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On the other hand, online platform provides real time data and analytics about products
and customers. “Products ratings” allows to see how people interact with the site, what
products interest them, what they left in their cart and how much the average purchase
was. This valuable metrics allow seller to make adjustments to meet customer’s needs.
By having the products listed online, the platform improves the chances of appearing in
search engine results pages and draw local buyers attention. And best of all, the website is
always selling, which is open 24/7/365 with virtually none of the overhead of a brick-
and-mortar location.
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Strengths (S) and Weaknesses (W) followed by the identification of the Opportunities (O)
and Threats (T) it faces in its extensive business environment.
1.2.1 Strengths
Children's toys and games constantly evolve. Intertwined with technology, most toys are
more advanced than computers were two decades ago. Video games are also being used
by younger children.
1.2.2 Weaknesses
i)Competitors can offer similar products quickly
Due to the competitive business environment, competitors could offer similar products in
order to capture the market needs. Due to their stronger financial position and capital,
most of the toys manufacturers can manufacture their products through advance office
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1.2.3 Opportunities
i)Continue expansion for online sales
Aside from setting up the online sales at Shopee, there are few e-commerce platforms for
us to expand the business and consumers could easily approach to our products, for
instances, 11th street, Lazada, and etc.. By utilizing the online platform, consumers getting
known to our products easily and indirectly it save certain of overhead expenses.
1.2.4 Threats
i)Entering an overly saturated market
It’s a crowded marketplace out there and full of businesses vying for the attention of the
same consumers. We understand the necessary to distinguish our knitted toys from the
competitors, and this is essential for getting heard over all the other noise being made.
This is no easy feat, but factors such as developing a strong Unique Selling Point (USP)
or building an effective marketing strategy will have a real advantage over our
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competitors. Prior to online platform, we do have strong customer base and personalized
or customization of products and services to the customers.
When selecting a suitable B2C e-commerce platform, there are three (3) general
considerations that our group take into account:
a) Make sure the platform contains the core set of features that drive a customer's online
experience, including search, personalization and promotions, and the analytics to tie
those three elements together. The ability to target content and products with consumer
incentives across the consumer's shopping journey is essential to giving the consumer a
differentiated shopping experience.
b) Make sure the platform is agile enough to give business users the tools they need to
rapidly change content. Business users need a 360-degree view of their customers, along
with a promotions and campaign engine they can control, so they can attract customers
and induce them to make purchases.
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c) Make sure the platform incorporates operational efficiencies that reduce costs and
provide an upgrade process that requires little regression testing and no recoding. As our
group is selling only one or two types of products, it is critical that the B2C platform
chosen imposes minimal operating costs for the seller.
The main attraction of Shopee Malaysia for new sellers like our group is that it is
commission free, unlike Lazada, where you pay a percentage for every sale. Apart from
that, it also provides free shipping for the first 5kg (“Compare eCommerce Marketplaces
- 11Street, Lazada, Lelong, Logon, Shoppu, Shopee, eBay - Malaysia Shopping Cart
& E-Commerce Solution,” n.d.). A big sigh of relief for us as new sellers. Also,
you might not get the exposure Lazada gives, but still it is a good platform to
showcase your products to the maximum customers as it offers uploading your
products with the help of a mobile app.
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Signing up is quick and easy! We registered using a team member’s hand phone number.
We then verified the phone number before choosing a username and password.
We can then access our Shopee account using Shopee username and password. The
evidence of our registration is depicted in Figure 1 above.
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When running an ecommerce website, our primary goal is to make more sales and this
is different from the goal we have on a ‘normal’ website, which is to get more traffic.
To make more sales, we need targeted traffic and above all, traffic that converts.
While there many ways to increase our website’s traffic and many reasons why this
is not happening yet, it all starts with good keyword research.
Keyword research is important because knowing what people are looking for can help
us provide the search engines with the right content and also give our customers
content using terms (terminology and context) they can understand.
These are the steps that our team has taken to select keywords:
Step 1: Amazon
Amazon is the biggest ecommerce store online and many studies have shown that
people looking to buy something, start their search with Amazon (and not Google or
any other search engine or platform). So, if this is what people are doing, we should
follow their path and start our keyword research with Amazon.
We visited Amazon website and start typing a keyword that describes our product.
Amazon suggest immediately provided us an overview of what people are searching
related to our keyword. Refer to Figure 2 below. At a glance, we can see the most
popular categories (miffy toys, miffy stuffed animals, miffy books and etc.).
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We took it a step further and selected a category to view the results and look into the
left sidebar. We opened the product page and took a closer look at the product title
and description. We also took note of the keywords used in the title and description
i.e. Miffy, handmade, Amigurumi stuffed toy because these can be used later to find
long tail keywords related to the product.
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We found that the term “Amigurumi” is a term related to “stuffed toy using Japanese
art of knitting or crocheting small, stuffed yarn miffy”. Thus, our group decided this
is a great keyword to describe our product.
Upon checking with “Google Keyword Planner”, we found out that competition is
“low” for keyword “amigurumi miffy”. “Low completion keywords” are those
keywords that have a good monthly search volume but relatively low competition. This is
great news for our group because our primary goal is to find and optimize our e-
commerce platform for ‘Low competition keywords’.
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There are four (4) colour options available for the handknit miffy i.e. blue, orange,
yellow and green.
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Additionally, our e-commerce website has a live chat feature so that online buyers are
able to get in touch or interact with us. By ensuring that online buyers are able to get in
touch, it will help to increase conversion rates and decrease abandon rates of buyers.
According to Kotler and Armstrong (2012), in the literature on pricing, there are three
fundamental strategies one can use in the process of deciding the price. The origin of
their model on pricing strategies can be traced back to the first book published by Kotler
in 1967: ”Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, and Control”. However, Cost-
based Pricing is from the corporation’s perspective and Customer Value-based and
Competition-based are from the customer’s and competition’s perspectives, respectively.
We have illustrated the difference in the processes of the three pricing strategies in
Figure 6.
1.Customer Value-based pricing - relies on the fact that, in the end, it is the customer who
chooses whether or not the price is right, not the business, and the price should reflect the
customers’ perceived value of the product or service
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3.Cost-based pricing - relies on the fact that the business’s total costs, which include, but
are not limited to, costs for producing, distributing and selling, need to be covered and on
the business’s desired profit margin on top of those costs.
Since the raw material is quiet cheap and the product itself is a handmade that require lots
of labor cost. We then decided to sell our product, Adorable Handknit Amigurumi Miffy
at RM10 per unit. We choose the sell it online via shopee, the most reliable online
shopping in Souteast Asia and Taiwan.
a. Market-Oriented Pricing
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Pros: This strategy can be effective if you can negotiate with your suppliers to obtain
a lower cost per unit while cutting costs and actively promoting your special pricing.
Cons: This can be difficult to sustain when you’re a smaller retailer. Lower prices
mean lower profit margins, and so you’ll have to sell higher volume than
competitors. And, depending on the products you’re selling, customers may not
always reach for the lowest-priced item on a shelf.
Based on our survey, most of the Miffy are made by factory which sell in a bulk and
cheapest price. For the handmade toys, the product is selling around RM15 – RM30
per item.
We sell our product below the competitor, to lure customers into our Shoppee page
over theirs.
b. Our Cost-Plus Pricing is as follows:
As we are new in the industry, we not markup the price and use our total cost as a selling
price. Since the item is a handmade, we take labor cost as our profit when we sell this our
product.
We also getting another profit from the shipping. As the net cost for shipping is only
RM6.90, we charge our customer for RM10. Where we will gain another RM3.10 profit.
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As to date, we manage to sell 3 Adorable Handknit Amigurumi Miffy. Our profit and loss
statement is as follows:
Expenses
Material Cost (5*3) 15
Labor Cost (5*3) -
Shipping cost (6.9*3) 20.70 35.70
Total Expenses
Profit 3.60
The total profit we made for selling the product is RM3.60. We not include the labor cost
since there is no actual cost incurred.
Pos Malaysia has the widest reach in Malaysia, thanks to its status as the sole postal
service provider in Malaysia, an analyst points out. It also commands about 40% of the
courier market of about 30 competitors. It also has a strong brand name and possess 38%
market share as the leading domestic courier company in Malaysia.
Pos Laju a subsidiary of Pos Malaysia is the leading courier company in Malaysia,
connecting over 80% of populated areas across the country with its Next Day Delivery
and other services. Pos Laju has the widest network coverage and the largest courier fleet
in Malaysia. Pos Laju’s suite of products and services are available at more than 1,000
outlets comprising of 704 Pos Malaysia outlets, 264 Pos Mini outlets, 68 Pos Laju
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branches, 151 authorised agents, 24 Pos-On-Wheels, 6 Pos Laju kiosks, 13 Pos Laju
service centres and 4 Pos Laju Go2U mobile units.
With the widest delivery network coverage that reaches practically every geographic area
in Malaysia, as well as its presence in over 1,000 strategic locations across the country,
Pos Laju provides better convenience and accessibility to connect all of Malaysia and
beyond.
Pos Laju has also appointed over 100 authorised agents which enables customers to get
access to Pos Laju’s services at IKOBANA (44 outlets), Mail Boxes Etc. (MBE) (50
outlets), MPH Bookstore (15 outlets), PROTON Edar branches and dealers (21 outlets)
and individual agents (66 outlets). This not only extends the coverage of courier service
to areas where Pos Laju outlets are inaccessible, but also enables customers to reach these
services beyond normal working hours and during weekends.
For our product, we choose Pos Laju as our logistics to deliver the product to customers.
It is reliable and convenient and easy to track the packaging.
Shopee is the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan that provides
customers with an easy, secure and fast online shopping experiences through strong
payment and logistical support.
Back then, Shopee started to attack the market aggressively without charging the sellers
any commission fees (a percentage upon the sale of products). The commission fee is still
ZERO at the moment, except for Shopee Mall Seller as Shopee will start charging 3% to
5% (depending on the product category) starting from 1 May 2019 onwards.
Shopee is running the "Free 5kg Shipping Program" which offers advantages to both the
sellers and buyers. With this program, Shopee will subsidize up to 5kg for deliveries
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within West Malaysia and 1kg to East Malaysia per order via Pos Laju.
Shopee provide the real live chat with the potential customers to ask on the product. With
Shopee live chat, sellers can assist potential buyers in real time. Besides providing a good
shopping experience for Shopee customers, this also helps the sellers to increase the
conversion rate.
By providing good product quality and excellent customer service, this will encourage
buyers to leave a good rating and review at our online store. With higher shop's
reputation, we will gain higher trust from our potential new customers. When the store
and products are likely to rank higher it will gain more exposure and sales opportunities.
Strategies
In a world where word-of-mouth marketing continues to be the best way to earn the trust
of your target audience, Referral Marketing strategies are becoming increasingly popular.
After all, 92% of people say they’re more likely to trust recommendations coming from
people they know.
Modern customers have a louder voice than they had only a few decades ago. Once, if
your customers decided to share their thoughts about your brand with their friends and
family, those comments would only stay within that very tight circle of people. Now,
everything your clients say about you is available for the whole world to see.
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Our marketing strategy is start with selling in the Shopee and influence our family and
friend to buy the products. When the satisfied with the product the referral marketing will
begin where they also will promote the product to their other friend.
The second stage is to ensure our customer service is good and we can keep out loyal
customer together to add the new potential customers. The last stage, is to be competitive
in the market where we need to enhance our product and follow market demand.
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a) Decision regarding the product to be sold: For this, all the group members
came up with different choices such as coffee, organic products etc. but as the
time period during which the product had to be obtained and sold was just around
2 months, we decided to go for something that was readymade, readily available
and easier to handle for the purpose of logistics. After some research &
deliberations, we decided to go ahead with Handknit Amigurumi Miffy. We did a
SWOT analysis for the same & compared it with other products.
b) Obtaining the raw material or the product that had to be sold: The product is
handknit and is made of yarn which is 80% cotton and 20% milk fibre. The
product was prepared by an acquaintance who had tried to sell the product earlier
on Etsy at a higher price range.
c) Deciding the online shopping or ecommerce website that “provides the best
advantage”: Ho and Wu (1999) discovered that there are positive relationships
between online shopping behavior and five categories of factors, which include e-
stores’ logistical support, product characteristics, websites’ technological
characteristics, information characteristics, and homepage presentation.
The reason for using Shopee as a preferred platform, have already been mentioned
in detail in earlier parts of assignment. Additionally, Shopee provides a layer of
protection to buyers by holding their money and only releasing it to the seller
once a product has been received, thus providing an extra trust element to both
sellers and buyers.
d) Deciding the price for the object: It is a well-known fact, that customers make
the decision of buying from either place based on factors like who is offering the
best value for the product (Keeney 1999). The price was discussed and decided
after researching for similar products across different websites, social media sites
and even the physical shops. During the process, we kept our supplier in loop for
her input regarding the costs that were incurred while making the Miffy & the
returns, she expects after selling those.
e) Setting up sellers account on Shopee and putting up the product for sale with all
the details and unique keywords. The photographs were clicked in HD and put up
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in the way where they appear attractive and personal. The relationship between
product quality and customer trust and purchase intention is positively correlated.
The more complete the attributes of product quality are described by seller and
more useful information is included, the greater the consumer's trust in goods is
and the stronger is their willingness to purchase. Xiu-ping, L., & Wan-teng, Z.
(2018, December) Also, the sellers account was set up and linked to a group
member’s bank account so as to make the transaction smoother and faster. Safe
and convenient payment methods are an important guarantee for online
consumers purchase.
g) Working on the market strategies for the product: For this we mostly relied on
“Word of the mouth” strategy as well as putting the links of product on social
media platforms. The unprecedented growth in the number of online business
players has called for adoption of new marketing strategies, new media and out of
box thinking to influence the customer to visit the site and make purchases. Kaur,
H., & Kochar, R. (2018).
For this assignment, we managed to sell the 3 pieces of the Miffy and got 2
customers. Both orders were made almost after 10 days of putting up the object
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on sale and were placed almost 10 days apart. To give the best possible experience
of buying to these customers, we tried to process the transaction as quickly as
possible. Also, we updated the customers regarding their expected delivery times
so as to make it convenient for them to collect the delivery. We also encouraged
customers to ask or chat about any possible queries they might have, regarding the
product even after the sales and leave a feedback with pictures after they receive
the product which may help other customers to make a decision.
Satisfaction is generally believed to exert a dominant influence on key post-
purchase consumer attitudes and activities, such as complaints, word of mouth,
and repurchase behavior (Bettman, 1979). Keaveney and Parthasarathy (2001)
also recommend that managers target customer retention strategies at both pre-
and post-purchase stages of the consumer's decision process.
There were few technical issues that we faced regarding the Shopee website mainly with
updating the consignment numbers and thus there was a delay in Shopee releasing the
payment. Regarding this, our groupmate complained to Shopee and got it resolved. But
the same issue happened for the other orders as well which again, required intervention.
For any new seller, there are technical difficulties which need patient handling and proper
management.
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Also, we realized that instead of depending on one product for sales on Shopee, we
should have tried to procure more products and add to the variety instead of the quantity
of the same object. According to Haubl and Trifts (2000), potential consumers typically
screen a large set of products in order to identify a subset of promising alternatives that
appears to meet their needs. They then evaluate the subset in greater depth, performing
relative comparisons across products based on some desirable attributes and make a
purchase decision.
Apart from being consumers for online shopping sites, none of our group members had
any experience in marketing or online selling. So, doing this assignment also gave us an
insight into the world of sellers and the difficulties and challenges faced by them. The
free shipping promo by Shopee upto 5 kgs of the product is highly advertised but the
conditions to avail those are not very clear, due to which we had to ask our customers to
pay for delivery charges that accounted for almost half the cost of the product.
In summary, we find that we do need more sales and more customer feedbacks in order to
increase customer trusts and improve on our products. The top 5 important matters to
customers comprise of value for money, product price, product cost. Secondly, it comes
to the customer service and sees if we could provide satisfactory service to them. For eg.
Every customer does expect the seller could provide necessary information and instant
response to them while they are having queries or require for more clarification. Thirdly,
as a product seller, customers are expecting us to be reliable and keeping our promises to
deliver goods in timely manner. Fourthly, every customer is expecting the product quality
is within or above the market standard and it makes them feel good value for the money.
Last but not least, ease of doing business also the concern of customers. As mentioned
earlier, going for online shopping can save time for the consumers and seller, reducing
phone calls about availability, specifications, hours of operation and other information
could easily obtains from the product pages.
As time goes by, there is always a room to be a better business or a better entrepreneur,
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and there will always be new skills and abilities to acquire. Maintaining a course of
constant improvement will keep the business as long as possible. Also, as an
entrepreneur, we need to stay updated with the developments in e-commerce and keep up
with the business strategies in order to best determine the future direction of the business,
SWOT analysis helps to understand the position in the market. The analyses are the main
causes and are the key learning of all businesses can use to evolve. A critical assessment
of the current and historical performance of business and factors impacting it may assist
with gaining a better understanding and help shape direction and stay competitive and
gained competitive advantages in the market.
Appendix A
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Appendix B
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REFERENCE
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eBay - Malaysia Shopping Cart & E-Commerce Solution. (n.d.). Retrieved June 16,
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Falk, Louis K.; Sockel, Hy; Chen, Kuanchin. (2005) "E-Commerce and Consumer's
Expectations: What Makes a Website Work." Journal of Website Promotion, (65–75)
Haubl, G., and Trifts, V. ìConsumer decision making in online shopping environments:
the effects of interactive decision aids,î Marketing Science (19:1), 2000, pp. 4-21
Ho, C. F., & Wu, W. H. (1999, January). Antecedents of customer satisfaction on the
Internet: an empirical study of online shopping. In Proceedings of the 32nd Annual
Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences. 1999. HICSS-32. Abstracts and
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Kaur, H., & Kochar, R. (2018). A review of factors affecting consumer behavior towards
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Kesh, S., Ramanujan, S. and Nerur, S. 2002. Customer Acceptance of Online Banking in
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Kotler, P., Armstrong, G. (2012). Principles of Marketing. 14th edition. Harlow: Pearson
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Li, N., & Zhang, P. (2002). Consumer online shopping attitudes and behavior: An
assessment of research. AMCIS 2002 Proceedings, 74.
Pan, Y. and Zinkhan, G. M., (2006), Exploring the impact of online privacy disclosures
on consumer trust, Journal of Retailing, 82 (4),331–338.
Top 10 e-commerce sites in Malaysia 2019 - ASEAN UP. (n.d.). Retrieved June 16, 2019,
from https://aseanup.com/top-e-commerce-sites-malaysia/
Xiu-ping, L., & Wan-teng, Z. (2018, December). Analysis of the Impact of Customer
Trust on Consumers' Purchase Behavior Based on Online Shopping Platform: Taking
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