An online based photo gallery called ePhotoshop.com - Essay Example

E-Commerce Assignment 2 2512ICT Convenor Anne Nguyen Mohanned Algarni ID: s2607445 Executive Summary The purpose of this report is to build a proposed website project that focuses on creating an online based business. The website will be solely responsible for individuals who are fanatics of taking pictures and sharing them with the world. The concept of it is on a photo gallery but one that is online and easy to share with people who share similar interests. The aim will be to build a unique platform which would attract photographers from around the world to participate. A proposed name for the website is “ePhotoshop.com”. The aim of “ePhotoshop.com” is to give these individuals a chance to show their photographs and get recognized among others for their brilliance. The target audience varies from upcoming young artists to other keen amateur photographers who just have the desire to show their talent to the world. In short, people around the world will be able to use this platform with registered usernames. The site will offer three different types of registrations, amateur accounts, basic professional accounts and elite professional accounts. There will be very strong online competition from websites that have already been present in the market for similar purposes such as “deviantart.com”. “deviantart.com” already focuses on providing its art products to the public by purchasing them online (Wall Art at deviantART.com, ND). To tackle our competition, the website of ePhotoshop.com will provide an easy platform to use and also provide online photo editing applications. The website will also provide its basic professional and elite professional accounts with free of cost advertising of their photographs. A SWOT analysis has been conducted to get a better perspective of the competition and to analyze the website and its competitor strategies. The SWOT analysis has been provided in this report. To operate our core processes, we would have the bank which would be dealing with all the online transactions of users and buyers. On the other hand, we would get a corporate account with “box.net” to counter the mass online storage of all the photos involved. These will be our primary two agents in the middle to help us operate our website once it is up and running. An investment of roughly $7000 will also be involved in the set-up of the website. This will also involve a payment of $500 dollars every time the website needs to be updated to meet new requirements. Contents 1Introduction 4 2Business Overview 5 2.1Products and Services 5 2.2Revenue Model- Premium subscriptions model 6 3Business Environment 7 3.1Competitors to the Website 8 3.2Advantages of ePhotoshop.com 8 3.3SWOT Analysis For ePhotoshop.com 9 3.4Innovative Edge 10 4Marketing Strategy of the Website 10 4.1Target Market and Type of Communication 11 4.2Content Management System 12 4.3Marketing Strategy in Terms of the 4 Ps 12 4.3.1Products 12 4.3.2Price 13 4.3.3Promotion 13 4.3.4Place 14 4.4Web Presence 14 4.5Building Trust Relationship with Customers 14 4.6Domain Name of the Website 15 4.7Search engine strategy and chance of success 15 5Legal and ethical environment 15 5.1Legal regulatory and tax issues 17 5.2Most Prominent Legal Issue 17 5.3Ethical Considerations 17 6Conclusion 17 7References 19 1 Introduction The purpose of this report is to cover all the information about an online based photo gallery called “ePhotoshop.com”. The beginning of this report will focus entirely in detail about the business and will cover the major aspects of it. Further, the details about the features of the website will be discussed and the target audience for which the website will appeal. The revenue model will also be discussed in detail. The next section of the report will focus on the marketing strategy that the website will use to promote itself and the unique selling point that it has over the rest of the competition. The third section will discuss the competition that the website has and how it will tackle the competition. A SWOT analysis has also been conducted to discuss this. The fourth section will include the external operators and resource providers of the business that will help making the company a success. The next two sections will explain how “ePhotoshop.com” plans to create its presence on the web and create its impact with the website’s domain name. After that, there will be an elaborative plan of how the company will utilize a search engine to operate successfully. Legal issues will be addressed in the last section of this report. 2 Business Overview 2.1 Products and Services “ePhotoshop.com” focuses on being an online based gallery for people who want to share their pictures with others. This also gives them a platform to sell them if they desire to do so. Individuals who want to share their pictures with other members only have to send them an e-mail based invite which will contain the link of the album available for them to view it. To focus on promoting the website, “ePhotoshop.com” will only give access to the shared albums on registration. The registered members will be provided with a fully designed electronic online spot for them to save all their work. A successful registration will give these individuals options and access to an online gallery of numerous pictures. Space for description will be given beneath every picture and a comment section below for users who would like to give their feedback. For potential buyers, the website will have an elaborative search engine to help them find pictures by certain artists or title names. The pictures will also be tagged in various categories to fit the need of individuals who are searching for a specific type of genre of pictures. To focus on their core competency, the website will also try to get permission from art museums and artists to publish their works on this website. This will help the company expand and lead in the mission to build a proper brand name. 2.2 Revenue Model- Premium subscriptions model The premium subscriptions model will be followed and this will involve the individuals who register to deposit a sum via online payment to get access to the professional registered user class. The basic professional class of registered users will be given advantages over the regular class. This would allow the individual to have access to additional storage space and an increased resolution upload limit. The elite professional class of registered users will have unlimited access to both storage and resolutions. For the elite professional class users, an online photo editing application will also be available for times when they are traveling and need to edit pictures that they have taken. The website plans to generate revenue mainly from its professional users as these individuals are mostly artists who take pictures for a passion and would also like to sell them. For advertisement purposes, the partner companies will not charge extra from its users to promote potential photos that buyers would want to purchase. It will be company’s own responsibility to advertise about the upcoming exhibitions. People who are interested in photographs will be allowed to make purchases of these online and this would enable the artist to gain recognition for his or her work. Give such a scenario, both the artist and the company will benefit financially. All work will be copyrighted and this will protect the artists from unscrupulous who are bent on using other people’s work as theirs without acknowledgement or paying for it. This kind of protection is essential since it will encourage the artists to be creative and produce more photos which will enable the website to maintain its expected standard and quality. In order to cater for the legal problems of published and unpublished pictures, the website will divide them into different sections so that the users will be able to comply with the requirements and guidelines of the website during the sign up phase. 3 Business Environment 3.1 Competitors to the Website Competition in this field is strong given that some competitors are already using many of the ideas that have been proposed in this report. Websites like “deviantART.com” already have a huge member base and to tackle them, we would have to introduce a unique product only found at ePhotoshop.com. Google tried to penetrate this competitive market through establishing “Photovine” which is a new concept still in beta stage. Members of these websites are already familiar with the way they work and how the platform operates along with the functions of them. Familiarity stage is third stage which occurs when the customer makes several transactions and aware of the website policy which come after awareness and exploration stages (Schneider, 2009). On the other hand, ePhotoshop.com is still new and the customers have not reached the awareness stage yet, which is the recognition of the website name (Schneider, 2009). When a customer is familiar it gives the user a level of comfort, this comfort will need to develop overtime for new members of “ePhotoshop.com” and to tackle that, the objective is to make the platform simple and easy to use. 3.2 Advantages of ePhotoshop.com It is challenging to meet needs of all visitors because different visitors will get to the website for many different reasons (Schneider, 2009). The following table gives reasons why customers would visit “ePhotoshop.com”: Reason of Visiting How The Website Deals With It? Learning about the products The website will provide links to allow the users to read about the offered services Buying products Make the way to purchase online with the website easily by providing easy steps Obtaining information about the company The website will have “About us” link that will have all the information about the company Obtaining contact information The website will have contact link for the contact info page The website will specifically focus on delivering quality services to the customers through constantly upgrading its features. Information can be easily accessed which can attract more users to the website. These goals are important to consider when constructing websites to ensure accessibility (Schneider, 2009). 3.3 SWOT Analysis For ePhotoshop.com A basic SWOT analysis is the key to understand the current position of “ePhotoshop.com” against the competition that will have to encounter. The following SWOT analysis has been conducted with due consideration of the competitors in mind: S The user friendly environment of the website will ensure that users are satisfied with how easy it is to operate. The costs of opening professional accounts will be less from competitors. It will take a lot of time for customers to get accustomed to switching over to a new website The relationship with the other partner companies which provide behind the scene services is still very weak. W O The benefits of providing an elaborate library will help encounter the competitors. The website will also use mobile and tablet based website versions for users on the go. Breaking the customer relationship with the existing websites may be very difficult Competitors already have a huge library of pictures and albums and simple update of software could improve that. T A SWOT analysis focuses on keeping four elements in consideration (Strydom, 2004). These four elements are kept in perspective to build a strategy favorable for “ePhotoshop.com” to follow. To gain trust of new customers, the administration of “ePhotoshop.com” will have to focus on marketing its services across different platforms. This will also help build a good relationship with other websites that are in the same business. An option to provide feedback will also be giving to customers who decide to they would like a particular aspect of the company to be improved. 3.4 Innovative Edge The innovative edge that the company will have is that the hot favorite pictures will be sent forward to professional world re-known artists for what they think about the pictures and how they could be improved. Also, for learning artists, a nominal fee could be charged for feedback per photograph. 4 Marketing Strategy of the Website 4.1 Target Market and Type of Communication “ePhotoshop.com” focuses on mainly catering to the needs of those individuals who desire to promote their artwork or photographs. There are four categories that can help identify the market segments of “ePhotoshop.com” website. The segments include: Professional artists. Amateur artists, including hobbyists. Businesses, such as architects, graphic designers, interior designers, or direct mail advertisers.  Teachers and students. 4.2 Content Management System Building the core of the website around a customer oriented idea will help in making “ePhotoshop.com” a success. This would involve providing the customer with ease of accessibility and availability at his/her hands. This could be giving the freedom to the user to customize his page to whatever extent he/she would want. This would involve the use of a “Content Management System”. Box servers will be used for this purpose. The members of the website will be provided with weekly updates about their picture views and “hot favorite” pictures which have been taken over the week. Search engine usage and postings on Facebook would be used for advertisement purposes. All of these objectives would help in ensuring that the company achieves the desired level of success. 4.3 Marketing Strategy in Terms of the 4 Ps 4 Ps is the four elements: Product Price Promotion Place ePhotoshop.com website will use these elements to have an effective strategy for its business: 4.3.1 Products The basic products include photos and images and the website will brand these so that they cannot be used illegally by people who just search and find the pictures. The two branding elements that must be met by the website are the relevance and perceived value. Relevance is the degree to which the customer visualizes the products in their places while perceived value is the quality of products that the customer will gain from the services (Schneider, 2009). Given that other websites available provide the same services, it is imperative for ePhotoshop.com to advertise its services through Google and Bing in order to meet relevance and perceived value. 4.3.2 Price Basic customers can access the services for free while professional customers pay a nominal fee in relation to competition that may exist in the market. This price paid by the professional customers of this website that will be affordable to people who want to display their talent and will be less expensive than the other websites that have the same services. Transaction costs are considered when estimating the price of these services as these costs often affect the total price of the service (Schneider, 2009). This is how handling and shipping sometimes alter the prices of the end product. 4.3.3 Promotion Ads spaces will be purchased from MSN, Yahoo and Google search engine to advertise website services. These are chosen because they are very popular search engines and they command great traffic of users. The other reason is that Google and MSN can easily fit the budget of the new website given that their advertising rates are comparatively lower. The website will use more types of advertising in future when earning good profit. Facebook will be used to provide advertisement possibilities where there could be a circulation of different pictures that are already on the website to promote the artists and photographers as well as increasing the member base of the website. 4.3.4 Place Being a service available online, the aspect of physical location is not taken into consideration since the services offered can be accessed from any part of the globe as long as there is internet connection. However, the future of “ePhotoshop.com” might be available to the public to physically get pictures they like. 4.4 Web Presence The web presence of the “ePhotoshop.com” will be distinctive and effective to make the site attractive and meet the adjectives of the business (Schneider, 2009). Objectives that the company intends to illustrate are explained below: Attracting Visitor to the Website Online search engines attract more traffic of visitors hence it will be important to integrate the new website with these established search engines in order to appeal to the interests of many people. This is an effective way to help customers looking for photos and art to come and visit the online store and make their purchases from a huge catalog of pictures. Making the Site Interesting Enough “ePhotoshop.com” will use the artists’ images on the platform and present them as a slideshow at the beginning of every page. This would cover the hot favorite pictures as per daily or weekly ratings by the users of the website. The presentation of the website will develop a certain level of interest for the visitors as a result of its attractiveness. 4.5 Building Trust Relationship with Customers The “ePhotoshop.com” website will provide the customers with live chat help 24 hours a day. The time would help international customers through offering satisfactory services such as displaying of images by various artists. 4.6 Domain Name of the Website The domain name will be www.ePhotoshop.com and the reason behind the domain name is that it focuses on the core function of the website which is concerned with displaying of photos. www.ePhotoshop.com Website domain Meaning ePhotoshop.com Electronic shop for photos Such a domain name would be easy for customers to remember and would help them locate electronic pictures from the gallery. Another reason for choosing this domain name is that it refers directly to the services it provides and it is anticipated that this domain name is going to cost $12 per year. 4.7 Search engine strategy and chance of success Search engines play a very important role in advertising “ePhotoshop.com” website as it is a very effective way to reach good number of potential customers (Schneider, 2009). Therefore, the “ePhotoshop.com” website will have subscription with Google Ad Words and Bing search engine to promote it through attracting many customers. The search link of the website will be placed at the left hand side or at the top of the page where the user can search any key word related to the website. 5 Legal and ethical environment 5.1 Legal regulatory and tax issues Since the website will be used in the whole world, its operations will be guided by international trade conventions related to the aspects of licensing and taxes. Focus on the aspect of copyright laws will be given due consideration in order to enhance the effectiveness of the website. The users will be asked to accept a terms and conditions of use of the website during the signing up stage in order to avoid problems related to copyright laws in the future. 5.2 Most Prominent Legal Issue The most prominent legal issue that a business like this would have would be the problem of copyright issues. Photography is protected by laws and these are called copyright and moral rights. Sometimes, the publishing of certain types of photographs can cause problems and even shut down businesses because of their content. To tackle this sort of problem, the terms and conditions will include termination of users who go against them. 5.3 Ethical Considerations Photography can consist of adult content hence, as a professional company, this type of content will be strictly considered as inappropriate. A quality control unit will monitor and approve every image that is uploaded to maintain the required standard. 6 Conclusion An online business is a capable method of generating revenue from its services. However, providing a new and innovative method is what would capture the minds of new individuals. This cannot be done without a good marketing strategy and the primary problem is of finding a perfect domain name that is easy to remember. Developing a good relationship with the customers as well as buyers is also very important and to do so they would require them to provide their services problem free and at a nominal fee. To avoid any types of problems in the future for these types of companies, a rule book needs to be followed and regulations need to be set up. These laws should cover copyright based problems as well because those are the most capable of problems for such a website. 7 References Copyright Registration of Photographs. (n.d.). Retrieved October 17, 2011, from U.S. Copyright Office: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl107.html Photographs: Copyright Guidelines. Leeds Metropolitan University . Schneider, G 2009, Electronic Commerce, Course Technology, NY. Simple Online Collaboration: Online File Storage. (n.d.). Retrieved October 17, 2011, from BOX: http://www.box.net/solutions/cloud_file_server/ Strydom, J 2004, Introduction to marketing, 3rd Edition, JUTA, CT. Wall Art at deviantART.com. (n.d.). Retrieved October 17, 2011, from deviantART: http://shop.deviantart.com/ Read More