Concept of Service The current work deals with marketing offer
of e-commerce service. It highlights the essential steps of
marketing of a brand-new firm offering services of website
construction, design, programming, development, and promotion.
The service should be provided exclusively online via the site
of the company. Online business operations include ordering,
agreement on requirements, elaboration of design, and providing
constant customer support. The service implementation process
should include the following stages: - Defining goals of the
site. This may include either physical meeting or discussion of
the product in question via Internet. - Developing the website
structure. This stage is aimed at flashing out technical aspects
of the site. It should include definition of necessary
technology, type and specifications of site navigation. -
Website design and built. Developing layout and graphics of the
site. This may include elaborating the company's genuine
creative approach in developing the graphic looks of the order,
or complying with the requirements presented by the customer as
to general look of the project. - Website programming and built.
This stage depends on details of each specific project and
definite requirements posed as to the quality and level of the
site. Also, this process varies according to the kind of
customer and destination of the site contemplated. All features
of the site are subject to examination and test by both
company's specialist and customer. - Technical release of the
site. Once technical aspects of the project finished, the
customer should be provided with free consultation along with
further site marketing and promotion services, techniques, and
practical advice. - Ongoing site maintenance. This is the stage
when the job of creating the customer's site is finished. But
the company guarantees keeping all its sites current in terms of
graphics, technology, navigation and usability. After release of
the site, the company continues working with the customer as to
establishing a schedule for the website regular review and
maintenance to meet clients' requests, accommodate users'
feedbacks, incorporating new system updates and new
technologies. It is a fact that the idea of the
internet-commerce of this type is not brand-new, and for a new
company to enter the market and receive profit out of its
business, it is necessary to invent some novel elements in the
service offered. The innovative elements that this project
contains compared to large variety of competitors functioning on
IT e-commerce market are based on combination of cost leadership
and differentiation generic strategies (according to M. Porter,
[1]). Therefore, the project is launched in B2C format, though
there can be differentiation of customers and hence
differentiation of the level and variety of services offered to
each individual customer, and the project is for-profit, small
business case. This new business is intended to compete with
both large business providers of site development services and
small business representatives dealing with this issue. Another
unique feature of the project is wide variety of services
included in one business offer. This includes: web-design,
redesign of existing site, possibility of working with many
programming languages, site management, allocation in search
engines, animation, free hosting offer, email registration, web
mail and POP3 access, ftp access, tools for web statistics,
domain name registration, other services like full life website
consulting, flash animation creation, elaboration of graphic and
logo design, e-commerce and shopping carts, site management,
administering and maintenance, banner ads, marketing, engine
position enhancing and promotions, search engine optimization,
software testing and even online training. Industry Overview The
industry of e-commerce is one of the fastest and most
dynamically developing industries worldwide. Today it is quite
difficult to accurately define the impact of the Internet on
commerce in exact figures, but according to the estimates by
2000 there were about 260 million Internet users worldwide and
by mid 2003 their number has grown more than twice and reached
580 millions. By 2005, their number is estimated to reach more
than 770 million. These figures show that the Internet has
become very important and significant business medium through
which buyers and sellers not only conduct transactions that were
earlier conducted live, but carry out online-specific business
buy-and-sell operations. Only three years ago, in the first
three quarters of 2002, according to the figures of Department
of Commerce [3], e-commerce transactions amounted to more than
20 billion dollars. It should be taken into account that those
numbers are significantly lower than the amount of actual real
transactions. Today, e-commerce is booming. Market size of
e-commerce has reached immense volumes. Moreover, this growth
tends to accelerate. While in 2002 total volume of retail
American e-commerce sales was fixed at $44 billion, one year
later it increased to 56 billion. Then, in 2003, online sales
made only 1.6 of total sales, providing the ground to suggest
that there is very large growth potential. Online sales are
predicted to rise to 2.9% by the year of 2007. Thus, Internet
economy force became more integral part of the entire US economy
than it has ever been. Research conducted by the Cisco Systems
(available at [2]) shows that the Web is transforming the way
people work and the revenue from Internet transactions annually
grows by more than 50 percent. Jupiter Research [4] reports that
American B2B Internet commerce rates increased noticeably over
the past 5 years and amount from $336 billion in 2000 to $ 6.3
trillion in 2005. Jupiter mentions five industries that have
more than half of all buying and selling operations online.
These are: aerospace and defense, chemicals, electronics, motor
vehicle and parts, and computer and communications equipment and
software. Among these industries, computer and communications
equipment and software is leading with estimated number of
online sales in this 2005 year reaching to $1 trillion. That is
very important for the current study since the project in
question is to be launched in computer and communications
industry. Therefore, proceeding from the trends mentioned in the
industry of electronic commerce, one can assume that the
direction of one's business connected to online service and
e-commerce, notwithstanding powerful competition, has all the
chances to further develop and gain success since this market
sector is subject to enhancement, development and
transformation. Since the number of Internet users is growing
and the number of companies willing to be represented on the Web
is increasing along with the number of companies launching
online business, there is very high and further increasing
demand in providing programming, design, site development and
marketing services. Therefore, a new firm in the industry
theoretically has solid opportunities to enter the market,
whatever saturated it may be, and successfully develop. On the
basis of abovementioned, the outline of relevant business target
market gets clearly seen. Target Market The target market of the
project is very vast one. It varies from individuals with the
minimum requirements as to functionality, appearance and program
possibilities of the site, to large companies with more solid
and expensive orders. Since there are very different kinds of
customers with various interests and needs, each requiring
different approach and professional level of performance, they
should be segmented into distinct groups. By segmenting the
customers, the company increases its chances on success. The
customers were divided according to the level of the desired
product complexity. After such criterion, three levels can be
distinguished: those requiring basic site development;
intermediate level, and sophisticated one. Basic level implies
comparatively low cost of services and is fine for individual
customers, non-professional companies specializing, for example,
in online selling of a small range of products. According to its
name, this solution anticipates limited functionality, simple
design, and quick implementation of the order. Second group of
customers comprises those with intermediate level orders. Such
sites should include... Full version of Ecommerce International
Marketing Plan is available
About the author:
Anastasia Kurdina is a person of manifold gifts. Almost every
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