MR Shield Shoe Care: Footwear Accessories in the Cyberspace Age

Background of enterprise

With the fast development of the fourth industrial revolution, all systems that are of importance to the human life and functionality have been increasingly shifted to the online domain including entertainment, businesses, as well as services. The various benefits and advantages these bring along in the various sectors are significant influencing a shift of the consumers to the domain as well. This as such highlights the purpose of our development of MR Shield Shoe Care– Online shoe accessory company as the online enterprise. It is an online shoe accessories company offering high quality products for the fast-growing shoe industry. Market research has shown a huge rise in the Footwear industry and has indicated steady growth in the last few years (Allied Market Research, 2015). Our main focus is on providing top-notch products in this particular burgeoning market aligns with the growing demand for quality accessories, underscoring the relevance of our business dissertation help in navigating this competitive system. The US online shoe market making an upwards of up to $15 billion in revenue in 2019 up 8.1% from the previous year as well as UK markets racking in $14 million up 1.1% from the previous year (Sabanoglu, 2019) highlights a market potential for the enterprise and its potential of being profitable upon application of especially strategic business strategies in marketing and sales within the e-commerce site.

Model Case study

A similar case study that will be analysed in comparison to MR Shield Shoe Care is the Office (Office, 2018) an online shoe company in the UK that sell men, women and children’s shoes of all types including official, casual and sports shoes of different types and sizes. The business also sells backpacks and shoe related accessories such as inner sole, shoe laces and cleaners such as polish and brushes, all of which are outsourced from different top brands all across the world including Nike, Addidas, Puma, Timberlands and many others all of which add to the diversity of their developed and reputable stock (Office, 2019).

While the online business also has physical stores all across the UK, it has been able to distinguish its product through a wide range of in house designers who create a wide range of unique products thereby ensuring a wide range within their stock along with the global brand partnerships which boost their visibility significantly in the global market (Office, 2019)

Marketing Strategy

Company Website

The company uses an elaborate marketing strategy that enhances and boosts its visibility all across the UK and the globe as one of the most convenient and reliable online store which significantly increases their profitability.

The company has its own website where consumers can view all products that are within their inventory in different colours and sizes thereby enabling consumers the convenience of shopping for their products from home. The website not only acts as a marketing tool but also provides all necessary and significant information about the company to the users including contact details, offers consumer feedback and help around the website to further enhance consumer usability and impact increased purchases. This is consistent to our group enterprise project as the development and construction of the website is the business and a marketing tool for the business in its own right.

Broadcast and Online marketing

Like our developed E-commerse site MR Shield Shoe Care– Online, Office also uses a wide range of social media sites to market their products including, You Tube, Face book and Twitter. Given the widespread use and accessibility of social media sites all across the globe, the company is guaranteed to capture a significant global market and increase its sales and profitability.

Other than social media and their website, Office also utilizes other online marketing and advertising techniques and options including Ads, broadcast billboards. It engages in broadcast advertisement including through TV and Radio and also engages its customers regularly with a wide range of promotions and competition events all of which are directed towards the increase and improvement of their sales force and profitability.

Print media and Advertisements

In addition to the online business enterprise in the e-commerce site, the company also indulges in marketing and advertising their products within different print media across the UK including leading newspapers and magazines. According to Engine Creative (2019) office currently has a partnership with Grazia magazine to not only market their products within the magazine but also include a quarterly supplement in a newspaper format called ‘shoespaper’which exclusively contains various products and shoes offered by office. These are displayed on old office furniture, a quirky detail which is representative of the brand (Office, 2019)

Marketing and Selling Model

Target Marketing and selling

The business not only advertises within print media but also indulges in target marketing which involves selling of these newspapers and print media in distinctive places with a high concentration of potential customers for their products. The ‘Shoespaper’ supplement are distributed across over 150 stores and concessions around the UK as well as inserted in the Grazia Magazine for customers to have ease in access.

Augmented reality refers to an interactive experience of a real world environment where different objects that reside in the real world spaces are enhanced and presented by computer generated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities including, auditory, visual, somatosensory and olfactory (Marr, 2018). It is a technology that superimposes computer generated image on a user’s view of the real world thus providing a composite view.

Office recreates the views of their physical stores displaying the various product range and sizes, materials and colour in 3D which are then embedded within the ‘shoespaper’ using the Grazia Extra app tapping into an augmented reality platform. Engine Creative (2019) points out that reader are able to access exclusive office content including videos, buy links and competitions by scanning the pages of the shoespaper using the Grazia Extra App. In addition to poffering brand engagement on mobile device using augmented reality which is a significantly advanced marketing concept guaranteed to attract a wide array of consumers, Grazia Extra offers unique location aware opportunities which enable office to create store specific campaigns and deliver targeted messages to readers based within these locations (Engine Creative, 2019).

While the company uses almost all of our marketing techniques and strategies including online marketing and social media as well as the company’s website, it additionally employs marketing strategies that I would personally consider brilliant and as such willingly consider for adoption and use in enhancing the visibility and profitability of the business. For instance print media and broadcast marketing would be a slightly manageable budget for marketing which would significantly impact the eventual productivity of the business including boosting its visibility to a wide mass majority within the UK and across the globe. Their marketing and selling model which generally involves target marketing through augmented reality is also a quite effective strategy of marketing not only for its characteristic of providing the consumers with a view of different specific stores but also due to its ability to target different customers within the vicinity of these stores enabling easier order, purchase and delivery with the free UK standard delivery. This ensures an all round efficient marketing and selling model which utilizes significantly minimized resources enabling a sustainable optimum productivity, minimal cost business model.

CRM

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a critical business function and approach to manage a company’s interaction with current and potential customers (Salesforce, 2019). It is a way of managing customer relationships and feedbacks. It is purposely meant for ensuring the business takes responsibility for all the concerns raised and uses all the feedback provided to impact its growth, productivity and development. Businesses often use CRM software to be able to handle their online customer interactions and a particularly effective one would be Bitrix24 Multichannel CRM.

Bitrix24 CRM provides a platform to organize and track interaction with potential and existing customers and clients, partners, agents and other contacts of a business. It forms a contact base where the interaction and the history of contacts are managed and stored. All new events (phone calls, messages, meetings) connected with a contact or company are easily logged and further interaction can be planned, including by using integrated tasks. The website is additionally fully customizable for specific business use complete with source codes access.

Functionality

Bitrix24 CRM unifies the different multiple communication channels enabling the connection of emails, phone messages, social media contacts, Skype calls, and conference calls all in one mobile device enabling easier customer relationship management by the business owners. It also provides multiple features including managing interactions, report and sales funnels, CRM dashboards quotes and invoices all of which are meant to further positively impact the multiple communication processes.

Managing Interaction

The CRM contains instruments that are capable of carry out analysis of different data, create reports, import/export contacts and perform segmentation of the target audience as precisely as needed. Incoming contacts or leads can be divided among sales managers, marketing campaigns can be analyzed, and access permission to any deal or lead can be varied depending on its status or other parameters. The interface in the CRM is convenient and intuitive, and it includes a CRM-only activity stream. This stream is a universal interface that enables actions (notes, emails, tasks, meetings and phone calls) to be initiated on any object or objects in the CRM from a single point. Most importantly, Bitrix24 lets you decide whether to store data in cloud or on your own server (Bitrix24, 2019)

Reports and Sales Funnels

The sales funnels another feature of the CRM highlights transactions in progress and the respective stages with which they are in. These can be effectively added by the user or automatically by the CRM using the communication data available and appear on straight lines of different colors The length of the line corresponds to the total sum of the deals at that stage, and a table with the numeric values is displayed below the funnel. Importantly, Bitrix24 lets you have unlimited sales pipelines and build multiple sales funnels if you have several product lines or profit centers (Bitrix24 Free CRM, 2017).

CRM Dashboards

The dashboards update the business on the most important transactions and sales activities. Different activities and transactions carried out by different sales or business agents are highlighted, client invoice reports and agent ratings in comparison with other team members all are available within the CRM’s dashboard. Bitrix24 (2019) highlights that currently however Dashboards are only available for deals, leads & invoices and are in the process of being added to all other CRM entities (Contacts, Companies).

Invoices inside the CRM

The CRM in Bitrix24 allows you to create personalized invoices instantly. Client data from the Bitrix24 CRM are automatically inserted into an invoice through a selection of the most appropriate Contact or Lead. Recurring invoices are also supported.Products and services that are included in an invoice can be selected from existing items, or new ones can be created. The invoice can then be directly sent from the CRM to any of the clients required communication channel such as email save the invoice as a PDF file, and even print it out right from your web browser!

Open channels

Open channels connect most popular social networks and messengers with Bitrix24 CRM. Client messages from Face book, VK, Telegram, Skype and other platforms are distributed among Bitrix24 CRM users according to the set rules. Even though a business’s employees use Bitrix24 to communicate with clients’ real time, the clients will see all replies in the social network or the messenger they initiated the contact with. Open channels work with mobile, desktop and web versions of Bitrix24 apps.

Bitrix 24 CRM including these and other features, all of which enhances communication and keeping up with client interactions quite easy and efficient regardless of which communication channels they use. It is instantaneous fast and flexible CRM software which enables businesses to be able to maximize on their client information and impact profitability in their sales force. All this in addition to the fact that its free is why I like it and why I would use it in the starting of an online business. It is quite relevant given the multiple communication channels that clients and customers engage for use in transacting with businesses. It can be used in the management of online customers track their transaction and delivery of products effectively for the purpose of maximizing the businesses profit.

Website Development

While there exists a wide range of ways with which online enterprises can create their website for marketing and online sales, often, most of them are developed from web templates that are ‘off the shelf’ ready designed requiring only few customizations to fit the business model. However, development of websites from scratch, uniquely and differently from other websites in existence as highlighted by Jo (2018) identifies bespoke websites, and while it has a large cost and time requirement attached to its development, it also poses a considerably wide range of benefits compared to ‘off the shelf’ solutions justifying why I would actually use it for my business.

Bespoke sites are created entirely for the purpose of specific highlighted business goals. As such in its development the site can align with different intended business processes and be personalized with everything from the designs to the e-commerce systems (Jo, 2018). Among the benefits it has over readymade website templates include: SEO and social media readiness which can be built in right from the beginning of development with bespoke website development. The site code can be designed to take into account factors that influence ranking, from page loading times and ease of navigation to mobile optimization.

Bespoke websites can also be tailor made specifically for the intended business structure and strategies so as to be able to meet unique business requirements enabling more convenience and flexibility as compared to using off the shelf solutions (Okhrimenko, 2018). Bespoke website development provides a competitive edge over other competitors in the industry as such adding value to the business. With the website, businesses can be able to set apart with unique, innovative, user experience improvements which are crucial for consumer satisfaction. For instance, with a tailored site one can develop a complex e-commerce system that ensures they are ideally positioned to sell products, services and vouchers, helping them to be the best place for the customer to do so. With ‘off-the-shelf’ solutions on the other hand, advancements to get ahead are limited tothe software in use (Jo, 2018).

It is also cost efficient given that a business does not purchase any services and features that they do not intend to use, as the website is development from scratch. In addition security measures can be effectively installed to ensure its maximum protection. Bespoke websites also enable effective and efficiently controlled customer services given the unique programming commands that may not be available in other web designs, as such limiting consumer interaction. They offer the business a freedom of choice and require low maintenance given their critical development process. Moreover, the sole ownership and control of the website is at the hands of the business and not web providers. This affords the business a monopoly in how to operate the business. Given the entire benefits highlighted bespoke website are necessary for the success of a business especially in the current century where competition is key to success.

Business Strategy

In using e-commerce sites for online businesses, including sales and payment transactions is considered a business strategy that is flexible and effective enough to satisfy consumer needs. The website developed for the business MR Shield Shoe care, will contain different products in shoes and shoe accessories all of which can easily be purchased through the website and payment done using a wide range of ways thereby granting delivery of the product to the customer. The strategy used will include development of computer processes in the highlighted Blueprints that respond to consumer actions appropriately and promptly to enable business transactions. For instance these processes should be able to allow consumers to select products, add them to cart, purchase and pay for the order all within the same website. This is highlighted in the Blueprint within the level: High level process map.

The websites and the products will further be marketed in a wide range of ways including broadcast advertising, online advertising social media and through the website itself to increase its popularity and impact increased sales. The process of marketing requires a link between the finance, human resource and marketing department, all of which is managed by the level 2 process map in the Blue prints. The marketing will also include competitions and promotions which are meant to increase customer engagement and enable customer relationship management.

Product Lifecycle

In being able to manage sales within MR Shield Shoe care E-commerce website and any other business environment as highlighted by Jetlore (2019) most products go through four different lifecycles including Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline. Different requirements are required within these different stages of the products life cycle in order to ensure optimum productivity and profitability.

According to Saaksvuori and Immonem (2008) the introduction stage includes frequent product modifications, limited distribution, and heavy promotion. Given the low rate of sales at this stage and as such limited profits the company will majorly engage in marketing and advertisement in the introductory stage to ensure its presence in the market. In the growth stage sales grow at an increasing rate, profits are healthy, and many competitors enter the market. Large companies may start to acquire small pioneering firms that have reached this stage (Press Books, 2019). Emphasis switches from primary demand promotion to aggressive brand advertising and communicating the differences between brands. In this phase the business is scheduled to apply aggressive marketing techniques including target marketing that is meant to bring the products and the website close to the potential market.

In the third stage which is the maturity stage, given the acceptability of the products by the market as well as the increased and leveled growth of sales within the website. The business looks to rebrand marketing techniques as well as some of the less purchased products to further impact their increased purchase. The fourth stage highlights the decline in the sales of particular products which according to (Saaksvuori and Immonem, 2008) could be as a result of changes in consumer tastes and an emergence of a significant alternative. In this case the business intends to significantly rebrand the products or adopt newer products provided by the businesses suppliers.

Porter’s Generic Competitive strategy

Porter’s generic competitive strategies highlight different strategies that are effectively applicable to a variety of products all across the business environment. These include cost leadership, differentiation and Focus (Mindtools, 2019). Given the partnership with renowned brands and suppliers within the UK, MR Shield Shoe care promotion and marketing techniques will be applied to ensure the minimization of the cost to the lowest possible cost of products and minimized expense.

While not much differentiation is there for the products provided against the available competitors, the business intends to differentiate its products by minimizing packaging to the bare minimum thereby also impacting sustainability. All of these growth and sustainability strategies will focus on the various critical areas of the business including: cost and product management.

Ethical Issues

Given the complex global business environment for which e commerce sites subscribe to and aim to serve, companies of different and all sizes face multiple ethical issues. Businesses as such are responsible for developing codes of conducts and ethics for the business and the personnel involved within it. Among the ethical considerations in e commerce and that were considered in the development process of the online business MR Shield Shoe Care include: Consumer privacy and Online Piracy (Oster, 2019).

Consumer privacy

Consumer privacy includes a major challenge when it comes to ethical practices in the e-commerce business market. Given that most of e-commerce business transactions including accessing to the website, providing personal information, ordering products, arranging payment via credit or debit cards and many others occur indirectly throughout Internet without customers’ control, this information is documented and stored by the company and release of these information to the public minus the clients permission include one major breach of consumer privacy and a breach of ethical codes. The business will as such develop policies and codes to manage consumer information and prevent their unauthorized access by any other individual other than the business personnel (Abidin, 2011).

Online Privacy

A wide range of businesses and individuals indulge in unhealthy and unethical activity within the E-commerce and online business domain including Web spoofing an electronic deception relating to the internet that allows an attacker to set up fake websites similar to the original with the aim of luring consumers to give personal information, Cyber squatting which allows a firm or individual to register, purchase and use existing company domains to unethically infringe or ride on trademarks as well as privacy invasion using malicious programs, the website will be safe guarded against all these activities and in addition business code of ethics and policies will be developed to prevent the organization or its personnel form involving in such unethical practices (Nguyen, 2016)

Sustainability Issues

Issues of sustainability however unnecessary they might look to the eventual benefit or profitability of business are quite critical and essential to the consumer who is the major shareholders in the success of any business activities (Nguyen, 2016). As such, consideration of factors of sustainability and attempt to maintain a sustainable e-commerce business is not only in the interest of ensuring preservation but also acquiring a market value from the available customers who are looking for sustainable businesses. Given MR Shiels is still small and set to operate only on a national level, sustainability can be considered in sectors such as supply chain, deliveries and Packaging of products

Supply chain

The business only intends to purchase from renowned brands which themselves indulge in ensuring sustainability. Through developing a most manageable supply chain with authentic footwear to supply the products for the online business, the company can only deal with sustainable suppliers which ensure the consideration of sustainability in the products sold.

Packaging and Deliveries

While online shopping has been said to limit car trips and thereby minimize pollution through emissions, a study by the University of Delaware suggests that online shopping may have worsened traffic congestion and transport-related carbon emissions (Morgan, 2019). the e-commerce site developed should be able to approximate deliveries to consumers from the closest store available to minimize the travel time for deliveries and as such the consequent pollution due to emissions. In addition packaging of the delivered shoes should be kept on the minimal. The company anticipates using the original packaging of the products from the supplier company rather than adding an additional packaging which leads to increased waste. In this way waste products as a result of packaging will be significantly minimized.

Summary

In summary development of an E-commerce site is a complex endeavor that not only takes into account the business model and strategy, but also considers the eventual consumer of the business, ways of reaching them, serving as well as maintaining them. The report indicates from the case study that the shoe industry is indeed a vibrant economy that has shifted to online transactions and is significantly growing given the desire and propulsion for consumers to purchase their shoes online. Marketing strategies need to be extensive and engaging for the consumer to impact their purchase decisions. As such target marketing is critical in maximizing the productivity of an e-commerce site such as MR Shield shoe.

The report further highlights the importance of consumer relationship management and to that end proposes the use of Bitrix24 CRM for its consumer engagement management. Bitrix is efficient given its ability to combine all communication channels into one site thereby enabling the business to be able to interact with their customers and address their concerns in a timely manner. The report further highlights that using bespoke websites in the development of an e-commerce website despite being costly and time consuming is quite effective and affords the business the flexibility of design and autonomy and ownership of the website, in this way MR Shield Shoe Care maintains the competitive advantage over its competitors.

Different strategies including effective marketing strategies, effective deliveries and packaging strategies highlighted the business strategy to ensure business profitability by enhancing sustainability and making sure the different products attain their full market lifecycle, in addition the report highlights techniques of ensuring cost leadership, differentiation and Focus all of which are critical in eventually impacting business success.

Personal Reflection: Lessons learnt

In the process of the research and development of an e-commerce website I have learned quite a wide range of information with regards to business management as well as website development for business purposes. While the development of the website was quite challenging including the development and configuration of the process maps, their development unveiled the consistency and reliability of various business processes and activities upon each other and upon the outcomes of these activities. I have learned that the customer is ultimately important to the business and as such, management of customer relationship is significant and critical to the success of any business.

I have also learned the criticality of target marketing and bringing the business as close the likely potential market as possible through different marketing techniques. Ultimately the profitability and sales quantity is heavily dependent on the marketing technique employed in the promotion of the business. I have also learned through some of the errors we made in the development of the website the vulnerabilities and risk in the development of websites containing money transfers given the wide range of security risks that target such e-commerce sites. I have learnt the importance of developing bespoke websites compared to using off the shelf websites and the various benefits it has towards maintaining a healthy and effective productive business. Eventually development of an online business has opened my eyes to a wide range of possibilities in both the business and web development industry.

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