INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this statement is to provide a theoretical analysis and design toward developing a functional website for an intended real business. Establishing a business case statement is the initial project stage following the team formation toward a smooth and successful development and implementation of a website. It provides the essential analysis of various aspects covering the business nature. Market place and consumers as external elements, business model and value chain as internal ones are among the aspects addressed in this statement.
At first, an overview of the intended business will be demonstrated. Next section is the market analysis of the resale business in which competition will be highlighted. Intended and types of customers, attraction factors, and shopping experience are covered within the consumers and purchases analysis. The factors to improve the business conversion will be followed. After that, the suggested business model and the value proposition are examined in two separate sections, and it will be followed by the e-commerce value chain and multi channel strategy sections. The proposed phases of this project are discussed and finally, the seven essentials for a healthy website will be provided.
I.BUSINESS OVERVIEW
According to the business owner feedback during her meeting with the team on Friday, April 9th, Sole Resale Boutique Inc. is a for-profit apparel store started in November 2009. It stands for maintaining and promoting the best prices for the product; giving its customers a number of name brands and fashions to choose from. The owners vision is to allow people to shop from the comfort of their homes and not break the bank. You get to select from a host of items that are authentic, new, and used. This vision has become a reality that has helped shoppers become economically smarter, which is PRICELESS. Sole Resale Boutique gives back by making monetary and clothing donations to different communities and non-for profit organizations. Our motto is there is nothing wrong with having Something Old, Something New.
II.RESALE MARKET ANALYSIS
Sole Resale Boutique, Inc. is mainly a resale business that provides women, men, and children clothing. The company operates similar to resale stores, good wills, consignment stores, the Salvation Army, and thrift stores. There are many stores with websites that doesnt allow customers to shop online. They are mainly goodwill and thrift stores. Many of the online stores are consignment shops. A consignment shop is a shop that makes contracts with people to resale their clothing for a percentage of the profits. Below is a list of online resale stores:
A. Christabelles Closet Designer Resale Boutique - www.christabellescloset.com
B. Worn But Not Forgotten Infants & Childrens Resale Shop - www.wornbutnotforgotten.com
C. Once In A Blue Moon Online Thrift and Consignment Store - www.gone-tomorrow.com
D. The Closet - www.stepupinthecloset.com
E. Strawberry Monday - www.strawberrymonday.net
F. Unique Thrift Store - www.uniquethriftstore.com/index.aspx
G. The Daisy Shop - www.daisyshop.com
H. Just Breathe Mom - www.justbreathemom.com/resale.html
I. Quicksale Resale Store - www.vendio.com/stores/QuickSale-Resale/cart
J. Langkanzoos Online Resale - stores.ebay.com/Langkanzoos-Online-Resale
III.CONSUMERS AND PURCHASES ANALYSIS
A) Intended Customers:
The demographic for the business intended customers is men, women and children whose age group is between 14+ to 70; the assumption for these customers that they want to buy used/ new clothes from the merchant. Moreover, any type of culture is assumed to be interested as well in this business products.
B) Types of Customers and Attraction Factors:
For sole Boutique Inc, buyers are either analytical or patient buyers. The following will highlight the attraction factors for each
C) Types of Shopping Experience:
Mainly, utilitarian shoppers will be engaged by listing out each individual piece by category and age range as in a catalog. Having an orderly presentation on the site based on category of clothing will allow the focused shopper to find exactly what we have to offer. By having an exciting webpage of new items for sale we will attract Hedonic customers to the proposed web site to feel free to browse around at our selection. The focus will be on having an attractive home page that will keep the web surfers interested in the site. Since this is a secondary goods store, great deals on clothing pieces are going to be displayed that will generate enthusiasm among online shoppers.
IV.FACTORS OF CONVERSION IMPROVEMENT
Differentiation, Relevance, and trust are considered the main three factors that will help to improve the conversion of Sole Boutique from off-line to the proposed online version. Descriptions of each factor are as follows:
A) Differentiation:
The promotional offers and online coupons will make more customers visit our website.
B) Relevance to your desired audience:
To check how well our website is working with various browsers, we can either install a virtual machine or try the free Browser Shots utility.
C) Trust:
Visitors need to feel they can trust the site because they are going to hand over their confidential information, be it credit card details or even an email address. So we can have collaboration with PayPal.
V.BUSINESS MODEL
A) Merchant Model:
The retail clothing store will focus primarily on the secondary market of consumers. With an online store (virtual) consumers will be enabled to purchase the stores clothing on the Web. This business will then be regarded as open 24/7. The website will have a list of clothing options available ranging from ages infant to adult. The catalog of products available will include items from T-shirts to jeans. Transactions are supposed to be processed using a shopping cart which will include payments options from credit cards to PayPal. Since the store is not a large business, payments should be handled payments in a timely order.
B) Advertising Model:
The proposed site will be a vertical portal since the business is only focusing on clothing and not other areas. Advertisement for the company will be carried through flyers and word of mouth for the time. Hopefully when revenue increases, television and radio air time are going to be an expansion options. Moreover, other major retail stores business models and develop from there will be considered.
VI.VALUE PROPOSITION
Since value proposition is the defining statement of the business through which customers would have the capability of determining how the offered products or services are going to benefit them, specification for such statement is required. Sole Resale Boutique is defining its value proposition through customers and firms as follows:
A) Customers Value Proposition:
B) Firms Value Proposition:
VII.THE E-COMMERCE VALUE CHAIN
The business value chain can be defined through a cycle of attract, interact (i.e. marketing and sale), act, and interact (i.e. order and services). The following elements are the descriptions for each part of this cycle:
A) Customers Attraction (Marketing):
Item pricing, promotions, and coupons will be used as the main attraction on the site. The owner is also looking to send sales and promotions information via email. The owner will also use social networks to market the site.
B) Customers Interaction (Sales):
The item pricing is very competitive. The customers will be allowed to post reviews. The customers will also be able to search products by category (women, men, children, etc.). The owner is looking to register with Internet search engines. The customers will be allowed to create user accounts. With the user account, the customers will receive special discounts, birthday promos, and valued customer discounts. The company will also have discount days.
C) Acting on Customers Instructions (Order Management):
The owner will be accepting payments through PayPal and using their shopping cart. PayPal will calculate the items price, taxes, and shipping. The discounts will be deducted when the customer checks out. The orders will be delivered by United States Postal Service. There will be options for standard shipping, overnight shipping, or receiving shipping within a few days of the purchase.
D) Reaction to Inquires (Service):
The site will have a FAQ section. There will be a toll free number for the customers to call if they have any questions/concerns. They can also email the company. The customer service representative will not be available 24/7. However, they can email anytime and should receive a response within 48 hours. The customers will be able to tract their purchases as well.
VIII.MULTI CHANNEL STRATEGIES
There are mainly four online channels through which a business strategy is formed: Channel Master (e.g. Cisco, Amazon), Customer Magnet (e.g. Yahoo), and Value Chain Pirate (e.g. Autobytel.com, e-trade). However, our intended business is currently conducted off-line since there hasnt been any website developed yet. The transition to a fully online functional business will occur upon the completion of this project. Accordingly, a website will be created to maintain the current business process.
IX.PROJECT PHASES
Development of the team website project is going to be divided into the following phases:
A) Analysis and Design (Phase One):
During analysis and design phase, understanding of the current business process and requirements gathering will be covered. Moreover, the proposed website elements, database structure along with application interfaces will be designed.
B) Development (Phase Two):
Actual web components development along with the creation of the database will occur during this phase.
C) Testing (Phase Three):
Prototype testing and simulation of load factors will be examined.
D) Implementation (Phase Four):
Clients approval and lunching of website are planned during this phase.
X. SEVEN ESSENTIALS TOWARD A HEALTHY WEBSITE
As in most big scale architectural projects that involve common practices need to be followed to ensure successfulness and reliability, there are seven fundamentals in web designing and implementation to assure a healthy outcomes. Failing to fulfill these ground rules will lead to a poor implantation and inefficient websites that wont attract users. The following are the list of the seven essentials along with the teams approach within each toward developing a healthy website.
A) Availability and Uptime:
Availability and uptime is one of the basic foundation on which a website should be built over. They indicate providing the proper management of the systems and server(s) that host the intended website. Managing to do so will help to avoid outages, system bugs, response slowness, and longer load times of the home page from the users side. Moreover, it requires the surfing possibility on 24 hours a day, seven days a week bases. Although database backup task can interfere with this concept, managing this task on a separate server will not affect the main website functioning.
B) User-Centered Design and Application Development:
Having a focus group of users will help to achieve this essential. The focus group should be selected form the business targeted customers. The website component of content, interfaces, and applications should be a user driven. The team will mainly use usability testing and surveys as the designated tools toward fulfilling this task.
C) Rigorous and Strategic Coding Standards:
During the real development of the proposed website, coding according to common convention and standards will take place. This practice will help in creating a greater consistency. Also, it will provide a speedy manner for further development or expected growth.
D) Streamlined Backend Systems:
Selection of backend systems is crucial toward the features presented on the intended website. Making the right choices for the servers as well as the operating system will ensure the implementation of this element. Thus, a faster respond to a user purchase request for item(s) on the website can be assured. Moreover, the goods pictures are supposed to pop up instantly as the user brows through the catalogs of the website.
E) Cross-Channel Governance:
Silver team will establish a governance body with the business owner to ensure the defining, designing and delivering of an integrated online user experience and policy of standards across the products, and the website technical aspects (i.e. portals, channels and devices).
F) Behavior and Satisfaction Monitoring and Optimization:
This part involves a periodic data analysis of customer interaction with the website. Also, it should define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to allow for users satisfaction and optimization measurements. In order to monitor the prospected users behavior, the team will utilize Google analytics tool. On the other hand, self designed surveys to be filled voluntarily by the website users will be used to monitor their satisfaction and highlight their experience. Once the initial stage of lunching the website and examination of these measures are done, the team will transfer the knowledge to the assigned quality and support personal within the business.
G) User pref. tracking & Customization/ Personalization:
Using the previous tools of monitoring the customers behavior and satisfaction toward the website, the team will be able to determine the website necessary changes. Such changes will ensure the site prompt respond to users preferences and provide a personally different experience for each visitor. Additionally, users customization is possible through providing the option of creating a user personal account. Cross sale is another feature that will be added based on the unique surfing/purchased items pattern of each user/ buyer.
REFERENCES AND TEAM MEMBERS CONTRIBUTIONS
Lomahan, Rhoel - ECT 355/455 E-Commerce Web Site Engineering - Lecture Slides, Spring Quarter 2010, DePaul University.
Monique Rolling:
Task leader, meeting facilitator with business owner. Contributed the business background, the Market Competitions and eCommerce value chain topics.
Chris Bandur:
Contributed the Business Model and Types of Shopping Experiences topics.
Majed Alharbi:
Task coordinator, business meeting participant and document editor. Contributed the introduction, the Project Phases, the Multi-channel strategies and the seven essentials for a healthy website.
Rajarethinam Asokkumar:
Developer of the main teams deliverables portal and technical Support for deliverable B document uploading to the teams website. Contributed the Value Proposition and Intended Customers topics.
Paras Mehta:
Contributes the Types of Customers and Factors that will improve conversion topics.
