Internet Marketing

Sportify:

? Sportify will be a shopping bot service for its consumers to visit in order to compare prices of a variety of sporting goods among many competitors

? Sportify will specialize only in sporting goods and create links between its customers and majority online sporting good retailers out in the market.

? Since not a lot of shopping bots for sporting goods are out in the market are shopping bot is a niche bot aiming at sports fans that are looking to buy sporting goods.

Internet Business Service:

§ There is really no tangible product that Sportify will offer rather we will offer our customers with the service of finding them the sporting equipment, wear or accessory they are looking for and link them to the website offering the cheapest price.

§ Not all customers look for a low price so our shopping bot will help our consumers find the right product for the price they are looking to pay.

§ Our job is to basically act as middlemen between the consumer and retailer.

§ It will help our consumer compare prices for a variety of sporting products amongst many sellers in the market.

§ We are focusing at making the whole process of online product and price selection easier for our customer.

How will this generate profits?

§ Our basic source of revenue is generating traffic, the more traffic we generate the higher our profits will be.

§ Sportify will generate income through a Variable pricing strategy opposed to a Flat pricing strategy.

§ Initially there will be no listing fee

§ Our variable pricing strategy includes Pay Per Click (PPC); under this strategy the sellers will pay us on the basis of number of visitors they get or the amount of sales they make through the paid link. Our fee will be 10 cents per click and may change in the future depending on the sales we make.

§ Charging a listing fee for companies who want to advertise on our website will be another source of revenue. For instance banner advertising and affiliate program for companies who link to our service line of sporting goods.

§ Shopping bots follow a transparent pricing strategy where both buyers and sellers are able to view competitor pricing and choose a product based on that.

FACTORS:

SWOT ANALYSIS

INTERNAL

FACTORS STRENGTHS:

§ Being a shopping bot gives us the strength of least set up cost. We are not required to hold any inventory saving us the cost of setting up a warehouse.

§ No shipping saves us further costs and management issues on logistics and supply chain management as we are only taking our consumers to right web page based on their search.

§ Low overhead costs and management issues would help our business concentrate on key issues such as CRM, pricing and consumer trust.

§ Since it is a small business and a limited number of employees there will be minimum conflicts and thus ease of functioning.

WEAKNESS:

§ Lack of capital to purchase software and hire Webmaster due to a small size business.

§ Initially there will be a lack of suppliers, as we have no experience or connections in the sporting good business.

§ Even though the web is a big marketplace ability to spread knowledge of the company will be an obstacle.

§ Small margins of creativeness as we would be hosting our website on someone else's domain. We will be restricted by their rules and regulations.

§ Not having a Webmaster and enough capital will constrict our growth and restrict us from generating enough traffic.

EXTERNAL

FACTORS OPPORTUNITIES:

§ Since there are not a lot of shopping bots for sporting goods, this gives us ability to expose a market for sporting goods and offer lower prices than retailers

§ The web offers us a large target market to aim for. It is a never-ending market of sports enthusiasts around the world.

§ Changing season of sports and growing popularity of fantasy sports will potentially help our business grow.

§ Once the word is out we have the ability to generate heavy traffic, ultimately higher sales. THREATS:

§ Existing trusted brand names that dominate market and already have a steady customer base.

§ Existence of thousands of other shopping bots that the customers already visit and prefer.

§ Threat from new entrants in the market due to the growing online business of shopping bots.

§ Not getting enough suppliers to give our consumers more variety and lower prices.

§ Gaining consumer trust, as the online consumers trust the websites they regularly use and are skeptical to use something new in the market.

Internet Business Models:

§ There are four levels of commitment to E-business namely Pure Play, Enterprise, Business Process and Activity.

§ Each of these categories have a specific business type

§ Pure Play:

• It stands for purely a click (online) enterprise selling goods and services only online.

• This idea is opposed to our current basic model of a shopping bot as we are not selling any goods or services rather just linking people to where they are sold.

• But this could be considered in the future, once we have a stable and trusted base of both dealers and customers. We could tie up with them and maintain inventory of some highly demanded sporting goods.

• This will help us establish a pure play website that we could link to our bot too.

§ Enterprise Includes:

A. Direct Selling:

• This includes brick and click, which means an online presence and also a physical store.

• This could be a possible model but not anytime in the first five to eight years of launch. If our bot is successful and registers enough profits we will plan of coming up with a physical store locally to sell sporting goods.

B. Content Sponsorship:

• Firms drawing a lot of traffic sell advertising on the website.

• The advertiser sponsors the part or all of the website.

• Content sponsorship is a possible model to our current model of a shopping bot as we can advertise companies or products that we don't sell but relate to our current product categories.

• For example we can sponsor content from companies that sell commercial gym equipment or maybe gym's that are looking to give out membership deals. Also companies selling fishing, skateboarding equipment etc.

C. Portal:

• It represents point of entry in to the internet, example yahoo.com

• We won't be using this model at all as we are not a portal site like yahoo or Google rather a shopping bot that is helping consumers look for sporting goods for reasonable prices.

D. Online Auction:

• Online auction does not fall in place with our model of a shopping bot as we are a comparison website for sporting goods and not a place where consumers can bid prices to buy products.

E. Online Broker:

• An online broker is a web site, which does not represent either buyer or seller.

• In relation to this is a Manufacturers agent, which represents only seller.

• Both these models wont be adopted as a part of our business plan as we are a comparison website that will help consumers pick the right merchant in terms of price, quality and customer service.

F. Virtual Mall:

• We wont be offering a virtual mall like experience as consumers are primarily entering our website to be linked to another website where their search is found.

• But we will offer them the option of virtual or graphical experience of using our website.

G. Shopping agents (Shopping Bots):

• This is the primary and the basic concept of our business model.

• These are bots that search the World Wide Web to rank websites based