Online Retailer of Company that Deals with Marketing of Books, CDs and DVDs - Case Study Example

Heading:  Web-Site Success Factors Your name: Course name: Professors’ name: Date Executive Summary This analysis details fundamental findings of diverse literature on how to improve online sales through creation of traffic, customer loyalty, frequency of visit and length of stay which then translates to increased sales. In order to create increased traffic, the website should be designed with consideration of content and space utilization. The ranking of the page should also be high on popular search engines. The frequency of visits ought to be encouraged by use of quality products, easy loading in all browsers and frequent update. Loading time, precise information that is well presented, reminder list and increased promotion will ensure that the visitors stay longer in the page. Statistically presentation itself and loading time is usually adequate to attract traffic. The patients of a visitor should not be jeopardized by increased time of loading. Purchasing can be increased by encouraging competitive pricing through a well focused and easy to use ordering and shipping platform. The quality and variety of products such as the CDs, DVDs and books will also determine the rate of purchases. These are the main consideration presented insightfully in this analysis. Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 Introduction 3 Review and Analysis 3 Improving traffic and convergence rate 4 Improving loyalty 4 Improving frequency of visits 5 Increasing length of stay 6 Recommendations 8 Conclusion 9 Introduction For one to be successful in online retailing of products, there are fundamental requirements that must be met in order to improve sales of the products online. The creation of a website is not adequate as an aspect of attracting visitors to the website and thus increasing sales of the products. There are a number of strategies that must be implemented and aligned together in order to sufficiently meet the threshold of sales increase. This paper provides fundamental requirements of an online retailer of company that deals with marketing of books, CDs and DVDs of different varieties in Australian market. Several aspects like page presentation, attracting customer loyalty through quality services, increasing frequency of visits, length stay which translates to increased purchases are described effectively in this paper from a director’s point of view. Review and Analysis According to Botha (2008, p.285) online retailing requires that a number of factors be considered insightfully in order facilitate a successful online retailing of products. Some of the most fundamental requirements of a successful online marketing campaign that enhances customer loyalty and increase of traffic on the web page are presented based on a wide research of relevant quantitative and explorative materials. Improving traffic and convergence rate The design of the website is an essential aspect in increasing the traffic convergence in a website, it is required that the following factors be fulfilled. The design of the website should be done with minimal graphic usage, proper space utilization, precise and informative content provided in the website (Li 2002). Excessive graphic usage increases loading time of pages and hence discouraging visitors, space utilization is essential in the sense that excessive detailed content will discourage a visitor hence the need for precise and expressive description that is attractive. Links should also be created in order to link the visitor to more information about product which includes prices and shipping expenses. Amazon.com will be used as a benchmark in the development process since the site has exceptional simplicity but effective design. As advised by Botha (2008, p.285) it is necessary to display a variety of books and different versions of CDs and DVDs such as Imation and Sony among other in the webpage. Having different varieties of products that are of high quality and reasonable pricing will attract visitors to the webpage and hence increasing the daily traffic upon the launch of the website. Another essential aspect that is recommended is to register with popular search engines like Google. Com and also ensure the usage of keywords while searching for the product. Using several keywords and registering in popular search engines will ensure that the page is located more easily and hence increasing traffic in the website. Setting up a system that monitors traffic per day and a simple customer response system will also be important in future decision making that will ensure that the traffic of the Australian customer base is attracted. Improving loyalty After implementing strategies of attracting a large traffic to the company’s website, it is advisable to implement fundamental ways of enhancing customer’s loyalty. The availability of different varieties of books, CDs and DVDs will be the first step towards winning customer’s loyalty. These products should also be of high quality in order to give the customers a reason to buy from the website again. The second strategy will be the use of quality support of the customers with quick response to their inquiries. A simple online delivery service that is easy for the customer to use. This will greatly reduce inconvenience on the side of the customer and hence improving their loyalty (Haenlein 2004). As stated by Jensen-Lee (2002, pp.49) the use of compelling presentation of products through a professional exploitation of graphics to create aesthetic presentation of the three major products will be of essence these requirements must be met in order to foster the development of the website. Another essential aspect of increasing customer value that is also encouraged is the provision of a secure, reliable and efficient online transaction system that ensures the privacy to the clients (Lee 2005). Such a step will ensure sustainability of the website as a result of frequent visit from loyal customers. If the system is efficient and secure, no customer will be willing to gamble in another site given the unreliability of online transactions in the modern world. Improving frequency of visits The most foundational reason for improved customer visit is as a result of customer satisfaction. It is therefore the responsibility of the company to ensure that the products and the general services provided by the company meet and even exceed customer’s satisfaction level. It is therefore required that the services and products being marketed in the website are of high quality. If the products being promoted are of low quality then the market share will not last and be sustainable since once a customer realises that the products do not meet the expected or promoted quality, the will seek other alternatives and cease visiting the company’s website. The services such as online delivery and payments should also be of high quality, fast and reliable (Ellinger 2003). This will increase the number of visits by both loyal and new customers. According to Ines (2011, p.133) the other essential aspect that it is advisable is ensuring that the developing platform of the website is compatible with all common browsers such as Internet explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Flock among others. Since statistics reveals that the longer the time a page take to download the lower the chances of repeat visit. It is essential to ensure that there is no overuse of graphics that makes the page load slower and hence reducing customer’s patience. The web developers should ensure that the website is constantly updated in order to increase the number of visits to the page (Vara 2009, p. 3). Increasing length of stay As stated by Chaffey (2006, p) Statistics reveals that majority of the people hardly stay in a page for more than ten seconds if they don’t instantly get relevant information or products that they are looking for. With this consideration, it is appropriate to design a website that is easy to load in all browsers, ranked highly in many recognized search engines like Google.com and exalead.com (Chandra 2001). This initial phase determines the number of visits that the website will be having in its initial stage. The second strategy it to hold the visitors for a long time in the page, design issues such as aesthetic and space utilization in the website are key essentials here (Mahmood 2004). A webpage requires precise and informative description of products that are easy to comprehend and get all the relevant information instantly. Both e-marketing strategies should be combined with traditional marketing strategies in order to keep the customer longer in the website (Kovacs 2001). More so to improve the length of visitors stay; it is required to use precise and simple content in explaining the versions, varieties, prices and the shipping expenses of the products. Since customers will easily finish reading several varieties of products in the website, they will be tempted to link to more pages with information about other products in the page (Lee 2006). The links created in the home page should be simple to link and load a new page in order to encourage the visitor to spend more time in the website. It is also required that to be creative in designs by using attractive buttons to link pages as Amazon. Com uses. The other aspect that is required to create is the reminder list options where visitors can create a reminder list of items they first saw and were attracted to while visiting the website (Cook & Finlayson 2005). Such a step will create more patients and reason to stay longer when a customer visits the page again. Increasing purchases It is important for the company to ensure that it uses competitive pricing scheme, where the products like books, CDs and DVDs have reasonable pricing. Easy ordering and shipping procedure will also increase sales turnover. This is because the easier the transaction, the easier it is to make another. Some companies use excessive and restrictive purchasing order and hence discouraging the customer in the long run. The other aspects such as quality of the products and the presence of different varieties of products such as different versions and types of books, different versions of CDs and DVDs like Imation, Sony among other varieties will increase sales temptation and result in higher sales turnover (Walker 2002). As stated by Jiang (2010) the efficiency of the selling system and the response to customer inquiries and complains is also an important aspect for consideration. Customers have a higher tendency of repeat buying of service and products if they consider their initial service efficient. The last and most important aspect that should be considered is a thorough and constant marketing strategies which optimizes the both the traditional marketing strategies such as TV and e-marketing techniques like emails targeting Australian audience (Dabbagh 2002). Promotion is one aspect in marketing that cannot be overemphasised, even if a company has quality and innovative products, if they are not known by the potential buyers, no one will purchase them. Some of the most common online promotional strategies include emails and creating of fun or like pages in leading social networks such as twitter, and facebook. It is thus essential that the company advertises its products consistently and frequently in order to get attention of potential customers. This will ensure that the potential clients are aware of products and how they can purchase them. Creating links to other information databases or creating a blogging spot for products can provide both useful information about customer perception and thus provide better strategies on increasing sales. Recommendations Based on the above literature, as a marketing director of a company dealing with marketing of books, CDs and DVDs targeting Australian customer base, these findings will be useful. I will thus direct the management of the company to structure the website to meet the criteria explained below. I will advise the management to ensure that the website traffic is improved as a result of many visits due to proper use of graphics, space utilization, and proper content presentation (Bhatgnagar 2000). It will also be necessary for the management to ensure that the time of loading is reduced by careful use of graphics. The management should also ensure that the website is highly ranked on world known search engines such as Google.com and exclead.com (Geerts 2000). I will also direct the management to enhance customer loyalty through provision of variety of CDs, DVDs and books presented in a compelling way. Security of the online transaction which is fast and efficient will also help in enhancing customer loyalty. The management should make certain that number of visits is encouraged through the provisions of high quality products, less time of loading in all browsers and frequent update (Auger 2005). This will also help in increasing the visitors’ length of stay in the website. Other aspects that the management should guarantee in order to increase the length of stay includes the use of precise information, high promotion of high end products and keeping a reminder list that will encourage the visitor the stay longer in the page. The management ought to formulate strategies of increasing purchases through competitive pricing, easy ordering and shipping procedure and ensure that its variety of books, CDs and DVDs are of high quality (Haenlein 2004). Conclusion This paper has provided an analysis of how to improve the sales of online retail company marketing books, CDs and DVDs in Australian market. As a marketing director, I have directed my management to implement better ways of improving traffic. This is to be accomplished by working on better ways attracting traffic to the website, making them satisfied, motivating them and creating customer loyalty which will consequently make the purchase of the products increase. Other important aspect of creating loyalty which has been discussed in details in this paper includes quality and variety of products, fast and efficient online delivery system, compelling presentation of the products and competitive pricing. 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