Qrt2 Task 2
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Kitchen Karousel: Online Business Expansion Proposal Western Governor’s University E-Business QRT2: Task 2 May 31, 2013 Megan Greene
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E-Commerce Solutions Kitchen Karousel offers specialty kitchen products to a higher-end target market. The existing website is very basic and lists a quick description of their store, location and various featured products. While the website contains basic information, it does not provide product details outside of the featured products. Also, there is no shopping cart and therefore no ability to purchase items online. This severely restricts their ability to be competitive in today’s global market. An essential element of any business looking to compete online is the ability to purchase and pay directly from the website. Belew & Elad (2009) indicate that when choosing your online store; make sure that the following three essential elements are included. Together, these functions help qualify the storefront as a true all-in-one solution: • Shopping cart: This back-end feature allows customers to browse for, select, and purchase products. (If you want to know more, Book IV, Chapter 5 compares specific shopping-cart features.) • Payment processor: The virtual cash register. Of course, customers need a way to pay you during checkout for the products they want. A storefront solution should give customers multiple options. You need to consider whether the storefront’s payment processor can integrate with your existing payment processor. • Hosting solution: You need a place to host your actual store. Your hosted shopping cart, however, doesn’t have to share the service you use for your primary Web site. But one of the benefits of a storefront is that hosting is included in the deal, eliminating additional Web site hosting fees.
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The vendor I recommend for Kitchen Karousel is Premium Web Cart. This all-in-one solution integrates the storefront, shopping cart and CRM capabilities in a hosted, online
Kitchen Karousel: Online Business Expansion Proposal Western Governor’s University E-Business QRT2: Task 2 May 31, 2013 Megan Greene
Page |2
E-Commerce Solutions Kitchen Karousel offers specialty kitchen products to a higher-end target market. The existing website is very basic and lists a quick description of their store, location and various featured products. While the website contains basic information, it does not provide product details outside of the featured products. Also, there is no shopping cart and therefore no ability to purchase items online. This severely restricts their ability to be competitive in today’s global market. An essential element of any business looking to compete online is the ability to purchase and pay directly from the website. Belew & Elad (2009) indicate that when choosing your online store; make sure that the following three essential elements are included. Together, these functions help qualify the storefront as a true all-in-one solution: • Shopping cart: This back-end feature allows customers to browse for, select, and purchase products. (If you want to know more, Book IV, Chapter 5 compares specific shopping-cart features.) • Payment processor: The virtual cash register. Of course, customers need a way to pay you during checkout for the products they want. A storefront solution should give customers multiple options. You need to consider whether the storefront’s payment processor can integrate with your existing payment processor. • Hosting solution: You need a place to host your actual store. Your hosted shopping cart, however, doesn’t have to share the service you use for your primary Web site. But one of the benefits of a storefront is that hosting is included in the deal, eliminating additional Web site hosting fees.
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The vendor I recommend for Kitchen Karousel is Premium Web Cart. This all-in-one solution integrates the storefront, shopping cart and CRM capabilities in a hosted, online
References: Belew, S., & Elad, J. (2009). Retail to E-Tail Starting an Online Business All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies, 2nd Edition. John Wiley & Sons 2009. Competitive Marketing Strategies: Analyzing Competitors. (n.d.). Eley, B., & Tilley, S. (2009). Online Marketing Inside Out. SitePoint. Genius, S. (2013, May 30). SEO Tools. Retrieved from seobesttools.com: http://www.seobesttools.com/what-is-seo/ Lancaster, G., & Reynolds, P. (2005). Management of Marketing. Taylor and Francis. MarketingFind. (2013, May). Opportunities in Online International Marketing. Retrieved from marketingfind.com: http://www.marketingfind.com/articles/opportunities_in_online_international_marketing. html Rouse, M. (2013, May 30). CRM (Customer Relationship Management). Retrieved from searchcrm.techtarget.com: http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/definition/CRM Stokes, R., & Quirk, M. o. (2013). eMarketing: The Essential Guide to Online Marketing, v. 1.0. Flat World Knowledge, Inc.