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Trap-Ease: The Big Cheese of Mousetraps: Canadian Business

Here are potential answers to your questions: 1. Martha has identified women as the best target market, as they are more concerned about humane and clean methods of pest control. However, the firm could also target: - Pet owners, who want a humane trap - Environmentally conscious consumers looking for non-toxic options - Schools and daycares concerned with safety 2. Direct competition would include other mousetraps. Indirect competition could include: - Pest control services - Rodenticides (poisons) - Natural pest deterrents like ultrasonic devices

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Moona Malik
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61 views

Trap-Ease: The Big Cheese of Mousetraps: Canadian Business

Here are potential answers to your questions: 1. Martha has identified women as the best target market, as they are more concerned about humane and clean methods of pest control. However, the firm could also target: - Pet owners, who want a humane trap - Environmentally conscious consumers looking for non-toxic options - Schools and daycares concerned with safety 2. Direct competition would include other mousetraps. Indirect competition could include: - Pest control services - Rodenticides (poisons) - Natural pest deterrents like ultrasonic devices

Uploaded by

Moona Malik
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Trap-Ease: The Big Cheese of Mousetraps

One April morning, Martha House, president of or some other tidbit). A hinged door is attached to
Trap-Ease, entered her office in Moncton, New the front end of the tube. When the trap is “open,”
Brunswick. She paused for a moment to this door rests on two narrow “stilts” attached to the
contemplate the Ralph Waldo Emerson quotation two bottom corners of the door.
that she had framed and hung near her desk: “If a
man [can] make a better mousetrap than his The trap works with simple efficiency. A mouse,
neighbor … the world will make a beaten path to smelling the bait, enters the tube through the open
his door.” Perhaps, she mused, Emerson knew end. As it walks up the angled bottom toward the
something that she didn’t. She had the better bait, its weight makes the elevated end of the trap
mousetrap—Trap-Ease—but the world didn’t seem drop downward. This elevates the open end,
all that excited about it. allowing the hinged door to swing closed, trapping
the mouse. Small teeth on the ends of the stilts
Martha had just returned from the National catch in a groove on the bottom of the trap, locking
Hardware Show in Toronto. Standing in the trade the door closed. The mouse can be disposed of
show display booth for long hours and answering live, or it can be left alone for a few hours to
the same questions hundreds of times had been suffocate in the trap.
tiring. Yet, this show had excited her. Each year,
National Hardware Show officials hold a contest to Martha believed that the trap had many
select the best new product introduced at the advantages for the consumer when compared with
show. Of the more than 300 new products traditional spring-loaded traps or poisons. It
introduced at that year’s show, her mousetrap had appeals to consumers who want a humane
won first place. Such notoriety was not new for the alternative to spring traps. Furthermore, with Trap-
Trap-Ease mousetrap. Canadian Business Ease, consumers can avoid the unpleasant mess
magazine had written an article about the they encounter with the violent spring-loaded
mousetrap, and the television show traps—there are no clean-up problems. Finally,
MarketPlace and trade publications had featured the consumer can reuse the trap or simply throw it
it. Despite all this attention, however, the away.
expected demand for the trap had not
materialized. Martha hoped that this award might Martha’s early research suggested that women
stimulate increased interest and sales. were the best target market for the Trap-Ease.
Men, it seems, were more willing to buy and use
A group of investors who had obtained worldwide the traditional spring-loaded trap. The targeted
rights to market the innovative mousetrap had women, however, did not like the traditional trap.
formed Trap-Ease in January. In return for They often stay at home and take care of their
marketing rights, the group agreed to pay the children. Thus, they want a means of dealing with
inventor and patent holder, a retired rancher, a the mouse problem that avoids the unpleasantness
royalty fee for each trap sold. The group then hired and risks that the standard trap creates in the
Martha to serve as president and to develop and home.
manage the Trap-Ease organization.
To reach this target market, Martha decided to
The Trap-Ease, a simple yet clever device, is distribute Trap-Ease through national grocery,
manufactured by a plastics firm under contract with hardware, and drug chains such as Safeway,
Trap-Ease. The trap consists of a square, plastic Zellers, Canadian Tire, and Shoppers Drug Mart.
tube measuring about 15 cm long and 4 cm She sold the trap directly to these large retailers,
square. The tube bends in the middle at a 30- avoiding any wholesalers or other intermediaries.
degree angle, so that when the front part of the
tube rests on a flat surface, the other end is The traps sold in packages of two, with a
elevated. The elevated end holds a removable cap suggested retail price of $2.99. Although this price
into which the user places bait (cheese, dog food, made the Trap-Ease about five times more
Trap-Ease: The Big Cheese of Mousetraps freight and packaging costs, was about 31 cents per
-. unit. The company paid an additional 8.2 cents per unit in
royalty fees. Martha priced the traps to retailers at $1.49
expensive than smaller, standard traps, consumers per unit and estimated that, after sales and volume
appeared to offer little initial price resistance. The
manufacturing cost for the Trap-Ease, including
discounts, Trap-Ease would realize net Page 2
revenues from retailers of $1.29 per 00

unit. enough repeat buying. For another, she had noted


To promote the product, Martha had budgeted that many of the retailers kept their sample
approximately $60,000 for the first year. She mousetraps on their desks as conversation
planned to use $50,000 of this amount for travel pieces—she wanted to traps to be used and
costs to visit trade shows and to make sales calls demonstrated. Martha wondered whether
on retailers. She would use the remaining $10,000 consumers were buying the traps as novelties
for advertising. Because the mousetrap had rather than as a solution to their mouse problems.
generated so much publicity, however, she had not
felt the need to do much advertising. Still, she had Martha knew that the investor group believed that
placed advertising in Chatelaine and in other home Trap-Ease had a once-in-a-lifetime chance with its
magazines. Martha was the company’s only innovative mousetrap. She sensed the group’s
salesperson, but she intended to hire more impatience. She had budgeted approximately
salespeople soon. $150,000 in administrative and fixed costs fore the
first year (not including marketing costs). To keep
Martha had initially forecast Trap-Ease’s first-year the investors happy, the company needed to sell
sales at 500,000 units. By the end of April, enough traps to cover those costs and make a
however, the company had sold only a few reasonable profit.
thousand units. Martha wondered whether most
new products got off to such a slow start, or In the first few months, Martha had learned that
whether she was doing something wrong. She had marketing a new product is not an easy task. For
detected some problems, although none seemed example, one national retailer had placed a large
overly serious. For one, there had not been order with instructions that he order was to be
delivered to the loading dock at one of its
warehouses between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. on a
specified day. When the truck delivering the order
had arrived late, the retailer had refused to accept
the shipment. The retailer had told Martha it would
be a year before she got another chance.
Perhaps, Martha thought, she should send the
retailer and other customers a copy of Emerson’s
famous quotation.

Questions:

1. Has Martha identified the best target market for Trap-Ease? What other market segments might the firm
target?

2. Who is Trap-Ease’s direct competition? Who are indirect competitors?

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