subject: Competition Of E-Commerce Site [print this page] Competition Of E-Commerce Site Competition Of E-Commerce Site
The E-Commerce Business has become extremely competitive. We have chosen to sell two major products that could potentially be seen as competition to each other. The interactive business card, which we have chosen to sell, may one day actually replace the traditional; however, at this time it is merely taking a fraction of the business away. The traditional business card market is established on both the Internet and paper catalog sales, while the interactive card is only recently emerging and mainly Internet based. At this time we have an established, successful traditional business card customer base and intend to introduce those customers to the interactive business cards. By increasing the number of clients we can reach by becoming a web-based company, our goal is to gain new customers that are interested in the developing market of interactive business cards. In both of these markets there is not one established supplier that dominates the market. There are several successful businesses that function separately to provide either traditional or interactive business cards. Our company will cross sell these business cards, with our intention to keep our existing traditional business card clients from purchasing their interactive business cards from our competitors. We believe that at this time it is not cost effective to hand out the interactive cards as you would traditional business cards. Therefore clients will need both and our goal is to beat the competition by providing one single place where they can purchase both.
We have chosen two on-line competitors, one in the traditional and the other in the interactive business card market. For the traditional competitor, we choose ABC Advanced Business Cards. This site provided general information, frequently asked questions, samples, order forms, how to prepare file, and other services. (www.gapco.com) Our site will provide all these features along with the option to create your exact layout online. We will also provide a tracking system and the option to purchase directly on-line with a shopping cart feature. Our competitor has an extremely simple site and must be contacted by phone, fax, or email in order to place the order. For the interactive business card competitor, we choose DBC Card. This site had nice graphics but overall was horrible. They offered Digital Business Cards, Recordables, Shape CD Cards, and Packaging. The layout of the website had fonts that were so small that you could not read them, when selecting the four major items, there was very little information and descriptions, while viewing the website error messages came asking if I wanted to continue running scripts, and messages saying Let the card talk for you appeared and I had to click OK to continue viewing the site. Also, it appeared that there was an option to place an order which did nothing, and the link to get a quote simply opened up a blank email screen which gave the customer no guidelines or required information. There were no prices or options to request a sample. (www.graph.to) We plan to offer a detailed sight that is simple to use.
We choose these two competitors as examples because there is truly no one E-Commerce business that dominates the business card market. The majority of traditional sites provide clear prices based on quantities and style along with the number of days to process. While, the majority of the interactive business card sites require that you fill out a request for a price quote and they will reply with details. We plan to market both the traditional and interactive business cards in the same way, clearly and simply. We will provide prices on-line for the various styles, colors, and options. For both cards we will set a base price based on a simple card. The customer will then have several choices to add options and features to the cards each of which will have a set price that will be added to the base price. Their on-line shopping cart will keep track of the current sale as they shop. There will also be package cards put together, which the customer may choose from that will be discounted. We believe that clients will find the simplicity of our site refreshing and prefer to purchase from us, rather than our competitors. We will also implement a tracking system that will allow the client to check the status of their order on-line. This should promote trust between the client and company that competitors will not have. On the site customers will find free on-line art templates in which they can design the layout of traditional business cards and customize an informative presentation to put on their interactive cards. When completed they send these directly to us, therefore, saving us time and them money. This will encourage customers to order from us versus our competitors, not only because we can offer our product at a lower cost by letting them do some of the work themselves but also because they will comfortable and satisfied with the design they created themselves. Our competition generally offers the interactive business cards with a maximum of 100MB of information. When necessary, we will provide clients with an interactive business card that can hold up to 300MB of information. Also, we will offer samples of interactive business cards to potential customers when requested. The larger the quantity ordered the less the price per card for both traditional and interactive.
Customer Satisfaction is also one of our major goals. We realize that by converting our presently satisfied customers to interactive business card users we will be more successful that our competition. Also, when we gain interactive business card users that currently do not buy our traditional business cards, we will encourage them to start using our traditional services as well.
