Strategic Implications from Analysis of Carousell Case Study: Report

This report analyzes the business strategies of Carousell, a web-based marketplace for buying and selling new and secondhand goods. The analysis focuses on Carousell's differentiation strategies, including branding and promotion, and its focus on market opportunities within the e-commerce sector. The report examines Carousell's freemium pricing model and its revenue generation through premium features. Furthermore, it discusses the company's vertical integration strategy. The report also references the company's success in Singapore and its expansion plans, including targeting new markets and monetization strategies. The implications of the analysis highlight Carousell's approach to competition, market cycle, and its operational business models. The reference list provides academic support for the discussed business strategies.

Running head: IMPLICATIONS FROM ANALYSIS OF CASE STUDY OF CAROUSELL
Strategy Implications from Analysis of Case Study of Carousell
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1IMPLICATIONS FROM ANALYSIS OF CASE STUDY OF CAROUSELL
8. Implications of strategies as a result of analysis from Chapter 6 & 7
Carousell is basically a web-based marketplace that is customer to customer as well as business
to customer oriented usually deal with buying as well as selling of various new or secondhand
products and services. It has its main headquarter in Singapore and it has mobile application for
both Android as well as Apple devices.
In context of the theories associated with Carousell’s Case:
 Strategies towards differentiation
It is basically an approach undertaken by a business for developing an absolutely unique service
as well as products that will attract the customers towards it and they would find a way to
differentiate it from similar type of products that are available in the marketplace. In order to
adopt this strategy successfully a Company like Carousell needs to implement scientific edge
through cutting edges. They need to employ people who are skilled enough and have creative
ideas that would allow them to design the products that would easily capture attention of market
consisting of millions of consumers. Uniqueness in various products of Carousell usually comes
from branding as well as promotion and they always try to make standard products for their
targeted customers who belong to their family community (Zehir, Can and Karaboga, 2015).
They follow a unique style of approach to reach to the targeted audience and encourage them to
take an active part in buying products. They feature various renowned sellers as their success
stories in entrepreneurship programs through online social media to attract the customers
‘attention. They also take part in organizing various flea events and have designed their layout
out of red and white colors to increase the energy as well as demand of customers to buy their

2IMPLICATIONS FROM ANALYSIS OF CASE STUDY OF CAROUSELL
products. All these strategies have been adopted specially to be at par with the competition in the
existing market.
 Strategies towards Focusing on market opportunities
E-commerce can be referred as one of the simplest activities associated with buying as well as
selling of products in the marketplace over online sources such as social media platforms. Retail
companies like Carousell have developed themselves through spreading their activities in online
channels for sales and have also undergone leverages through online advertisement therefore
representing themselves in social media platforms. Some of the renowned e-commerce
transactions that Carousell usually follow are C2C transaction that mainly takes place among
customers as well as P2P transaction that usually involve electronic transfer of money from one
particular person to another via an application on P2P Android application (Sharma and Sharma,
2015). Approximate revenues earned from P2P e-commerce markets is $2.1 billion that has
given a growth rate 17.7 % annually. By the upcoming year 2020, the Company expects to
pursue a strategy named as “mobile first” that would help the e-commerce business laid by
Carousell in South-Asia expand its services in fields like travel, luxury items as well as delivery
of food products. Through rise of internet services at a fast rate, it has led to unprecedented
growth in terms of various new form of exchanges that take place among peer individuals who
play a leading role in operating in conjunction with each other apart from traditional channel of
sale of products or the value chain within marketplace.
 Models on business
Carousell usually follows a pricing strategy called Freemium through which it provides most of
its services at free of cost however it seeks for premium membership from a customer who wants

3IMPLICATIONS FROM ANALYSIS OF CASE STUDY OF CAROUSELL
to use additional features of Carousell mobile application. Most of these premium features
consist of exciting items that would easily attract a customer towards buying its premium
products like attractive pictures of product items, various customized profiles of internationals
and video conferencing options. Through adopting of methods on odd- pricing these extra
features have been priced as follows:
Various Premium
features
Rate on 2016 Rate on 2017 Rate on 2018
1. Additional pictures $101,769 $423,360 $285,768
2. Customized profiles $245,765 $546,374 $873,268
3. Options for video
calling
$672,750 $1,453,140 $1,889,082
Generation of revenue
(Total)
$1,020,284 $2,422,874 $3,048,118
It is estimated that among all the transactions that take place through the app, 15% of them
would go towards signing up for availing these attractive premium features that would consist of
Carousell’s product pictures. Almost 1 million customers look forward to customization of
profile pages and 5% among other population refer to these as they can enjoy high quality
premium videos and conference calling facilities (Holm and Günzel-Jensen, 2017). Thus the
Company laid large focus over these business models through which they can generate revenue
for country Singapore. In order to be at par with tough competition that usually prevails in the
market consisting of other firms like Shopee or Duriana, the Company also utilized certain

4IMPLICATIONS FROM ANALYSIS OF CASE STUDY OF CAROUSELL
operation business models and keep a track of Market Cycle associated with Apps to enhance
marketing sales.
 Integration that is vertical based
Vertical based integration is basically a strategy through which a company has a soul authority to
control over the actions of suppliers as well as distributors as well as other specific locations for
retail in the supply or value chain (Atalay, Hortaçsu and Syverson, 2014). This type of strategy
helps a Company like Carousell to have a control over the purchase and selling of products
process, helps in reducing costs and also improve efficiencies associated with business
operations. The most common methods of this type of integration process are forward as well as
backward integration. Forward integration that is followed by Carousell mainly involve in
expansion of business towards purchasing as well as having a control over direct distribution or
supplying products of the Company. This type of integration helps rising entrepreneurs to take an
active part in initiating their business processes. Backward process of integration mainly involve
expansion of production by a Company following a backward path through the process of
manufacturing that includes a retailer purchasing a product manufacturer and it helps a e-
commerce business to establish themselves in the market.

5IMPLICATIONS FROM ANALYSIS OF CASE STUDY OF CAROUSELL
Reference List
Zehir, C., Can, E. and Karaboga, T., 2015. Linking entrepreneurial orientation to firm
performance: the role of differentiation strategy and innovation performance. Procedia-
Social and Behavioral Sciences, 210, pp.358-367.
Holm, A.B. and Günzel-Jensen, F., 2017. Succeeding with freemium: strategies for
implementation. Journal of Business Strategy, 38(2), pp.16-24.
Sharma, R.S. and Sharma, M., 2015. Strategic Growth of M-Commerce Market in Global
Scenario. Expansion, Impact and Challenges of IT & CS, p.126.
Atalay, E., Hortaçsu, A. and Syverson, C., 2014. Vertical integration and input flows. American
Economic Review, 104(4), pp.1120-48.