Salient features of Eliza Minden reengineered pointe shoe highlights comfort, reliability, and

eliminate the need to break the shoe in before. While both professional dancers as well as the

dance students can benefit from this innovate design language, profitability can be maximized by

targeting young dance students and advanced students to purchase Gaynor Minden shoe. Most

logical explanation to this decision lies in the fact that amateur dance students vastly outnumber

the professional dancers and thus, making the subject target audience considerably extensive.

Moreover, fresh students mostly require taking lessons at the dance studio. Here according to

most interviews, these students rely heavily on their dance instructor when it comes to opting the

first pair of shoe. Assuring dance instructors about the superior yet exclusive features of Gaynor

Minden shoe can in turn influence the decision making of the entire dance class. Also, there is

no centralized communication system between schools ensuring that students may not fall into

group think incase either students or dance teacher of a particular school do not appreciate or

find discomfort in Gaynor Minden shoe. One of the interviewee states “At the beginning, you

experiment with different kinds, then find one you like, then stick with it”, which makes it clear

that dance professionals may not prefer adapting to the changes in their shoe brand.

Nevertheless, a beginner do experiment with different brands in his initial career, and as Gaynor

Minden shoe are more feature packed, one will most likely settle on it. Not to mention most

interviewee states that their choice in beginning is influenced by how soft and easier to break in

the shoe are, and with time they switch to brands that are stronger and harder considering the fact

that they have developed harder arch, speaking of which, Gaynor Minden shoe features softer fit

and yet no breaking of the shoe prior to use. Furthermore, students are generally more sensitive

to injuries then professionals, and as traditional pointe shoe are susceptible to causing injuries,

Gaynor Minden shoe are most likely to become automatic choice for beginner students, as they
feature much more improved protection against wounds. In a nutshell, the chosen target market

is based on maximizing number of buyers, offering them exclusive features that surpass the

competition, and keeping safety concerns for amateur dance students into close consideration.

Gaynor Minden shoe surpasses other pointe shoe in almost all categories. Whether be it

durability, comfort, safety or long lasting ability, these reinforced pair of shoe always comes on

top. Nonetheless, from a students perspective, no prerequisite prior to use might be the most

valuable feature that this product has to offer. Generally most brands require to break in the shoe

before use, making it much more complex process. Professionals might be used to it but amateur

students aren’t. Plug and play functionality of Gaynor Minden shoe might play a dominant role

in attracting youth dancers towards it. Moreover, improved safety might turn most parents to

consider the product who are generally over concerned about the safety of their daughters. Also,

according to interviewees, dancers themselves strongly prioritize comfort and knowing that

Gaynor Minden excel other brands in terms of comfort, they stand a decent chance against

competition. Although, quieter in operation on stage is one of the most salient feature of these

unconventional pair of shoe, but this might not appeal most students who desire exemplary

basics and are usually not concerned with perfection on stage.

Reduced prices of this cutting edge pointe shoe may motivate more dancing students to opt for

them. Keeping pricing strategies into consideration, Gaynor Minden shoe should be priced at 65$

per unit pair of shoe. Gaynor Minden shoe are revolutionary that not only outmatch the comfort,

but also are much quieter in operation. Improved comfort and design however comes at the cost

of superior construction and materials being used. Gaynor Minden shoe, unlike its competitors,

uses thermoplastic elastomer to give the toe box structure and support and cellular urethane to

make the shoe quieter. Considering more expensive materials being used, high production cost
compared to its competitors can be expected. The quoted price is based on cost-plus pricing

strategy in which the selling price is determined by adding a specific amount of markup to a

product's unit cost. Although perceived value of these new pair of shoe might be higher than 65$,

it must be priced lower than its actual value so as, Gaynor Minden brand which is completely

unknown, can break into the market and gain respective market share. Recognizing this, Gaynor

Minden shoe are priced relatively cheaper with lower expected markup on gross production cost

than its competition. This also shines light on an important pricing strategy, “penetration pricing”

that conceptualizes on gaining extensive market share by setting low price than the competition,

which again is kept into consideration while pricing this product. Moreover, the chosen target

audience is young dancing students. According to most interviews, Bloch and Capezio are most

popular brand choice among beginner students, while, Freed and Grishko are preferred by more

professional dancers. Taking this into account, Bloch and Capezio might be the biggest

competition to Gaynor Minden, and the fact that most expensive model of Capezio, i.e. Capezio

Tenda II, is priced at 74.04$ and average price for Bloch and Capezio lies at 62.13$ and 67.9$

respectively, it is important that Gaynor Minden shoe shall not be priced above the competition.