Evain's Strategy - Comparison and Positioning

As everyone knows that water is necessity in people's daily life, so water market becomes more and more significant in the modern society. Supplying adequate water and sufficient quantities is one of the major challenges people are facing. The water market is principally divided into two parts: tap water and bottled water.

Classification

Bottled water indicates water packaged in plastic bottles or glass bottles, and the sizes range from single serving PET bottles to large carboys for water coolers. The market is forecast to have a value of $86,421.2 million and a volume of 174,286.6 million liters in 2011, respectively, there are an increase of 41.8% and 51% compared to 2006. Further, Bottled water divides into two kinds: non-carbonated (distilled, filtered and spring) and carbonated (both naturally occurring and mechanically added).

Tap water includes running water, city water, municipal water, etc. Now, the application of technologies involved in offering clean water to homes, business and public building is a main subfield of sanitary engineering.

Comparison and Positioning

The main criticism for those bottles is its packaging, overusing of bottles causes environmental concern. Whether bottles can be recycled or not is the biggest problem for producers, which also implies the fate of bottle water, dominant or blocked. In turn, bottled water is an alternative to tap water. Consumers think it tastes better than tap water (no chlorine taste), they perceive it as being safer and of better quality. They also look for security: food scandals in industrialized countries and water-borne diseases in developing countries have a great impact on their attitude. Bottled water is perceived as pure and safe, although it is not necessarily the case. Consumers care for their health and their well-being: they buy bottled water to feel well, to lose weight. Bottled water is a healthy alternative to other beverages. In addition, bottled water has smaller sizes and is convenient to carry, sometimes for emergency.

Nevertheless, tap water is always constantly moving, staying fresh and never stagnating. Tap water won't waste our natural resource which only takes up to five liters of water to make just one liter of bottled water. And the most important is tap water is cheaper than bottled water. It is exposed to metal corrosion, since the levels vary for every household and plumbing system, but in some areas, tap water may contain added fluoride, which helps prevent tooth decay and cavities.

Throughout the research, all of the tap water samples had a bacterial content under 3 CFUs/mL and the bottled water samples' bacterial content ranged from 0.01-4900 CFUs/mL. Nonetheless, another study reflects that most bottled water contain a little more mercury, thallium, and thorium than regulated