Bird in the Hand Enterprises

Bird in the Hand Enterprises (BHE)

 Introduction

John Henigman, owner and manager of Bird in the Hand Enterprises (BHE) produces "Ecosystem Explorer" or “Nature" guidebooks for easy adventure nature walks close to major cities.   City ecosystem guidebooks, such as the first book he designed for Vancouver BC, helps users find walking and hiking trails and understand native flora and fauna, such as that found in old-growth forests, wetlands, and alpine meadows.  A year and a half after launching the Vancouver guidebook in the spring of 2008, Henigman is considering developing and selling a second guide book for the Victoria-Nanaimo region of Vancouver Island. This book would need to go to press by February 2010 to be in stores by the end of March.  First year sales of the Vancouver book fell short of expectations with 1500 copies sold rather than the forecasted 5,000.  Not wanting to repeat the same mistakes, he has sought the advice of UVic marketing students for recommendations for marketing the Victoria-Nanaimo guide book.

Bird in the Hand Enterprises

John Henigman is the sole proprietor of BHE.  He has authored numerous publications and handbooks, has degrees in biology and forest management, and has travel extensively in the natural places of North American, all of which enable him to summarize ecological information for the public.  BHE was created when Henigman started on the Vancouver guidebook project and he runs the company part-time out of a home office. He has no staff.

In addition to the Vancouver and Victoria/Nanaimo, guidebooks, Henigman plans to develop guidebooks for Juneau/ Ketchikan, Alaska; Seattle, Washington; and Portland, Oregon over the next few years.

The Vancouver Strategy

Henigman came up with the idea for the guidebooks when friends and relatives kept asking him where to go to experience the “Super Natural” BC they were promised in the tourism advertising for the Province.  He thought the guidebooks would be great for anyone wanting to explore their natural environment and learn about the plants, animals, and ecosystems around them.  

The Vancouver Ecological Explorer was designed to be an attractive, convenient reference guide of 36 pages of text, colour photographs, line drawings and maps that would fit is a shirt or coat pocket (see Exhibit 1) and be used to a) find walking and hiking trails and then b) as a field guide to identify flora and fauna on the walk or hike.  Easy to understand language is used to describe the landform, climate, surface geology, biological diversity, aboriginal cultures, and natural changes occurring in the ecosystems.  The product binding was like a regular book and the front and back covers had an image of a couple walking on a nature trail. The guidebook helps people enjoy a comprehensive view of the ecosystems they visit.  According to Henigman, people who have diverse interests in out-of-doors activities can all use the guidebooks and they need only buy the books of interest to them.  Henigman thought that this was a key selling feature as other guides or publications (of which there were 2 or 3 in Vancouver and Victoria) do not offer these features.

Henigman did a bit of market research during the design phase of the Vancouver project, consulting retail managers about the details of the booklet design.  Although many store managers had useful suggestions for the guidebook, many did not clearly understand what their customers wanted or would respond to.

The Vancouver Ecological Explorer was launched in the spring of 2008. The guidebook initially retailed for $8.95, but in an attempt to stimulate sales Henigman reduced the price to $6.95, but sales did not change appreciably, suggesting to Henigman that consumers were reasonably price inelastic within the $5 to $20 price range.  His average selling price the first year was $7.95.

Henigman originally thought that the ecosystem guidebook market includes resident and tourist nature lovers who

are interested in knowing the natural sites around cities they visit.  These people are typically 35–54 years old, are interested in wilderness scenery and walking.  He estimated that for Vancouver, the market size for nature guidebooks would be 740,000 to 830,000 units.  Henigman estimated that BHE could capture 1–10% of the Vancouver market, or 7,800 to 78,000 booklet purchases per year.  However, the Vancouver guidebook has not sold to expectation in the first year of sales.  Henigman thought that this could be because the guidebook was not put together well for effective marketing, and/or the market and market size may not be estimated correctly.  He wondered if a more effective segmentation scheme was needed for the Victoria-Nanaimo market.

Most of the 1500 copies sold in the first year were sold through retail outlets such as book stores, outdoor equipment and clothing stores, and specialty nature stores with only a limited number being sold through tourist locations such as stores selling city maps, cruise ship lines, ferries, major hotels, and tour companies. The standard arrangement with the book retailers saw them buy the books for 60% of the retail selling price from Henigman, and receiving a 40% margin on the selling price.  To get greater distribution, Henigman was considering taking a lower margin or providing other incentives to the retailers.