How many is too many? I remember last semester in class we had the discussion with our Dean about his work with a certain company and the discussion was centered around the fad or trend within the frozen yogurt industry. We wondered then and I still wonder now if the fad of frozen yogurt isn't going to be short lived.
This isn't to say that some money isn't to be had in the mean time by those who want to get in the industry through cheap franchise buy in fees compared to the typical restaurant start up cost. I wonder how many surveys and market study's were done by these owners or if they just had a hunch and went with it hoping it might pay off.
According to the business life cycle, Fresh Berry for instance, who was the first "new" style frozen yogurt companies to hit the scene, has added products to the choices to help draw people in for more than just the cold choice.of frozen yogurt. I know that from this authors perspective, we do go to the frozen yogurt places more in the spring and summer as it warms up. In the business life cycle as you approach the maturity of one product or business strategic choices must be made to either market differently, find a new market to develop or penetrate one that you are presently in. There of course see other options such as adding new relates or unrelated products to diversify and not put all the eggs in one basket. So it would seem that Fresh Berry here in Tulsa particularly is trying to diversify so as to lower risk and forge the rivers filled with the many other yogurt ships in the market place.
Here is an article that talks about this from this morning's Tulsa World.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=46&articleid=20110313_46_E1_CUTLIN260738
