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to managing director Kouichi Nakayama (abhishek_g, 2012), door-to-door sales through the Yakult Lady System are more profitable than supermarkets sales.In Japan, more than 60% of Yakult products are distributed by Yakult Ladies. They deliver door-to-door every day, from rural areas to high-rise buildings in the city.

However, in Malaysia, Yakult Ladies is also available in delivering of goods. However, it is only available in certain place such as Klang Valley, Negeri Sembilan, Melaka, Penang, Kuantan, Ipoh and few other areas. The best thing is there is no minimum order or delivery charge for the products (Fong, 2007).

Weaknesses

Less product choice for customers in terms of flavours

The first weakness of Yakult is lack choice of flavours. There are only two flavours available which are Yakult Ace and Yakult Ace Light. Unlike its competitors, such as Vitagen and Nutrigen, these two brands come out with products with variety of flavours which will attract more people to buy their products. As Malaysia is a multiracial country, different races of people have different tastes. Thus, Malaysians usually prefer to choose their drinks from a variety of flavours.

Storage difficulty

Second is storage difficulty. The products are fermented milk drinks which contains active bacteria under low temperature. However, if the temperature increases, the bacteria will eventually become inactive that will turn the taste sour. This is because the bacteria will begin to make lactic acid when the temperature drops (FAQs, 2010). Therefore, refrigerators are necessary. However, consumers who do not own a refrigerator will find it a problem. By the way, it will also lead to a storage difficulty for retailer outlets with little storage capacity as they still have other products brand they need to keep. This will cause an imbalance of stock availability during different time of the outlets. This problem also influences consumers’ purchase intention that does not have a refrigerator.

Smaller packaging and higher price compared to competitors

Another weakness of Yakult is that the packaging of Yakult is small compared to its competitors. One bottle of Yakult contains 80ml cultured milk drink while competitors such as Vitagen and Nutrigen serve in 125ml per bottle (TK-eShop, 2010).

Besides that, according to Yakult, it is fine for consumers to drink more than 80ml of Yakult cultured milk. Therefore, consumers who drink more than one bottle may go for other competitors’ product who sells in larger packaging (FAQs, 2010).

Yakult products are sold in a bundle of 5 bottles, which is the same with its strong competitors such as Vitagen and Nutrigen. However, the Yakult cultured milk drink’s price is higher than the competitors, who offer their drinks in bigger bottles too.

Opportunities

Trends in health concerns

Few studies shows that more and more people are concerned about their health problem and health awareness is becoming increasingly important nowadays (Rollins, 2008); (Senterfitt, Long, Shih, & Teutsch, 2013). This is an opportunity for Yakult since Yakult has already scientifically proven that their products are good for health. Consumers are turning to dairy products, yogurts and so forth to start their day.

In Yakult’s advertisements, the company i