Free «Library Research Assignment» Essay

The business model for an online shop selling bicycles will be created. To start with, a business plan should be developed in order to provide successful existence of the web site with high rate of purchases.

Business Plan

1. For an online shop selling bicycles and its repairing parts, providing repairing technologies strategy based on minimalism should be applied. Bicycle parts should be either taken from a warehouse or shipped to customers, so shipping services should be included as well. Consequently, the inventory of each product should be suggested. For landing customers and providing goods for a shop, a good manufacturer and reliable supplier are to be involved.

2. Competition in the market is very intense. In order to make an online-shop prospective, a product should be highlighted among others. The purchasing process is to be user-friendly. Even if a product is not unique, it may be successfully sold by means of funny, fast and friendly shopping experience.

3. An online shop administrator should be responsive and provide excellent customer services. Collecting feedback will help in the future to understand customers’ demands. An administrator should be aware of who is buying a product, how competitive a price is, and whether customers are satisfied. That will help to decide what should be added to the inventory in the future. Another aspect, online business should be registered according to the state’s law.

Process of Online Store Building

1. The first step to building an online store is to choose a good domain name and it should be catchy, readable and easy accessible. Moreover, it should also be unique. If it is difficult to find an appropriate name, the system will help by suggesting different variants. The name should include keywords for the user to find it Googling.

2. Good hosting service is another part of an efficient website. It should be customizable, and provide the ability to enlarge the space in the future with business growth of a company.

3. When it comes to designing, it is important not to overdose with flushes and colors.  Minimalism is the first rule of successful online shop. The easiness of checking out should be also emphasized as the user should do no more than two clicks in order to make a purchase. An owner of the website can hire a web-designer to achieve a desirable result. There should be a way the system will collect e-mails of customers for further sending of newsletters and advertisement.

4.  E-commerce software will make it easier to purchase online. People should be familiar with the system that will make them feel positive and buy products as they will not face any problems with it.

5. Attracting customers can be achieved by advertising goods and placing announcements in social media: Twitter, Facebook, etc. Always being kept in the loop helps companies to inform their customers over and over again when something new is offered. People can be encouraged to “like” and “share” advertisements. By means of that, the circle of customers will raise. The other way to promote goods is starting a blog with the description of services and goods together with discussion. It is useful to do guests posts on other blogs, since it will make the site more famous. The most effective way to be heard is sending e-mails directly to customers.

Nowadays, a business cannot be beneficial without web site promotion. Market competition makes it clear that enterprises independently on their size and products sold should try to do their best in order to be the first and popular. A web-site should perform the function of goods distribution. Future negotiations between seller and buyer are based on online services. A company should take such responsibilities and provide good service together with quick feedback in case questions appear. Internal communication via all possible ways of communication will enhance the relationships between them. The Internet is used as a valuable device for sales, promotion and growth. That is why making business online is a very beneficial investment.   

Functional and technological specifications for use of the Web and the Internet are provided below together with links from other sites similar to this design.

Scope of Work

Integrate an internet site(a set of PHP/Magento templates) for an online bike store. A type of the site is an online shop. The example of the site already existing is here: http://www.bikester.com/

Approach

• Integration and testing of the Magento theme.
• Create a copy of the current website for development and Quality Assurance activities.

The staging code will be deployed into production after approval.

Pre-requisites

Magento administration panel and source files (including images and photos) will be created. Credentials will be shared with a customer.

Assumptions

Design will not be influenced. The initial idea will be preserved without changing the artwork. In case the mobile application will be developed in the future, the site will be resized/cropped/adjusted.

Social Media

The site will be social media-oriented. The tags that will help to make it first in the searching result query will be inserted.

Future Plans

A mobile theme will be implemented for Android and iOS devices. The further instructions will be provided. List of devices that should be fully supported will be proposed to customers for approval. Other devices will be supported as good as it is possible without testing it specifically.

Tracking Progress

Tracking a progress on the basis of the amount of goods sold will be implemented as an additional application with the aim to investigate and count goods sold together with characteristics of customers.