Online Supply Chain Management Approach

Starting an Online
Enterprise

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................1
Three appropriate e-commerce websites................................................................................1
Advantages and Disadvantage of use of on-line retail ..........................................................2
Online supply chain management Approach and most suitable for retail website ................4
Design E-commerce website for business ............................................................................6
Analysis the website design ...................................................................................................6
Reflection on website ............................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
E-commerce is also called as internet commerce in which purchasing and selling of good
and services utilizing by internet. E-commerce utilise World Wide Web for one part of
transaction's life cycle. Also, it utilises other technologies such as E-mail (Abarbanel and
Rahman, 2015). It can also apply in some ways such as online shopping for retail sales direct to
user through websites and mobile app. This study is based on DASE. It is the retail firm who is
starting their online retailing business. Report will select three appropriate e-commerce
websites. It will identify and analysis advantages as well as disadvantage of utilisation of online
retail. Furthermore, assignment will analysis online supply chain management approaches and
examine the suitable for retail websites.
MAIN BODY
Three appropriate e-commerce websites
E-commerce websites or stores are doubtless the future of shopping. This increase in
online shopping sites in the cause that people are moving towards online shopping instead of
shops. E-commerce businesses can also apply the providing and participating in online
marketplace, business-to-business purchasing and selling, online financial exchange for currency
exchange or trading purposes etc (Daoud, Naqvi and Ahmad, 2014). There are some applications
relating to E-commerce such as online banking, electronic tickets, social networking, online
shopping etc. In this context, there are many e-commerce websites such as Amazon, Argos, Play
etc.
Amazon:
It is the biggest e-commerce marketplace and cloud computing platforms in the
worldwide. Amazon is the multinational technology firm which is focusing in e-commerce and
artificial intelligence. As per revenue, it is the biggest internet company in the world. There are
number of goods and services available in the Amazon.com such as Amazon Prime, Alexa,
Appstore, Amazon Drive, Fire tablets, Music, Digital Game Stores etc. Company attracts over
130 million consumers to per month by starting of 2016 (Fisher, Gallino and Li, 2017).
Amazon's presence as brick-and-mortar retailers. The acquisition was interpreted as direct effort
to challenge Walmart;s traditional retail stores. Company owns over 40 subsidiaries involving
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Zappos, Shopbop, Audible, Goodreads, Twitch etc. It is the most appropriate e-commerce
website which can used number of consumers for online shopping.
Advantage:
 There are 240 million consumer worldwide of company.
 Do not need consumer their own shop software.
Disadvantage:
 Many of providers of same goods that can outcome a prices conflicts.
 Potential chances to directly effect the display of good.
Play.com:
It was founded under the name Play247.com in 1998 but rebranded as Play.com in 2000.
This e-commerce website actually sold area 1 and 2 DVDs only but they have expanded its range
to involve CDs and video game and other electronic products. This website is replaced by
Rakuten.co.uk on March 2015 which operates as an online marketplace. This website does not
sell products directly rather than enable third party sellers to sell their goods. Play.com has
operated only as an online marketplace where third person retailer sell goods with their listing
hosted on the websites (Flanagin and et.al., 2014). All the retailer on the marketplace have ability
to build fully brand and tailored store front providing them control merchandised products.
Rakuten buying Play.com in 2011 and company shifted to their new marketplace format
following changes in law covering tax for firms operating and selling to customers on the UK
mainland.
Advantage:
 There is low financial and operational costs substantially.
 It gives quick delivery of goods with few efforts on part of the consumers.
Disadvantage:
 The starting costs of portal of e-commerce is the very high.
 The security areas is very concerned.
Shopify:
It is the recently by far the most essential E-commerce platforms in the UK. Due to part
of facts, it is the easiest to set-up and customize. There are big range of themes and apps which
refers to company make unique online stores with pretty much no coding knowledge. There are
many characteristics of Shopify such as limitless goods and services, full websites and blog
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utilising the domain name, integrated payment solution, discount codes, larger range of shipping
apps etc. There are many pros of this website which involves huge number of themes and apps,
integrated payments creates accepting credit cards easy (Ghandour, 2015).
Advantage:
 This e-commerce website has an improbably dedicated support team.
 It provides with marketing tools which will raise the SEO rankings sharing on social
media.
Disadvantage:
 If consumers are having technical issue, so that they can not always be able to acquire
direct aid from the generic assistance.
 Consumer can not utilise multiple discounts only one discount per order is addressable by
failure.
Dase :
It is website of clothing brand on which provide the apparels like western, tradition for
men and women in the UK. This can help to consumer in relation to buy the any types of dresses
by this website. Through email, they can give information about offers and discounts for
attracting the consumers.
Advantage:
 Easily to shop of clothing brand from this website.
 Consumer purchase cloths as per their requirements and needs.
Disadvantage:
 There are many problems occurs like shipping, delivery and so on.
 There is lack of personal touch with the consumers by this website.
Advantages and Disadvantage of use of on-line retail
Online retailing is also called as electronic retailing which refers to sell and purchase of
products and services through internet. Online retailing can involve business-to-business and
business-to-consumer sales of goods and services through subscription to website content or
advertising. All the advantages and disadvantages backed through good market research before
deciding on whether trade online. In this context, DASE needs to determine all pros and cons of
online retailing which impact on operational performance in both positive and negative manners.
Advantages of Online Retail:
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Possibility for faster growth: The online retailing is beneficial for faster growth of
business. Therefore, good digital marketing strategy and plan scale up order fulfilment systems
which can respond and advance growing sales. Increasing sales aid to create chances of faster
growth of business. Thus, DASE needs to identify all factors which involve in the online retail,
so that it help to chance potential faster growth in online marketplace (Huang, Chen and Pan,
2015).
Reducing overhead: The online retailing is beneficial for removing the requirement for
expensive retail premises and consumers facing staff which enable to invest in better marketing
and consumers experience on e-commerce site. Therefore, DASE requires following all
assumptions relating to the online business which help to increase sales and consumers
satisfaction towards products and services of company.
Easy access to market: Online retailing is good for easy to access market by companies.
There are many online marketplaces such as Amazon, Shopify etc. which enable to set up simple
online shop and sell goods within minutes (Popescu, 2015). This help to increase sales and
profits of business through entering into the online market easily and effectively. This help to
create brand image in front of consumers in the online marketplace.
Consumer Intelligence: Online retailing is the more beneficial for targeting new
consumer and gain insight into needs of consumers (Advantages and disadvantages of online
retailing, 2017). Many of people prefer online shopping which can help to increase the attraction
and awareness towards the more products and services.
Disadvantage of Online Retail:
Website Costs: With the online retailing, companies spend the money for planning,
designing, creating, securing and maintaining websites in professional manner. This happen
increase costs in the business. This factor consider in commercial limitation of online retailing.
Therefore, company needs to create and follow different ways for reducing the costs of planning
and designing the website.
Security and Fraud: The reputation of business can be damaged, while they do not
invest in the recent security system which help to protect their websites and transaction
procedures. Therefore, companies must have used the latest security system to protect their
website in terms of growth of online retailing (Zhu and et.al., 2014). This is also considered in
legal limitation of online retailing.
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Consumer Trust: It is difficult to establish trust within consumer towards brand
particularly without physical business with track records and face-to-face communication and
sales staff. Therefore, companies use online offering for setting up good consumers services
system and build their trust towards their company. This factor involving in commercial
limitation which impact on online retailing.
Advertising Costs: The online retailing is occurred costs for advertising of products and
services in the online marketplace. If the company spending limited costs on advertisement, so
that consumer do not recognize their products and services of firms. It can be very essential way
of getting right consumer to their goods and also it demands big budget.
Legal issues: It is necessary to get grips with e-commerce and their law which can be
challenges and need to aware by companies. In this context, businesses needs to consider all laws
relating to data privacy etc. within online retailing. Therefore, company need to follow all
legislation of e-commerce for running online retail business.
Online supply chain management Approach and most suitable for retail website
Supply chain management can be determined as the planning and administration of the
actions which are included in sourcing, procurement, conversion logistics management activities.
Nowadays, internet has revolutionized supply chain management. Online supply chain
management focuses on supply distribution, monitoring the goods and services, interactions with
suppliers within and out of the company (Verhoef, Kannan and Inman, 2015). It is the essential
characteristics which is the most look for in such will be they must be able to decrease operating,
logistic and distribution costs, improving consumer service levels, raise orders, sales and market
share. Supply chain is one the key field in E-commerce which is normally determines as multi-
system of operation, manufactures, distributors and consumers between which is flow of
products, information and finance. In this context, there are many approaches to online supply
chain management such as:
Procurement and supplier management:
The e-business paradigm has mad huge chance for organization to merge their purchasing
procedure which is also called e-procurement. This allow individual people to become aware of
all qualified suppliers and to complete procurement procedure speedy and easily (Zhu and et.al.,
2014). On other hand, supplier management is the formation of industry wide supply chain
consortia such as high tech, automobile. E-procurement system have developed that utilise
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auction to define that company wins procurement contract. In order to that, the major effects of
internet on supply chain practices which is in the field of procurement. Firm must have decided
that one supplier which can depend on repetition in purchase. The development of this approach
which considers possible discount that exclusive long terms suppliers. It can be able to offer
based on learning and compare to saving which can be generate by auction.
Pricing and Distribution:
E-commerce has started up completely new attribute to distribution channels in addition
to brick-and-mortar stores. It is the ability to share information across the supply chain to try to
coordinate the flow materials across multiple channels. In this context, many companies set up
their internet stores and make new businesses such as online grocery. Internet has given another
channel for distribution of goods (Verma, Sharma and Sheth, 2016). With the ratio of business-
to-consumer, business-to-business, e-commerce. Online Distribution channels is attracting
because it expects profits gains, reduce inventory, raise consumer services.
Decision Technology:
It is also approached online supply chain management in terms of development of
different types of decision technologies that can be utilised in planning and execution of supply
chain. With the help of it, companies are easily taken decision for distributing the product and
services to consumers. This approach help to take decisions relating to technology which is
utilised in the supply of products and services on the online.
In this context, procurement and suppliers management is the most suitable approach for
online retailing, because it helps to diversify the supply base and security risk as well as obtain
lower costs through sale. This approach also assists to extend supply chain and get involved in
long terms of collaborative planning and efforts in designing of products and services.
Procurement and supplier management approach aid to increase operational performance of
companies (Verhoef, Kannan and Inman, 2015). This give liquidity to inventory and capabilities
in the extended of supply chain of business. This approach help to manage supply chain and
increase sales of online retail business. The high sales help to raise market share and growth in
the retail online marketplace. In addition to that, DASE requires identifying under the conditions
is its beneficial to have long terms relationship, auction based, short terms relations and
combination of long, auction and short term relations.
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Design E-commerce website for business
DASE is the company who want to start their online business in which they sell clothings
for men and women, so that they are creating their company e-commerce website. For designing
e-commerce website, DASE make their own emails address and giving all informations relating
to feature product, consumer complaints, the feature of consumer feedback and order processing
and dispatch as well as other feature that they will involve in website.
Website of company: https://us.webnode.com/my-webnode-projects/
Email id: [e-mail]
Password: 123456
Company Brand: DASE is the e-commerce retail brand which is operated range of clothing
products for men and women such as T-shirt, Blazers, coats and so on.
Featured product: T-shirts, coats, jackets, shirts, Blazers and other products for both men and
women (van Loon and et.al., 2015).
Interactive feature- Affordable prices, quality products, easy steps for ordering, giving any kind
of feedback and easy to contact company.
Consumer Feedback: DASE make particular box where consumers can give the positive and
negative feedback for the company and their product or brand.
Online supply chain management: DASE select procurement and suppliers management
approach for e-commerce retail business.
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Reflection on website
From the above task, I have seen that e-commerce is very essential for new business
which help to increase sales and growth of it. I have learned that different way to create e-
commerce website by following the three steps such as select website name, select email address
and password. Therefore, I have created e-commerce websites according to steps. For designing
the website, there are one free websites where we can create own website. Before designing
websites, I have analysed the different e-commerce websites such as Amazon.com, Play.com,
Shopify for getting ides for creating the own website. I have analysed that online retailing is the
beneficial or not. After analysing, I have realized that online retailing is the best way of running
the new business and their growth and development in the online marketplace. With the help of
it, increase consumer attraction and interest towards company and their brand or product and
services.
In this context, I have learned that internet is the very essential to supply chain
management within the online retailing. In order to that, I have found that there are many
approaches for online supply chain management within the e-commerce business. I have learned
that procurement and supplier management is the most effective approach for reducing risk and
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increase security of data privacy of DASE and their brand. In addition to that, I have found that
company needs to improve their marketing strategies and consumers services by providing the
large number of products and services on their online business. Online retailing is the most
essential method for increase brand image, reputation, consumer demand, build relation with
them which help to growth, success and development of online marketplace.
In order to that, I have learned that selling of product and services in online websites that
improving the operational performance, consumer experience and their satisfaction towards the
products and services. Through internet, women are always preferred online shopping either
clothing or footwear. They want to high quality product at the affordable prices which help to
fulfilment of their needs and desires. I have found that DASE requires of selecting the other
marketing strategies for increasing the large of consumers towards products and services. In the
marketing strategies, I have realised that firm must have followed social media marketing as well
that can also help to increase consumers demand of their goods and services. With social media,
company easily promote their products in different platforms such as Facebook, Instagram etc.
This will also help to raise the consumer demand and their expectation about products and
services of DASE.
I have learned that, social media promoting and advertisement is the most important
strategies of marketing of goods and services. Therefore, I have realized that company needs to
promote their products and services on social media platforms. In the social media platforms,
they must have given all informations relating to, company, brand, prices, email address, contact
numbers, order processing, company websites and so on. Thus, consumers can easily visit their
website and placing the order of goods and services which they want. Therefore, e-commerce
and web designing both are essential acts for growth, development and success of new online
retailing business.
12 Months marketing plan
Month Activity
January Local marketing
February In store marketing
March News paper ads
April Public relation
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May Client event
June Conferences
July Content marketing
August Social media ads
September Online marketing
November Facebook ads
December Instagram ads
CONCLUSION
This report has summarised that DASE want to start their online business for increase
their presence in the online marketplace. It can be concluded that different e-commerce websites
such as Amazon, Play and Shopify. It can be discussed that advantages and disadvantage of
online retailing with legal and commercial limitations. Furthermore, study has completed that
different approaches such as procurement and supplier management, pricing and distribution
involving in online supply chain management. It can be concluded that company has designed
own website which involving featured products, prices, order and dispatch processing,
interactive feature of consumers services etc. for running the online business.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Abarbanel, B. and Rahman, A., 2015. eCommerce market convergence in action: Social casinos
and real money gambling. UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal. 19(1). p.4.
Daoud, M., Naqvi, S. K. and Ahmad, A., 2014. Opinion Observer: Recommendation System on
ECommerce Website. International Journal of Computer Applications. 105(14). pp.37-
42.
Fisher, M., Gallino, S. and Li, J., 2017. Competition-based dynamic pricing in online retailing: A
methodology validated with field experiments. Management Science. 64(6). pp.2496-
2514.
Flanagin, A. J. and et.al., 2014. Mitigating risk in ecommerce transactions: perceptions of
information credibility and the role of user-generated ratings in product quality and
purchase intention. Electronic Commerce Research. 14(1). pp.1-23.
Ghandour, A., 2015. Ecommerce website value model for SMEs. " International Journal of
Electronic Commerce Studies". 6(2). pp.203-222.
Huang, G. Q., Chen, M. Z. and Pan, J., 2015. Robotics in ecommerce logistics. HKIE
Transactions. 22(2). pp.68-77.
Popescu, G. H., 2015. The competitive nature and effectiveness of online
retailing. Psychosociological Issues in Human Resource Management, 3(1), pp.101-106.
van Loon, P. and et.al., 2015. A comparative analysis of carbon emissions from online retailing
of fast moving consumer goods. Journal of Cleaner Production. 106. pp.478-486.
Online
Advantages and disadvantages of online retailing. 2017. [ONLINE]. Available
through. :<https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/advantages-and-disadvantages-
online-retailing>.
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