As a former Escondidoian, Hungry Bear stands close to my heart as their first location was about 2 minutes from my house. Quality ingredients were always their cornerstone, along with excellent customer service. This sense of family and community in that store every time I walked in was infectious. This brings me to today, where I view their website for the first time. And I must say that they brought the quality over from the sandwiches to the website. This website does exactly what it is supposed to do and doesn't get carried away by adding unnecessary pages and information. On the homepage, we are greeted with a logo, accompanied by a gallery/slideshow going through many of the different sandwiches they offer. This is a fantastic way to start off the website. It gets the most important aspects of your business right to the customer. To build brand recognition, putting the logo in the middle as well as in the left corner are ways of ingraining that image in that customer's mind. The address for the store is always at the top of the screen on every page for easy finding. Hovering over the different menu buttons, you can see a little bear pop-up indicator. This helps bring the website together and completes the whole bear experience. People want to preview the food in the highest fidelity possible, so they made sure to add lots of big, bold pictures showcasing their wide variety of products. Their accolades page is also fascinating and not something you see on a lot of websites. When you are a place that has such a good reputation as Hungry Bear, it's crucial to take advantage of those good reviews and promote them along with your other award accolades. The shop also makes it clear that it is a local Californian business, which could lead to new and returning customers in hopes of supporting small businesses.
Subway is a massive company that operates on a much different scale than Hungry Bear. This requires that the website be much more functional, along with more info being thrown at you. Upon landing on the site, I was instantly greeted with a pop-up showing me their new "Tuna Sandwich". This came with a 20% off discount code that I could use at checkout. Showing people good deals straight off the bat may be the right way of getting an initial sale but is a horrible way of retaining returning customers. Too many sales promotions (especially ones that are really in your face like this) can likely lead to customers only buying the product at discounted prices. Anywhoo, once I exit the promo, I am greeted with the bright and colorful homepage. I see a huge graphic showing the various delivery services Subway is on. Publicizing this is mega important as during COVID-19, delivering food has become exponentially more popular. Subway capitalizes on this and makes sure that people know how and where they can order and not have to go anywhere. Something I find very interesting about this website is the "Responsibility" page. Subway is a company that is dedicated to its social responsibility. This sort of "green marketing" can be beneficial and is a tasteful way of promoting your products. As I explore more of this Subway website, I see how deep it is. Every menu button has multiple pages with lots of information on all of them. This could be a double-edged sword. Though you have a lot of information for people to ingest and get invested in, it could become hard to find exactly what you are looking for. Though that is just me nitpicking, this website is done very well.
There are some things about the Hungry Bear website that I would change to have a bit more connection to the customer. I first would add a newsletter or something to the effect of that. Even though this is a small business, I've seen firsthand how many people are crazy for this establishment. There are dedicated fans who I'm sure are waiting for another excuse to hop by their shop. This is why a newsletter or text message system could drive sales. The one aspect of Hungry Bear that I see is lacking is communication, and I think this could do a good job of solving this. You can add surveys to this letter, and with that, you can add on a small discount to entice them. With the information, you can make better, well-informed decisions on where/how to expand next. Also, I found that the "About" page is laughably brief, and I'd love some more info on how they came to be. This is an underrated part of the website, as conveying to people your past could help in getting more emotionally invested in the business.
Something I disliked about the Subway website was how cluttered the homepage was. I counted 11 buttons (not including top and very bottom) on the very long extensive homepage, and I can't help but think that it is just too much! I get why they want to put as much info ready at the fingertips, but the homepage should be dedicated to what and who you are. I don't need to be seeing how sustainable and green Subway is when I am making a purchasing decision. That information is best served to entice the viewer to come to the website, not stay.
This picture to the right is even more egregious than the one above. It quite literally looks like they got a stock photo and slapped a logo on it. It is an easy way to create a visually appealing picture that "informs" the viewer about the freshness. But for a large corporation like Subway, I expect photos that are more tailored to their website. I know they have the money to create high-quality content, so why not do that. This picture SHOULD NOT be on a homepage, as it merely adds little to no insight and takes up valuable real estate.
These two websites honestly can't be further from each other. Other than the fact they both sell sandwiches, they employ very different strategies for their websites. Hungry Bear has its sights set on simplicity, while Subway is throwing every bit of knowledge at you. This difference in methodology is very reminiscent of their business styles. Hungry Bear is a shop solely dedicated to cranking out sandwiches and salads. That's it. Their website doesn't need to have all the bells and whistles that Subway has, and it honestly doesn't have that amount of information to give anyway. Subway is trying to make you a customer by showing you all the great aspects of Subway, not necessarily focusing on the product at hand. Daily discounts, delivery, catering are advantages that Subway has over most smaller sub shops.
All of this can give us an idea of who our target market could be, though food is something that is all-encompassing, so it is hard to distinguish the two very much. But from my viewpoint, the most significant difference between the two audiences is frugality. Hungry Bear is a shop that rarely does discounts and whose prices are higher than competitors. This allows them to get the best of ingredients, at the cost of a lower barrier to entry. Subway is value-oriented, nothing making it more evident than their famous "5 dollar footlong" campaign. Their dedication to promos and discounts on in-store and mobile orders makes it clear that they target a cheaper, more sparing individual.
Comments
Post a Comment