Etude de Cas Shake Shack

Questionnaire

11. Which products and services do you enjoy in the restaurant?
12. How are the competitors of Shake Shack?
13. Does shake shack focus on healthy foods?
14. How is shake shack performing as compared to its competitors?

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1. Which products and services can customers enjoy in the restaurant?

Shake Shack offers a diverse panel of choice in terms of food, to attract customers and to stream people’s demand for the different types of products that one can generally find in fast foods: the original Shake Shack menu above includes diverse types of Burgers, Hotdogs, Chicken, Fries, Frozen custards such as Milkshakes and Ice Cream, Carbonated Drinks, Beers and Wines. On of the particularities of Shake Shack, which is part of the restaurant’s added value to customers is the diversity : in fact the menu is composed of different types of Sandwiches and meals that one can find in other fast food chains but Shake Shack is the only one offering all those meals in one single menu and in the same restaurant, with a “Shake Shack Touch” to show their originality . For Example, Hamburgers and Cheeseburgers can also be found in well known fast food chains such as McDonalds or Burger King, whereas Hot Dogs are really widespread as an icon of typical Street Food. The rest of the menu seems to be very similar to the Menus of every Fast Food (Fries, Carbonated Drinks, Milkshakes).

Moreover, The Shake Shack Menu also has a particularity that one doesn’t find in every fast food chain: The possibility to design your own frozen custard, offering the customer the choice to create his own experience and to adapt what he consumes to his mood and to his needs.

Furthermore, Shake Shack also proposes a space for Dog Food in his menu, which shows the will for the restaurant to touch everyone and to target dog owners, with for example the USA : knowing that 36,5% of households do own a dog, which represents 43,346,000 households owning at least a dog, also knowing that the mean of dogs held per household is of 1.6 dogs, representing 69,926,000 dogs held in the USA in 2012 according to the American Veterinary Medical Association in their . Shake Shack here aims to attract absolutely everyone and clearly adopted a special marketing strategy to touch at least 36,5 % of American households without taking in account the percentage of people who regularly go to fast food restaurants.

9. How are the competitors of Shake Shack?

As we know, Shake Shack is a Fast Food Chain, serving exclusively Sandwiches (Hot Dogs and Hamburgers) as the main course of their meals. With that single information, we can deduce that the main competitors of Shake Shack are fast food chains companies proposing the same kind of menu in their restaurants. However other “competitors” of the brand can also be fast food chains proposing other kinds of meals. Therefore we are going to divide Shake Shack’s Competitors in two categories: The main direct competitors, and the indirect competitors that can be considered as “Alternatives” to Shake Shack.

1. The Main Competitors (1st range), Nearest direct Competitors

Without entering into details for the moments, let’s define Shake Shack’s main nearest competitors: Shake Shack’s nearest direct competitors are fast food chains, located mainly in the USA but also Internationally (for the most of them), those competitors mostly propose hamburgers and hot dogs as main course in their menu, but can also propose other types of food such as Chicken for example. They also propose and guarantee high quality products and target people who can afford a “more qualitative and more expensive fast food experience” which means that they target young people from 18 to 30 years old desirous to eat well, not really minding the price of their final menu. Shake Shack’s nearest direct competitors also tend to propose fresh (meaning healthier) products (justifying the higher price) compared to their second range main direct competitors. They also tend to propose a separated menu, meaning that the fries, the main course, the dessert and the drink are proposed separately from another. Personalization of the menu or of one part of this menu is also a particularity of Shake Shack’s 1 range nearest direct competitors.

Having this information, we can find at least 2 main 1st range direct competitors to Shake Shack, which are Five Guys (the Nearest) and In and Out Burgers.

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Five Guys                      In-N-Out Burgers

1. Main Direct Competitors (2nd range)

Shake Shack’s 2nd range of main direct competitors are also fast food chains, mostly established a longer time ago than Shake Shack possessing restaurants internationally. They also propose burgers as a main course in their menu and basically the same kind of food as at Shake Shack or Five Guys, except that their menus are pre-maid and that there is less personalization possible. On top of that, their food is proposed at a more affordable price as their marketing strategy is basically to touch everybody with different types of pre-maid menus, ones more affordable than others : Taking the example of McDonalds for example. In counterpart, these competitors are less qualitative, and the quantities are smaller at the price they sell.

Having this Information in mind, the competitors selected are McDonalds, Burger King and Jack In The Box

1. Indirect Competitors

As we answered in the first question (refer to “Which products and services can customers enjoy in the Restaurant”), we know that Shake Shack has a diversified offer of products, with some of them that alone can directly compete with some brands producing the same kind of food. For example, Shake Shack could directly compete with Starbucks for the selling of different Milkshakes and Concretes, in which Starbucks is specialized. With the same reasoning, we can also affirm that indirectly, Shake Shack can compete with KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) for the sale of its Fried chicken-based meal that one can especially find in the United States but also in England.

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