advantages of business, If marketerssegmented the market quite well then detennined an appropriate market segment, theirenterprise could be successful in carrying out market strategy Conversely, if marketerschose the wrong segmentation, although the theoretical strategy was planed carefully, it

is still difficult for them to implement successfully Such as, the market which themarketers chose is larger than their abilities to control

Last but not least, market segmentation is also the basis for marketers to identify,assess the market and observe the market movements in order to judge the changes in themarket in the future in order to catch the market demand

Fundamentally, local marketing which reflects the trend is increasing is called basicmarketing Theoretically, the marketing activities focus on reaching and approaching thecustomers as close as possible Nike is an example with a lot of success in the early days

in attracting target buyers by sponsoring for sport teams in local schools through localmarketing basically

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1.3.3 Customized marketing

Nowadays, the customers have many individual ideas in making buying decisions.

Such as, they could search on the internet about the product or service's information andshow their opinions about them After that, the buyers are also fond of communicatingwith the other consumers or suppliers to explain their expectations about products, insome cases, they desire to have products designed specifically for them Today, someonline companies provide their customers choice-board, which could allow the buyers toselect what features, materials, price, characteristics that they are interested in beforebuying a product

Each business will have to decide whether the company can raise more profit bydesigning the segmented or individual system About the segmented market, companieswhich incline to apply the segmented market think that it is the best choice for attract

standardized products On the other hand, marketers whose favor is individual marketingpay attention to the individual needs to be able to achieve accuracy and efficiency inserving their customers

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CHAPTER 2: AN OVERVIEW OF THE COMPETITIVE SITUATION OF THE

BOOK MARKET IN HCMC AND THE POSITIONING OF THE KINH VAN HOA BOOKSTORE

2.1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION ABOUT BOOK MARKET IN HO CHI MINH CITY

2.1.1 The paper book market

As we known, Ho Chi Minh city (HCMC) is the center and the most developing andthe busiest area in South Vietnam In addition, HCMC is one of the key cities and majorcommercial centers of Vietnam, and is one of the important economic areas of theSouthern Provinces of Vietnam Besides that, Ho Chi Minh is known that having thehigher consumption of book, especially the new ones, since its citizen is mainly theknowledge class who are interested in reading book At the result, there are manytraditional book stores with various kinds of book from different book publishers also.Firstly, Publishing includes many activities, such as: content organizing, forming,printing and disseminating the ideas under the written form such as books, newspapers,magazines, or more modem electronic books, involving: recording in CD, uploading onthe Internet so that the public could entree widely The idea may be a collection ofpoems, a collection of short stories, a book of science etc These complicated activitiesare performed for the publications mainly at the publishing houses and the book issuingcompallles

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications of the SocialistRepublic of Vietnam, up to the previous year, there were more than 60 publishing housescompanies existing in Vietnam They are in various aspects: education, medicine,economics, ali, literary, psychology, science, etc In HCMC, Nha Nam, Kim Dong, FirstNew, Alphabooks, Tre, Dong A are 6 of the most famous publishing houses that providebooks for small and large bookstores in the city In competing on the market, forlaunching the product that receives the high appreciation of customers, they have tried to

do the market research, communicate with the author and sign up the copyright legallythen through many steps to complete the publishing process

In the traditional book store aspect, in a statistics of University of InformationTechnology, there are more than 60 bookstores in Ho Chi Minh city District I has the

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largest quantity of book stores because of the crowded center of the city Fahasa andPhuong Nam are two companies having chain stores with over 50 stores in HCMC

2.1.2 The online selling book market

Since having the Internet, the Vietnamese was not difficult to approach theinfonnation than before This great development is absolutely significant toward thisdeveloping country in many aspects, especially economy For instance, the businesseshave new tool in communicating with customers, new channel to marketing their

business In the book selling branch, the Internet became the new and suitable instrument

for developing the sale volume in some cases rather than the traditional book sale

In the online book market, there are two basic types of books: traditional paper book

but online sells and electronic book

2.1.2.1 Thepaperbook

Online business started with the book is reasonable because this kind product isconsidered to be the most basic forms of electronic commerce - has proven with the

success of Amazon In addition, it is also the item which is easy to be preserved, easy to

learn and distribute Moreover, recently, according to a market research, online shoppinglevel of Vietnamese stays in the second rate after Austria The online book market was

could not compete to survive on the market, the online book market is predict to be apotential place since the trend of using internet for searching and shopping is creasingday by day because of the faster speed of life style, reading and learning needs areconstantly increasing, and in the book industry, the both quantity and quality of publishedbooks are improved better than before

Many years ago, when the e-commerce market was incipient in Vietnam but stillunusual, there were only Minh Khai, vinabook.com that were boldly published Afterthat, other online bookstores such as: saharavn.com, davibooks.vn, Wisdom Bookstoreand nhasachkinhte.net were respectively set up Tiki - Knowing as the strong company

on the market now was established in 2010 and developed incredibly

Up to now, Tiki and Vinabook are the two giants in the online book selling market

At the end of the year 2012, Tiki bookstore hosted the "The Online Book Fair" which

was the first time we had an interesting event as that In Tiki online book fair, it gathered

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26 business units, publishers in Vietnam During on 11 days of the books fair, more than500,000 visitors with more than 100,000 kinds of books are sold The promotion isfocused the most with the high rate of selling off the cover price from 20 to over 40%.However, with the new titles of the famous author, the discounting rate decision of Tikiand Vinabook is approximately near the margin rate in law Additionally, some smallbookstores usually take advantage of this high discounting rate to purchase from theseonline bookstores instead of buying from the book publishing houses, after that thesestores resell to customers for receiving better profit On the other hand, this shockdiscount grade has seriously affected the revenue of other traditional stores who are in thesmall scale of book selling with, because these places only could sell books with thecover price or low rate of discount.

Besides that, thanks to the appearance of online book stores, the readers who livefar away from center of city could get the latest book easily and quickly This is the goodnews for participating in the improvement and development of these local people'sknowledge, so that there would be a better life in these areas which is basically comefrom the level of knowledge and other aspects

Picture 2.1: The rate of book selling off in Vinabooks.vn

Picture 2.2: The The rate of book selling off in Tiki.vn

2.1.2.2 The electronic book

For e-book market, the e-book reading more and more popular thanks to the handytype reader devices such as tablet, smart phone (smartphone) besides the computer (PC)

as before High-speed Internet service (ADSL, fiber optic, 3G and 4G in the near future)

is utilized commonly with the preferential price that also contributes to promote the use

of digital content services, including book.Obviously, 3 years ago, the quantity of book selling on the market was occupy nearly 50% when comparing with paper book

e-2012 is the year that recorded many events in which there positive occasion could beviewed as turning-point of the HCMC collective publisher to become the first officiallye-book publishing place 2015 is the promising year for continued development of the

the popular legal websites for buying e-book

In the business's point of view, the traditional book version and the e-book versionboth could create revenue Selling e-book has the advantage of being able to sell longperiod of time with low cost of product reserve, such as: reducing the warehouse cost,handling cost, displaying areas, distributing process, etc However, it is important toanalyze and calculate the total revenue per title is brought to the publishers and theauthors On the other hand, the traditional book market is going to meet many difficultieswith much anxiety as the price of printing, paper, publishing, etc increase lead to coverprice increases and the purchasing power decreases as well

With the small capacity but large amount of content, selling e-book is great foradapting the demand of storage and reading books anytime, anywhere on the computingdevice, such as a personal computer, and mobile phone, tablet, etc Today, with theexplosion of the Internet, e-book is favored and highly appreciated Most famous titles inthe year 1990s were switch over into the electronic book to facilitate the printing andpublishing activities Mentioning the benefits of the readers, as we know that the lifestyle is become more modern and high technical, people are going to have the need formore convenience, fas~ which do not waste much time, toward the readers, e-book is theinteresting and suitable book for them.

In general, the appearance of e-book is the threaten for the traditional book,however, Lorenzo Angeloni - the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of theRepublic of Italy in Vietnam said that he personally believed traditional books still existand would always have a certain place in the hearts of readers According to him, e-bookincreasingly gets large share of the market which is the inevitable trend in modernsociety However, this type of book will not completely replace the traditional paperbooks

E-books and print books are not two competing products which are two differentversions of a product that they generate revenue together His conception means thatthese could go breast each other, which is somewhat different from the electronic mediaand print since most online newspapers for free reading should be able to influence thedemand for print reading for a celiain audience E-book just added a new reading andcoexisted with paper books can not completely replace paper books or eliminate paperbooks But in some situations, in the future, e-book would be more purchased than paperbook According to Nguyen Manh Hung (Chairman of the Board of Thai Ha BooksCorporation), e-book type expresses handy advantage In HCMC, this kind of book isincreasingly popular, attracting the attention of the reader Moreover, Mr Nguyen ManhHung said that, since this moment, traditional paper books and e-books will accompany,

"holding hands" to go on the market Following his questionnaire which was sent to 300people and he got responses of 263 people 71% of them choose the answer "Yes" to thequestion "Does electronic equipment necessary in your life?"Besides, Hung said, whenquestioned "Thanks to electronic devices, which kinds of book did you read more?" Heobtained the following results: 27% of respondents choose the "science-knowledge",

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19% of respondents chose the "novel"."These numbers show the well-linked trend of books in modern society Since the convenience of it helps the reader to read more booksreally, "Dr Nguyen Manh Hung said.

2.2.1 History and development of KVHB

The KVHB was established in the March, 2012 by Nguyen NhatAnh (NNA) - the

famous writer of teenager's stories in Viet Nam for over 15 years until now Up to now,

the most famous series of his literary career is "Kinh Van Hoa" - the detective story with

three main characters for the teenagers also By establishing the bookstore named "Kinh

van Hoa", it is not just mentioning the kaleidoscope but also the name of series of

children story 10 years ago, which was transfonned into film that has the same name.

Furthermore, in the year 2012, in addition to the traditional bookstore, the book

market in HCMC developed the e-book type, one of the indirect competitors toward the

paper book market, especially the bookstores which selling paper type. In that

effervescent environment, in the early day, the brand name "Kinh Van Hoa" could create

the awareness of a small bookstore rapidly and impressed the customers, mainly the large

amount of readers of NNA books Another point is that at the time the bookstore was

opened, the HCMC's book fair concUlTently was organized Taking the advantage of this

event, KVHB decided to patiicipate in the book fair, so that it could advetiise itself

widely thanks to the high amount of fair's customers.

The inside special decoration of this bookstore may be the point to allure customers

to come and not only buy books but also enjoy the classical European style (Picture 2.4).

The design of bookshelf, bookcase, desk were made by an Italian architect.

Up to 2013, Kinh Van Hoa companies cooperate with the "DQc sach cling con" club

for trading its products in Ha Noi, so that the readers, especially who are fans of NNA's

books could purchase stories or other goods that only buying in KVHB.

Picture 2.4: Inside ofKVHB

(Source: by the writer)

2.2.2 The business field of KVHB

In the first day, KVHB is a place selling essentially literature It just had only near

2000 titles with almost are the literature books only Until the end of2014, its amount ofbook title is increased up to over 3000 At that time, KVHB has 4 more type relating toscience, soft skill, psychology and economy This bookstore has less books than otherbookstore, because the director of it would like to select the best books for its purchasers

At the result, it brings the self feeling for customers when they decide to buy books inthis place

The KVHB sells not only book but also other products, such as: bookmarks,postcards, kaleidoscopes making by Kinh Van Hoa company, backpack ,shirts with thename of stories were written by NNA (Picture 2.5), etc

interesting service for customers who do not have the ability to purchase books whichwas named "reading club", so that they could buy tickets for renting many books instead

of paying much money for owning them Although the amount of renting book is limitedwith over 500 titles, they are almost the selective and good books

Picture 2.5: Other products ofKVHB

(Source: By the writer)This activity of bookstore also has the meaningful in encouraging the reading hobbyfrom Vietnamese, especially people who live in HCMC

Since the end of 2014, besides selling in a traditional bookstore, to get the

at KVHB It ship to both inside and outside of HCMC with the fee depending on thelocation For the customers who live in HCMC, the extra price for shipping is10,000VND Besides that, for the extramural areas and other provinces, the shipping fee

is 30,000VND The payment stage has 2 main methods First way is that it could be donewhen book is received The second way is using the bank account to send the money intobookstore's account

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2.3.1 Method

The primary research was done by surveying 250 samples in HCMC with the effort

to find out the real information from customers toward bookstores and relatingbookstores' information In general, the writer had use 2 modes this process, including:preliminary and official methods

Editing questionnaire

including online andoffline

The research process was done in 2 stages:

In this first stage, the quantitative survey would be answered by 10 samples forevaluating the effectiveness of the questions and adjusting them before the official stage

"*- Official stageThis second stage was carried out by the questionnaire (n=250) randomly In detail,online survey was sent to 100 respondents who live in Ho Chi Minh city The other 150respondents were chosen in district 1, 5, 10 and Binh Tan district After that, the resultswere collected, clarified, analyzed to write the essay

2.3.2 Survey

Pmt 1: 4 demographic questions including: sex, job, age and income for knowingthe evaluation, behavior and attitude of people in each rate of these factors aboutbookstores

By analyzing these data, the segmentation and target customers, especially ofKVHB would be described in the result of survey part

.

I 6'.

Pali 2: 10 questions relating to bookstore market in HCMC were divided in 2 subpatis: traditional and online markets The question number 1, 2, 3 were about the generalinfonnation of book selections, frequency in going to bookstore and fonn of purchase.The questions from number 4 to 7 were about the traditional book selling market Thequestions from number 8 to 10 were about the online book selling market Moreover, thequestions number 7 and 10 explored the attitude of respondents about the book market.The others mentioned the behavior of them whenever going to bookstores

The objectives of these questions are for analyzing the KVHB's competitors on the

5 forces of Michael Porter In detail, by knowing the attitude, behavior and evaluation ofrespondents about the bookstores in HCMC, the writer could recognize the competitivestatus of KVHB in some aspects, such as: kinds of books, the evaluation toward productsand service in bookstores, etc, so that the compararison between KVHB and otherbookstores could be more clearly

Part 3: 10 questions from number 11 to 20 were about the respondents' assessmentabout KVHB in traditional and online selling formulas that providing data for theKVHB's brand value and business operational status With the questions number 15, 17,

19 were about the attitude of respondents toward the KVHB The rest of this part wasrelated to the behavior of customers in purchasing books in KVHB.The purpose of thesequestions is serving the KVHB's brand value and operational status

•: The fonns in building questions

The opened-ended form (multiple textbox): questions number 4 and 8The closed-ended form

first part, the questions number 3,6, 12 and 14

2.4 THE RESULT OF SURVEY

2.4.1 The segmentation and target customers

A company with limited capabilities may does not have the ability to serve allcustomers in various ways Moreover, there are many SMNEs in Vietnam that are hard todevelop if they would not segmented the market The segment will help businessesdefining their target customers, so that they would get a specific strategy for serving thesecustomers effectively Besides that, many companies had wrong point of view toward themarketing activities that they should seek as much customers as possible, this means itwould be more effective the budget they used for these marketing plans However, thiswould be lead to losing much cost but with low efficiency The best method is focusing

on a specific market segments, so that the firms could control their positions and servecustomers better At the result, the firms would achieve the customers' satisfaction in thebest plans and have stronger power for competing in the market

In the process of research, randomly, almost of respondents who interested inbuying books were the females (over 61% - Figure 212), in the age under 30 years old(over 80% - Figure 234) The students and officers (over 70% - Figure 2.2) with under 5million VND in income (over 60% - Figure 2.4) were the main customers who alreadyhad experience in reading and purchasing books By these result, the writer would base

on the opinions of young and the most creative customers of bookstores markets to findout the situation of bookstore market in HCMC, especially KVHB