ONLINE GADGET STORE

BUSINESS PLAN

SUBMITTED BY: ARIF MASOOD (BAF-06-50) SUBMITTED TO: SIR FARASAT

SUBJECT: E-COMMERCE

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE BAHAUDIN ZIKARIYA UNIVERSITY, MULTAN

GADGETS MART- BUSINESS PLAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS

General Company Description 01 Slogan 01

Vision 01 Mission 01 Strengths 02 Challenges 02 Key points to success 02

Operation Plan 03 Infrastructure of Business 03 Location 03 Equipment\Machinery 03 Legal Requirements 03 Product Description 04 Product Sourcing\methods 05 Order System\Payment Options 06 Shipment method\policy 06 Feedback\ Helpline system 06 Marketing Plan 07 Target Market 07 Market Growth Potential 07 Pricing Strategy 07 Promotion strategy 08 Financial Plan 09 Website Development Plan 10 Website development roadmap 10 Website Components 10 Web design features 11

GADGETS MART- BUSINESS PLAN

Page 1

GENERAL COMPANY DESCRIPTION

Company Overview:

GADGETS MART will be one of Pakistan's first and best technology and digital lifestyle

shopping portal. Providing a simulating online shopping experience, it will offer the

latest and wide range of daily life gadgets and electronic products at most competitive

prices. Our focus will be on bringing you the most unique gadgets in Pakistan that will

make your life a lot better and stylish.

Slogan:

“The Good Life at a Great Price, Guaranteed.”

Vision:

“To be a distinguished Pakistani Gadget store known for the variety and quality of products, setting new trends and lifestyles”

Mission:

“To offer continuous value added products to our customers and to make online shopping experience easy, enjoyable and absolutely secure.”

GADGETS MART- BUSINESS PLAN

Page 2

Strengths & Core Competencies:

We see following as the strengths of our business,

• First proper Pakistani gadget store offering wide variety of such products

• Low competition

• Offering Pakistani demand specific products

• Reasonable prices

• Payment & delivery methods that Pakistani customers are comfortable with

Challenges:

GADGETS MART will have to overcome following challenges to survive and prosper,

• High import duties and taxes

• Delivery timing and charges

• Creating trust at initial phases and giving customers feeling of security

• Reaching to customers and making a name for the business

Keys points to Success of the Business:

§ Sell variety of quality products with good comparable prices.

§ Focus on customer needs and value his demand.

§ Advertise to expand customer base and to create more awareness through print

magazine advertising, internet advertisements and other methods like social

websites.

§ Ensure in time and safe delivery method of products to customer.

GADGETS MART- BUSINESS PLAN

Page 3

OPERATIONAL PLAN

Infrastructure for Business:

To start Business Company shall need to have a proper infrastructure in terms of proper

working place, equipment, machinery and personnel, etc

Location: Location of GADGETS MART physical office from where all the operations

will be done is in Lahore city, which has almost all the modern day facilities which an

online business store need to run. At initial phases GADGETS MART plan to operate

completely as a pure e-commerce business but at later stages considering success rate,

it will also plan to launch physical store in cities like Lahore, Karachi or Islamabad to

reach to maximum target market.

Equipment\ Machinery: GADGETS MART shall need to make some good

investments in office equipment, furniture, machinery and transport, if necessary. At

initial stages GADGETS MART plan to run its self from a office of not more than 3 rooms,

which shall need furniture like tables, chairs, cabinets, electric equipment like fans, air

conditioner, lights and machinery like printers, fax machines, computers, monitors, lcd’s,

and miscellaneous etc.

Legal Requirements: Legally registering your business under Pakistan law gives

your business a better image, and customers feel more secure trading with you.

• E-file the company name at the SECP website

• Register the company at the Registrar of Companies

• Obtain digital signature

• Apply for a national tax number (NTN

Also to operate we need to open a bank account, and if we are going accept credit

cards we shall also open a merchant account.

GADGETS MART- BUSINESS PLAN

Page 4

Product Line Description:

Gadgets will include products from categories like Car stuff, energy efficient stuff,

games, home applications, kitchen and garden applications, computer gadgets, etc..

Products could be like.. Arm sleeper pillow, relaxing sofa, massage machines, solar

chargers, dish washers, i-pods, Diet scale machine, Kitchen equipment, Fitness stuff etc..

GADGETS MART- BUSINESS PLAN

Page 5

Product Sourcing:

Product sourcing and inventory management is very important aspect of running a

product based online store. Inventory management is important because we have to

look for inventory keeping cost, obsolete risk of items, losing a customer because of

zero stock etc.

GADGET MART shall use three types of product sourcing strategies at three different

levels. They are described as below;

For regular products, we can have these products Drop Shipped directly to our

customers, and never have to stock up for these products. This allows us to display

relatively larger variety of products through our online store and no inventory cost to us.

Having variety of snorkelling products also gives the impression of larger professional

business to our online customers.

For in demand products, which are selling well than the rest, we can locate Light Bulk

Wholesalers. We buy them less expensive in light bulk quantities and ship these

products ourselves. Hence, we gain higher margins on these particular products.

For low-cost "Special-Offers" Products that we offer to bring in more customers. By

offering products with margins pennies on dollars that could be used as a bait to bring

in more customers and then show them higher price tag products. To do this we look

for Liquidation Supplier to buy products at lower than wholesale prices.

Our Products Source\wholesalers:

GADGETS MART- BUSINESS PLAN

Page 6

Order system and Payment Options:

We aim to offer the payment procedure very easy, secure and understandable for our

customers. We shall install proper payment processor system which shall make

payments more accurate and easier to keep track of orders. There shall be a facility of

making id and selecting password, where customers can set default delivery options,

addresses and can get rid of hassle of filling forms again and again. This system shall

also be able to give feedback to customers on status of their orders.

Following are the payment options

• By credit card

• Western Union, Moneygram, etc

• Cash at Delivery

• Money order (most easiest way, accepted from anywhere in Pakistan)

• Deposit to Bank account (personal account not needed, send details @ email)

Shipment Methods and Policy:

• Shipment shall be done through famous courier service operating in Pakistan

• Delivery time can be from 4-10 days depending on product type and location

• Shipment shall be free if the order is of above 5000 rupees and is in major

metropolitan cities (can be selected from drop down list)

• Shipment for order lower than 5000 have appropriate charges

• Charges for remote cities, only if they are listed in our delivery coverage area shall

be calculated by courier service provider.

• Charges shall also be determined on basis of size, area, weight, nature etc

• Customers shall be informed of delivery timing 24 -48 hours before.

• Customers shall be able to keep track of their orders through courier service as

well as website.

Feedback\Help line: There shall be a proper feedback system through e-mail as well as

phone number.

GADGETS MART- BUSINESS PLAN

Page 7

MARKETING PLAN

Target Market:

Target market is identified as below;

§ Geographical categorization: Pakistani residents, who sought for technology

products, students, professions, business persons, self doers, etc

§ Class based categorization: Upper and upper middle class.

§ Internet users, small business users, home application users etc

Market Growth Potential:

Growth potential of business target market is great, as the trend of using technological

products is increasing and people are trying to improve their life standard. More over as

the electronic media is growing, awareness about gadgets and their usage is also bound

to increase which will ultimately result target market growth.

Pricing Strategy:

GADGET MART shall design its pricing model according to following elements:

• Cost of goods

• Initial mark-up

• Promotional strategy Expenses

• Competitor price

• Retail strategy

Since GRACE MART is new in business, and though it don’t has any local competition

but still faces competition from online gadgets store over the internet, so it will try to

keep its costs as low in as possible at initial phases. GADGETS MART ll be using mix of

following pricing approaches..

Penetration Pricing: To penetrate in market and to create loyal customers.

Cost Plus Pricing: Cost plus 10-15%, as per other elements mentioned above.

Bundle Pricing\Special offers: Special pricing for bundle purchases.

GADGETS MART- BUSINESS PLAN

Page 8

Promotion Strategy:

Promotion strategy is one of most key elements to success of any modern day business

and this element become even more important in case of online business. The basic aim

of promotion strategy in case of online store should be to

• Get traffic to the website

• Convert traffic into paying customer

Our website will use following of promotion techniques to get more and more paying

visitors to our website

Online Banners Advertisements (Pay per Click): Our online store shall select some

websites that have good Pakistani traffic on them, and where traffic is closer to our

target market. We shall try to select Pakistan based websites and blogs as advertising on

them is much more cheaper as compared to international level websites. Store shall take

services of graphics designer to create different size advertisement banners for store in

animated and still formats and advertise them for specific durations on those sites.

Moreover in case of good opportunity Website link exchange with complementary sites

technique can also be used.

Offline advertising: GADGETS MART shall also use offline promotion means like press

media advertisements and posters in particular offline events to bring customers to its

website. Technology and other English magazines covering such topics could be a good

choice to give offline ads.

Article marketing: Article Marketing is a new trend and becoming very common for

many of online stores. GADGETS MART also plan to use this techniques by using

relevant Pakistani based blogs to write an article or two about the GADGETS MART and

its specialities.

Social media (Facebook Fan page): Store page shall be maintained at facebook.

Special offers and Products shall be displayed there and updates shall also be posted to

get customers from most famous social website of today.

GADGETS MART- BUSINESS PLAN

Page 9

FINANCIAL PLAN

GADGETS MART shall need an initial investment of around 0.5 million rupees. It shall

need 4 months to come into operating stage and shall take around 8-10 months to

generate sufficient revenue for further sustainable business running.

Here is summary of financial plan of GADGETS MART:

Initial Investment requirement: 0.5 Million Rupees

Total investment: 0.8 Million Rupees

Details will be following:

Location of Office

Furniture & equipment

Technical machinery, computers printers etc

High speed DSL connection

Personnel Hiring

Software Purchasing

Legal requirements expenses

Consultancy expenses

Promotion expenses

Testing expenses

Bank and Merchant account

Cash in hand and bank for urgent expenses

Initial inventory expenses etc

GADGETS MART aim to reach revenue generation stage within 8-12 months of starting

of operations of business.

GADGETS MART- BUSINESS PLAN

Page 10

WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Website Development roadmap:

• Choose domain name for your online store (www.gadgetmart.pk)

• Register that domain name

• Choose a web hosting provider (www.bluehost.com)

• Hire a web development team and other personnel

• Buy shopping cart software

• Install the shopping cart software on your website

• set up the shipping options in your online store's control panel

• Sign up with a payment processing company supported by your online store's

software

• set up the payment options in your online store's control panel

• Select and apply a design to your store

• Configure the store with your settings, logo, and address

• Add a Terms and Conditions page or modify an existing page

• Order and install an SSL certificate to secure checkout and registration

• Place a test order online using a real credit card to see if checkout works and if

the funds show up in your account

Important Website Components:

• Company logo on each page

• About us page

• Feedback page

• Privacy policy

• Shipment policy

• Payment methods

• Terms & conditions

• Facebook joining link

• etc

GADGETS MART- BUSINESS PLAN

Page 11

Web design features:

1) Visually Appealing: GADGETS MART website will be visually appealing and have a

balance between, content, colour & graphics. This well organized, visually appealing

presentation will send a positive message about our product & it could mean the

difference between a sale and a non-sale.

2) Useful & effective Information about product: GADGETS MART shall facilitate

customers by providing information, reviews, about products, as well as close images

and videos. This will make purchase decision easier for the customers.

3) Easy to Find Products and search options according to category, price, type etc

4) Easy to use Navigation system where customers has idea that at which place he is and

he can move to any place on website easily from any page.

5) Review and comments system for each product

6) Links to relevant or complementary products on every product page

7) Special offers, hot list etc displayed through attractive styles and animations

8) Achievement, Awards, Certificates mentioned at right or left hand side