The Business Operation of Sweetie Upcycled Dolls - Free Essay Example

Describe the business operation, including the role of the website and the role of the third parties with: Making contact Sweetie Upcycled Dolls would search for potential buyers through two ways, there are (1) meeting the unmet or under-served buyers, and (2) approaches to market segmentation. Firstly Sweetie Upcycled Dolls may reach the unmet or under-served buyers through create more efficient markets in Malaysian, create more efficient value system and enable ease of access. Ecommerce create more efficient markets by provide lower searching cost and transaction cost compare to traditional form of business. Sweetie Upcycled Dolls would reduce the product searching cost such as time spent on products searching, travelling cost and price discovery cost. Through the website service provided by Sweetie Upcycled Dolls, customers can easily access to product feature information, user instruction and make price comparison with others sellers through online service, thus it is convenience and time saving compare to offline dolls business. Therefore, Sweetie Upcycled Dolls would minimize the business transaction cost by standardize the transaction across the board, compared to the traditional type business method that calculate transaction cost subject to business expenditures and the actual number of transaction. At the same time, Sweetie Upcycled Dolls Ecommerce would reduce labor and other costs by replacing traditional business methods of document preparation, telephone calling, data entry and overtime expenses with email and electronic invoicing which create more efficient internet-based value chain. Sweetie Upcycled Doll would also employ the marketing communication strategy that must integrate with other marketing tools, such as mobile social apps Line and Sweetie Upcycled Dollsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ mobile app in order to add convenience with the online offerings. Sweetie Upcycled Dolls also create value proposition to customer through greate r access on information about pricing. Sweetie Upcycled Dolls also make segmentation approach through stage of behavioral and benefits. Sweetie Upcycled Dolls would target and approach the market through behavioral segmentation which divides market based on how customers actually buy and use the products. Example, Sweetie Upcycled Dolls would target parents, teenagers or doll collectors, because this group of people are the person who willing spend and buy for the products offering by Sweetie Upcycled Dolls. On the other hand, Sweetie Upcycled Dolls also would approach the target the benefits segmentation market which divided market based on the benefits or qualities sought from products. Example, the target market that looks at the true benefit that sought by Sweetie Upcycled Dolls. Marketing communication strategies that employ by Sweetie Upcycled Dolls would via web service, thus online marketing tools play a crucial role in making contact between sellers and buyers, such as b anners and text ads would employ by Sweetie Upcyled Dolls in promote and market the product offering by the ecommerce. Sweetie Upcycled Dolls would tie together its own site with online social media marketing such as Facebook, Twitter, Instragram, Google + and YouTube, at the same time Sweetie Upcycled Dolls would also maximize the benefit of partnering with online intermediaries such as blog. In order to create brand awareness and loyalty, Sweetie Upcycled Dolls would continuously advertising the products and company name through different type of contact channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+, Youtube, Blog and others Price discovery Modem form of economy, electronic business has put buyers in a better bargaining position compare to traditional type of brick and mortal business. Through ecommerce, buyers always can quickly and easily compare products and prices under the assistance of Internet, wireless network and corporate network. Thus, Sweetie Upcycled Do lls would customize the product and price based on the customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ buying habits, spending limit and preferences detail through customers collected data online, in order to offer right price to the right person at the right time. Price customization has become an integral part of electronic commerce (Narahari, Raju, Ravikumar Sourabh Shah, 2005). According to xxx indicate that in the financial markets the price discovery is one of the essential functions. Price discovery is described as the search for an equilibrium price and gathering and interpreting news and the incorporation of the information implicit in investor trading into market prices. (Schreiber and Schwarts, 1986 Baillie, et.al, 2002 and Lehman, 2002). Since Sweetie Barbie dolls is first mover in Malaysia so we are able to enjoy market share in markets. Sweetie Barbie dolls decide the price depend on the economic in the Malaysia market. The pricing approach that Sweetie upcycled doll use is decrease prices predictable. The price is transparency which have provided on the site. Based on the customer knowledge increase about the product, the sellers will adjust the reduction of price and standardized to fulfill the customers. The Sweetie will provide the price tag for each product in the website for customers to know the price quickly. Next, Cost plus pricing is to add profit margin to operational costs. This means products is adding regular mark-up prices for pricing decision such as direct labor costs, and materials costs (Accounting tools, n.d.). The materials costs such as the dolls still in unfinished products, dress for the dolls, shoes and others. Hence, the direct labour costs mean that the workers help to transfer the dolls into finished products. Besides this, if the customer purchase unfinished dolls or DIY series product will be cheaper than finished products. This means DIY series products already exclude the labor costs. The website provide DIY series product or finished product for customer to choose because the customer might want to try to do their own dolls. On the other hands, the customer can buy finished product to make as a sample for their DIY series. Besides, the Sweetie Dolls will come out with many series or seasoning dolls for customers to purchase. Therefore, cost plus pricing can help Sweetie upcycled dolls to gain the profits in future. 3. Generating product experience Sweetie Barbie doll is a web based business. Web based business is a low startup cost for a new business and easily to get a website to sell the products. Sweetie is an online store that design consist an ease of use and purchase, functionally, simple graphics with information about products and legible text. This is to make customer feel more relax by using Sweetieà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s site to purchase the product. Moreover, customers are easily to look for products due to this site have provided good information of each product. On this website, the c ustomer can have convincing experiences which provide interactively, entertainment and human interest to use. For interactively example, customers have a forum to share information or chatting between the customers or sellers. In our online store, customer can easily to discover more about our productsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ information such as operation side and history of these products. Besides this, consumer can easily to surf our website due to simple graphic which avoids distracting and obnoxious graphical. Hence, the simple design look of website is easy for customer to use and search information they want about the products. Then, customer can enjoy few clicks to purchase service to quicker to purchase a product. Sweetie upcycled doll online store use a simple and ease of use website to attract the customers. Therefore, Sweetie upcycled online store will also organize competition activities to create the awareness of brand name. For example, Sweetie can organize competition activities in online social website such as Facebook to encourage the readers the click à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“likeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  before join the competition and share to their friends to click like for the page. Hence, this can increase and expose the brand name of Sweetie to public. Additionally, these activities can create awareness of green environment to public to draw their attention. Consequently, customers can give any feedback and comments to the site and it will be responded quickly to let the customers have better experience for purchasing products in the site. 4. Commitment In Sweetie upcycled doll website has user agreement for users who already acceptance through the registration of a Sweetie upcycled account. The user agreement and all policies have posted in our website. Then, the users have to agree to confirm the agreement before using our sites services. After make agreement, buyer will receive an email for confirmation and acceptances become the user of Sweet ie upcycled doll. The contract between sellers and buyer will be done after the company has sent the productsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ information to customer and customers make sure to read and go through all the information before making any transaction. For become Sweetie members, the users can refers to the personal profile to check the status ad record of online transaction. Besides, the websites also provide customer services for customers to answer their questions. For example, customer can track their package, the rate of shipping, and others. Hence, customers can easily settle their question by provided answers. Besides, our website also provides online chat for buyers and seller can communicate while surfing online. Then, customers can direct ask their problem with on duty workers online. Sweetie upcycled online store will try to solve the buyersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ problem. 5. Payment The flourish of e-commerce was encourages the demand for the product purchased via th e Internet for the service of payments. In e-commerce the payment systems of suppliers can be divided into two groups which are, (1) banks and acquires and (2) non- bank intermediaries which offering payment based on different type of innovative solutions. Online payment defined as customer or buyer use internet to make certain payment transactions when purchased for the goods and services. Online payment for businesses can lower the costs of transaction when more payment was made and will spend less for paper and postage. Hence, online payment also helps to increase the customer retention because the detail and information of the customers was entered and stored in the same e-commerce site. Moreover, online payment is convenience for customer to make payment in any places just a click of a mouse and not necessary for the customers to be in a long queue as payment. Electronic payment systems allow customer to pay online for the goods and services by using hardware and software sy stems. Electronic payment systems are most focus on improve security and customer convenience and to increase efficiency and ease of use to make payment. There are some methods and tools that can allow electronic payment system to implementation. Online payment methods included cards payment, alternative payment and digital wallet payment. The cards payment include credit cards, debit cards, or stored value cards. Hence, alternative payment such as online bank transfer or direct debit. Digital wallet payments such as Paypals or Google wallet are use as online payment merchants. According to Laudon and Traver (2002) defined that credit cards is functionality use for online shopping payment tools. Hence, the credit cards also are the famous payment method in global online payment (OECD, 2006). Therefore, customers was generally accepted this payment system and merchants throughout the world. There have several advantage of this cards payment system such as privacy, good transaction efficiency, acceptability, convenience, mobility, low financial risk and compatibility (Singh Sumanjeet, 2009). These advantages were never available in traditional payment system. Since 1996, debit card transactions have been growing at over twenty percent per year at the point of sale and now surpass credit card transactions. According to Jonker and Nicole (2005) stated that debit card are most frequently used by younger, better-educated individuals. This is because debit cards are draw from liquidity hence credit cards are draw from debt. Debit cards are most favorite way of customer to choose for payments. Debit cards are linked to customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ account in banks which have two types included signature-based and PIN-based. Both functions usually exist in one card. As conclude, debit cards are becoming the leading form of payment in electronic payment systems. A stored value card is like a universal gift card which issued in a given amount of money used to mak e purchase in any time. The individual holds the store valued card can deposits money into an account before to make payment. The stored value card is an independent card from any bank account which has brings unique benefits and risks for users. A store value cards can used to make payment for buying goods and services. Additionally store value card was store customersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ information electronically on a magnetic stripe or computer chip. Normally, store value cards have held all the needed information to identify the card and its value. For example, customer can check the balance recorded when make a purchase at a merchantà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s point of sale terminal. When business used this payment tool, the people will become more loyal and spend more money on certain online shopping websites. As a result, Sweetie upcycle Barbie has provide payment methods included credit cards, debit cards, store value cards, online transaction and paypals for customers to choose f or their convenience payments methods. 6. Fulfillment or deliveries Order fulfillment is a main procedure in managing the supply chain in an organization (Keely, 2002). Next, order fulfillment included filling, generating, delivering and servicing customer orders. Therefore, management must propose a network and a fulfillment process to meet the customer need in order to maximize profitability before accomplish these tasks. The orders received from customers and ends with the finished good deliveries. The main objectives of the order fulfillment performance can be separate into two propositions: (1) fulfill the customer order by delivering the qualified product at the right time and right place, and (2) to handle uncertainties from external or internal environment quickly (Chirstopher, 1992 Goldman, Nagal and Preiss, 1995). Companies must adapt quickly to market as order fulfillment performance has become more important. Sweetie online store have a good logistic system for delivering the product to customers. Therefore, Sweetie online store will cooperate with Gdex transportation to send out the product to buyersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ house after receives the order from buyer. Buyers can put the products into shopping cart before make an order. Hence, buyers can review the ordered goods for accumulate productsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ price list that have added into cart. After buyers have make payment, Sweetie will quickly make invoice for operation side to process. The operational side wills quickly packing the products, shipping and delivery within the time. Sweetie online store is trying to fulfillment the buyersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ wants which is quickly delivery product with good condition. The buyer can return the product within 3-5 days if notice the product was damaged or wrong order. Sweetie online store will check back the order and solve the problem for mistake. On the other hand, Sweetie Upcycled store will sent to the customer al the delivery inf ormation for customer can track their product after purchase from site. Hence, these make customers feel happier and gain more confidence with the services. 7. Issues- culture, managing infrastructure and business risks. Sweetie upcycled dolls is a new business then would be lack of knowledge to plan the business become fluent. Business risk such as financial risks will occurs in this business. For example, when the order is inability to take, issues wrong invoice and customer defection. These will affect the profit of business dropped. This make the customer feel loss confidence with the online company. Hence, the business risks are marketing risks. For example, supplier increase the price of doll cause price risks occurs. Owner forces to rise up the price to recover the costs. Hence, Sweetie online store have to take action to prevent this risks happen in future. Next issues in this new business will be the managing infrastructure. The infrastructures that Sweetie will be cooperate with the Gdex Company to send the product for customers. But, the unexpected condition will happened due to delay arrive to customer. This will influence the online reputation of business. Therefore, the Sweetie online stores try to prevent these issues in the future. Jonker, Nicole, Payment Instruments as Perceived by Consumers à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" a Public Survey,à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  September 2005. Working paper, De Nederlandsche Bank. Laudon, C. K. Traver, C. (2002). E-Commerce. New Delhi: Pearson Education. Narahari, Y., Raju, C. V. L., Ravikumar, K., Sourabh Sah. (2005). Dynamic pricing models fo electronic business. Sadhana, 30 (12), 231-256. OECD, (2006). Online Payment Systems for E-commerce. OECD Digital Economy Papers, 117, OECD publishing. Porter, M. E. (1998). Competitive strategy:Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors, free press NY. Rahbar, E., Nabsiah, A. W. (2010). The Malaysian consumer and the environment: purchase behavior . Global Business and Management Research: An International Journal, 2(4), 323-336. Singh Sumanjeet. (2009). Emergence of payment systems in the age of electronic commerce: the state of art. Asia Pacific Journal of Finance and Banking Research, 3(3). Wilson, D. T. (1995). An Integrated Model of Buyer-Seller Relationships. Institute for the Study of Business Markets The Pennsylvania State University. ISBM Report lo-1995. Keely L. Croxton, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“The Order Fulfillment Process,à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  The International Journal of Logistics Management, Vol. 14, No. 1 (2002), pp. 19-32. https://scm-institute.org/booksamples/PageOneOfChapter06.pdf https://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/~jssong/bio/Publications/atoqueue.pdf https://www.pearsoned.ca/highered/divisions/text/cyr/readings/Ricker_KalakotaT3P1R2.pdf