Addonney Beauty Shop - Coursework Example

Table of content: Topics page Executive summary Firm E-marketing Mix: s (Fatema Tasnem) Competitors (Noor Khashabi) Advertising and promotion (Fatima Alkuwari) Pricing (Fatima Alnaimi) Operations (Mariam Althani) Risk Analysis: Addressing the role of internet in marketing firm’s products and services (Fatima Alkuwari) Online consumer behavior (Fatema Tasnem) Virtual competition (Noor Khashabi) Internet pricing mechanisms (Fatima Alnaimi) Internet related risks and uncertainties (Mariam Althani) Executive summary: Executive Summary This project will contain the E-marketing Plan for Addoony Beauty Shop. Some of the topics that will be discussed in this project are: Firm description Addressing the role of internet in marketing firm’s products/services Online Consumer Behavior Virtual competition Internet Pricing mechanisms Internet related risks and uncertainties The paper talks of a Qatar-based beauty shop that spends time in marketing as well as selling its products through online marketing. Addoony is an e-commerce company designed to become the market leader in Web-based sales of beauty services and products. The shop is located in Qatar. Although many Internet companies have recently joined the market and created stiff competition and failed, the Internet is expected to support several e-commerce businesses for many years to come. Most of the dot-coms failed to establish their ground in the e-market because of poor strategies that they laid for their businesses that had no true revenue streams. Addoony tends to overcome these problems with easy to use website for its customers and a distribution system that is efficient for their products throughout Qatar. Addoony’s mission is to provide the best services and products using the Internet to lower the consumers cost. The online shop exists to attract and maintain customers through their daily interaction with the website to check for any new product in the market and the introduction of new services. When Addooney’s beauty shop adheres to this maxim, everything else will fall into place. The shops services will, therefore, be expected to exceed the expectations of the customers in Qatar. This will help maintain an enormous proportion of clients to sustain the shop for long and .further help to advertize it. In the coming years, the beauty shop intends to create an icon in e-commerce. In the process, it will brand in the sale of beauty products and services and will grow to a high generating revenue online shop. Firm description: Describe the chosen firm product and services: We chose Addoony Beauty Shop to create an e-marketing plan that helps them to develop their website because we find that it is new concept in Qatari market and it has really good reputation between female in Qatar. Addoony Beauty Shop is the first Qatari virtual shop in Qatar that specialized on makeup and beauty products. Its own by ambitious entrepreneur women name Aldana Almarri. She is starts operating her website on September 2012. The Addoony is the nickname of the owner (Aldanaa) among his family and friends. What the things that make this website popular her in Qatar and different that they contract with several famous brands company that not available in Qatar and be the official agent for them in Qatar such as, Sigma Beauty, Anastasia Beverly Hills and Sleek Makeup and another brand that around 14. Information About the industry: The makeup industry is one of the largest market in the world. It is difficult for a business to enter this market unless they provide unique products like Addoony does. The makeup industry in Qatar is in its growth stage. There are online as well as offline physical stores that are popular in this region. The offline stores such as Sephora, Faces and Mac are tough competitors for Addoony. How the product and services can be benefit … Addoony has a potential advantage over other competitors because they provide their customers with unique makeup products. This in turn, allows them to sell their products at moderate prices with good profit. E-Marketing mix: ..? Customers: (Fatema Tasnem) Addoony is an online Qatari store that targets customers in GCC region, particularly in Qatar. As a retailer for well-known beauty products, the primary customers of Addoony are women. According to CIA World Fact book estimates, the total population of Qatar is around 2.2 million, among which the female population aged between 15- 64 in Qatar is around 349,000. For a company that focuses on selling beauty products, this population consisting of young girls to elderly women (15-64) is a good target since they are fond of using makeup products the most. Moreover, women who care about their beauty and self-image are important customers for Addoony, hence they show an interest in purchasing unique makeup products from their online website. Internet users in Qatar are prospective customers for Addoony as it is an online retail store. Buyers who seek unique beauty products, which are not available in Qatar, are among Addoony’s vital customer base. Moreover, unique makeup products are specially searched for by women during events like Wedding, Eid and special occasions. Makeup artists, who usually purchase their products by going abroad, now have the ability to buy the same products with the help of Addoony. Some women are sensitive to normal makeup and need special beauty products that do not harm their sensitive skin. They are also prospective customers for Addoony. Additionally, the online behavior of customers varies to a great degree. Some of their customers are highly satisfied with their online website and their quick delivery system. While other customers are not happy with the delivery schedules appointed by Addoony. Many customers are hesitant in buying without trying beauty products on their skin to see if they have an allergic reaction. Thus, it can be denoted that there are many customer prospects for Addoony but at the same time each consumer shows a different behavior when it comes to purchasing beauty products online. Addoony beauty shop has a wide spectrum of customers who use the internet and this group of people when tapped can help the shop market further in the society through word of mouth thus marketing the shop even further. It is therefore important for Addoony to improve their services and products to their customers so that they can come back and even tell other people. Competitors: (Noor Khashabi) Addoony beauty shop faces many direct and indirect competitors in the market. Two of the strongest competitors to Addoony beauty shop are: Beauty Boutique and Beautepop, since they are both Qatari based online makeup stores that follow nearly similar way of presenting and delivering the products. The competition is also high because they sell some similar makeup brands that are desirable by customers and that are not sold in any physical store in Qatar. Addoony is the most famous online makeup store in Qatar because it wanted to be and become the pioneer in this business. To stay at the top, Addoony is working on creating their own app for mobile phones to make it easier for customer to access and purchase, as it is planning to open up a physical store in the future. In addition, Addoony is unique between its competitors because it has written a contract with a number of brands that are sold in addoony’s beauty shop, and it updated its customers if there is any new contract is written to develop and maintain customer trust and loyalty. While competitors purchase the makeup from other stores in other countries and sell them directly in their online stores without mention any source or from where they get it, which makes customers doubted the quality of the product. There are also very strong physical competitors like Sephora and Pari Gallery. Advertising and promotion: (Fatma Alkuwari) The vital tool that acts as an interface between the customers and the shop is the website. Through the website, the shop managers communicate directly and indirectly to the both its customers and potential customers. Therefore, Addooney Beauty Shop website need to be improved with its structure especially with its designing and graphics to make it more appealing and attracting the visitors and will force them to spend more times discovering the website and that will lead them to increase the chances of purchasing from. Also, they can put more features that will help attracting more customers as well as increasing the sales. In the next narrative is an illustrate of some weak points in the website need to be improved and some ways of how to overcome with it. First of all the language of the website needs to be improved by writing them in formal format to give the website more formal character to track the customers trust. Also, be very careful with choosing the terminology and the expression in both languages the Arabic and English because it has a significant impact on attracting the attention of the visitors and create psyche links between the brand and visitors in order to push them buy with fully trust and conviction. The homepage needs to improve by listing items of the logos of brands offered, so when the visitor click on them directly listed related products. Because that what makes Addoney beauty different and unique than others, by owning an exclusive and official agent for a number of well-known brands in the world that not available on Qatar. Moreover, listing best sales products in the top of the homepage will attract customers attention. Adding more real pictures of the products in different positions with high quality and attached short video tutorial will describe the benefits and how they can apply it in appropriate way. They can add some additional small features. They have significant impact on any website visitors that not noticed in Addonney website. Such as, letting the customers leave their own reviews and rating on products. The statistics shows that 63% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a site which has user reviews (iPerceptions, 2011). In addition, list the items out of stock and record the orders in advance on desired products. Moreover, add wish list beside the cart item, when the customers add some items on that list directly contact with them by sending reminder emails that letting your customers know that the items on their list if available on sale or will be soon sold out. These both features are available on one application named WishList + Reminder. ** Further things help in advertising and promotion are emails, Instegram and word of mouth the following paragraph is describing of each. To start with, using email can be the best channel in online marketing. By sending regular newsletters that list the deals and discounts to keep you in touch with your customers often or by customizing emails to them with the things that they interested in based on their purchased history. You can take an advantage by using Emma website; they can helps in providing such service. In addition, Instagram is very useful tool to advertise business in Qatar most of family members and friends having their own accounts and they mainly focusing on the business account that enable them to live good shopping experience. What noticed with Addooney, they do good job on Instagram by reaching more than 39 thousands followers. But what needs to notice here is improving the interaction with customers by reveal behind the scenes work, like adding some pictures of the delivery employees with brief description of them to build friendly relationship with customers or using Instagram videos that shows the behind scenes of work like when they preparing and delivering the packages. Keep displaying customers pictures of Addooney products to earn social proof. Besides that Addoney beauty shop should promote their products by letting word of mouth extremely spread by choosing power influencer who already has same target audience attention such as Ascia, Hanan Alnehadah and Sondos whose most famous Kuwaiti instegramer have the similar audience’s attention of adoring fashion and makeup. Send some sample products that Addooney Beauty distinguish themselves by as a gift and let them talk about it on their account. Try to give customers some gifts to make them feels their importance to Addooney that will lead them to be loyal. Types of gifts can vary for example, giving some discount for loyal customers or sending samples of new products and take their feedback on considerations. After certain number of purchasing let them to save some Qatari Riyals in special account in the website that enable customers using it in the next time of purchasing. Pricing: (Fatma Alnaimi) Pricing is the most flexible marketing mix, it can be change quickly, and rapidly, price is the only mix, which yields a profit. Addoony take in consideration that the online selling, is easy to compare. There is websites specifically do the price comparison between different retailers. As mentioned addoony firstly sell the sigma beauty product with little profit which include the shipping cost, that which make her popular and trusted by customer so when they will compare the prices it will be no much difference, consequently that will support addoony as a company it’s prices match global prices. As cosmetic retailer setting a price needs to: Reflect the value you provide versus your competitors, Match what the market will truly pay for your offering support your brand, Enable you to reach your revenue and market share goals and Maximize your profits .the price if it’s cheap or expensive, and type of product if it’s necessities or luxury, indicate your position in the market. (Marketingmo, 2014) http://www.marketingmo.com/strategic-planning/how-to-develop-a-pricing-strategy/ addoony use different pricing strategy because she sell different cosmetic brands, for exclusive , rare products , limited edition addoony use Premium Pricing to reflect the exclusiveness of the product , in addition to apply competition pricing in comparison with other cosmetic retailer .. According to the majority retailers they use general strategy called Cost Plus Pricing which is adding specific percentage to the original cost to come with final pricing.... (learn marketing,2014) http://www.learnmarketing.net/Price.htm Operations: (Maryam Althani) In order to successfully run Addoony’s online store, it is important to plan and implement economical, feasible, secure, and effective management systems for customers. Such systems would improve the level of efficiency in service delivery and customer satisfaction. Some of the software and equipments that will help in running this online business platform could be Cloud Computing-related technologies, which is the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer.  This tool would be fundamental in increasing the level of accuracy and financial accountabilities within the company. Though financially demanding, its implementation would enhance the profitability performance of the company, thus making it better place to meet both its short-term and long-term financial goals. With respect to data security and management, Instagram would be a very important tool for integrating services with customers. This system would help in designing effective programs for tracking work in progress, maintaining a multi-user control version, and eliminate the desire to re-create product designs. Concerning management and running of the proposed systems, the company will delegate this responsibility to one of their staff who has strong background knowledge in information technology and data management. In particular, Addoony will be in charge with this responsibility given since she’s the only member. She would also be charged with the task of ensuring products and order registry, management of customers’ data, and product-supply management. It is the same person who would ensure that customer satisfactions get maximized with customers gaining value for their money by receiving quality and timely orders. The designing of the website will be done with the help of external IT professionals (Shopify) in collaboration with Addoony herself. However, the running of e-marketing campaigns will solely be left in hands of the company’s IT team headed by Addoony, they are responsible for making necessary updates in the website/online to keep their customers informed. Risk analysis: …?! The role of internet in marketing firms products and services: (fatma alkuwari) Nowadays the internet services widely spread around the globe and that lead to dramatically increase in internet users across the world with unlimited access of any person in anywhere; the internet also plays an important role in marketing firms product and services. Precise Internet strategy can play a significant part in the successful of marketing the businesss goods and services in many different perspectives such as convenience, reaching, cost and communication and customer services. Billions of people the world over interact with the worldwide web on a daily basis. At any one given time, hundreds of millions of people are logged into the internet, either for education, perusing for information on various websites, keeping up-to-date with current events on the various news sites like Reuters, CNN, BBC, and Associated Press (AP) among an array of other reasons. Of these, a significant percentage spend hours on end interacting on social networking sites that have become the trend, especially among people in the 18 to 40 age bracket.. The reverse was the case ten years ago and the statistics will be twice in favor of social networking sites in the next decade. Here is discussing of each point in more details and start with convenience, Internet plays a role by enabling entrepreneur business such as Addoony Beauty Shop to open their business around the clock without worrying about specific time to open and close the store and that will helps them in having better chance to attract more customers or worrying about the extra payments for working stuff and decrease the cost . Also, offering the products over the internet is convenient to customers so, they can browse the website at any time and from anywhere. The second point is the reach of the business itself in the virtual world. Internet leads Addooney Beauty Shop to skip all barriers of distance by enable them to sell their goods and products over the world without needs to build local outlets in each country they want to reach. Furthermore the cost of marketing the product through the internet is much less than marketing them on physical stores. Because you do not need to purchase bulky quantity of the products only what you need is ordering them in line with demand that will help in lower the inventory costs. The last point to discuss here is the ccommunication and customer services, needs to build loyal customers base is essential to lead business especially the small business to success. So the internet play significant role in that by improving customer service through providing customers with additional channel of communication that is available all hours at the day. Also, it helps the business to distribute additional important information to consumer product guides and discerptions and answers of frequently asked questions. This will help customers to make purchase decisions. Online consumer behavior: (Fatma tasneem) It is to be noted that the target customers of Addoony need to have access to internet in order to be aware of their website. According to UN Report, around 96 percent of households are already connected to internet in Qatar and 88 percent of population are active internet users. This means an online company like Addoony has a moderately high chance of succeeding in the Qatari market and attract more online shoppers with time. The interview conducted with Addoony showed that their main means of contact with customers is through using the social network WhatsApp. An important risk factor Addoony faces is contacting offline customers or women who do not use internet but have high purchasing power. To minimize this drawback Addoony aims at targeting the offline market by establishing physical stores in Qatar in future. This will help them attract more customers later on in their business. Additionally, many women are unsatisfied with the delivery timings of Addoony which is scheduled between 6 pm to 11 pm. This can be due to the fact that working women may have a time conflict and this in turn leads to loss of customers. Many customers fear paying online as it is not a trusted domain. Looking into this matter, Addoony adopted the Cash on Delivery process where a customer pays upon receiving their items. From the interview conducted by Addoony, it can be concluded that although customers initially hesitate to purchase online, their perception changes once they have received their first order. Some of these customers eventually love their products and continue to buy more. Addoony faces a certain amount of uncertainty when it comes to consumer behavior in the Qatari market, but they are trying their best to retain their existing customers and acquire ones in due time. Virtual competition: (noor) Even though physical competitors affect Addoony’s store, virtual competitors have bigger effect than physical ones. The competition is high because accessing the Internet in Qatar is easy and people know how to use it. Purchasing online becomes also high recently which leads companies to open an online channel to catch customers and satisfy them. Virtual competition is seen to be the fastest and cheapest means of attracting customers in modern business. The internet attracts millions of people who spend most of their times in social network sites. This has made many businesses to take this opportunity to advertise and sell their products and services through the internet in order to attract more customers. Addoony shop is facing similar stiff competition from its competitors. Despite the company having done a lot in advertising itself and marketing its products and services online, several business that offers same services and products are also following the same suit. Today in Qatar, several beauty shops have taken advantage of the internet to market themselves and their products. Female customers are well known with the best makeup brands in the world because they watch famous makeup artists on YouTube, blogs or instagram, which makes them seeking to buy same makeup brands to get same amazing result. That’s what Addoony is doing and that’s why its customers are happy. Addoony faces hard competition during to the entrance of new companies that sells identically same or similar makeup products like Beauty Boutique and Beautepop. The existing of these companies and other companies make customers confused on which store to trust and buy form. Addoony try to overcome this confusion by bringing latest product first to the shop, with best price and best service. Internet pricing mechanisms: (Fatma alnaimi) Consumers of products and services always go for what they think they can afford. The most challengeable point of online shopping is the capability of consumer to compare the selling prices among many retailers or companies, usually consumer went online searching for lower prices than the prices in the physical store , but with cosmetic product the womens willing to buy something in higher price due to limited quantity or exclusiveness of some product.. Addoony have standard pricing way which fixed price for cosmetics, another retailer may have auction such as ebay .. http://books.openedition.org/pucl/1650 Internet related risks and uncertainties: (Maryam) Like was the case during the Dot.com bubble, poor risk analysis is likely to negatively hurt the growth prospects of an organization. For this reason, it is critical for firms particular those dealing in e-businesses to consider carrying out a comprehensive risk analysis. Some these uncertainties that would have an impact on the profitability performance of Addoony Beauty Shop are broadly classified into internal and external risks. Internally, this firm is likely to encounter operational, organizational, systematic, strategic, and financial risks. Operational and organization uncertainties concern issues relating to day-to-day operations of the Addoony Beauty Shop online store. In particular, the performances of the website get affected by inaccurate information and disorganized administrative procedures. Some of these risks factors include failures of the IT systems and software, supply chain interruptions, and use of outdated data management systems.  From the external point of view, Addoony Beauty Shop would be affected by risks related to technological risks. Technologically, Addoony Beauty Shop would face risks relating to data information security. With the incidences of data hacking on the rise globally, this company would fall a victim with their secured IT protocols being hacked into. Consequently, most their valuable data and information would be compromised. To avoid such, it is highly recommended for the company to invest more resources on data security, for this would enhance their privacy and trade secrecy. References: https://econsultancy.com/blog/9366-ecommerce-consumer-reviews-why-you-need-them-and-how-to-use-them#i.14s2dxaak8en7q https://apps.shopify.com/wishlist-followup http://www.indexmundi.com/qatar/demographics_profile.html http://dohanews.co/un-report-qatar-increases-household-internet-connectivity/ http://pixsta.com/u/addoony.beauty.shop/ http://smallbusiness.chron.com/six-benefits-internet-marketing-31382.html Appendices: (Addoony Beauty Shop Interview) Addoony Beauty Shop has good reputation between girls in Qatar, Can you tell us more about it? What is Addoony Beauty? How did you start? And what are the things that push you to start? (In another word, give us a summary about Addooney beauty shop and how you start this business)? There was a need in the Makeup Market in Qatar to introduce the brands which were not available. We felt the need and had to do something about it. We didn’t expect the great turn out and are working to be better. On the other hand, the excitement of an order arriving at your doorstep is thrilling. And many of our customers started to get addicted Why did you chose (addoony beauty) as your brand name? What is mean? Addoony is and was my nick name among my family and friends. Beauty shop, well it’s obvious  When you start with your shop, the website was prepared or you start through instegram first then you start with your website? We had 7 months of preparation. We tested several website hosts for 3 months and had decided to go with Shopify.com to be our hostess. Planning the project and what brands should we start with and the website theme alongside the packaging. The website was and is the main storefront. Instagram is only for showcasing all the products we have. What are the things that push you to experience new way of business in Qatar? I mean that why did you chose to start your business to be an online store not a physical shop? Cause as you now the culture here in Qatar do not give their full trust on the online shopping? How the Qatari people accept your business (Online shopping)? Did they interact with it in a good way or not? Online retailing is new in Doha alright, but not so in other countries. We wanted to be the pioneer in this business. And the fast style of life is forcing the community to accept online business. Our next step is to have a physical store alongside the main online shop. How the customers trust the online shopping in buying such the product you sell, “the makeup and the beauty stuff” they need to try it and test it by the customers to decide if it suitable or not with their skin color etc.? is that a problem that you face with your customers? If yes, please tell us how you come up with it? Whenever you buy online you accept the risk that a product might be less than 100% what it appears to be in pics. That’s a risk you are willing to take. We had some issues with people refusing to buy without trying the items instead. We don’t provide this service. If you are not comfortable with online purchase, then you are better off with Sephora or MAC. We try our best to display an accurate product swatche that resembles the actual color. Do you think that your choice to began with online shopping in Qatar is the right choice? Or do you think that you did something wrong? Yes, I believe we have started in the right time, ahead of any other business which are mostly is a copy of what we do What is the good impact that the website do on your business? The website is everything. We register every product and we check the inventory every month. We have all orders registered on the website. We keep profile of each customer and how much they have spent on Addoony orders. Every brand which we are in contract with, has a monthly Sales report that we send to them so they can keep track of their products Who’s responsible of the website? Is he one of your employees that got a salary at the end of each month or just paid by hour? I am , Addoony, is responsible for all the IT tasks and products/ order registry How did you interact with your customers if they has any complain or recommendation about the website or the business in all? What are the most frequent complain that you receive and how you deal with it? And in the other hand what are the frequent commend that you receive about your website? The main contact between us and the customers is via Whatsapp. Email comes second in this matter. The most complaint that we get is about the timing of the delivery. We deliver between 6pm -11 pm everyday. Many customers would prefer an earlier time. The most positive comment we get is that shopping online is so easy. Delivery is fast, and all the products are as described. Do you think that your website needs any improvements for the future? If yes, what those improvements? We believe that the next level will be to have our own product images. To have video tutorials that has are a minute long describing and swatching each product. How many times did you update the information inside the website? Is there are any problem you face while you updating the website? During the updating process do you resume the website from working until you finish with? If yes, how can face the problem of the customers that need to order some products from your shop? We update the website daily, multiple times aday. We started with 9 brand and 150 products. Now we have over 35 brand and 700+ products. The administration adjustment wouldn’t interfere with the website itself. Each month, we closed the website for 6 hours for inventory checking. Whose are your competitors? The companies that you think they provide the same services you as Addooney beauty shop provide? We were solo when we started. Then other accounts appear to have the same website host and same vision. We refrain from naming names. What are the things that make you (addooney beauty shop )different than other companies? We have written contracts with many brands that protects our and their rights. We offer a large selections of products per each brand and have the best prices I the region, we believe. As for the service, all orders are delivered within 24 hours. Delivery staff are polite and accurate most of the times. What is your plan for the future? Did you think of making application for the mobile phones? Or going to build physical store? And why did you think to do that? Currently we are working on an app for mobile devices. As I mentioned a physical store will follow in the future inshaAllah Did the revenue increase when you start operating your business from website? This Q is not applicable. Do you think that the revenue is good for makeup business if it operating online or it will be much more when operating the business in physical store? And why? I would say both will do well. how about the expenses of making business online in Qatar? It is expensive or it is in affordable prices? Could you please tell us an approximate budget that cost you when you start online business? As a contrary to everyone beliefs, it’s costly. We have registered our company in the Chamber of Commerce and some products are registered in the Ministry of Health. We have a physical warehouse where we store all the products and prepare orders for dispatching. We have staff in the warehouse and multiple delivery cars. On top of that, we pay monthly to Shopify for all their services. Also, the availability of all sources from technology people, designer and so on are they available and easy to deal with them? I the beginning, we were assisted by the creative team of Shopify. As for the contracts, we have a lawyer who closes all the deals with the brands. Do the process of making the business online easy? Or there are lots of process to do to make that? If there is process can you listed please? It’s not easy. It took month of preperations. I have mentioned before what we went through before the launch of Addoony Beauty Shop What is the difficulties that you face with Qatari customers during your experience with online shopping? Did they like the idea? They know how they can order? In general, all customers are a delight to work with. We had some hesitant customers, but after they liked their first order, they were hooked. What about the paying method on your website, why you do not have an option of direct paying on online (paying through Visa or credit card) ? Currently we do Cash only. As it’s, the website is a confusion to some customers. If we were to add a pay online option, It would make it worse for this particular group. We would provide our PayPal account to whomever would prefer to be this way. Whose your target customers? Any female who loves herself. Many thanks in advance for your help. We really appreciate it. 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