E-Commerce Report Report Examples

Summary

The evolution of technology over the past years has contributed immensely to easing the cost of accessing information, products as well as quality services by consumers. Internet usage has grown rapidly from the confinement of cyber cafes to the mobile internet access to smartphones and other compatible gadgets. Adoption of e-commerce trading by multination firms as a stepping stone to global penetration draws its reference from the technology revolution. The strategy proves to reduce the cost of operations for most firms and increased market penetration further, the reading culture has gradually shifted from demanding physical books to electronic content citing emergence of smartphones as convenient books. Hence, e-commerce is not only timely but also a necessity for Coventry Retail Company’s long-term sustainability.
In preparation for this report, the consultant team settled on key recommendations that Coventry book Retail Company should implement to strengthen its market presence through e-commerce strategy.
1. That Coventry operation management in collaboration with software developing companies develops an e-commerce trading website.
2. That the company formulates a training framework where a section of employees would be trained and mandated with monitoring, conducting and maintenance of online trading platform.
3. That the company adopts electronic reading content as part of their online products to ease the distribution costs and accelerate delivery time.
4. Thatthemarketingteamconsidersadoptingsocialnetworksitessuchsupplementthestrategy
This report will outline the benefits of e-commerce and the accompanying challenges hindering the success of the market strategy. Finally, the report will front key recommendation that the company should uphold to safeguard the success of e-commerce trading approach.

Analysis

The rise in technology reduces the cost of operation activities thus leading to a decline in the pricing cost of market products and services. In turn, consumers’ real income rises prompting them to adjust their consumption behavior to the high rate and increase the urge for high preference for goods and services (Panda & Narayan Swar, 2013).The technology wave erodes the market information asymmetry gap among firms, and therefore firms can adopt new production, distribution and marketing initiatives to maintain their products and shareholders maximization objectives. To capitalize on the technology wave, global firms have adopted the e-commerce trading platform in a bid to advance their globalization strategy and reach wider market segmentation at a reduced cost. Statistically, the number of internet users has maintained a steady growth over the past ten years reaching 2.9 billion in 2014, Of this population, approximately 1.75 billion accounted for population that access the internet using smartphones. The notable statistics would invite the attention of any rational firm management to seize the benefits of mobile e-commerce.
The business to consumer (B2C) model is the most dominant form of electronic trading that entails trading of finished products between retailers and the final consumer. Retail firms advertise the catalog of the available products for consumers’ access and subsequent purchase. Unlike the traditional physical business to consumer trading strategy, online trading eases firms strive to reach a wider market simultaneously. Most global retailers have ventured into the strategy as a supplement to their Bricks and layer marketing approach. Other firms such as Amazon market and sell their products through the internet without a physical presence.
The approach is especially favorable to firms venturing a new global market in that it shields the enterprise from the market’s social- political instability. On the other hand, Business to business (B2B) model involves trading of raw materials and finished products between the producers, wholesalers and retailers using an integrated supply chain management system to reduce the lead time cost and machine idle cost. The online B2B model monitors the market demand trend, access of raw materials and the capacity of the firm to meet the consumer’s utility.
This report will delve into unraveling the underlying benefits and challenges of e-commerce trading to prepare the Coventry city books firm’s intention to launch online strategy. In reference to consumers’ market behavior, the report will culminate by recommending strong market strategies necessary for the book retailer to succeed in the e-commerce

Benefits of e-commerce

Large market Segmentation
E-commerce complements both demographic and psychographic segmentation strategy. The 2.9 billion target market of internet users relies on internet to obtain market information on products and services. Enormous population can access product information simultaneously across the globe. Online trading firms post their products and services on customized websites where customers can view the features of the preferred product. In the case of new products, e-commerce trading erodes the market discrimination barrier that exists in the Brick and layer model (Sung, 2006, p.1163). The Coventry books retailer would benefit from the youthful internet users whose curiosity for knowledge and information drives them towards reading various books.

Flexible marketing

Marketing is an essential tool in enticing the consumers’ taste and preference on available products and services. E-commerce marketing allows the retailers to categorize their products and post them at intervals on the website. The technique eases the firm’s cost of conducting physical product marketing within a prolonged period. The increased use of social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube have contributed immensely in marketing of products and services to the consumers. Various companies have launched social media pages to market their products especially to the young generation. The marketing platform has greatly reduced the advertising cost that had been aggravated by the print and virtual media channels. The online presence of Coventry retail books would complement their physical presence and accelerate the rate of disseminating product information in the market.

Ease of operation cost

Unlike establishing physical stores where firms must employ workforce and equip the premise with infrastructure, the online stores require low costs for establishing and maintenance of the software. In fact, a firm may opt to diversify the risk by outsourcing the management of the e-commerce trading channel. An integrated supply chain management system is the major investment to run an e-commerce trading effectively and sustain the economic viability of the approach. Coventry retail would require a customized supply chain system that enables tracking of the products from the online store to the consumers.

Easy to monitor and track market behavior

E-commerce trading brings in the advantage of monitoring and predicting the market trend in consumer behavior. E-commerce software recognizes and records the visitors’ traffic on the website alongside their preferred products and services. However, the traffic data may not portray the real picture as some visitors may not be realm consumers but rather than driven by curiosity, hence a challenge (Sperdea and Enescu, 2011,p.197). For that reason, the Coventry management would be able to factor out the market demand of various books and conduct research to upgrade the lagging products in the market. Accurate capture of consumer preference for particular products is paramount in reducing the firm’s storage cost.

Constant interaction with consumer preferences

In the recent past, firms with an online presence have modified their trade websites to feature an audio and video interaction segment reserved for potential and existing consumers to post comments on a product. This initiative boosts the firms’ research and innovation culture in their strive to meet the consumers insatiable utility. The collaborative technique safeguards the consumers’ loyalty and maintains a strong competitive advantage over market rivals. If adopted by Coventry book retailers, the firm will help in determining the kinds of books to stock in the physical departmental stores situated in various markets.

Development of mobile commerce

Innovation of affordable and convenient smartphones in the market is a great milestone in the advancement of the e-commerce trading. Unlike in the past where people would access the internet in confined locations, the 1.75 billion smartphone users can search for information at their convenience. For that reason, various multinational corporations such as McDonald’s have linked with prominent mobile companies to develop customized software applications. The application acts as a gateway for consumers to learn a firm’s products and services and conduct online purchases. This market change creates an opportunity gap for Coventry book retailer to venture and expands its customer base and rate of market penetration.

Conversion of print reading content into electronic form.

The consumer preference for product quality and convenience has dominated the urge for innovative reading culture where virtual reading is preferred to physical content. Various authors have been struggling to match the consumers’ utility by producing audio recordings of their writing. The market trend has revealed a decline in demand for physical books especially in the youth demographic segment. Rather than purchase the books, youthful readers with access to the internet would opt to download the content to read online, citing convenience and safe reservation of the material.

Barriers to e-commerce success

Despite the notable benefits accruing to e-commerce trading, key factors have been derailing the anticipated economic gains to the firms and the economy at large. However, with a strong strategic plan and infrastructure, Coventry retail can overwhelm the drawbacks and sustain a positive economic trend.

Cyber crime

Cybercrime refers to unlawful access of another party’s electronic information for personal gains (Bingi, Mir & Khamalah, 2000,p.2). The issue has attained an alarming level and invoked the sentiments of various governments across the globe. The vice has led to various firms losing their revenue as well as patent rights attached to innovation products and services. In particular, Coventry retail company intent to venture into selling virtual reading faces an imminent threat that would require a sophisticated infrastructure.

Customer loyalty and trust

In every business, consumer loyalty and satisfaction from the core values and strategies of a firm. Consumers gain trusts through fair trading and purchase of quality products (Srinivasan, Anderson & Ponnavolu, 2002,p.42). However, the virtual trading of e-commerce has been destroyed by the presence of unscrupulous players who capitalize on the consumer’s virtual presence to trade fake products. As a result, a significant number of the consumer population has lost confidence in e-commerce transactions and resorted to brick and layer platforms. The Coventry retail company can overcome the challenge by combining both physical and online trading to lure consumers trust for real and quality books. By investing in continuous innovation culture, the Coventry company can sustain the consumer loyalty hence strengthen its market advantage.

Current consumer behavior and market trends

Consumers are presumed by economic theorists to have an insatiable and unpredictable change in products’ tastes and preferences. Rational firms need to link constantly with the consumers demands through market-oriented research and innovation. The reading culture is often associated with the youthful market segment aged between 14 and 35 years. Due to technology influence, most of the avid readers have inclined their attitude towards electronic content that physical books. Based on research statistics, technology ranks as a core factor that drives consumer choice for convenient products and quality (Panda and Narayan Swar, 2013,p.54). Survey statistics reveals that electronic content enhance ease of access to content and safeguards the materials for future reference. As a result, most publishing companies have upgraded their production strategy by developing the complementing audio, video, and physical reading content to capture the social diversity of target market. Hence, the physical store strategy practiced by Coventry Retail company projects market unsustainability in the long-term considering the exodus shift of consumer’s preference for recorded content.
In another perspective, firms that have been conducting their business exclusively through the online platform are gradually restructuring their operation strategy by opening physical stores as a tactical approach to strengthening consumer loyalty and expand its target market segmentation. Therefore, it would be logic and timely for Coventry book retailer to consider advancing both physical and online stores selling strategy rather than concentrating on online marketing and selling strategy. The evolution of social commerce portrays the trending market shift where mobile internet access has bridged the market information asymmetry between the consumers and the market players (Stephen & Toubia, 2010,p.216)

Recommendations

Following comprehensive scrutiny of the e-commerce viability, this report wholly concurs that e-commerce trading is a strategic milestone that Coventry boo retail should merge into its current operation strategy to maintain a long-term market advantage.

It is recommended:

1. That Coventry operation management in collaboration with software developing companies develops an e-commerce trading website.
The firm should conduct e-commerce in a customized website that links within integrated supply chain system capable of harmonizing all market intermediaries. The software ought to capture consumer traffic as well as electronically analyze product demand and supply interaction.
2. Thatthecompanyformulatestrainingframeworkwheresectionemployeestrainedandconductingandmaintenancetradingplatform
The company management should outsource an information technology consultant to train selected employees on the modalities of conducting e-commerce trading such as market data analysis, virtual consumer- firm interaction techniques and maintenance of the system. The firm should a specific period when the outsource company will hand over the overall management to the company employees.
3. That the company adopts electronic reading content as part of their online products to ease the distribution costs and accelerate delivery time.
Based on the market survey that fronts most readers preferring electronic content, the Coventry management should complement its tangible reading content with software version of the same. Most readers in the youthful target market have inclined to internet and, therefore, creating software reading materials would capture a wide customer base and ease reading convenience for reading. To strengthen competitive advantage, the e-commerce trading website should privilege the consumers to partial preview of the electronic content as a tactical approach to grasp their taste.
4. That the marketing team considers adopting social network sites such as Facebook to supplement the strategy.
Besides e-commerce trading, marketing is an imperative and costly strategy that precedes the success of every product. Print media and video platforms such as television consume most of the firm’s revenue compared to the negligible cost incurred through social commerce marketing. Coventry book Retail Company should boost their online presence through social network marketing strategy by linking the e-commerce website to the social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, and others. The approach would lead to decline in advertising cost of the firm’s books.

Bibliography

Bingi, P., Mir, A. and Khamalah, J. N.,2000. The Challenges Facing Global E-Commerce. IS Management, 17(4), 1-9.
Chaffey, D., 2007. E-business and E-commerce Management: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. Pearson Education.
Nummelin, T., and Riala, M., 2015. Developing and testing an online tool for probing customer preferences. International Journal of market Research, 57(1).
Panda, R. and Narayan Swar, B., 2013. Online Shopping: An Exploratory Study to Identify the Determinants of Shopper Buying Behaviour. International Journal of Business Insights & Transformation, 7(1).
Sperdea, N. M. and Enescu, M., 2011. Challenges of managing e-commerce. Economics, management and financial markets, 6(2), 195-199.
Srinivasan, S. S., Anderson, R. and Ponnavolu, K., 2002. Customer loyalty in e-commerce: an exploration of its antecedents and consequences. Journal of retailing, 78(1), 41-50.
Stephen, A. T. and Toubia, O., 2010. Deriving value from social commerce networks. Journal of marketing research, 47(2), 215-228.
Sung, T. K., 2006. E-commerce critical success factors: East vs. West.Technological forecasting and social change, 73(9), 1161-1177.