This Case Study is a brief outlook on what you should be thinking about if you want to start a business on the Internet and join the doc com phenomenon.
CHALLENGE
The challenge in this case study is do the following
- Suggestions for Cost Analysis for a perceived virtual business
- Design, creation, & implementation of your multi-page interactive, fully functional web site
- Developing your Merchandising strategy
- Promotion Optimisation
SOLUTION
Suggestions for Cost Analysis for a perceived virtual business
The e part of the “eBusiness”
- Domain name registration (.co.uk, .com)
- Hosting Costs
- SSL Certificate registration with a CA Authority
- Payment system
- Developing your Brand guidelines, logo, mission statement
Business part of the “eBusiness”
- Registering a Ltd company (If required)
- Hiring an Accountant to file your records
- Legal costs may apply (partnership agreement).
- Supply Chain and Logistics
- Developing your Merchandising strategy
- Developing your Web site design
- Design, creation, & implementation of your multi-page interactive, fully functional web site.
Design, creation, & implementation of your multi-page interactive, fully functional web site
- Deciding the content of your site
- Create a sitemap illustration your pages and links
- Develop templates
- Validated your templates for quality (W3C WIA)
- Create a Wire Frame
- User acceptance testing
- Propagate content to the wire frame using templates
- Make a final quality check by Re-validating your pages
Developing your Merchandising strategy
Retail merchandising is a science. Traditional retail store chains pay millions of pounds every year to have merchandising experts lay out stores and handle product placement. Online retail merchandising is no less difficult – but the variables are different. Some of the questions you need to ask yourself:
- Which products are ideal “leaders” to bring in traffic?
- Should you use “loss leaders”?
- How should you arrange your cross-sell, and secondary items?
- Where will you find the best advertising opportunities online for your leaders?
- How should your site’s merchandising be laid out for each of your main product types?
- What types of pricing?
Price is a key component but value is the overall package you are providing your consumer and it is important to review the different aspects that effect this proposition:
- What is the return policy?
- How easy it is for a consumer to return a product that is defective or unsuitable?
- What risk is being put on the consumer?
- How can the consumer purchase the product and what payment options are available to them?
- Is it easy for the consumer to purchase the product?
- Are services offered during the purchase process?
- Do they fully understand what they are purchasing?
- What warranty options are available for the consumer to protect their purchase? Are these included or are they an additional charge?
- How is the product delivered? Can additional services like next day shipping, installation or white glove services be purchased?
- Is the purchase/delivery process considered a positive experience, something your visitors cannot get anywhere else?
Promotion Optimisation
Online marketing budget
- Adwords with Google
- Overture
- Direct Mail Marketing
- Viral Marketing
Get listed with:
- Dmoz.org
- Yell.com
- Blogs relating to your site
Offline marketing budget
- Leaflets
- Newspaper
- Radio
- Referral scheme (Merchandising Strategy)
The Goal of all of these is to bring visitors to your Landing page
On you ladning page you want to:
- Attract click and drive traffic
- Retain traffic
- Make it easy for user to take the desired action
- If the user takes the desired action it is know as a conversion
How to design a landing page to capture your visitors and lead the visitors to take action?
Interesting Headline
- Prominent images or graphics
- Simple promotional text
- Call to action such as add to cart
