Consumers Subway

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The fourth step of the adoption process will be trial. This is the stage when the prospect experiences the product and judges whether the claims are true and reach their expectations or not. Trials can be generated by the prospect himself or herself after buying the product. Most of the prospects will not purchase expensive products without a “trial”. On the other hand for the inexpensive products, an initial single purchase will be considered as a trial. For example, the locals finally tried SUBWAY® sandwich after standing outside and watching for a few days. At first, they were so confused with the signs on how to order the sandwich. Besides, they also encountered other problems like they do not like the idea of touching their food as it is not a cultural norm in China. Furthermore, SUBWAY® also can provide free sandwich to the locals so that the locals can try on their sandwich and this will also attract more locals’ attention and find out what SUBWAY® is.

Last but not least, the fifth step of the adoption process is adoption. This is the step when the prospect has made up their mind whether they would make an initial purchase or continue to purchase a product. Sales representatives and word of mouth are forces in the decision to buy. For example, after some of the locals had tried a SUBWAY® sandwich, if they liked it and found it agreeable to their tastes, they will recommend the product to their friends and ask them to purchase SUBWAY® products too. They will also continue to support the business and this can act as an important role for success of the business as the locals will be more confident with the product and trust the company more. From the case, the Chinese consumers continued to buy the SUBWAY® tuna salad as they found it to be delicious. At first, the tuna salad was unable to sell as the Chinese customers did not believe it was made of real fish as they could not see the tail or head of the fish. However, the product became the number one seller over time after the locals tried to adopt it. SUBWAY®’s name in Mandarin “Sai Bai Wei” (tastes better than others) may indeed be proven correct.