Business Model And Plan For A Pet Café In Colombo District, Sri Lanka

Tutors Expectations

This report goal is to create a business model and plan for a Pet Café that would be located in Colombo district, Sri Lanka. The name of the café will be ‘Maya’s heaven’ .My proposed pet café would have two menus, one for the pet and another one for the human. The main objective of the business s to provide a secure haven to dog owners who may wish to spend some quality time outside their homes with their furry friends and in turn provide a socialistic space for pets as well.

 There will be full-time vet in case a pet get sick, there will be also a private dining rooms to accommodate unfriendly. (Lysaght & Krupa, 2011).

I started the process of idea development by analysing the existing theories which are related to Pet benefits and issues related to Pet in Sri Lanka. According to my research I found out that most of the dog owners are after the best experience with their pets and they are treat them like members of the family.

Some clients are sensitive when it comes to pricing, they are driven by how much they will have to pay than the services they get. My team and I will emphasize the benefits of selling on value and just selling. It will be very crucial for my company to segment clients in groups by different ways they choose saving their cash.

Similarly some clients are motivated the value of product or services and such customers do not care much on the price. So it will be very important to consider the needs of different customers.

Sri Lanka has large dog population and most of the dogs are owned by members of the family. The Pet owners are currently facing a challenge because there is no bet cafe in the country, most of the existing cafes does not allow pets to be brought inside the café.

My proposed Pet Café will primarily have two positioning types: convenient and cheap positioning for catering services for pet and humans. We will try our best to entice customers who will be willing to pay extra amount of money, to the services in what institutes cross-selling strategy. The key benefit of this strategy is that it would be easy to provide extra services clients who already exist than to have new customers. Moreover if the clients are impressed with the new services they will definitely be loyal to the café.

Objectives

Customers who would be using Pet services for the emergencies would be positioned in their mind to be cheap, moreover during the holidays customers would be willing to pay more for extra pet services, in this case the pet services will convenient and personalised. The organization do what it takes to be always convenient for the customers.

When it comes to placement or the distribution of service, there are some thing that I will consider. The first this will be how the clients will be able to reach the Pet café to demand the services, and the second thing to be considered will be the area in  which the business will be operated.

When it comes to the channel for distribution our target customers will reach us, one of the channel that my business would use will be through the café website. The website will enable the patrons to book venues and reserve tables for all kinds of pet activities for instance pet birthdays. The clients will also self-booking services. The technology will enable our clients to contact us directly. Our clients will also be able to contact us via email Facebook and phone calls.

The main booking of venues and table reservation will be conducted via the website but it would be crucial for us to have a phone number, we would offer personalised service so we should always be reachable to our customers at all time. Talking to the clients over the phone ill enable the company to develop trust the customers.

The issue of location, the café will be located in Colombo district, Sri Lanka. In case our business will be profitable of which I think will be, we will expand our sitter service in Mount Lavinia and Battaramula both in Colombo district. I consider this place appropriate by considering factors such as the level of competition, target population and the purchasing power of customers.

I will try the best I can to constantly maintain a customized services for our clients in order to extend the life time of our customers and capture the market share. I will always listen to the customers’ needs and always be available to offer quick and urgent services. The channels that will be used to maintain good relationship with the customers will include: App store, Website, emails and phone calls (Ross, 2017).

My business idea will generate revenue in two ways. I will charge clients per hour for spending their time in the café with the Pets and charging the customers for the food and beverages they consume at the café.

Proposed Pet Café

The key resources that would be required for the business would be: the human assets, intellectual assets and the physical assets in order for the company to run smoothly. These include:

• Café space including the kitchen
• Kitchen equipment
• Vehicle
• Modes of payments  
• Minimum of 10 employees to give services and the kitchen work
• Planning and banking knowledge skills

The proposed Pet café will have many co-operative partners, nut the main partners would be:

• Pinecone Solutions- website management and handling of brand image
• Coffee roaster- supply coffee
• Pie witch- provides spicy pies
• General potential partner for the business

Start-up cost

The total capital required is estimated to be Rs 150,000

Legal	1,000
Stationary	500
Rental	50,000
brochures	500
insurance	1,745
Licenses/tax/deposits	5,000
equipment	36,300
Employees/ payroll	16,834
Accounting	1000
Advertising	2,000
supplies	5,000
Msc. Expenses	4,260
Total start-up expense	RS 124, 439

Fixed expenses

Rent	50,000
	5,000
	1,200
	1,748
	5,000
	2,000
Total fixed expenses	Rs 64,945

Variable expenses

Salaries /wages	13000
Payroll expenses	2860
Legal / accounting	2000
Supplies	5000
Subscriptions	1000
Repairs and maintenance	2200
Outside services	1000
miscellaneous	2260
Total varaiable cost	31320

	2019	2020	2021
Sales	563 760	676 512	879 465
Total units	43.200	51 540	67 392

Forecast for unit sell

Year 1	Year 2	Year 3
Human food        200	250	300
Pet food               150	180	250
Total  units         350	430	550
		Total units        1100 units

Value of the total sale

The value of the total sale for the first year of operation will be 43, 200, the second year will be 59,000 and the third year will be 63,000

Profit and loss

Sales	863 760	676  512	879 465
Variable expenses	75,840	451 008	541 209
Gross margin	187, 920	225 504	338 255
Fixed cost	64 945	64 945	64 945
Net profit	122 975	160 559	273 310

Asia has been the most popular continent with Pet cafes, the business has spread globally. Now there are few Pet Cafes in Sri Lanka.

The business café is going to offer a place where people will relax with friends or relatives and enjoy a meal or beverages.  The café will also help the Pet they guard available for an adoption.

This are the kind of activities that would happened at the Cafe during a typical working days

1. Taking good care of the pets
2. Giving pet any veterinary care
3. Welcoming clients
4. Serving clients with food and beverages

Target market

My proposed Maya’s café will target both high and medium level income earners in Sri Lank. There is currently high demand of pet café in Sri Lanka due to rise of Asian Pet cafes, this is creating a lucrative market in the country. The high demand pets in the market currently is because of the associated advantages of having a pet. The benefits are as follows

Pet act as partners or playmates and they give affection, protection and companionship. They place an important role in each and every stage of development of human, for instance, in the issue of adults they give a reason for to contact with other people like dog walking.  My target market of Pet café business are the people who love pets. Pet lovers may appear in a many reasons including:

• To enjoy time with pet friends and human friends.
• To hang out with relatives or friends in a cool environment
• To upkeep shelter that they trust in.

Advantages and disadvantages

In order to examine the presence of competition, it is important to consider other options that may be readily available for the clients. If for instance someone may prefer to feed his pet at home and have good time with the pet than going in to the café.  Other people might decide to take out their pet to veterinaries who would guard and offer the same services to the pet.

The following are the options that can be taken by the bet owner instead of using the services of the Pet Café:

1. Friends, family and neighbours

Key Resources

This is the less costly option and the owner of the pet have confidence that the pet will be well taken care of, the only challenge is that it is not easy to find someone who will be taking care of the bet at a given time and the dog might also suffer psychologically because it will be in unusual environment.

1. Taking the pet – thismight be possible only during the holidays, in most cases it is not realistic to carry pet when on business trips.
2. Catteries and kennels – another option that exist is taking pet to catteries and kennels which is the cheapest. Nevertheless, most of this firms in Sri Lanka are operated by charity associations or municipal institutions, they have low funds which causes the poor conditions (Yoon & Jang, 2017).
3. Veterinaries –most of the veterinaries provide the opportunity of caring and keeping the pets in absence of the owners, this is sometimes impossible because of insufficient space.

Direct competition

My business idea is closely for pet café may be substituted by Pet Sitters and Pet Walkers companies that are already existing in Sri Lanka, since we will be offering nearly same service. In this case we will develop strategies to enable us compete favourably with the competitors (Rattanasilpkalcharn, 2016).

Our day to day operations of the Pet Café include the concentration in providing our clients with the best services and also the fun atmosphere for friends and relatives.

We will understand that the main aim of our business will be to provide Pet service for our client to have a good time, and we will always remain focused in utilizing the resources the resources available in order to provide clients with the best services (Niijima, 2016).

In regards to threats and opportunities it is pertinent to remark that they are external issues that would affect the company. In this case I will discuss strengths and weakness and opportunities for my proposed Pet Café which has not been initiated yet, this means that it is just a projection points and they may definitely vary with time.

Strengths

1. It will be possible to personalised service according to the needs of the clients
2. Partnership with other companies.

Weakness

1. Since the business will be new in the market the outcome will be unpredictable
2. I being the owner of the café I have no experience and I have never operated the same business.

Opportunities-

1. There is high growth of number of people with pets in Sri Lanka
2. The proposed business is unique because no other pet café exist in Sri Lanka.

Threats

1. There are other companies offering pet services hence there is competition threat.
2. Existence of substitutes

Below is the fiscal analysis for the projection that is based on the assumptions

Fixed assets
Tangible fixed asset	50000
Intangible fixed asset	20000
Capital assets	30000
Long-term capital
Share capital	50000
Reserves	10000
Profit and loss carried forward	0.0
Other expenses	20000
Total	180000

The total start-up cost for the business will be RS 180, 000 this is the total initial amount of money that will be needed to operate the Pet cafe.

I will need to consider cost of three kinds, that food cost, payroll cost and other costs. In the payroll costs there is the cost for workers and the manager.

Cost of the workers is a commission of 40 percent of the value that I will be received in the business, in this case there would be a variation in the amount needed for the workers. This would be an advantage because when there is need for extra workers, there would be no burden top the regular workers because the cost would be the same. 

When it comes to the running cost it is very crucial to say that my Pet Café will not have clients or inventory because the amount of food that is purchase monthly will be the ordered amount only and payments by the clients will be either done by bank transfer or by bank ((Yoon and Jang, 2017).

Cooperative Partners

There are also other cost that will be incurred like insurance, administrative cost, treasury security reserve. The supplies value will be supplying the pet food. The projection of the fixed cost is estimated to be 100, 000 Sri Lankan rupee

The projected net earnings of the Pet Café will in year 1 will be low and it will keep on increasing in the subsequent years. The table below shows the profit breakdown for the first 3 years.

2018	2019	2020
195,000	250,000	265,000

 Conclusions 

I consider this business idea for the Pet Café to be financially viable if it would generate the projected net profit, my recommendation to the entrepreneurs is to invest in the industry. However, investors should remember risk sometimes exist in each and every project and there is always threat that the real results that would be will be far different from what is predicted in the business plan (Mezur, 2017).

More specifically to this business plan variation on demand do exist depending on the country. In case of lower demand the price would be reduced and the vice versa. Lowering the price would mean that low earning would be generated in the business and thus the business will not be viable. According to my research I did before thinking of the business idea I found out that there is always high demand of Pet services in Sri Lanka and thus I am confident that my Pet Café would be economically viable (Ka, 2015).

References 

Gill, L., Atkins, S., Ramsey, P., & Schaddelee, M. (2017, June). Detecting Sincerity in World Café Experiences en Route to Q-Sorting. In ECRM 2017 16th European Conference on Research Methods in Business and Management (p. 122). Academic Conferences and publishing limited.

Ka Leong, C., 2015. Is the blooming of coffeehouses in South Korea at risk?. International Journal of Tourism Sciences, 15(3-4), pp.110-120.

Lysaght, R., & Krupa, T. 2011. Social business: Advancing the viability of a model for economic and occupational justice for people with disabilities. Kingston: School of Rehabilitation Therapy, Queen’s University.

Mezur, K., 2017. Girls’ R’Pets: The power of Kawaii Shôjo (Cute Girl) and Pet/Girl performance. Performance Research, 22(2), pp.54-62.

Niijima, N., 2016. Chats, Cats and a Cup of Tea: A Sociological Analysis of the Neko Café Phenomenon in Japan. In Companion Animals in Everyday Life (pp. 269-282). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.

Rattanasilpkalcharn, R., 2016. A study of factors influencing behavioral intentions to repurchase towards Cat Cafe in Thailand: a case study of Cataholic Cafe.

Ross, N. (2017). Marketing and Advertising for Small Business in Local Economies.

Yoon, S. Y., & Jang, M. K. 2017. Creation of Visual Culture in Seoul Business Signboards: The Seoul Good Sign Contest, 2009–2013. The Design Journal, 20(2), 199-217.

Yoon, S.Y. and Jang, M.K., 2017. Creation of Visual Culture in Seoul Business Signboards: The Seoul Good Sign Contest, 2009–2013. The Design Journal, 20(2), pp.199-217.