Here is the BBC’s iPlayer which has TV and Radio for the past 7 days which you can access through the internet. You can also watch live TV or listen to the radio live also. It has a bar across the top for the most popular TV programmes and down the right-hand side, it has the programmes you have watched recently and down the right-hand side, it has the channels which were on yesterday, which were on today and what’s on now and later. In the middle, they have the popular radio stations and the other side has the most popular radio and TV shows streamed over the internet
This is Firebox.com, which is full of geeky paraphernalia, which range from oversized stuffed fluffy bacteria and viruses, lightsabres, electronic scales to the more ridiculous, like blankets with armholes. They also have retro products and Firebox says they do not do boring products. This website would be for people who like novelty and gimmicky products. Also it makes a good website for birthday and Christmas presents.
This is one of the products, an electric hand warmer. If your eyesight is good, you will see that the way they describe the product, they use humour within the description which I think brings some fun to quite boring parts of websites.
This is your shopping basket. You use this to place your order and make your payment. In this basket is a mug with the Table of Periodic Elements printed on it. The website takes Paypal, Visa, Master Card , American Express. If you place your order before 5pm, it should arrive 2-3 days after you have placed your order.
Task 2
a)
The Benefits to a Business Organisation Marketing a Product or Service.
The benefits to an online business, provided net neutrality continues, is that smaller businesses can compete with larger businesses. If net neutrality wasn’t around, smaller businesses wouldn’t have enough disposable income to compete with larger concerns. Another benefit to having an ecommerce society is that businesses are not affected by the weather or the time of day because people can access the internet whenever they want so, for example, people working night shifts can shop at night and they are not restricted to office or shop hours. There is a downside to this, however, regarding the Royal Mail’s parcel delivery service, which is harder as parcels come in all shapes and sizes and may be harder to process. Businesses trading on the internet have a global presence, (excepting, of course, places like China), which increases the potential customers, therefore, increasing profits. This is also good for parcel delivery companies, like DHL, who are thriving in the presence of increased internet sales. The advantages of online shopping are that people with agrophobia, disabilities, elderley or otherwise housebound are able to contact businesses or services via the internet, they can email, place orders or access frequently asked questions before placing an order Internet shopping is an advantage for people who have poor transport links in their area. It is easier for companies to look at competitors’ prices and maybe, adjust their own.
Marketing on the internet has been made easy because of Google as your company can place adverts in various places, such as you can put your business on Google Maps and Earth; you can have your advert on the side of a Google search result page; or you can have yours at the top before the results start and you can have an advert put on YouTube and if you are clever and creative enough, you can create a final advert that doesn’t necessarily have to follow censorship laws as you would on the TV and radio. It is easy to direct market research over the internet as signing up to websites, they can add questions to the sign up page, e.g., where did you hear about us from? Information gained from this research would help direct where to advertise. Other instances could help develop products or to find out which age group is most interested in various products or the gender of potential customers. Offering your products or services on the internet could have the potential to unlock new markets to sell to. The access to the internet is forever increasing with the availability of 3G (and soon it will be 4G) and Wi-Fi hotspots, with laptops and netbooks, the mobile revolution started and now with Smart phones and tablets, they will only get better with mobile internet. Since the increase in internet sales, this has resulted in no more door to door sales and now that gap is filled with email sales which is like PC to PC sales. Queries can be dealt with quickly, as emails can be responded to immediately, stock availability could be checked and once orders have been placed, they can be tracked Businesses can keep low stocks of products, or no stock at all, thus meaning that there is no need to spend loads of money on stock which may or may not sell, and you will need less room for storing stock and less staff to man the business. This is alright for the short term but if everybody didn’t need staff, there would be no money about, so businesses would not be able to sell their products.
The financial benefits to an online business are that you can increase your robot workforce (they don’t need tea breaks). You can have a computer programme to process the orders which will tell the warehouse robots what items to get with only minimum human input, e.g. web designers, maintenance of equipment, packers and drivers You would also need computer programmers to design the databases necessary to run this side of the business. Some firms run an online business and maybe only use 4 strategically placed warehouses throughout the country, whereas if you have a shop you would need to employ thousands of people to man it. If your business was a small or low-tech business, you would replace the robots with human warehouse operatives who would collect items from the warehouse, ready for delivery.
The most important thing is that goods are paid for up front by either debit or credit card or other services like Paypal, and payment is received by the business quickly and the goods are paid for before delivery. The benefit to the Company is that no bad debts will be incurred and that if they do not operate a credit system, then you get an improved cash flow as payment is made in full at the beginning of the transaction. If you have a “just in time” style of business, you do not need massive warehouses or stock rooms and the staff to man them, so you cut your overheads, and you can even arrange for suppliers or manufacturers to deliver the goods straight from them to the customer, cutting out that expensive stockholding completely. Because you are only dealing with electronic payment, no cash is involved, and therefore, you cut out having to employ Securicor or a similar firm to collect cash, and this is another expense that is avoided.
b)
The 1st Business - Which?’s marketing programme. This screenshot is an example of some of Which?’s online marketing. They have their advert on the side of Google’s results page and an advert at the top also.
The benefits of marketing Which? Online are, in this instance, thousands of people use Google all around the world and when you type in a key word, their advert comes up and Which? have other marketing campaigns on other mediums as well so many people are aware of Which? and many prominent organisations boast on their adverts that their product or service is a Which? Best Buy, so there is no shortage of mentions of Which? on adverts. One of the benefits of marketing Which? online is that they get an increased revenue from more subscribers to their web services and this is guaranteed income as payment is required up front by credit or debit card.
The 2nd business – BBC.
The benefit to the BBC being online, means that people travelling away from home are able to access iPlayer, sports, weather and news through the BBC website. Certain BBC programmes like Click have a Facebook and Twitter account so people will know what is coming up in forthcoming programmes as a sort of marketing tool.
The 3rd business – Firebox.
The benefits of Firebox.com being online means that it is easy to access their products by using your internet access from your home computer twenty four hours a day, without having to bother to go to a shop. The fact that everything has to be paid for electronically before receiving their goods, means that cash flow is maintained and staff numbers can be reduced, making for a higher profit margin. They have Facebook and Twitter accounts to market their business through these social networking sites, which again would increase awareness of Firebox and therefore, more sales. There is an advantage to Firebox to only being able to see products in a picture, in that, if the product is not well made, a customer may not bother to return the product even if they are not that happy with it.
