Business to Customer (B2C) Business Plan

Executive Summary

There are many different classifications of marketing. From Government to Business (G2B), Business to Business (B2B), Business to Consumer (B2C), to Customer to Customer (C2C). While many companies usually operate in one or more of these areas, Customer to Customer businesses operate only within that specific area. Customer to Customer marketing has become more popular recently with the advent of the internet. This assignment is design to give an online business plan for business to customer market and customer to customer market.  I selected a names for the company that is Myproductbd.com. This company has no existence I just selected this as a base company. Myproductbd.com is an online business providing fun, comfortable and easily accessible collegiate maternity wear via their own site and an eBay store. The assignment is design to make a plan for B2C business. In this assignment it is shown that how the company run their business, develop it, face computation and overall plan for the companies. Myproductbd.com targeted market includes both the many women who are sports fans (or married to sports fans), and friends and family members of expecting women who will buy the shirts as gifts.

Introduction

Companies such as Craigslist, eBay, and other classified and auction based sites have allowed for greater interaction between consumers, facilitating the Customer to Customer model. Furthermore, as it becomes more economical for individuals to network on the internet via social websites and individual content creation, this marketing model has been greatly leveraged by businesses and individuals alike. E-Commerce stands for electronic commerce and get greater acceptance from the customers. It is an electronic based commercial system in which customer can order for something from a website or virtual market place and sellers sell it. In this types of business customers can buy product, pay for the product and engage with other types of transaction among them. Products are not physically appear but customers can collect information about them from their features. There are 5 major online market including B2B, B2C, C2C, P2P, and M-Commerce. Business to consumer market refers to the market from where customer can just buy something from an identified virtual market place such as amazon.com. On the other hand customer to customer market refers to those market where a customer can sell a product.

Objective of the study

The primary objective of the assignment is to make a business plan for both B2C online market and C2C market.

Secondary objectives are including

• To make a plan by how both types of company can develop.
• To make their competitive edge and finding ways by which they will sustain in the market.
• To give a proper idea about operating system of both B2C and C2C online business market.

Elements in a business plan

A business plan consists of the following steps and stages:

 

This business plan is for a general type of business but if the business is in online then further one step is needed to be include and that is E-Commerce planning. Now the business plan for B2C and C2C is given below.

myproductbd.com

Business Concept

Myproductbd.com is a new Internet business that will sell a line of collegiate maternity wear for expecting mothers. In the future, the company will also explore the professional sports market as a new channel for growth. The owner will run the business from his home office. Inventory will be stored in a 1,200 sq. feet and designated storage area will within the basement. Sales will be primarily through an eBay store until our own site is fully developed, part way through the first year.

Start-up Summary

Start-up costs for Myproductbd.com equal TK 15,00,000 and include legal costs, computer supplies, new product marketing, website design and licensing* for the shirt designs. Start-up assets total TK4, 00,000 most of which is dedicated for start-up inventory.

LICENSING: Based on research, licensing is required to use official college mascots and names. This is not cost prohibitive; however, the regulating board for licensing has strict requirements regarding who can and cannot be granted permission to use collegiate likenesses. As of this date, our proposal is under submission and we are awaiting a final decision.

START-UP REQUIREMENTS

Start-up Expenses      

Legal                                                  TK1, 00,000

Computer                                            TK2, 50,000

Marketing                                            TK1, 50,000

Web Design                                        TK15, 000

Licensing                                             TK50, 000

TOTAL START-UP EXPENSES      TK5, 65,000

Start-up Assets                                    TK4, 00,000

Cash Required                                     TK6, 00,000

Products

Myproductbd.com will provide fun and comfortable collegiate maternity wear shirts, t-shirts, 3pieces and ladies pants via our website, and through an eBay store, which serves as a portal to our main website. Manufacturing will be done by a third party, and fulfillment will be handled in-house initially.

Customers

Our target customers are generally woman but there have one 2 items shirt and t-shirts customers are both man and women. Our customers are generally middle class adult people. Customers can also be lower class and lower higher class people. Targeted geographic segmentation is all over the country including both cities and villages.

Market Opportunities

The primary target market is the women who are like 50% of countries population. These woman often buy maternity clothes for themselves. The secondary target market is the over 25,000,000 people who shop for and buy collegiate clothing each year. By being made aware that collegiate maternity wear exists, they are able to purchase items as gifts for someone they know who is pregnant. As an online store, we will focus on the portions of these market segments which are comfortable shopping online.

Market Segmentation

The two groups of people who would buy maternity clothes are woman, and those who would shop for a woman, perhaps a husband, or a family member. Based on these segments, our projected sales forecast is conservatively set at less than 1% of the total potential market, as highlighted in the following table and chart.

Strategy and Implementation

Our marketing strategy is to create product awareness among expecting women and their families by strategically placing Internet ads, using direct mail tactics sold and generating PR. We offer a unique product that we feel confident expecting women will find fun to wear during their pregnancy. It will be a novelty item that will allow them to stay connected to their interest in their collegiate team both at games and around town.

Marketing Strategy

Marketing strategy is crucial to the success of our business. We must create awareness of our product to our primary target market, as our products are of little use to anyone outside of this group. We will do this by:

Ø  Utilizing the brand-name power of eBay and its popularity to establish credibility and increase awareness of our products

Ø  Strategically-placed ads on websites that are frequently visited by expecting moms, such as parentsplace.com, babycenter.com, americanbaby.com and babyzone.com

Ø  Placed ads on collegiate sites such as collegefootballnews.com and sports.yahoo.com

Ø  Adding our products to other sites as an affiliate provider

Ø  Direct mail and e-mail advertising to expectant customers

Ø  New product PR in publications for expectant customers

Sales Strategy

Sales are dependent upon creating awareness of collegiate maternity wear within our target markets, and therefore the sales strategy for Myproductbd.com is based on driving business to our website and our eBay store. Because we are a new product line, we understand that we will have to generate excitement about our apparel in order to generate business. We will strategically place pop-up and banner ads on websites relevant to both expecting mothers and sports fans, we will use direct mail and email lists, and we will seek public relations coverage in relevant media sources.

Sales Forecast

The sales forecast for FY 2016 takes into account slower sales at the beginning as we create awareness of our product and website. Initially we will be selling one style of t-shirt, but will offer it with the logos of up to 132 different Division 1 universities. As the company grows, we will explore the demand for other types of collegiate maternity wear such as tank tops, sweatshirts, and long-sleeved shirts. In the first three months, we will sell exclusively through eBay. Although this adds to direct costs (roughly TK1 per shirt) because of eBay fees, we will save money on both marketing/advertising costs and website maintenance by holding off on fully developing our own site until we can see what items customers prefer. We anticipate that even after enabling sales on our website, eBay sales volume will continue to be higher.

The Monthly Sales Chart that follows indicates that we have some seasonality in our business. We expect sales to increase during the fall, which is when football season occurs and when sales for collegiate goods are the highest. Note that the direct costs shown in the Sales Forecast table represent only the direct inventory costs for t-shirts. There are other, non-inventory direct costs, including eBay fees and PayPal fees; these can be found in the projected Profit and Loss.

Competitive environment and advantage

The competitive edge offered by Myproductbd.com is our unique product. Currently, no major maternity retailer and few online stores offer collegiate maternity t-shirts. We will position ourselves as a specialty online store catering to expecting moms who want to maintain their support of their favorite team through their pregnancy. Because of our niche, we can effectively choose targeted sources to market our product to our customers. Our primary weakness is that we are a new business and we offer a new product. To generate sales, we must first create awareness that our product exists, and make it easy for potential customers to locate our online store. By offering a fun product that many expecting women would like to have, we feel we a quickly establish our presence in the maternity wear industry.

Organizational development

Myproductbd.com will fulfill orders from our eBay store and later, our own website. All payments will be processed through PayPal in the first year, although we will evaluate the option to do Fax orders if customer demand it.

·         E-orders:  Customer can purchase online 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

·         Fax orders: Customers can fax in an order 24-hours a day, seven days a week if we implement this.

As the company grows, we will leave the option open to using a fulfillment center to take orders via the telephone.

E-Commerce planning

The following sub-topics outline our plans to create and maintain our website. At first, we will have a simple text and image-based website which outlines our products and redirects customers to our eBay store. After the first three months, we will begin online ordering via our own website as well. Website of myproductbd.com may as follows:

Website Marketing Strategy

Our website will provide information about us and our products as well as order processing to purchase our products online. We will include our web address in all of our advertising to reinforce to our customers how to find us online. Our company logo and motto will also need to be eye catching and easy to remember so that once our customers find us, they will remember us and suggest us to their friends and family.

Website Development Requirements

Initial Development

We will be working with an outside contractor to design the layout of the site. Initially, our site will provide an overview of the company, describe our products and services, and redirect visitors to our eBay store to purchase a shirt. The estimated costs for initial website development are listed in our start-up costs.

Some of the features included on the website will be the ability to search for logos by school name as well as by "team name" (such as the University of Alabama "Crimson Tide," the UCLA "Bruins" and the University of Oregon "Ducks"). Good-quality pictures of our products and the logos on the products will be available, so the customer can see what they will be getting.

Full website (including online ordering)

In the third month of the plan, when we have a better sense of customer preferences, we will finish the development of the site to include online order processing (via PayPal). Starting in November (heavy football season) customers will have the choice of buying either directly from our website, or via our eBay store. Additional security functions are required for doing PayPal sales on our own website

Management team

As the company launches date approaches, one part-time (30 hours/week) employee will be hired to help with fulfillment with a second part-time employee scheduled for the third month, entering into the highest potential selling time frame, football season. As the company grows, more personnel will be added as needed. If projections for October through December are correct, temporary seasonal help will need to be hired to assist in fulfilling the order processing.

Part-time staff will be responsible for processing all Internet and Fax orders, PayPal payments received, and will handle all shipping functions. Subcontractors will be used to help with website design and marketing, and these subcontractor costs can be found in the Profit and Loss tables Expenses section.

Financial summery

Myproductbd.com projects the gross margin to be at approximately 65% percent. Sales projections for Year 1 are over TK15, 000,000. A monthly breakdown of the cash-flow analysis, balance sheet, business ratio, break-even analysis, and other financial details are shown in the appendix. Annual projections will be highlighted in the following sub-topics.

We must track our eBay and PayPal fees to make sure they are projected appropriately in the Other Cost of Goods section in the Profit and Loss statement. As we gain experience with what the average cost is for Item Fees, Final Value Fees, and PayPal fees, we may need to change the Profit and Loss table to reflect the correct cost. At this point we have placed high estimates to make sure that we are realistic about the cost of doing business on eBay.

The fees are based on the following:

EBay fees (only apply to eBay store sales):

Insertion fee of TK.35 per item, plus Final Fee at 5.25% of total sale price on each sale

PayPal fees (apply to all sales):

First two months: Standard rate of TK0.30 per sale, plus 2.9% of total sale price on each  sale

Afterwards: Merchant rate of TK0.30 per sale, plus 2.5% of total sale price on each sale*

These fees are very conservative, assuming that each unit sale is one complete sale. It is likely that at least 1/5 of our sales in the heavy sales months will be for multiple shirts, since pregnant couples often know other pregnant couples and buy each other gifts.

We will also be spending marketing dollars to promote our products with eBay's promotion tools. We want to make sure that we have enough money to buy some search placements as well as buying "bolded" listings in the eBay search results. As we sell more items we will adjust the marketing expenses either lower or higher -- depending on what is working for us.

Recommendation

Once the owner completed his initial plan and, hopefully, obtained the investment or loan you were seeking, keep in mind that your business plan should be a living document. Don't just store your business plan on a shelf and never look at it again, thinking that it has served its purpose. You will want to revisit your plan from time to time, dropping some components and adding others as you learn what works for your business and what doesn't. As your business evolves, you'll find that older versions of your plan provide a helpful reminder of how far you've come. As a bonus, continually updating your plan will put you ahead of the game if you later need to secure additional financing. There's no question that putting together a good business plan takes a tremendous amount of work. But if you do it right, your effort will pay off.

There should have solution for some problems and they are:

• Being special type of business the company will faces the problem of legality so they should have make registration in order to avoid these problem.
• As the concept is new, it should have strong promotional activities to aware the customer about the product.
• Financial problems should be solved by managing cash from bank and friends.
• Should have skilled employee to provide a greater service 24/7.
• Make a strategy to the advantage over the competitors.
• Be aware about political instability and other external; factors so they can be face when they occur.

Conclusion

A business plan is not just a lengthy document that helps you obtain financing. It's truly a thorough examination of whether your business idea is viable. Preparing your business plan in the early stages of developing your business can save you a great deal of time, money and heartache by showing you where the weaknesses in your idea lie and giving you a chance to correct them before you make any serious mistakes. For example, in the process of putting together your business plan, you might discover that you haven't really thought enough about your marketing budget or you haven't done enough research on government regulations that will affect your business. In putting together your plan, you will be forced to examine your business from the viewpoint of the skeptical potential investor and the skeptical potential consumer, not just from the perspective of the enthusiastic entrepreneur.