INFS5885 e-Business: Evaluation of www.ozsale.com

In a business report format, students are supposed to select an Australian e-commerce website (such as www.ozsale.com.au) and undertake an in-depth evaluation of it, identify the main features such as applied business model(s), strategies and revenue model besides all related topics.

By providing an overview and description of the nominated website, identify and elaborate the main positive and negative aspects of the website. Draw particular attention to the interaction and usability aspects of the interface.

In addition, students are required to find out about the below main areas and provide their reasons:

1. Analyse the current website and formulate an E-Commerce implementation strategy. ECommerce implementation strategy should take into account all the services and features of the website.

2. If the business wants to broad its business activities and enters to the global market, what areas have to be considered in order to changing from national e-commerce website to an international one?

Introduction

Technological advancements have led to emergence, development and expansion of ecommerce business (Ayo, 2008). Each business in ecommerce develops and conducts its strategy by comparison and studying of intricate factors that operate within the market and within scope of competitiveness. Every company wants to extend their core competencies such that they can compete with the industry or market and emerge as market leaders. The scope of the current essay is an analysis of www.ozsale.com which is an Australian online shopping portal (www.ozsale.com.au, Retrieved on 20th May 2017). The portal is operated by OZSALE Pty Limited by ABN 11 118 610 987. The Company registered in Australia provides affordable range of fashionable clothing for men, women and children. It attracts its buyers by providing 80% discounts and free membership such that customer can join and avail better offers. The Company has worldwide recognition and has buyers from not only Australia but also from markets in USA, Asia, Europe, New Zealand and so on, who strives to figure out best deals and attractive prices for customers (Nguyen, 2007). Thus, the scope of the current analysis deals with the current strategies that the Company is operating with and providing further choices for extension of the same. 

Analysis: Existing strategies

The ecommerce business currently operates as a low cost leader within the industry. The Company has immense capabilities and has already expanded the same in various markets globally. It global outreach has made consumers more attracted towards the products (Chaffey, 2007). Ozsale not only provides cost effective products but also offers unique products that are otherwise not available anywhere else in the world. Such differentiated key products are able to attract a host of customers towards the brand. Thus, customers rush to take membership from the Company such that they can wear such exclusive products that are offered at cheap prices from the website of the Company. The Company also provides gift voucher in case a member is able to make another member join the Company membership system (Gregory, 2007).

Prior to starting of a grand sale each member is notified such that they can participate in it, hence the Company engages their most important stakeholder the customer by such means. A key competitive strategy that drives potential sale within the Company is its relationship with customers and maintaining its brand value each time that it operates on a particular aspect. It maintains a steady stream of communication with its customers that enables it to develop good and enhanced customer relationship thus, extending its competitive advantages (Ravishankar, 2011). Customer develop immense brand loyalty towards the products that the Company offers, and prior to checking other websites for sale its customers logs in to this website. The Company’s purchasing team works hand-in –hand and in coordinated manner on customer choices to understand best brands available in the market and to make such stocks available. The distinct products of the Company are such that each day of sale makes products finish off within the first 48 hours. According to generic strategic analysis of Porter it can be said that the Company follows cost effective strategy (Gilmore, 2007). Porter’s generic strategy allows for three types of strategic choices that a firm might follow differentiation, cost strategy and focus strategy as illustrated in the figure below. Amongst all strategies the company selects cost effective strategies to become a leader in the market in the particular product segment. The company with its various products and offers caters to low cost generic strategy of Porter as provided in the figure. Such low cost strategy allows the Company to cater to broad range of market and attract a large segment of customers. This strategy also defines global reach for the Company and hence allows marketability of its products (Cullen, 2007). 

The Company personnel also negotiate with Brand Partners to send new stock of items to their internationally based warehouse such that they can deliver such stocks to customers in shortened time spans (Helms, 2008). The delivery and supply chain integration of the Company is another aspect that delivers key competency and value chain. The highly integrated value chain of the Company which connects it with its suppliers, partners, warehouse to its customers enables value chain integration and competency which no other competitor can match. The Company delivers products to its worldwide customers within a period of 21 days and in some cases lower post finishing off with the sales period. The value chain integration of the Company that accommodates various warehouses around the globe enables to deliver products to customer within shortened time periods (Wang, 2009).  The firm’s infrastructure is arranged in a way that allows such sophisticated and integrate supply chain and logistics systems.

E-commerce Implementation Strategy 

Ecommerce implementation strategy is the most critical aspect for any business that is operating in the scope of technological environment. Every ecommerce business needs to chart out their strategic planning and roadmap that will help it to comply to business objectives (Intan Salwani, 2009). In strategic planning for an ecommerce business it becomes integral to define its mission, vision and goals. for the purpose of the current business, its strategic mission and vision is to cater to customer satisfaction. The scope of the current business is to provide cheap products to customers and differentiated which cannot be easily be available anywhere else. With such goals the Company can implement its planning by tie-ups with proper suppliers and distributors of products. The Company has tie-ups with specific logistics managers as well who are responsible for prompt delivery of various products and in meeting customer satisfaction levels (Osarenkhoe, 2007). While a customer makes purchase of a discounted product in the website, the order gets triggered in a warehouse which is located at the closest spot of the customer. Then the order is processed by logistics manager who packs it properly to prevent it from damage and ships it to customer at the designated address using transportation mechanism specified by the Company.    

 The scope of business for the current Company is large hence it makes profits on bulk orders as well as deliveries. The strategic planning of the Company is focused on using digital marketing tools and techniques such that it can reach out to its customers and access them online through digital dimensions. The Company has to adopt technological audit and analysis such that it can provide maximum benefits to its customers. Post application of various strategic implication it becomes pertinent to extend such audit to find suitability and customization to meet needs of end customers and to follow best practices in online retail. Customer acquisition is another aspect of digital marketing and enables generation of new customers (Angeles, 2007). There are multiple customers who gets added every moment such customers’ needs to be captured through paid advertisements, clicks and other procedures. AIDA sales principle followed will provide benefits to the Company to handle effective cost of customer acquisition. Ozsale needs to involve customer engagement strategies as well, which it does by providing membership to customers. Further engagement of customers is done by the Company through various social media platforms as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and so on. Retention customers are the key goal for any ecommerce business as there is large amounts of competition. The Company can include several customer retention strategies by sending regular newsletters, leveraging one-to-one experience provided to customers and by incorporating further functionalities in its current website.       

In providing best possible practices to customers and to enrich their experiences the Company needs to optimize its business based on key metrics. Such key metrics for the business has to be focused on revenue generation and cost of customer acquisition as against the percentage of total customers that are entering the Company through various channels. The best ways by which such metrics can be developed is by technology and business. The scope of technology includes page loading speed, check-in and check-out time periods in comparison to other web pages. Business factors includes analyzing of total revenue generated from the business along with ecommerce optimization. These functionalities can be improved based on numbers or statistics that are easily available online that can be included and made to use prior to a customer making purchases. Business analysis and customer insights can be generated by means of understanding various product categories which are physically by various managers present at the business. they help chart out various products and put them in categories such that they can attract significant amount of customers. Then the Company offers discounts to attract membership holders to the business. Such customer engagement strategy has limited impact that it can generate thus, the Company need to implement and accommodate broader strategic perspectives that can allow expansion of scope. As the Company is already present in the globalized market environment and cater to different products across different countries, it can aim to do so further by extending its business in other countries as well. Each transaction that a customer makes at Ozsale is highly secured and protected to preserve the interests of the customers. The website has highly sophisticated and integrated security systems that provide extended security to its users hence; customer prefers to purchase products from the company website rather than from other websites. Earlier the Company catered to only Australian markets with expansion of scopes now it caters to international markets as well. In earlier periods the Company had relatively less security and features within its websites. But now with expansion of scopes the Company had to integrate high levels security and additional promotions and offers which was earlier not present in the website. Along with such features the Company also needs to integrate 24x7 service as it is based worldwide and every corner of the world has different time zones. high level sophisticated service will allow the Company to emerge as a global leader in retail products. 

Recommendation and Conclusion 

Analysis of strategies existing reflects that the Company possesses immense growth capabilities. The Company needs to accommodate various strategies such that it can further extend new strategies and become more competitive and leader in the market. The Company lacks in its promotional strategies. There is relatively low awareness regarding the products and company in the market hence, the Company needs to adopt promotional strategy. The Company needs to adopt extensive SEO and SEM strategies such that it can create more awareness and attract more customers towards the Company for its memberships. In its strategic implementation of ecommerce the Company needs to further include extensive implementation strategy. An implementation of its strategy along with selection of appropriate ecommerce techniques will allow the Company to extend its brand competitiveness and emerge with brand loyal customers in its segment.   

Reference Lists

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www.ozsale.com.au. (Retrieved on 20th May 2017). Company Details . https://www.ozsale.com.au/AboutUs.aspx?cid=10.

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