Merchandising strategy, Merchandise strategy Case Study Web-Design for Marketing and Promotion Optimisation

Digg Slashdot Reddit StumbleUpon Delicious Technorati

OVERVIEW

This Case Study is a brief outlook on what you should be thinking about if you want to start a business on the Internet and join the doc com phenomenon.

CHALLENGE

The challenge in this case study is do the following

• Suggestions for Cost Analysis for a perceived virtual business
• Design, creation, & implementation of your multi-page interactive, fully functional web site
• Developing your Merchandising strategy
• Promotion Optimisation

SOLUTION

Suggestions for Cost Analysis for a perceived virtual business

The e part of the "eBusiness"

• Domain name registration (.co.uk, .com)
• Hosting Costs
• SSL Certificate registration with a CA Authority
• Payment system
• Developing your Brand guidelines, logo, mission statement

Business part of the "eBusiness"

• Registering a Ltd company (If required)
• Hiring an Accountant to file your records
• Legal costs may apply (partnership agreement).
• Supply Chain and Logistics
• Developing your Merchandising strategy
• Developing your Web site design
• Design, creation, & implementation of your multi-page interactive, fully functional web site.

Design, creation, & implementation of your multi-page interactive, fully functional web site

• Deciding the content of your site
• Create a sitemap illustration your pages and links
• Develop templates
• Validated your templates for quality (W3C WIA)
• Create a Wire Frame
• User acceptance testing
• Propagate content to the wire frame using templates
• Make a final quality check by Re-validating your pages
  

Developing your Merchandising strategy

Retail merchandising is a science. Traditional retail store chains pay millions of pounds every year to have merchandising experts lay out stores and handle product placement. Online retail merchandising is no less difficult - but the variables are different. Some of the questions you need to ask yourself:

• Which products are ideal "leaders" to bring in traffic?
• Should you use "loss leaders"?
• How should you arrange your cross-sell, and secondary items?
• Where will you find the best advertising opportunities online for your leaders?
• How should your site's merchandising be laid out for each of your main product types?
• What types of pricing?

Price is a key component but value is the overall package you are providing your consumer and it is important to review the different aspects that effect this proposition:

• What is the return policy?
• How easy it is for a consumer to return a product that is defective or unsuitable?
• What risk is being put on the consumer?
• How can the consumer purchase the product and what payment options are available to them?
• Is it easy for the consumer to purchase the product?
• Are services offered during the purchase process?
• Do they fully understand what they are purchasing?
• What warranty options are available for the consumer to protect their purchase? Are these included or are they an additional charge?
• How is the product delivered? Can additional services like next day shipping, installation or white glove services be purchased?
• Is the purchase/delivery process considered a positive experience, something your visitors cannot get anywhere else?

Promotion Optimisation

Online marketing budget

• Adwords with Google
• Overture
• Direct Mail Marketing
• Viral Marketing

Get listed with:

• Dmoz.org
• Yell.com
• Blogs relating to your site

Offline marketing budget

• Leaflets
• Newspaper
• Radio
• Referral scheme (Merchandising Strategy)

The Goal of all of these is to bring visitors to your Landing page

On you ladning page you want to:

• Attract click and drive traffic
• Retain traffic
• Make it easy for user to take the desired action
• If the user takes the desired action it is know as a conversion

How to design a landing page to capture your visitors and lead the visitors to take action?
Interesting Headline

• Prominent images or graphics
• Simple promotional text
• Call to action such as add to cart