EC commerce

Our company’s main objectives include offering fresh, organic durable and non-durable goods, quality customer services with fast delivery and quick customer responses. Developing an innovative and user-friendly web site to increase market presence, brand awareness, and loyalty, expanding throughout the US in the next 10 years, offering various high-quality brands from the market, and increase in profitability.

Vision

The company’s vision statement is to become a leading online e-grocery store in the US and to establish a one-stop and click online grocery shopping store in the US. Our vision statement is: “To be able to offer fresh, organic and quality products and services at affordable prices and provide friendly customer service to our customers and to help them to eat healthy food.” Justifying this vision statement will be our company’s main goal for the next five years.

Mission

The company’s mission statement is to establish an online platform to sell groceries from major manufacturing companies/brands at affordable prices to the customers. The company intends to expand its customer target groups throughout the East Coast and North East. Our mission statement contains five main factors. They are affordable prices, organic, fresh and quality products & services, fast delivery options, user-friendly website, and focus on improving customer loyalty, brand awareness and focus on expansion in terms of geographical location.

Organization Structure

The company was co-founded by Jane Doe (CEO), John Smith (COO) and Susan Smith (CFO). The executive committee has hired, CTO – Bill Daniels to handle the design and build the website for their products and services. In addition, the company will have to hire below staff for daily operations:

Below is our company’s organizational structure summary view:

Product line & services

The company will sell a wide range of goods from top brand companies on their shelves in the state of Illinois. The online platform will have durable and nondurable goods that include the below:

· Fresh organic vegetables and fruits

· Fresh organic dairy products

· Other food items and groceries

Business model

The initial step for our company would be tie-ups with the local whole sellers or manufacturers and establish an advanced online store to make sure the customers are able to select and purchase the products efficiently. Once the orders are placed, the website communicating with the suppliers and ensuring the goods are delivered on time. The company’s primary revenue model will be the online grocery store through monthly/yearly customer subscription, and service charges. Subsidiary revenue business model - the company can also earn revenue by allowing brand-companies to post ads on the website.

Current E-Commerce models utilized by the company

Our company will use B2C (Business-to-Consumer) electronic marketplace model. B2C transactions are the retail transactions of products or services from businesses to individual customers and electronic marketplaces are platforms where businesses or individuals can list their products and services and customer can purchase them online (Turban et al, 2015). We will have contracts with local organic food producers, and they will be able to register and list their products in our website. All these grocery items will be presented to our customers in an easy to search online catalog in our website. Customers will be able to register, search for and add grocery items to a virtual shopping cart, choose delivery date and time frame, and buy online using various payment methods such as credit card, debit card, PayPal, Venmo, etc. or save for later. The customer orders will be received and filled by the sellers/food producers and our delivery team will pick-up, inspect for quality and accuracy and deliver the grocery to the customers. (FATbit, 2018)

Figure 1: Marketplace Model (FATbit, n.d.)

Subsidiary revenue business model - company can also earn revenue by allowing brand-companies and other local businesses to post ads on the website.

Technology – Website

The project management team will have to capture, the business and system requirements to implement a suitable online grocery store. The website should be user-friendly, buyers and sellers should be able to interact with each other, provide additional features like – subscription for monthly deliverables, repeat orders, discount prices to attract the customers and turn them to loyal customers.

Supply chain management

The company should build a strong and loyal relationship with their suppliers who are local wholesalers, farmers that help to attract more customers by delivering fresh and organic products.

Customer service

The company will have to maintain a strong relationship with their customers and gain trust, loyalty. In order to do so, the company should provide them a user-friendly website, controls to subscribe or repeat the same orders weekly or monthly, provide same-day or 1 or 2-day delivery options, discounted and affordable prices.

Legal, privacy and ethical aspects

Being an online store, there are high chances of a data breach, the user identifies theft, and the online stores are responsible for their customer’s security. The company should take appropriate precautionary steps to prevent any data breach, additional layers of protection like a firewall should be developed. The company should adhere to all online marketing laws, regulations, rules, product regulations (if any).

Marketing Plan

Our company’s marketing plan will determine the target groups, positions for our products in the current marketplace. Establishing a new online grocery store in the US market, there is high competition from traditional stores, existing businesses, that fulfill customer’s needs. Our company will need to establish a stronger marketing plan to attract appropriate target customers, at reasonable prices. In order to build a strong business plan, our company will need to determine segmentation, target and positioning, and marketing mix.

STP

STP consists of – strengthening, targeting and positioning. Segmentation depends upon geographical, geographical, psychographic and socio-cultural segments. Our company’s market segmentation will depend upon customers aged from 18 and above-based income earning factor (A.T. Kearney, Inc., 2015). Psychological segment refers to customer groups that belong millennial and generation Z who use the internet for information gathering, product search and have access to the internet (A.T. Kearney, Inc., 2015). Our primary focus will be the East Coast and North East regions in the US. Upon breakeven and profitability, our company intends to expand in the next 10 years. Socio-cultural segment refers to customers who belong to the middle and upper-income class.

Marketing Mix

Another major aspect to build a stronger marketing strategy is to identify and define 4Ps’ – product, price, place, and promotion. Our company will offer organic, quality and fresh grocery products that are currently in the market. Our product portfolio will include only branded products, with multiple portion options. Our company will such products at affordable prices based on the location, local and state taxes and service taxes included. Being an online platform, our main promotional model will be through the internet, mostly social platforms like FaceBook, Instagram and Twitter. Since we are an online platform, however, we will target only two regions in the US. Upon break even, our company plans to expand further throughout the US.

SWOT Analysis

Our company’s plan to start the business operations in the East Coast and North East regions in the US for the first 5 years. However, we plan to expand throughout the US in the next 10 years. In order to identify establish and operate in the two regions for the initial 5 years, our company will need to perform strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis.

Strengths include online fresh and organic grocery store offering a variety of brand products in the market at affordable prices. Weakness includes there is a wide range of competitors in the market that our company needs to compete with. Traditional stores, Online Amazon grocery store, etc., Opportunities include expansion to other US regions, growth in terms of products and services – our company can also introduce cookbooks, beverages, home delivery options. Threats include user data security issues, change in policies, regulations, and economic downturns.

Financial Plan

One of the important aspects to open a business is have to a strong financial plan. Based on our company’s mission statement, we have created a 5-year income forecast. Apart from the income projections, our company has put together an investment plan for our investors.

Initial Investment

Below is our initial investment plan:

Projected Cash Flows

Based on our 5-year estimates, we are estimating to breakeven at the end of the 5th year. Below is our initial 5-year cash flow projection:

Technology Advancements and Impact of Technology

Mobile applications that will let customers use their mobile phones to browse, buy and track orders, voice ordering, ability to create a grocery list and show different available options to buy, shoppable recipes which will add the ingredients to your shopping list according to the recipe and the quantity, automated invoice systems between company and merchants, location-based mobile computing that will enable customers to see where their delivery is at and the approximate time it’ll reach them and give them exclusive offers depending on customer location, chatbots for customer service, different payment options, post-service surveys, unattended deliveries via a one-time-passcode system for residences or lockboxes with smart locks, and data analytics to help improve website, services and products are some of the technical advancements that help to evolve B2C e-commerce marketplace business such as ours. According to Progressive Grocer (2019), autonomous delivery vehicles is the future of online grocery delivery. For example, Kroger partnering with Neuro piloted a grocery delivery program that successfully used Neuro autonomous vehicles to fulfill online orders in Arizona and will be expanding it to Houston.

Effect of Social Media and Social Networking

Impact of social media and social networking on its evolution

Advancement in science and technology has been observed to come up with a number of sophisticated tools and technologies at the workplace. Networking with a group of people has been observed to take shape more so when it comes to delivery of information in a faster and effective manner across the globe. For Fresh Groceries, social media and social networking would be observed to play a key role during the evolution of the business more so when it comes to meeting the needs as well as the expectations of the customers. Social media and social networking is observed to come up with a number of opportunities to business and in this section of the paper, we are going to have a look at some of the opportunities which a business can gain as a result of use of the social media (Turban, Strauss, & Lai, 2015).

As the market evolves, the business ought to be evolving in the same manner so that they will be in a position to meet both the needs and the ever-unending taste and preference. For instance, Fresh Groceries should be in a position to use social media and social networking platform in order to gain a better insight of the market since they will be in a place to get information and feedback from the customers who are using social media. Therefore, the company should be in a place to use this information in making an improvement in its services.

Effect of Social Media and Social Networking on Business Operations

The rise in use of social media has been observed to have a greater impact on small and large business in the market where they have to make an alteration of their operation strategies so that they will be in a position to meet the needs of the customers. Because of the advancement in social media and social networking, the business ought to make their products differently from those of their competitors and also come up with newer ways which they can use in order to communicate with their customers. For instance, it is observed that social media websites and applications usually aloe use to come up with an online community which is in a position to share content and personal images concerning a particular firm. Therefore, for the case of Fresh Groceries Company, there is a need for it to come up with an innovative team who will be in a place to come up with attractive contents which can catch the attention of the social media.

One of the advantages that the company is able to get from the use of social media and social networking is that it will be in a position to market its products in the social platform in order to attract more customers as well as increase the sales of the company. One thing to note about social media is that Fresh Groceries Company will get key feedback from its customers and also get good reviews from the existing customers. The other thing to note about Social Media is that it comes out as a strong tool more so in growing of the brand awareness in the market. Chief marketers of Fresh Groceries should be in a position to adopt policies which will ensure that it gains a competitive edge as compared to its customers.

References A.T. Kearney, Inc. (2015). Capturing the online grocery opportunity. A.T. Kearney, Inc. Retrieved from https://www.atkearney.com/documents/10192/6603479/Capturing+the+Online+Grocery+Opportunity.pdf/65385cfe-b3a9-482b-a24c-6260a272f0f7 FATbit (n.d.). Your grocery delivery website will fail without these script features [web post]. Retrieved from https://www.fatbit.com/fab/online-grocery-delivery-platform-will-fail-without-these-clone-script-features/ FATbit (2018, December 5). Setting up online grocery business in 2019? Here is what you need to know [web post]. Retrieved from https://www.fatbit.com/fab/setting-online-grocery-business-2019-need-know/ Progressive Grocer (2018, December 14). What to Expect in Grocery Technology in 2019 [web post]. Retrieved from https://progressivegrocer.com/what-expect-grocery-technology-2019 Retail Customer Experience (2019, January 30). 5 technologies primed to transform the grocery shopping experience [web post]. Retrieved from https://www.retailcustomerexperience.com/blogs/5-technologies-primed-to-transform-the-grocery-shopping-experience/ The Importance of Social Media in Business for Entrepreneurial Success. (2018, September 12). Retrieved from https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/importance-social-media-business/ Social Media Impact on Business Operations. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.business2community.com/social-media/socia-media-impact-on-business-operations-0148690 Turban, E., Strauss, J., & Lai, L. (2015). Social Commerce: Marketing, Technology, and Management. Basingstoke, England: Springer Turban, E., King, D., Lee, J., Liang, T. & Turban, D. (2015). Electronic commerce: A managerial and social networks perspectives. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Executive Board

Operations

Sales & Marketing

Customer Service

Finance

Accounting

Human Resources & Legal

IT Team

Supply Chain Management