A case study on E-commerce business model - Assignment Example

A case study on E-commerce business model Farmyard Nurseries Farmyard Nurseries has been into Selling of Plants, Trees, and Herbs to the locals. Farmyard's business model involves directly selling to the customers. Their market was confined to the nearby localities where there is minimum logistics involved with outlets to back up their presence. Farmyard nurseries has a varied special plants to market and they were hoping to expand the scope of selling these plants to the regular customers and even look into new customer base. The specialist plants have good market potential far from their existing business regions. The company has moderately started its operations with minimum number of staff supported temporary staff in seasons to help out at peak business hours. Farmyard nurseries was willing to venture in new regions directly but were not prepared for the high promotional expenses to reach the far away customers. The main market for the company was the opulent gardeners who reside far from the company domain area and were ardent customers of these exotic plants. The plants were embedded with special features, which a customer cannot choose without physically viewing it on site, this has hindered the market opportunities of the specialist plants. At this juncture the need for specialized medium which can showcase the available option has raised To reach them there should be a medium, which can address the uniqueness of Farmyard Nurseries and entice them and making them buy the plants from Farmyard. To ensure to reach these customers the most powerful and reliable medium at option is Internet. Farmyard's business policy is to build a strong information system, which can spread the distinctiveness of the company to the far end customers and create a strong distributor systems where in farmyard can generate the much-needed market for its specialist plants. E-commerce-a strong promotion & Market research tool: Richard who was supposed to be a gardener diverted in a medium which he thought can change his business distribution strategy if properly used i.e WWW. He was in need a mode to take his products to the people who are in search of the same. WWW is having no boundaries and can reach customers beyond horizons and can transfer data with more precision. trivial option for the conventional gardener as it was termed as an expensive tool and complex tool to work with. The professional charges to build a website with all the features were difficult to bare with. Initial investment it needed to place a website was a bit high. Prior to the advent of WWW gardening companies have to register their company and their products to an apex organization to market their products. These apex organizations used to divert the customers to the respective companies for the products thus the medium in between was circuitous and complex for a customer to approach. E- commerce has eliminated these hurdles and kept the entire information required on the website that can be viewed by the consumers at their convenience. Unlike conventional marketing strategies the website needs constant update and monitoring which was not an encouraging factor for gardeners. Richard has made a bold move by initiating the efforts to learn and implement the methods of developing the website. His initial efforts made to learn the pro and cons of using internet marketing. He constantly updated his knowledge and the technology thus set the platform that made him to entice more customers. He identified the channel where he can position his web link in the cluster of garden websites thus avoiding the high expenses incurred by the print and other physical medium E-Commerce an effective distribution channel: Richard has initiated the client relationship through email and the queries were addressed every mornings and evenings at convenient timings. E-mail correspondence has enhanced the reach as it can address the concerns and requests in a flash of time. The expenses in conventional materialistic correspondence have been eliminated with more effective and accurate system. E-commerce eliminated the high investments incurred on the promoting, distribution and maintaining client relation ship. Richard was supposed to send high end materials with description and photographs which are very essential for promoting product which different features and varieties. E-commerce has provided the opportunity to develop digital images and content which can be transferred in no time to any part of te world connected to the web. A small scale industry has a definite need to eliminate the complex logistics and supply systems where this logic was ably used by the Farmyard to market their products much faster than their rich counterparts. The one way enquiry and requests correspondence was well organized by Richard addressing the concerns of the world -wide gardener. The orders were recorded and were sent at the earliest, thus making decreasing the time in between the order and delivery. Richard was successful in positioning the website pages by carefully organizing the key components that place the links of FN website in the first page of the search engines where on-lookers try to obtain information regarding the products of FN. Another significant point is that the information placed in the website is available 24*7*365 any time. Customer satisfaction: An important aspect for any business entity what so ever is customer satisfaction. Richard's online enquire systems was a success as customer's quires were directly answered by Richard itself. Richard used to have a clear idea of the customers expectations thus making his work more. The website was very customer friendly and the data was simple and easy to interpret. The images posted in the website used to provide options to choose and added variety and richness in product marketing. A one time request to the official email address was all that required to address the concern and initiate the delivery to any point in the world. The enquiries from different part of thev countries were personally addressed by the owner thus eliminating misconceptions. The correspondence time was rapidly decreased and the customer has an option to send as delivery request on his convenience. Recommendations: As the potential was huge and it can only tapped by ably organizing the details. The data placed on the net has to be timely updated to keep in high preference by the search engines. To make them more competent the search engines look out for rich content to retain the browser again to their site. As the website gain popularity the number of mail requests and concerns increases thus much data space is needed to accommodate these requests. Reference: William king, What is E-commerce -Advantages and drawbacks available at http://ezinearticles.com/What-is-e-Commerce---Advantages-and-Drawbacks!&id=241542 Creative industries faculty, QUT, wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/E-commerce_-_Overview_-_Advantages http://72.14.235.104/searchq=cache:DshN8zyAZREJ:wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/E-commerce_-_Overview_-_Advantages+E-commerce+---+Advantages&hl=en&gl=in&ct=clnk&cd=3 Read More