Creating a New Internet Business - Case Study Example

Creating a New Internet Business al Affiliation) Electronic commerce is a type of business activity where the buyer andseller communicate via the internet. It is one of the emerging market trends in the recent world. The seller and buyer exchange the goods through the internet with no hindrance. Many companies in recent time are adopting this technique to carry out a business transaction. In creating electronic commerce, software called shopping cart is needed which acts as the operating system that allows transactions and keeping track of your customers (Loshin & Vacca, 2004). Low Cost Tires Inc. wishes to start an online business to help market its tires to a broad market. This company wants to start an online business that will help sell its wide selection of tires to the consumers. In order to create the internet business, Low Cost Tires Inc. needs to consider certain factors. The website should incorporate certain elements in the site so that it may appeal to the customers. A real internet business should be able to provide its service or information to a large number of consumers. Therefore setting up of an internet business requires a high level of commitment. The internet business should be able to grab the attention of its customers in less than five seconds (MacDonald, 2011). Thus, Low Cost Tires Inc. should ensure there is maximum traffic. Once there is traffic in the business the company should move to the next step by making their first sale. Most profit making business considers this circumstance, and they do it through targeting a front-end bid for the business. The final step will then be selling more tires at a wide margin. This step is easier because most of the customers have some information about the Low Cost Tires Inc. business Question 1 Low Cost Tires Inc. should consider various internet business models that they can incorporate into their business to make the sale of tires be profitable and reach a wide number of consumers. Some of the internet business models include brokerage, advertising, Community (Afuah & Tucci, 2003) Brokerage This will play a great role in the business of bringing buyers to the market and will facilitate the transaction by purchasing of the tires. Brokers in a market environment are the makers of the market as they create the platform for purchasing and selling of the tires. Advertising This model will help Low Cost Tires Inc. in promoting the companies information about selling its wide selection of quality tires (Sacks, 2012). The internet business should be able to advertise itself to a wide range of customers by creating banner ads and emails for the tires. Affiliate This model is of high importance and is different to other online models like portals, which only acts as a source of traffic to the internet. This will provide an extra platform where customers can purchase products as they keep surfing (Eisenmann, Hallowell & Tripsas, 2002). This will help Low Cost Tires Inc. in selling tires directly to the customers through offering of financial incentives to its customers. The customers may purchase products directly from the affiliate. Community The community is another example of a model that Low Cost Tires Inc. can incorporate. It is strategies that will help the corporation meet their goal of selling tires to a broad market. This model bases its stand on the loyalty of the customers to the company (Afuah & Tucci, 2003). The company should have created a high level of emotion for their customers towards the company so that they can visit their online business. The company can collect its profit from voluntary contribution and through subscriptions and advertisement for premium services. Low Cost Tires Inc. should ensure the customers are loyal to the company by providing useful services and tires to them that will make them visit the internet business more and more. Utility This model is also known as the on demand and is centered with metering the usage of the customers. The utility will help measure the actual rates that the customers use. Customers will incur the charges when they connect to the internet business (Sacks, 2012). Informediary Low Cost Tires Inc. should integrate this internet business model into the business. This model will help measure the data of the customers and their habits of purchasing products and use it to target particular customers in the market (Eisenmann, Hallowell & Tripsas, 2002). The company will have information about their customers. Premium service This model will help the company offer some simple services to its customers. This service is free to the users on the internet business. This model plays a role where customers will be likely to purchase the tires because the free services please them. Premium services create a platform for users and Low Cost Tires Inc. to interact and create a demand for selling the tire to the customers (Afuah & Tucci, 2003). Question 2 Low Cost Tires Inc. will do phenomenally well when they come up with a website for their company. Companies having a website do well in the market. Some of the benefits, Low Cost Tires Inc., will have included. The company will start being visible to the customers who try to track them online. A business that has no website cannot be visible to its customers who mostly involve themselves with online buying (MacDonald, 2011). Therefore, Low Cost Tires Inc. will be a step ahead because most of the customers who need to purchase tires or repair their cars that communicate through the website. In a recent research, it showed that most consumers first research online products they need before they go and purchase them. Customers type what they need in the search engines and try to find the most suitable company that can handle their query. Therefore, a company should be present in the web to obtain extensive customers. Through creating a website, the company can control its ranking in the market. The company may use certain optimization for the search engines for queries. Through optimization of the search engines, the company will build links that are relevant to the customers who need to engage in the company thereby setting your ranks high than other internet business (Sacks, 2012). Thus through optimization the company gains more visibility to the queries of customers. The company will also benefit because a website is another source of the sale. The site will help Low Cost Tires Inc. address the concerns of its customers and provide them with useful information about the tires they sell and even generate convincing calls to act. People can visit the website to find trusted information about the company and even engage with the customers on a more personal level. This creates a sense of confidence in the customers and builds the company’s name on the market (Loshin & Vacca, 2004). The website increases the value of the company because the company can convey its credibility to the customers in case someone wants to higher the personnel of the company. It also shows the area of expertise of the firm and clients can learn more about the company. The website increases the value of the firm by providing a stage where the company can display solutions on problems that faces the tires and the cars. This is evident because most people in the recent time seek solution from the internet thus Low Cost Tires Inc. will be in a better place to provide the solution (MacDonald, 2011). The website will help marketing of tire for Low Cost Tires Inc. because it generates leads of customers because they can find the company efficiently, obtain the company’s contact information, and purchase its products. The website has the benefit of the customers in that they can quickly access solution from the internet about Low Cost Tires Inc. The site will also act as a source of information to them because the client is in a better place to acquire the company’s details (Periorellis, 2008). The website makes it easy for purchasing of products like the tires. The customer will see the picture of the variety of tire present, picks on the most suitable type, and purchase it. The website will also improve the internal communication of employees in the company. Information communicated by the workers is secure and hard to tamper with. The site will benefit the company when extensive information needs transport. It is because it is easy and effective when done through the website (MacDonald, 2011). Question 3 The internet has numerous uses to business. The internet is the best of distributing information to all parts of the world. Therefore, the internet is the excellent mode of sharing information. The internet will aid Low Cost Tires Inc. in a number of ways during its operation. Some of the uses the company will get from the internet include The internet will act as a center for the business media profile. Low Cost Tires Inc. information, services, and the products they offer are easily shared with many people through the internet (Loshin & Vacca, 2004). Thus, many people are capable of finding the company, and the company can help them. Through the internet, the company can also collect the contacts of stakeholders. The company will have a list of people who visit the company’s website and show interest in purchasing the tires. The internet also serves as a means of advertising. Many companies recently are beginning to advertise their information online. This is possible by creating ads of the company’s products like the tires. Low Cost Tires Inc. can also come up with banners that will be vital in advertising the company in the Yahoo page. The advertisements are in a way that they come to particular positions. This will help keep the customers always in touch with the company because most advertisement helps in maintaining and entertaining the customers (Sacks, 2012). The internet will also help Low Cost Tires Inc. in creating and improving its image. Many people in the society will view the company to be strong, developed, and offer good services and products to its customers. The internet also helps in social networking. Social networking is a common thing in these recent days, and it helps business to keep in contact with each other and learn about new business ideas in the market (Afuah & Tucci, 2003). Different business can interact with the other via the internet to obtain useful information on how to improve them. The internet will help maintain information about the company and keep it up to date. The information can be small, but the internet will aid in keeping it to the best level of accuracy as possible (Loshin & Vacca, 2004). Information that is printed in written materials will not change although they are outdated and therefore in order to acquire up to date information you need to throw away the old one. Use of internet as a source of obtaining information prevents the action. The internet has helped Low Cost Tires Inc. in reducing operation cost like printing materials in papers and journals to promote the company’s product (Afuah & Tucci, 2003). The internet, therefore, reduces to paper and printing cost. The internet has significantly reduced the load in staff rooms and phone usage. Question 4 Low Cost Tires Inc. website specification is the project that will outline the objective of the site. At first, the company should introduce itself giving the service and products that they provide to the market (Periorellis, 2008). Low Cost Tires Inc. is a company located in the outskirts of Chicago town and deals with selling of tire and auto repair of vehicles. Its primary product is tires, which are of wide selection depending on the customer’s choice. The second specification for the company is setting its objectives right so that the customers can accept it. The company’s primary objective is expanding the number of customers who purchase its tires and having a big auto repair that serves many customers (Sacks, 2012). The company’s other objective is to provide its customers with quality products that they need i.e. tires. The third step in website specification is having knowledge of who the target customer you wish to reach (Afuah & Tucci, 2003). The clients for Low Cost Tires Inc. are vehicle owners who need wish to have their cars repaired or want to purchase high-quality tires. These customers can be located in any place in the state. The fourth step has a provisional structure that will help ensure there is proper management of information. Vital information of the company like its name, its products, its location, its contact should be represented on the website (Loshin & Vacca, 2004). The website should have some requirements like being secure and free from attack by hackers. The site should also be accessible and readily usable. Optimization of the website ensures it loads easily and very fast. During the development of the site specification, the first thing to be in mind is the targeted customers (Periorellis, 2008). When developing one should be very keen on the structure, presentation and delivery format that suits the customers. Communication in the website should be brief, precise, and consistent. The website should be able to capture the attention of the customers. In the website site like company’s history, products, auto repairs, contact information, were all set aside at different category (Sacks, 2012). After creation and all this specification are integrated and finalized, the link to the company’s website is www.lowcosttires.com. The company should now be able to sell its tire to many customers because of the exposure via the internet. This will help Low Cost Tires Inc. achieve its objective of getting a broad customer base. References Afuah, A., & Tucci, C. (2003). Internet business models and strategies. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Eisenmann, T., Hallowell, R., & Tripsas, M. (2002). Internet business models. Boston, Mass.: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Loshin, P., & Vacca, J. (2004). Electronic commerce. Hingham, Mass.: Charles River Media. MacDonald, M. (2011). Creating a website. Beijing: OReilly. Periorellis, P. (2008). Securing Web services. Hershey: Information Science Reference. Sacks, M. (2012). Pro Website Development and Operations. Dordrecht: Springer. Read More