Assessment Item 2: Strategic Plan for Style Icon E-commerce

This report presents a comprehensive strategic plan for Style Icon, an e-commerce business focusing on the Australian market. The plan begins with an executive summary highlighting the potential of e-commerce in the modern business landscape, followed by an introduction that outlines the structure and objectives of the report. It then details the e-commerce business description, outlining products, target demographics, and website features. The report establishes three key business goals: identifying consumer trends, achieving brand recognition, and maintaining sustainability and profitability. The e-commerce strategy section outlines the business model canvas, including key activities, partners, resources, value propositions, customer segments, customer relationships, channels, cost structure, and revenue streams. A SWOT analysis is provided, followed by an external environment analysis using Porter's Five Forces. The report concludes with a detailed marketing and advertising strategy, including behavior models, consumer profiles, and the use of social media. The report also includes financial projections and appendices.

STRATEGIC PLAN 1
Assessment Item 2 – Strategic Plan
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STRATEGIC PLAN 2
Executive Summary
With changing behaviour of the consumers and developing technology, the concept of e-
commerce business has grown at a tremendous rate in the recent years. E-commerce business
helps a firm to go beyond the geographical boundaries and reach higher target demographics. In
the same manner, Style Icon can develop an effective e-commerce strategic plan to sell its
products over the online platform and seek growth in the Australian market. The development of
e-business with competitive pricing policy and extensive marketing strategy will help the
company to increase brand awareness and seek competitive advantage in the market.
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STRATEGIC PLAN 3
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Description of the eBusiness...........................................................................................................5
Business Goals.................................................................................................................................6
E-Commerce Strategy......................................................................................................................7
SWOT Analysis.........................................................................................................................10
External Environment Analysis.....................................................................................................11
Marketing and Advertising Strategy..............................................................................................13
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................17
References......................................................................................................................................18
Appendices....................................................................................................................................21
Appendix 1: Financial Projection for E-commerce Business....................................................21
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STRATEGIC PLAN 4
Introduction
Modernisation of global business has developed the E-commerce business platform to be
used by contemporary entrepreneurs (Barnes-Vieyra and Claycomb, 2011). The identified study
report has been structured to introduce a strategic plan to initiate an E-commerce business.
Precisely, the entrepreneur’s idea is to set up a clothing E-commerce business using the internet
platform. In the study, the detailed description of the eBusiness including the products and/or
services offered to the target demographics has been provided. Moreover, the strategic report for
the clothing E-commerce business identifies three business goals to be taken into consideration
for the futuristic growth of the business.
By identifying the specific business goals of the entrepreneur, the reported study
addresses the E-commerce strategy to be used to meet the business goals. Invariably, the report
also describes value proposition, revenue models, target markets, business model, capital
structure, and SWOT analysis of the clothing E-commerce business (Chaffey, 2011). In addition,
by using Porter’s Five Forces Model, the external business environment has been scanned to
identify the key success factors influencing the growth. In the meanwhile, the strategic plan
elaborates the marketing and advertising strategy to impress the target audience. Evidently, the
behaviour models, consumer profile, use of social media and mobile apps, transaction logs, and
cost benefit analysis of the E-commerce business have been analysed in detail (Rodríguez,
2013).
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STRATEGIC PLAN 5
Description of the eBusiness
The entrepreneur has selected a clothing E-commerce business namely Style Icon in the
target market of Melbourne, Australia. At the inception of the E-commerce business, the
business organiser will set a website offering branded clothing accessories to the both men and
women demographics located in the Melbourne and nearby suburbs. In the meanwhile, the
eBusiness of Style Icon will offer shipment to the target demographics of Melbourne only. After
six months of business start-up, the eBusiness will cover the entire Australian territories and
major metropolitan cities. Style Icon will offer different branded clothing categories for men and
women target audience. For men, the E-commerce website will offer trending shirts, t-shirts,
jeans, trousers, jackets, suits, and cargo etc. apart from the clothing and apparel, different types
of branded footwear will be displayed to the target audience. For female customers, latest
designer’s tops, shirts, jeans, skirts, and lingerie etc will be sold via the website. Also, clothing
accessories such as belts, handbags, and other fashionable products have been offered to the
visitors.
Primarily, the outlook and accessibility of the website can be termed as one of the main
aspects to attract the clients. Apart from the official shopping website, android and iOS app of
Style Icon will be launched so that interested target audience can order clothing items from their
Smartphone and devices. The display and presentation of the website have been developed
considering the preferences of the target audience to make it easy for the web-surfers to get the
right product at the right price (Chircu and Kauffman, 2010). In the website, a chat option will be
added so that customers can ask for the help of the executives to select the accurate product at a
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STRATEGIC PLAN 6
nominal time. Moreover, the eBusiness portal of Style Icon will offer a safe and secure portal to
purchase items using all type of cards (Martinsons, 2016).
Business Goals
Setting up definite business goals can be one of the vital instruments to achieve success
in the eBusiness platform (Chesher, Kaura and Linton, 2013). In the underlying section, three
business goals of Style Icon have been discussed stating the purpose as follows:
 Identifying Latest Consumer Trends: In order to develop a vast target audience pool
for the E-commerce business, identifying the latest consumer trend can be one of the
most primary business goals for Style Icon. Matching the ever-changing consumer trends,
the eBusiness of Style Icon can stay viable and promote massive demand as well.
 Achieving Brand Recognition: Moreover, gaining brand recognition will be another
vital business goal for Style Icon to create lucrative prospects in the E-commerce
business. By strengthening brand recognition of the eBusiness, Style Icon can achieve
substantial competitive advantage over the other market players influencing the target
audience to purchase at a higher price from the online retail store (Lockett, 2014).
 Maintaining sustainability and profitability: Effectively, maintaining continuous
business growth and profitability can be identified as a leading business target for the E-
commerce business of Style Icon. Meanwhile, the business must secure incurred
profitability at a regular interval by increasing revenue over costs (Zhuang and Lederer,
2014). Precisely, by balancing the cash flow, sustainable business growth can be
achieved as well.
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STRATEGIC PLAN 7
E-Commerce Strategy
In order to set up the E-commerce clothing business of Style Icon, the entrepreneur must
look for micro-target the online target audience by establishing a territory (Friedman, Lopez-
Pumarejo and Friedman, 2008). Such micro-targeting of online audience should be the best E-
commerce strategy in this case. Effectively, the micro-targeting strategy will be effective to
develop and design a website following the choices and preferences of the target audience
belonged to the niche market (Zhuang and Lederer, 2014). Also, special offering and online
customer service will be ideal to increase the brand identity of Style Icon online retail store.
Evidently, a business model canvas of the eBusiness of Style Icon has been presented in figure 1.
The nine components of the business canvas of the E-commerce clothing business have
been described as follows:
 Key Activities: The E-commerce strategy of the business will include key activities such
as quality control, online assistance, supply chain management, and latest consumer
trends to influence target audience (Miller, 2015). In this way, brand recognition will be
improved.
 Key Partners: In the E-commerce set up of the clothing business, a number of key
business partners will be involved. For instance, audit partners, logistic partners,
marketing business partners, technology partners, and financial partners will be identified
as the leading partners influencing the growth of the eBusiness of Style Icon online retail
store.
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STRATEGIC PLAN 8
 Key Resources: Invariably, for the identified strategic intervention, human resources,
invested capital, technology, and eBusiness infrastructure of Style Icon can be termed as
the key resources. Each of the key resource has significant value to accomplish the long-
term objectives of the business in the target market (Quix, Schoop and Jeusfeld, 2012).
 Value Propositions: Precisely, for a new entrepreneurial E-commerce business,
identifythe value proposition will be critical. In this case, high quality of clothing
products, unmatched buying experience of the consumers, competitive pricing of trending
apparels, suitable online support, and easy replacement and refund of products will be
promoted as the leading value proposition (Goyal, 2017).
 Customer Segments: During the inception of the E-commerce business, Style Icon will
offer branded clothing accessories to the both men and women (especially office goers
and college students) demographics located in the Melbourne and nearby suburbs. After
six months of business start-up, the eBusiness will cover the entire Australian territories
and major metropolitan cities mostly the urban population of the country.
 Customer Relationship: To build customer relationship, the eBusiness will use online
customer support system. Discount offers on products, customers’ feedback policy, and
interesting coupons on bulk purchase (Karakaya and Shea, 2008).
 Customer Channels: The eBusiness of Style Icon will be massively relied on customer
channels. In the meanwhile, social media channels and digital media channels have been
identified as the most comprehensive customer networks. Besides, the internet based
consumer channel will be taken into account as well (Goyal, 2017).
 Cost Structure: The fundamental cost structure of the E-commerce business of Style
Icon has been divided into four sections i.e. wage and salary of employees, primary
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STRATEGIC PLAN 9
operational costs, website maintenance charge, and purchase of clothing items from the
branded companies.
 Revenue Streams: In order to declare the revenue stream of the eBusiness, revenue
earned from the sales of clothing items has the lion’s share to determine the income.
Furthermore, fixed income from the sales and additional discounts given by the
manufacturer and distributors will be considered as other revenue sources of the
eBusiness.
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STRATEGIC PLAN 10
Figure 1: Business Model Canvas for Style Icon’s E-commerce Business
Source: Self Made
SWOT Analysis
The SWOT analysis for Style Icon E-commerce business has been presented herein
below:
SWOT Analysis
Strengths Weaknesses
 Large Global market to expand  Security risk regarding loss of data
 No time constraints  Lack of trust among the buyers
 Cost effective  No physical existence
 Flexible target market segmentation  Limited exposure due to lack of
physical appearance
Opportunities Threats
 Changing trend as people have become
brand conscious
 High competition due to existence of
several e-commerce business in
garment industry
 Increasing number of internet users
provide potential growth opportunity
 High level of innovation may lead to
competitive advantage for the rivals
 Wide business growth due to no
political boundary
 Change in rules and regulations
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STRATEGIC PLAN 11
External Environment Analysis
In order to analyse the external environmental factors that may influence the e-commerce
business of Style Icon, the Porter’s Five Force Analysis has been presented herein below:
 Buyer’s Bargaining Power: There are a huge number of buyers and sellers in the market
that reduces the switching cost of the buyers. Hence, the bargaining power of the buyers
is too high for Style Icon e-commerce business (Deng and Zhang, 2014). The company
need to set price and develop products according to the preferences of the customers.
 Supplier’s Bargaining Power: There are a huge number of suppliers in the garment
industry (Barnes-Vieyra and Claycomb, 2011). The company can shift from one supplier
to another in case of change of price. Hence, the bargaining power of the suppliers is
quite low in the market.
 Threats from Substitutes: The Company will deal with branded products that are easily
available in the e-commerce stores of other rivals. Hence, the threat from substitution is
high for the company (Constantinides, 2012).
 Threats from New Entrants: Style Icon e-commerce business will operate in a
competitive market where the cost of entering the market is quite low (Deng and Zhang,
2014). There is almost no barrier to entry of new firms. Hence, the threat from new
entrant is high for the company.
 Threats from Rivalry: The fashion retail industry has a huge number of companies such
as Jac and Jack, Ally Fashion, Miller’s Retail that will provide a high level of
competition to the Style Icon’s business (Constantinides, 2012).
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STRATEGIC PLAN 12
Figure 2: Porter’s Five Force Analysis
Source: (Martinsons, 2016)
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