Developed Confectionery Business in the Dewey Beach - Essay Example

The Candy Case Suitability of each product for online selling Global business environment is becoming highly competitive as several large, medium and small organizations are trying to develop and implement unique business strategies in the business processes in order to gain significant competitive advantages. Online marketing and selling activities have become one of the most popular and effective marketing activities that helps the organizations to create effective customer awareness of the products. In addition to this, online selling activities generally help the organizations to sell the products or services to more number of customers comparing to other traditional selling activities. The case study is all about a developed confectionary business in the Dewey Beach. The store used to sell three different products, such as candy, ice cream and photograph. Recently, the organization is planning to implement online business strategy in order to gain competitive advantage in this business area. Dewey Beach is considered as one of the most popular tourists spots in United States of America. Moreover, the organization is planning to expand its business operations in different popular locations in the United States of America in which the organization can get significant competitive advantages1. It is mentioned in the case study that the confectionary store has to face low competition within the market. There are two more similar types of business organizations. But, importantly this specific confectionary store used to sell differentiated products. According to the views and thoughts of business owners, the online business strategy will help the organization to achieve significant competitive edge over its competitors. It is true that number of competitors for this specific confectionary store is quite low. But, it also needs to be considered that the total population of this area is not more than 350. Therefore, it is highly challenging for the store to become the leading organization within this area. However, the organization achieved significant growth rate from the business practices. In addition to this, several international domestic visitors come to this place to enjoy the beauty of nature of this area. The organization is planning to implement online business process in order to target local, domestic and international customers. Candy, ice cream and photographs are three major product lines. This diversified product portfolio will help the organization to gain significant preference of customers who will wish to visit this area. Now-a-days, the number of users of internet is increasing significantly. In addition to this, popularity of online consumption activity can help the confectionary store to capitalize on the potential business opportunity. It will be effective if the business owners select online selling and business activities for three existing product line. In this modern era of advanced technology and online marketing, each and every person tries to find the information about places, hotels, restaurants and stores before planning to visit a specific area. These favorable aspects will help the confectionary store to create significant awareness of the products. If the organization tries to maintain effective quality in candies and ice creams, then it would be easy for the organization to develop significant brand value. In terms of photographs, the organization made a contract with an art professor of the Dewey University to source photographs. The store will sell these photographs to the target audiences in different sizes depending upon the preference of the customers. However, each and every product can get benefit from the online marketing activities. Putting up the digital photographs on the company website or on several social media websites can attract the tourists from different global areas to visit the place. In addition to this, the business owners are also trying to expand their business operations in other areas. The organization needs to mention a range or distance between places where the organization can deliver the products. Online marketing and selling activities can be considered as one of the effective promotional activities. In addition to this, people who will visit this place will surely try to consume the photographs. Providing information about different flavor and price range of the ice creams on developed company website will motivate the visitors to taste the flavors of ice creams and candies. Implementation of online business activities can help the organization to several types of business costs and business operation type. Target Market The major target market for the products of the confectionary store will be the visitors who used to come and visit the place. It is a summer beach. People love to visit this place during summer season. The sales of these products will depend upon the longevity of summer season. The organization intended to work only for five months in a year due to existence of the summer season. Individuals who like art, culture, literature and tradition can be considered as the major target customers of the photographs. On the other hand, the confectionary store should target kids, children and people of young generation for the candies and ice creams. The target audience for the candies and ice creams will both the visitors and local citizens. On the other hand, the target customers for the photographs would be visitors of middle and old ages. Implementation of online marketing and selling process can motivate the kids, children and young people to consume the candies and ice creams. As the organizations is trying to expand its business practices in other areas and trying to implement online marketing strategy in the business process, therefore it will be easy for the organization to target a significant customer group. Reason behind Consumption In terms of the photographs, the target customers will try to buy the products as each and every individual intends to buy a cultural symbol or evidence of a place. Therefore, it is important for the organization to try to collect the photographs that is the reflection of local art and culture it will automatically motivate the target customers to consume the photographs. In terms of ice creams and candies, the organization needs to ensure the quality of products. In addition to this, it is important for the organization to add differentiated fruit flavor and high quality chocolate flavor into them so that the children, kids and young visitors can get motivated to consume the products. Integration of online marketing will increase the demand more significantly of the customers. Pricing strategy for Products Pricing is considered as one of the important marketing concept. Each and every business owners need to know about the significance of effective pricing strategy. Significant pricing strategy with high quality of the products helps the organizations to develop potential client base. It is highly important for the confectionary store to implement competitive pricing strategy for the products due to growing competition in the market. It is discussed earlier that the organization is trying to expand its business practices in other area. In addition to this, the organization is going to implement online business strategy that can help the organization to reduce business operation cost. Maximum and buying and selling activities will happen during to summer season. Therefore, the store should try to implement discounted pricing for the products at the starting and end of the season. In addition to this, the pricing information needs to be provided for the target audiences in order to pull more number of target customers. Competitive pricing strategy will help the organization to gain potential competitive advantages. In addition to this, this strategy will help the organizations to gain significant customer preference. Promotion Mix Promotion of products and services are considered as the most important and effective marketing communication tools that help an organization to communicate with target customers. Sales promotion, online campaign and different print and digital media advertising activities are considered as the promotional advertisings. There are several promotional and advertising categories that helps an organization to market its products and services to the target customers. The confectionary store will implement four different advertising activities, such as online advertising activities, digital media advertising activities, print media advertising activities and word of mouth promotional strategy. Online promotional activities will help the organization to target regional, domestic and international customers who love to visit this place. Digital media advertising will try to target the young people, children and kids who love to watch television. Print media advertising will help the organizations to target several middle aged or old aged individuals. Lastly, the word of mouth promotional strategy will help the organization to develop potential customer base through the referrals of existing clients or customers. Six Online advertising Formats The confectionary store is trying to expand its business practices in other areas to maximize business profit and number of target customers. In addition to this, the business unit is planning to implement online business marketing and selling activities to foster business growth. This part of the study will recommend six best different formats of online marketing strategy in order to attract the target customers. Social media advertising, advertising in company website, search engine marketing, display advertisings, blog advertising and online auction websites can be considered as six different online advertising options that can help the organization to attract the target customers. Social media online advertising can help the organization to target huge number of target customers for its three different product portfolios. Now-a-days, each and every individual is interrelated with each other through several social media networks, such as Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and LinkedIn. Advertising on the pages of these social media networks will help the organization to create significant brand awareness among each and every target audience. Search engine marketing is considered as one of the most popular online promotional activities. In terms of photographs, the confectionary store developed an agreement with the business clients. The photographers used to put these photographs in her web site as she utilizes Google’s search engine to drive required traffic to her owned website. Recently, the confectionary store is trying to implement online selling and marketing activities. The adverts with the help of search engines will help the organization to show its products and services to huge internet users. It can be considered as one of the most effective and profitable online promotional activities. Display advertising can be considered as another effective online promotional activity. There are several websites in which the organization can use pop ups in order to promote the ice creams and candies. The organization should choose tour and travel websites. It will help the organization to attract several visitors who can wish to visit the business operation places. In addition to this, advertising on the company website can help the target customers to get information about products and price of each and every product directly. The organization can put advertisements for the photographs on several leading online auction websites, such as EBay. These websites especially deals with both business clients and customers. Therefore, these websites will help the confectionary store to create awareness about the photographs in the mind of the target customers. Last but not the least; the confectionary store can use blog advertising as this particular promotional activity will help the organization to target several individuals who used to write and follow the updated blogs in the tours and travel websites. Offline Advertising Print media, digital media and word-of-mouth promotional strategy can be considered as the most effective offline advertisings. It is true that popularity and effectiveness of online marketing and selling g activity can help the organization to achieve significant business growth. But, it is also important for the organizations to consider several effective traditional and offline promotional activities. Digital media advertising will help the organization to attract young people, kids and children towards candies and ice creams. The organization can use news papers or several magazines as print medium for the photographs. This type of product needs to give its physical evidence to the target customers that can help the customers to judge the quality and attractiveness of the photographs. In addition to this, word of mouth strategy can help the organization to develop potential target customer base. The organization can start feedback process, in which the store executives can collect feedback from the in-store customers through the feedback form. The satisfied target customers can give reference to their friends and relatives about the quality of products and services of the organization. In addition to this, the organization can improve its current business process through the help of the feedback form based on the response of the customers. React to Competitor’s online selling in off Season It is mentioned that the organization is trying to implement online selling and marketing activities in the off season in order to achieve potential competitive advantages. In addition to this, it can help the organization to develop potential client base apart from its business operating places. It is clear from the case study that no competitors have implemented online business strategy in the business process. If any competitor out of those two would have implemented online business strategy, then it was difficult for the organization to react to the competitor’s newly initiated online marketing and selling of products and services. It is important for an organization to review, evaluate and develop strategies if any competitor is trying to capture the similar market. It is important or essential to respond to the strategy of the competitors, as lack of response can affect the business performance of the organization as the competitors can have the possibility to grab the client base and market share. Sales tax The business which was originally confined to confectionary expanded the portfolio of its products and included ice-cream and photographs in the product. The business has now decided to go online with the intention of tapping the potential of the business outside the state boundaries. The decision of expanding the business through the online mode has been taken as the confectionary business of candy added with the selling of ice creams and the photographs obtained from the expert professor have been able to increase its brand equity. Also the business work for only 5 months during the year in the time of summer and also intends to service the customers in the off season when they go back to their places. The sale of the photographs through the online mode is viewed to be preferable for the family confectionary business as they would be able to reduce the cost of printing, matting and framing the photographs required in the physical mode of sell in the shop2. Looking at the condition which might result in the under estimation of the costs of the online business and over assessing of the business profitability, the consideration of the sales tax in the business plan for expansion of the business to the online mode is a crucial one to be decided by the owners. Decision on introducing Sales tax It has been anticipated that the business may fall in a position where the cost of the transition to the online business may be higher and the profitability of the online marketing of its products, mainly the photographs may be less. In such a scenario and to take appropriate measures for determining feasibility of the project, the business would need to consider additional sources of revenue. These sources of revenue could be obtained in the form of taxes. The obvious consideration in this case is the imposition of the sales tax by the business on its products that would be sold online. It is, however, to be noted that there is no sales tax in Delaware. Therefore, the business may look to impose sales tax on the online transactions for the customers who purchase their products from their location which is outside the state boundaries of Delaware. In order to do this, the business would need to set up system facilities that informs the customer of the condition that they would be charge on account of sales tax for purchasing products from location that are outside the state of Delaware. The system must also be able to read the billing address of the electronic cards or accounts used for online transactions for purchase of online photographs from the family business. This would help the system to decide whether the sales tax would be imposed on the transactions or not. All these system requirements would need initial cost and expenditure for the business which would be recovered over a period of time through the imposition of sales tax and increasing acceptability of its products. The decision on the sales tax would be favorable for the business as they are able to provide online services and photographs to their customers which demands setting up of proper infrastructure at certain initial cost3. Over a period of time, the business would be able to achieve economies of scale with a certain portion of the sales tax charged to the buyers would be added to the economic profits of the business with the additional benefits of cost reduction due to online sale of photographs. Anticipated response from the customers due to introduction of sales tax The business would also take into account the anticipated response from their valued customers as a result of the introduction of the sales. The customers did not have to pay sales tax while buying ice-creams and candy from the shop in the beach as sales tax is not allowed in Delaware. In order to restore their brand equity, the business would need to inform their customers that they are concerned of the costs and benefits of their customers and that they would like extend the relationship with their customers beyond the summer season to year round services through online marketing4. The emphasis on the focus of the business towards maintaining constant relationship with their customers through online marketing and explanation of the marginal benefits of the online purchase of photographs, etc despite the presence of sales tax would convince them to buy the products offered by the business through the online mode. Justification for Online Selling and Marketing This part of the business plan will give justification of the implementation of online marketing and selling is a good idea to develop. Global business environment is becoming highly competitive as each and every organization is trying to develop strategies based on the market demand and needs of the target customers. Therefore, it is important for the organization to focus on untapped market5. According to the case study, it has been identified that no one has implemented online business strategies in the business process in the specific area. Therefore, it would be easy for the confectionary store to develop online business strategies. It will help the organization to achieve significant competitive advantage. The Dewey beach is quite popular among the local and international tourists. Online marketing and selling activity will help the confectionary store to create effective customer awareness among the global visitors. All the information about the products and services will help the people to take interest in the products and services of the organization. The organization is taking several initiatives to implement online business strategies. The competition among the Dewey confectionary market is increasing significantly. In addition to this, the popularity of this place is significantly increasing among the target customers. Especially, the global visitors are the target customers of this industry. Therefore, it is important for the organizations to develop and implement unique business operation strategies in the business process in order to develop significant client base. It is true that it is quite difficult for a new comer to develop and implement strong online marketing strategies. Online selling and marketing activity can help the organization in several ways6. First of all, it is important for the organization to reduce business operation cost in order to implement competitive pricing strategy of the products. Online marketing activity can help the organization to reduce several business operation cost. Several online promotional activities are cost effective comparing to other promotional activities. In addition to this, this promotional activity can help the organization to target huge number of target customers within quick period of time. In addition to this, the organization can gain positive response from the customers as number of internet or social media network users is increasing significantly. Last but not the least; it can be stated that the organization can achieve significant competitive advantage if the confectionary store promotes its photographs in the online auction websites. The organization can sell antique and traditional photographs through these websites in which the owners of the business should not have to take any bother about pricing7. Looking into these above aspects, it can be stated that the implementation of online business strategy will be effective for the confectionary store depending upon the potentiality of the area. 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