Literature Review
Discuss about the Analysing Diffusion Of Mobile Service Supporting.
On most occasions, starting a business can be confusing and a complex process for business people (Kolvereid, 2016). The food industry is still in great demand for entrepreneurs as the globe is faced with increased population as well as complex tastes and preferences of the consumers. The e-grocery store is the proposed project for this research to be set up in India. In the past, groceries were owned by small families who managed supermarkets and all the management tasks involved and most businesses fail to thrive due to financial problems. This company will be involved in physical sales and home-based delivery of grocery products to the people who cannot access grocery shops (Machackova et al., 2018). In this case however, the grocery product orders will be sourced using mobile phone calls and company websites. However, the customers need to pay for the cost of the groceries as well as an additional amount for the service delivery to their premises. In order to attract more clients to the new business, special discounts and other offers will be given to the target population such as families and college students, all who are likely to be potential and frequent clients.
The significance of food is universal and thus the retail food industry forms a vital economic activity in business globally. Considering the case of Americans, all food is supplied from the super and hypermarkets, where customers go to these traditional stores to make purchases. The emergence of grocers who offer online ordering and subsequent home deliveries, grocery shopping has become quite significant (Visser et al., 2014). The new start-up groceries are out to compete with established players. The online groceries employ various operation strategies and business models; although there are significant failures in this industry. In the modern world, online grocery shopping has been embraced because people have less free time. As a result of competing demands based on work, home chores and limited time, most people have adopted the online shopping strategies like online groceries. For those who must insist on the physical inspection of the goods, the ABC grocery Ltd, will still have physical stores at the city center. Therefore, this proposed business will encourage both online and physical grocery shopping to meet the customer needs (Cagliano et al., 2014).
The electronic channels in business offers various business alternatives to the physical stores. In most cases, the selection of items in a physical store is so limited due to space, but electronic channels overcome this drawback. The electronic platforms provide unlimited space at a relatively cheap cost offering customers a wide range of product selection options (Kurnia et al., 2015). For the case of a grocery store, the online business platforms might not provide an opportunity to inspect the goods physically. The online stores only display pictures and product descriptions and customers rely on reviews by previous customers. However, the ABC grocery Ltd will offer free home deliveries for orders above $50. This will save the customers the need to travel to the supermarkets to purchase the groceries.
Market Opportunity
The common methods that will be used in this proposed business are use of posters, online adverts and use of social media like Twitter and Facebook. Some other times, broadcast will be made on the local radio and Tv stations, magazines and newspapers.
The products which will be offered by this new business include milk, eggs, yoghurt, kales, spinach, cabbages, tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, plums, potatoes, berries, oranges, mangoes, bananas, onions and meat. The services will include home-based delivery of the grocery products to the customer premises at a costs. The e-grocery platform service will also be offered to help customers make their orders and payments online. In this case, the customers who want to buy groceries online will use the zip code of the delivery address on the company website.
Majority of the shoppers in India have a secondary level of education and more than half of the city residents are internet users. Since most of them are employed or self-employed, aged between 18-60 years, and have busy lifestyles which makes online shopping tools quite convenient for them. The three categories of people who can be classified as online grocery users are the affluent pressed for-time, disabled, and families with young children, which is the common characteristics of the residents of this city.
However, this business is likely to face competition from other big players in the same industry. For instance, the Wal-Mart enjoys a huge and famous brand name which increases its fame. Walmart has a high customer base due to the long period of time in which they have been in operations. This company at the moment owns and also distributes groceries into the grocery shapes to avoid the function of middle men. The increased social media following makes it less expensive for advertisement campaigns. Another example is the Netgrocer whose products are so inexpensive. The weakness associated with Netcgrocer is that it is unknown by many people and has a less brand selection. On the other hand, the weakness of Walmart is that the grocery store is not properly advertised, and it is unable to focus well on groceries because they deal with a number of product categories. Therefore, if ABC grocery can take advantage of these weaknesses and be able to overcome them, then the proposed business can do very well.
Our company is unique since it will offer special packages to specified groups of people, a step that the competitors have not taken (Saeidi et al., 2015). This strategy will offer a quick buying process bearing in mind that most people lead busy lifestyle and have no enough time to go to the groceries (Hübner et al., 2016). Additionally, the grocery products to be sold will be sourced directly from the farm and grown using organic methodsHowever, a weakness that worries our startup is whether the customers will abandon the big grocers like Walmat, and decide to shop with us (Yuan et al., 2016). This is because there are some shoppers who are more into class and the type of businesses that they are associated with.
Product and Services
However, we will overcome this challenge by providing an online presence where clients can make orders and we will deliver to them. A big opportunity for our business is that we are geared towards offering health lifestyles through healthy food. Considering that the people are conscious about healthy living, the organic aspect of our products are likely to attract big sales. The concentration of ABC grocery Ltd to Fixxy city will also offer a competitive advantage since it will show the customers that the business is committed to meeting the needs of customers at the local level.
The ABC grocery Ltd will be owned by Apurr and Sarah (the directors), who hold a Bachelor’s degree in business administration from the university of Toronto. These two people have worked for a number of years as business consultants in different food companies (Bloom et al., 2015). Due to their heavy work-load and the overall business management process, the company will hire a full-time manager to oversee the daily operations at this business. Moreover, there will be branch managers who will be responsible for the other branches within the city.
Securing a physical office- this will be assigned to a real estate agent and should take two weeks.
Obtain licenses- the major legal licenses before the business starts will be obtained from various legal bodies within one month.
Buying grocery stock- from farmers as well as beginning production from our business farm- this will take two weeks.
Website- a web developer will be contracted to create and attractive website for this business to create online presence.
Recruitment of staff- to be done one month after securing office space.
Recruitment of clients- once everything is ready, clients can start purchasing grocery products and services from ABC grocery Ltd.
Conclusion
As a result of the advancement in technology and internet services, the e-groceries are getting popular. Therefore, for them to be financially worth of investment, more customers should adopt these services. This is because they cater for the busy customers who cannot get time to go to shop physically at the supermarkets. At the same time, investors should study the customer characteristics in a given area before investing in e-grocery. It is expected that this business will perform well and with time, it will establish operations in many more towns.
References
Bloom, N., Sadun, R., & Van Reenen, J. (2015). Do private equity owned firms have better management practices?. American Economic Review, 105(5), 442-46.
Cagliano, A. C., De Marco, A., Rafele, C., Bragagnini, A., & Gobbato, L. (2015). Analysing the diffusion of a mobile service supporting the e-grocery supply chain. Business Process Management Journal, 21(4), 928-963.
Cagliano, A. C., Gobbato, L., Tadei, R., & Perboli, G. (2014). Its for e-grocery business: the simulation and optimization of urban logistics project. Transportation Research Procedia, 3, 489-498.
Hübner, A., Kuhn, H., & Wollenburg, J. (2016). Last mile fulfilment and distribution in omni-channel grocery retailing: a strategic planning framework. International Journal of Retail & Distribution management, 44(3), 228-247.
Kolvereid, L. (2016). Preference for self-employment: Prediction of new business start-up intentions and efforts. The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 17(2), 100-109.
Kurnia, S., Karnali, R. J., & Rahim, M. M. (2015). A qualitative study of business-to-business electronic commerce adoption within the Indonesian grocery industry: A multi-theory perspective. Information & Management, 52(4), 518-536.
Machackova, M., Giertlova, A., Porubska, J., Roe, M., Ramos, C., & Finglas, P. (2018). EuroFIR Guideline on calculation of nutrient content of foods for food business operators. Food chemistry, 238, 35-41.
Saeidi, S. P., Sofian, S., Saeidi, P., Saeidi, S. P., & Saaeidi, S. A. (2015). How does corporate social responsibility contribute to firm financial performance? The mediating role of competitive advantage, reputation, and customer satisfaction. Journal of Business Research, 68(2), 341-350.
Visser, J., Nemoto, T., & Browne, M. (2014). Home delivery and the impacts on urban freight transport: A review. Procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 125, 15-27.
Yuan, M., Pavlidis, Y., Jain, M., & Caster, K. (2016). Walmart online grocery personalization: Behavioral insights and basket recommendations. In International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (pp. 49-64). Springer, Cham.
Zhu, Q., & Semeijn, J. (2015). Antecedents of customer behavioral intentions for online grocery shopping in Western Europe. In European Retail Research (pp. 1-19). Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden.