What Jfloracom Will Offer - Essay Example

JFlora.com I would like to introduce consumers in the fine art market to my new company J Flora Art Auction. This is a web based platform that will provide fine art for sale to consumers in this market. The website will launch in two months thus this paper will explain about the company, its benefits and the distinction the company has from other online art auction sites. After reading this article, consumers will understand why JFlora.com is the best auction website for fine arts. What Jflora.com will Offer Jflora.com will approach online auctioning of art from a different perspective to ensure that customers can utilize the site fully. First of all, the site will incorporate smart points where consumers will get loyalty points from which they can redeem them. For example if a consumer buys a piece of art through the website then the more they spend the more they get loyalty points. For every 100 dollars a consumers spends through the site they will get one loyalty point hence the more a consumer uses the site to buy art the more the accumulate loyalty points. These loyalty points can be redeemed in order for a consumer to enjoy a discount, a gift hamper or specific fine art for free depending on the amount of points a consumer has. For instance, a twenty percent discount can be given by redeeming 10 points. For some fine arts one can get them at no cost at all by redeeming one hundred loyalty points. This is systems will encourage consumers to use the site since currently no online auctioning site for fine art offers loyalty points to its consumers. JFlora.com will use social networking to ensure that its customers are always up to date with any new work of art that is for sale. This is another aspect of the website that currently no online auctioning website for fine art is using. The use of social networking marketing has proved to be cheap, convenient, and reliable since it has worked for other companies in other industries. Social marketing will be incorporated into the website in that once a customer registers in the website then they will be able to get information about art galleries, art events, and art products on sale making it easy for them to know what and when to buy. For instance, if a painting has been posted to be on sale on the website, then customers do not have to wait until they log in into the website. They can simply place their bids using social networks such as twitter and face book then if they are the highest bidder they will be contacted by personnel from the website informing them on their successful bidding. This is when they will be prompted to log into their account where they will choose the method of payment they see fit. Jflora.com will also be conspicuous from other online auctioning websites for fine art such as paddle8 and VIP Art in its wide list of payment option. Normally such auctioning sites usually offer a limited range of paying options which are credit and debit card. However, J Flora has come up with a system where a customer can pay for the items purchased using Bank transfer, Credit card, internet currencies, wire transfers, mobile money, and personal cheques. This wide variety of payment options will be made available by the website through a system where, instead of the customers paying directly to the owner of the painting, he/she will pay to the company where the company will release the item to the buyer once they have received proof of payment. This means even if the customer pays for a painting using a personal cheque, the company will release the item to the buyer as long as a copy of the personal cheque is received by the company meaning that the buyer does not have to wait until the cheque matures. The J Flora company will incorporate security measures not being used by other websites to ensure that customer information is treated with a lot of privacy ensuring that they do not lose their money to identity thieves or fraudsters which has been the case in online buying and selling. In fact, quite a number of consumers have stopped using online auctioning as a result of losing their money (Flick 29). Firstly, the company will use a system where customers are issued with a pin number when creating an account in the website instead of coming up with their own pin number. This will help in ensuring that customers account is not hacked since most people generate password from their personal information which is exploited by hackers to get into someone’s account (Montague 79) The company will also ensure that transaction done between sellers, the company, and buyers are legitimate and authenticated by ensuring that the company does immediate follow ups to ensure the highest security. For example, J Flora employees will be calling customers who have placed bids and order five minutes after to confirm if truly they are the one who have placed their bids. This will avoid the chances of people biding for items through hacking into other people accounts. The website will also ask customers to supply the company with at least 10 copies of their signatures such that when an item is delivered signatures made when accepting delivery will be compared automatically with samples provided with the company in a matter of seconds. This will ensure that items purchased are delivered to the intended customers thus avoiding mix ups when it comes to delivery. Advantages Online auctioning presents the buyer, the seller, and the company with various advantages (Holl 89). On seller can post more than one item for sale on a website. This means that the seller only has to add a link that will direct people to other items he or she is offering. This helps in both time and cost saving. Another advantage is that the price of the art item being bided can go up if it is popular thus benefiting both the website and the seller. If an item becomes popular people will use the website to bid thus pushing the price higher (Khosrow-Pour 112). Disadvantages Online auctioning is presented with a number of limitations. One risk that characterizes online auction sites is the fact that many buyers usually bid yet they do not have the ability or willingness to pay for the product (Kim 140). This is a disadvantage because this ends up in a waste of both time and money since there are other customers who bid low prices which they can mange but end up not buying the item because another person bid for the item using a higher price which they cannot afford. Another disadvantage that characterizes online auctioning sites is the fact that not all items are guaranteed to be sold. This is risky especially for sites which buy items from sellers then auction the item themselves in order for them to make profits since it ends up as dead stock which is an expense to the auctioning company. Auctioning sites are prone to fraudsters and hackers thus making it risky for both customers and the company to transact business. Auction sites also face the risk of being criminally indicted for selling products that are either illegal or stolen. This is because sellers who post their item for sale on the website are not asked to provide prove of ownership since mostly people sell art they have personally created thus there is no way of knowing if a wok of art is legit or stolen. Works Cited Flick Kenneth. Assessing Consumer Acceptance of Online Shopping: Examining Factors Affecting Purchase Intentions: Michigan. ProQuest, 2009. Print. Holl Susan. Online Shopping Tactics: New York. Clinton Gilkie, 2012. Print. Khosrow-Pour Mehdi. Issues and trends of information technology management in contemporary organizations: Pennsylvania. Idea Group Inc (IGI), 2002. Print. Kim Mi-Jung.Consumer Perceptions of Apparel Products in Internet Shopping: New York. ProQuest, 2007. Print. Montague David. Essentials of Online payment Security and Fraud Prevention: New Jersey. John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Print. Read More