Overall Assignment E-business in the EU | Artevelde University College 2014 -2015
Robine Mayuba | Eva Van Ast | Lisa Raes | Sandrine Mavuata
Inhoud
1. Who are we? ....................................................................................................................................... 2
2. Mission Statement .............................................................................................................................. 3
3. Business model .................................................................................................................................... 3
1. Value Proposition ........................................................................................................................ 3
2. Revenue model ............................................................................................................................ 4
4. Competitive environment ........................................................................................................... 4
5.Competitive advantage ................................................................................................................ 5
6. Market strategy ........................................................................................................................... 5
7.Organizational development ........................................................................................................ 5
8.Management team ....................................................................................................................... 6
4. Target Audience .................................................................................................................................. 6
1.Who is our target group? ................................................................................................................. 6
2.But why young adults? ..................................................................................................................... 6
3.Where are they on the web? ........................................................................................................... 8
5. Ballpark/Marketplace .......................................................................................................................... 8
1.Marketplace ..................................................................................................................................... 8
2.Size.................................................................................................................................................... 8
3.Growth .............................................................................................................................................. 8
4. Where is the content coming from? ................................................................................................. 10
1.Static ............................................................................................................................................... 10
2.Dynamic .......................................................................................................................................... 11
5. SWOT ................................................................................................................................................. 13
6. E-commerce presence map ............................................................................................................... 13
Web sites: .......................................................................................................................................... 13
E-mail: ................................................................................................................................................ 14
Social media: ..................................................................................................................................... 14
Offline media: .................................................................................................................................... 14
7. Timeline ............................................................................................................................................. 15
Business process ................................................................................................................................ 15
Production process ............................................................................................................................ 16
8. Costs .................................................................................................................................................. 16
9. Sources : ............................................................................................................................................ 20
1. Who are we?
Robine Mayuba Student International Entrepreneurship
Eva Van Ast Student International Entrepreneurship
Sandrine Mavuata Student Finance and insurances
Lisa Raes Student International Entrepreneurship
Website url:
www.tipsythirstdays.jimdo.com
2. Mission Statement
We want to deliver qualitative, tasty, refreshing, trendy cocktail packages to the party people in Ghent at an affordable price. We present our 4 different flavored cocktails (sour, sweet, bitter, sweet) and our every week changing special at our e-shop, always available! Our product/company: The heart of our company is the our website www.tipsythirtdays.jimdo.com where the people can place their order. We present our 4 different flavored cocktails (sour, sweet, bitter, sweet) and our every week changing special. Our product can especially be delivered on demand at your party place. We're counting on mouth-to-mouth advertisement and our flyer actions. We aim to become a regionally recognized brand name that we've chosen with eye on our consumers. Our goal is that our business will be big enough so all four of us have some extra money as students. It's a new market based on the delivery of fruit and vegetable packages and we don't have any competitors at this moment. We want to be unique and renewing with our totally new concept. And all this because we think being young is the best time of your life, so live it to the maximum and share it with your friends and a cocktail!
3. Business model
1. Value Proposition Our Value proposition are the cocktail packages themselves, our product. We offer cocktail packages with all the needed ingredients for a perfect cocktail for an amount of people. That way the customer don’t need to buy every ingredient separate and most of the time they are obliged to buy more than they actually need. We have our standard cocktail packages but also a weekly change which will give enough variation to keep the customers interested. We provide an easy solution for a smashing party or an lounge evening. We don’t see a market yet in Ghent and we as students see an big opportunity here.
2. Revenue model A firm’s revenue model describes how the firm will earn revenue, generate profits, and produce a superior return on invested capital. We will obviously will use the sales revenue model. In the sales revenue model, companies derive revenue by selling goods, content,or services to customers. We sell our cocktail packages.
=>BUSINESS MODEL = E-tailer, Virtual Merchant Amazon= Online version of retail store, where customers can shop at any hour of the day or night without leaving their home or office. Revenue model= sales of goods
3.Market Opportunity The term market opportunity refers to the company’s intended marketspace =>We want to start delivering at Ghent, for students/young adults/adults.
4. Competitive environment In Ghent there aren’t competitors for our idea which is very good. The only competition we can find with a similar idea namely cocktail catering. They don’t deliver products but they do the service of making the cocktails for the customer at their party.
http://www.cocktailflavours.be/cocktail-catering/bar-catering-service/ Bar Cocktail Flavours Catering Service is a cocktail catering company from Ghent, run cocktail bartenders. The bar catering service is available for cocktail parties and other events in and around Flanders . Also large super markets also offer cocktail ingredients which means competition.
5.Competitive advantage “We want to deliver qualitative, tasty, refreshing, trendy cocktail packages with the right amount of ingredients to the party people in Ghent at an affordable price”. We have the first-mover advantage being the first into a marketplace with a serviceable product or service.
6. Market strategy The market we’ll enter is a new market based upon on the delivery of fruit and vegetable packages. We will present our 4 different flavored cocktails (sour, sweet, bitter, sweet) and our every week changing special on our new website. Our product can especially be delivered on demand at the party place. We're counting on mouth-to-mouth advertisement and our flyer actions.
7.Organizational development We are currently with 4 students for this project. Robine, Lisa, Eva and Sandrine. We will work together and will be responsible for the performance of the many functions. The functions are the financial aspect, our sales through the website , the purchase of the raw materials , logistics (always everything in stock, making the packages, delivering the packages,…), advertising, customer service, administration, … We divide the tasks every week and we keep a good record of all the jobs. Our company will need no more employees with the start of our project. As our business grows , we will hire carefully new employees.
8.Management team Robine Mayuba
Eva Van Ast
Sandrine Mavuata
Lisa Raes
4. Target Audience
1.Who is our target group? Our target audience is like we mentioned before, young adults, more
specifically College Students and University college students in Ghent.
Our target audience is for now only students in Ghent because we’re a
relatively new and small business located in Ghent. But over time we
would like to expand to other popular student cities.
2.But why young adults? First of all because they are overage so they are allowed to drink alcohol.
Owners of the company, all
responsible for the proper
performance of the functions.
Team-work!
Secondly, because we believe that students are an growing population.
And finally, because we believe that the students in Ghent like to party, and for many of them a party
isn’t a party without some alcohol.
“We’ve done some research to support our assumptions.”
In the paper “Nieuwsblad” we found an article from September 2013 about the growing student
population in Ghent, in the article they say that the enrollment rate in Ghent keeps rising. When we
have a look at the website of Education in Flanders we can see the evolution of the enrollments in
higher education, and we see that there are every year more students that enroll themselves.
We also found the most resent numbers for the academic year 2013-2014, where it’s stated that
there were 63.966 students enrolled in Ghent specifically.
On the website of VAD, the non-profit association for alcohol and other drug problems we’ve found
some more information about the alcohol use of students in Flanders. In an article they discuss an
survey that the University Ghent and Antwerp did in association with the VAD, about the drug;
alcohol and medication use of students. Some of the findings of the survey were that four out of ten
students drink more than once a week, that 96,8% of the students drank alcohol at one point in their
lives, that 92,4% drank alcohol last year and that the students drink the most alcohol during the
vacations and during the academic year. This are numbers that date back to 2009. But when we had
a look on the site of the University Ghent, we found a more recent publication from 2014 about
another survey they held in 2013. The results run in the same line as the results from the survey in
2009, but an interesting statement for our research is that they say that almost all students drink
alcohol, some more than others.
So based on these findings we believe that our cocktail boxes can become a success among the
students because we sell them the boxes for an affordable price , so they can make their own tasty
cocktails at home whether it’s to stay in or to go out and hit the town and have a nice night with
friends.
3.Where are they on the web? I think it’s fair to say that young adults are internet savvy and spend a lot of time on social platforms
such as Facebook, Instagram and twitter. So that are the places we’re going to look for them. Web
shops are also not a new concept to them, so that’s why we’re convinced that they’ll have no
problems with ordering our boxes online.
5. Ballpark/Marketplace
1.Marketplace E-commerce Trading in products or services using computer networks such as the Internet.
2.Size
E-commerce is a growing marketplace in Belgium. The numbers shown in the picture above are from
2012, in that year Belgians monthly spend 170 euros online already. 95% of the online customers
were satisfied with e-commerce.
3.Growth
(Flipit)
Since 2005 the e-commerce market within Belgium has been growing fast. From 2005 to 2012 there
has been a growth of turnover with 875%. It is safe to say that the future prospect in 2012 was very
positive.
In 2013 the e-commerce market continued growing and today people use online shopping more than
ever. The breakthrough of creditcards and debitcards among the yought has certainly
contributed.(Comeos, 2013)
1. Structure :
1. We order our goods from the wholesaler
2. The wholesaler delivers us the goods
3. The client orders
4. We send the goods
5. We place a new order with our wholesaler
2. Competitors and suppliers
3. Subsitute products
Pre mixed bottled beverages
Ready made sets offered by a supermarket
Wholesaler
Tipsythirtdays
Consumer
Competitors
•Large suppermarkets that offer a large variety of alcoholic beverages :
•Carrefour
•Delhaize
•...
•Wholesalers :
•Geers
•...
•Flavours Ghent (cocktail service at partys)
Suppliers
•Wholesalers
•www.drankgigant.nl/
•Packaging company
•http://goo.gl/kXeNpo
•Shipping company
•BPost http://goo.gl/NB5vcF
Sets offered by specialty liqour store
4. Where is the content coming from?
1.Static => Static content is text and images that do not frequently change, such as product descriptions, photos, or text that you create to share with your visitors.
2.Dynamic =>Dynamic content is content that changes regularly, say, daily or hourly. Dynamic content can be created by us, or increasingly, by bloggers and fans of our Web site and products. User-generated content has a number of advantages: it’s free, it engages your customer fan base, and search engines are more likely to catalog your site if the content is changing. Other sources of content, especially photos, are external Web sites that aggregate content such as Pinterest)
5. SWOT
STRENGTHS -Unique product -Original idea -First-mover -Easy target group -Cocktails hype -Clean web shop design -Fast delivery -Quality products
WEAKNESSES -Limited financial resources -No media attention -No web design expertise -No customers yet -No wide offer yet
OPPORTUNITIES -Ability to expand the sale on a larger scale in the future -Ability to expand the product range -Ability to open a shop in Ghent
THREATS -Approach could be copied by competitors or new competitors can enter the market -Advertisers may not want to try a new site or investors may not want to put money in the business -Rapid pace of technological development -Limited interested customers
.
6. E-commerce presence map
Our potential customers can be found on various devices during the day and these are places where
we can meet our customers, so we want to develop our e-commerce presence here. We developed
an e-commerce presence map for the 4 different kinds of e-commerce presence namely: Web sites,
social media, e-mail and offline media. We will not make use of every type of platform and its related
activities yet, seen we have a restricted budget.
Web sites: The first type of e-commerce presence we will discuss is Web sites. Our website is a very import tool
that we have at our disposition to establish our brand identity, to inform our customers, to shape the
customer experience and to anchor the various marketing messages coming from different sources.
Our site will be accessible on a traditional desktops but also on tablets and smartphones with a
mobile version of our site. These last two platforms are very important because young people spend
more and more time on their portable devices, so they can have access to the internet everywhere.
We will not make us of search engine marketing, display adds, affiliate programs, etc. because we
don’t have the budget for it. But our hope is that potential clients will reach us through social search.
This is a search engine to find pages based on what you’re searching for and social reviews from your
friends through recommendations, past web visits and use of like buttons.
E-mail: The second type of e-commerce presence we will discuss is e-mail. Keeping our eye on our budget
restrictions we will only make use of direct e-mail marketing, where we send messages directly to
interested users who signed up for our newsletter. This way we can keep them updated on recent
developments and inform them about our weekly special.
For us it’s a very interesting medium to begin with because it has a low cost, high response rate,
mass reach and it gives us the ability to drive traffic to our website.
Social media: The third type of e-commerce presence we will discuss is social media. Here will be our biggest e-
commerce presence because this is the place where our target group spends the most of time.
The platforms we will make us of are Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. So we can reinforce our
brand message, engage in conversation with our customers and potential customers, share
information with them and hopefully encourage them to like and share our page.
Offline media: And the last type of e-commerce presence we will discuss is offline media. Possible platforms for this
kind of presence is print, radio and TV.
TV is for the moment totally out of the question since it’s a very expensive platform. But we would
like to collaborate with local university radio stations, because it would be a good way to get our
message out and to target our specific target audience.
And when it comes to print media we want to use the same approach as with radio and build our
presence up in magazines specifically meant for students, like Guido magazine. But also hand out
flyers in the streets of Ghent and in the vicinity of universities. By doing this we hope to get the
people more acquainted with our brand and to get more exposure.
7. Timeline
Business process
The concept
• Group brainstorming session
• Analyze possibilities
• Create a realistic view
Fine target group
• Students
• Ghent
• East-Flanders
• Flanders
• The Netherlands
Inventory
• Calculate the optimal inventory
• Find a stock room that can maybe grow with the business
• Define the cost of the inventory
The wholesale
r
• Research a wholesaler
• Location
• Reviews
• Get a good price
• Hofw fast can they deliver
Administration
• Packing slips
• Invoices
Return policy
• General return policy
• what if the package has been opened
• The law
Marketing strategy
• SEO
• Social media
Production process
8. Costs
The Web sites of large firms that offer high levels of interactivity. Find out the budget needed
to set up a web presence
Phase 1. Planning ; we worked for two days to build the site. Afterwards we only have to
change our cocktails once a month and every week the special. In total that's 4 cocktails a
month, so every owner can do one additional cocktail a month.
Phase 2. Web site development : We used Jimdo because it's really easy to use and you have
everything to build a web shop. Now we're using the free version. We'll upgrade to the Pro
version if we start our project.
Phase 3. Web implementation : We won't need anything from another site because we will
write everything ourselves, we made our own logo. And we're going to take the pictures
ourselves of the cocktails we made.
Phase 4. Marketing Communication plan : We will communicate with each other in real life
but also by texts, mails, calls. And we will communicate with our customers by mail and by
phone.
Order is made
• Costumer orders a package on the website
Order confirmation
• The costumer will receive an order confirmation
• We receive a BCC email labeled as 'order'
Supply check
• We check our supplies
• We prepare the package to be sent
Dispatch
• The package is send to the costumer
• The costumer receives an email with the shipment information
Phase 5. Social media plan : we're going to make page on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
They're all for free. On Facebook we're going to make a fanpage. People can like it, share it,
join it. On Instagram we're going to put beautiful pictures of our cocktails and ingredients.
And we can tweet about the new products. On our website there are also to buttons to share
our product with the social media world.
Mobile plan:
Everyone with iOS or Android can already reach our website on their smartphones. We can
also change the website if necessary from our phones. Now we're still using the free version
of Jimdo and that one is limited.
http://tipsythirstdays.jimdo.com
We’ll have to do an upgrade in the future. There are two possibilities ;
1.Jimdo pro
60 euro's per year
Includes a custom domain name, 5GB of storage, and faster customer support.
2.Jimdo business
180 euro's per year
Includes two custom domain names, unlimited storage, 20 email addresses, and the
fastest customer support
We will choose the Jimdo pro because it's cheaper and we don't need so many storage. The
only thing we need is a custom domain name. We also don't need 20 email addresses. We
made a free e-mail account on outlook and we all now the password so we can all log in and
work on that one. It's possible to start with the Pro and then change to the Business version if
our needs change. To come on top of the search against Jimdo offers even SEO options. It
includes metatag editing and SEO-friendly URLs.
Extra;
computer
camera
internet
electricity
anti-virus
phone
telecom
Total Package
Rent 0 We will be running our business from home.
Gas, water, electricity, heating 1902 158.5 on average a month
Software Windows for business 1079.8 269.95 x 4
Iphones 3196 799 x 4
Computers 3716 929 x 4
Insurance for the goods 163 Calculation done online
Telephone, internet 2400 Mobile Vikings 50/month X4
Company contribution 348
Cost deposit accounts 153
Municipal taks 124
Publicity 700
Exhibitions 1500
Personal equity 8000 Each of us will invest 2000 euro to start with
Family loan 6000 Each of us will have to ask friend and family to invest for a Total of 1500 euro.
Loan from a financial institution 30000
CVBA 6200
Stock 5000
Total costs 26481.8
Total investments 44000
9. Sources :
Dillen, J. (2013), opnieuw meer studenten in Gent, geraadpleegd op 18/12/2014,http://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20130917_00746073
Vlaams onderwijs, onderwijsstatistieken 2013-2014, geraadpleegd op 18/12/2014,http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/onderwijsstatistieken/2013-
2014/VONC_13-14/VONC_2013_2014_Integraal.pdf
Vlaamse vereniging voor alcohol en drugsgebruik, geraadpleegd op 18/12/2014,http://www.vad.be/media/134858/perstekst_studentenbevraging.pdf Universiteit gent (2014), Alcoholgebruik bij helft van de studenten niet zonder risico, geraadpleegd op 18/12/2014,http://www.ugent.be/nl/actueel/persberichten/alcohol-middelengebruik-studenten-vad.htm
Stad Gent ( 2014),Honderdduizend studenten drinken te veel, geraadpleegd op 18/12/2014,http://www.gentgezondestad.be/nieuws/honderdduizend-studenten-drinken-te-veel Druglijn, alchol, geraadpleegd op 18/12/2014,http://www.druglijn.be/voor-studenten/feiten-en-cijfers/alcohol.aspx Pinterest, geraadpleegd op 18/12/2014 , http://www.pinterest.com/pin/560557484843519728/