Book Bunker: Online Strategy - Case Study Example

Book Bunker: Online Strategy Introduction E-commerce can be defined as a process of buying and selling products and services by s and businessmen through an electronic medium and without using any paper document. It helps to trade products or services by using computer networks such as internet. Transfer of funds also can be done by using such facility. Internet marketing, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, mobile commerce etc come under the phrase of e-commerce. Again e-marketing is a process to promote goods and services by using internet as a medium. In this report e-marketing and e-commerce strategy will be developed for improving the sales volume of Book Bunker. This organization has not developed its website till date and was not involved in any kind of e-marketing activities. So a proper plan is required in this regard to increase the number of customers as well as percentage of profitability in the business. Features of Website In the present days most of the people will go online and search their required products and information about related companies in the internet before making a purchase decision. A huge percentage of customers are placing their purchase order through online. So website is very much essential in the era of competition. A company cannot achieve competitive advantages if it fails to represent its offered products or services through its website. The company can approach its products to large number of customers’ within very short span of time. Book Bunker is such kind of organization which has no website facility for its customers. The owners of this organization now want to develop a proper website so that volume of business can be increased in both online and offline mode. Now some features needs to be developed at the time of creating website of this organization. At first e-marketing and e-commerce consultant should concentrate on the overall framework and interface of website. Top bar, left panel, content area, right panel, footer etc should be included in the structure of interface (Albee, 2009). Content area should be updated with current information. Top bar will focus on the brand name of this organization and all the accessible links. Left panel will focus on the key areas and content of the website. Right panel will provide the facility to search information by using key words. Again this will also show related news, external websites, links to internal pages and other relevant documents of this organization. An eye-catching design should be developed to attract customers. The design should not be irritating, dull or too flashy. Proper color theme will also influence the mood of users and their interest will generate to purchase that product. Images which will be presented on the websites also should be eye-catching. Size of images will neither too large nor too small. The website of this company will also use some technologies such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, text only browsers etc. Again hyperlink text items will be there for getting more quick access. Contact details of the company should be described in brief so that customers can easily inform about any kind of problem which they are facing at the time of using the products of this company. Online Advertisement Online advertisement is an essential tool for promoting activities of any particular product or service. In this case the company can use banner ads which are nothing but a form of advertising on internet. This is generally delivered by the ad server. A proper banner ad can build the brand recognition in the market. The customers who are unaware about the product of a company can get information along with the detail product features and thus potential customers will become loyal customers towards that particular brand. So this can be said that banner ads will create ‘top of mind’ awareness among the customers about the products of Book Bunker. E-commerce consultant can suggest using social networking sites such as facebook, twitter etc for promoting the products of this company. Again most of the reputed blogs which are used by maximum users also can be utilized for the said purpose. As company is selling books to its customers it can send direct e-mail to various institutions and professors for the purpose of marketing activities. Key words should be selected after keeping in mind about the culture of customers. These key words should be phrased in a structured way so that these can focus on the value of products and make a good and positive impression on the customers. Advertisement through Local vs. Global Internet The owners of Book Bunker want to expand its business activities in domestic market. Where they don’t have book stores, customers of that region will place the order through the website of the company. For this reason local internet services should be developed by this company. High costs are related in developing global internet website. So developing local internet service facility may be a cost effective method. Global internet generally covers a wide area of the market and can reach to a huge number of customers. But local internet also can cover the area of domestic market which is also impossible without the internet service facilities. It has large scale distribution capabilities and it is effective to attract target market customers. Physically the company cannot build its book stores in all the regions of its domestic country. So it can be said that the website of this book store can attract those customers who are living in such regions where the company has not opened its branch till date. Again customers can get online shopping facility through the internet services and get delivery of products within short span of time. The company can send direct e-mail to the potential customers after collecting database from any relevant sources. Customer Relationship Management Systems Customer relationship management mainly focuses on all those aspects by which a company can interact with its customers and get feedback about the offered products or services from market. In this case the company can provide an area in its website where customers can provide their feedback about the products of this company and also can suggest any further improvement or development in product category and its quality. The company representative will analyze those statements and provide information to the upper management for taking corrective action against any specific problem. Some efficient CRM system also can be utilized by the company for effective customer relationship management. These are basically Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Salesforce.com, and GoldMine etc. By using the mentioned technologies the company can keep record about the contact details of the customers. Again these are very much helpful to focus on the customer’s reaction regarding the business activities. This system will provide a summary of sales opportunities in the business and management can make strategies on the basis of these opportunities (Manzoor, 2010). Conclusion At the part of conclusion this can be said that developing website is an important step to spread business across the boundary of domestic country. Again this can be said that it is also helpful to achieve more market share in the domestic market. Without website major percentage of people will be unaware about the offered products and services of a particular company. Content, color, design of the website should be developed in such a way so that products of the company will attract a wide range of customers. The website also helps to build a professional relationship between customers and management of the company. References Albee, A. (2009). eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale. New York: McGraw Hill Professional. Manzoor, A. (2010). E-Commerce. Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing. Read More