Topic
E-Commerce Website Strategy for Online Selling
Instructions
You have just been appointed as an e-commerce consultant for a large retailer of academic books to help them start selling their books (hard copies and ebooks) to consumers online all over the world.
Your task is to develop an e-commerce strategy for this company to help them start selling online. They have a budget of approximately £85,000 for the new e-commerce website. They are expecting to grow the website quickly to sell thousands of books per month.
The Managing Director needs your help in understanding which direction the company should take its e-commerce website.
Your strategy must provide, in business report format:
1. A critical evaluation and recommendation of the most appropriate hosting (e.g. cloud hosting platforms or internal servers), e-commerce platform (e.g. CMS tools) and overall eCommerce system.
2. An overview of the key website functionality required and how it will enhance customer experience and lead to conversions.
3. A critical assessment of the payment and shipping options for the academic book retailer.
4. A high-level plan that outlines costs, resources and timings of your strategy activities, and other key aspects of the implementation.
You may wish to critically evaluate and recommend other e-commerce factors that aren’t listed above but were discussed in the module.
Your strategy must highlight why you have made particular suggestions and what the benefits are to the company.
You are encouraged to highlight any potential risks or limitations of your recommendations that derive from your assumptions about the company.
Make as many assumptions about the company as you like to build a full picture of its activities. Remember to state clearly what your assumptions are.
References from both academic and commercial sources should be included.
Answer preview
E-commerce Website Planning
For a successful development and implementation of an e-commerce strategy, the several elements should be taken into account, including website design, features and functionalities. An ideal website for a large retailer should provide users with ease-of-use, effective navigation, consistency and high standards of providing customers with value and satisfaction (Chang, 2014). A good design is critical to providing customers with ease of shopping and satisfaction.
Website Design
The website for the online retail business should start with an attractive landing page which is not only easy to understand, but also provide ease of navigation. In the design of the website for this scenario, there are some principles to follow (Demangeot & Broderick, 2016).
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