E-commerce business plan

The students will assume that they want to start a brand-new e-commerce business.

They will identify a market opportunity, conduct detailed research about trends, competition and customers, and propose a digital marketing/e-commerce strategy on how to start a new business (“pure e-commerce”, online business). There are three deliverables for this group assignment:

1. Group Project proposal: the students will do research and come up with an idea for a pure e-commerce business. They will upload their idea on the course website during the third week of the course. The proposal will consist of a 300 - 400 word written description of the business idea, as well as an image of their business model canvas. The description of the business idea must clearly answer the following two central questions to any new business model:

· What is your business’ value proposition?

· What is your business’ revenue model?

The group proposal is worth 5%, and it will be evaluated based on the clarity, professionalism, and feasibility of the idea.

Checklist 

Before you submit your idea for the project, please make sure to go through the following checklist to ensure that your idea is suitable for the assignment. All your answers to the below questions should be “yes”: - Is your business idea (relatively new) and different from the competition? - Is your product or service addressing certain customers’ needs or problems? - Is your business targeted on a certain small market niche? - Do you need less than $200,000 to start your business? (Note: avoid any manufacturing or R&D expenses) - Is your business part of a growing trend? - Finally, is this truly a “pure e-commerce business”? (Note: your business should transact and provide services or products online. Here are some examples of pure e-commerce business just for your orientation: drop shipping e-commerce store (direct sale business model), info portal or blog such as lyrics.com (advertising business model), online services such as SurveyMonkey.com (online subscription business model), e-commerce marketplaces such as Etsy or Rover (commission-based business model), etc.