Internet Market Analysis

Conducting Internet market analysis is essential for both new internet business and also to existing business who wants to have an online presence. Internet market analysis should be conducted after finalizing the Internet business model.

The basic idea behind this analysis is to know the market opportunity, target audience needs relating to the opportunity, marketing strategies (ideas to fill the needs), understanding competition in the market.

In general, market analysis helps businesses in many ways. It minimizes business risks, create sales opportunity, recognize problems in the market, etc.

How to conduct internet market analysis?

Part 1:
Analysis of the product or service demand – Analyzing the product or service demand starts with keyword research.

Keywords are nothing but a phrase used in the search engine by the searchers to find product or services.

Keyword research is a process of finding the demand and supply of product/services in the internet world.

Steps to conduct Demand Analysis through keyword research

Step1 – List down possible keywords for your products or services. For example, if you want to sell food and accessories for cat. Try the following keywords.

Cat Food, Cat accessories, Cat side dishes (you can narrow down or specify keyword based on your niche)

After making a list of keywords, analyze the online market demand and supply

Step2 – Go to Free Word tracker Tool or Nichebot type your keyword to see the demand and the supply. Demand (count) is nothing but the number times that particular keyword was searched to find the product or to find the information of that product (gathering information on the product is a process of buying). Supply (popularity) is the number of web pages containing that keyword.

Step 3 – After identifying and analyzing the list of keywords a further general analysis is required to understand the whole demand and supply for your products/services.

Part 2:
Understand the Industry Trends and Size – After having done the initial demand analysis it is imperative to understand the whole market/industry. There are various research firms specializing in various industry segments like forrester.com, marketresearch.com, etc gives comprehensive information. It might be a difficult to task to know about the entire industry unless you have money to buy their reports, but they give few free reports and nuggets on industry trends and strategies which is of great help to take a big business decisions for small business owners.

Part 3:
Identify who are your competitors – Identifying competitors should not be neglected. It helps you to understand how they behave in the market, what product benefits do they offer, what are their pricing strategies. Conduct a competitor analysis to understand the hook and corner of their business strategies (both offline and online). At this stage it is recommended to just know who the competitors are. Systematic plan should be prepared to conduct competitor intelligence in the later stage.

Make a special report on your internet market analysis for further business plan.

Understanding the Price Mix

Price: Price changes every now and then in internet. It is suggested to review the prices and the pricing structure in this dynamic world to get the positive impact to the business. Prices are published on the internet it is easy for a buyer to compare the price. Shopping bots are best example for price comparison. Remix the price mix with new packages like

Discount price
Add-on Products and services
Refund policies
Order cancellation, etc

Price mix is very crucial to online. Price changes with rapid and it is very difficult to change the pricing structure in short period of time. Review the new pricing strategy now and then in the market and quote a flexible and affordable price, because customers search for prices through online tools like shopping bots, infomediaries, cybermerdiaries, etc.

Understanding the Product Mix

Product: As you want to start a new internet business or extending offline business to online try to analyze the potentials of selling online. Your product may be anything it can be a digital product, or a physical product like Apparels, Electronics, Books, etc.

Before getting into online ask yourself how you can enhance the product value

Is your product sellable online?
What is the core benefit you are offering to your customer?
Can it be delivered through online?
How can you improve your product value?

Extending product can have a greater impact and can be highlighted or delivered online. You can include various implications like

Product Endorsements
Awards
Testimonials on the product
Client Lists
Money Back offers (Can also be a promotional remix)
Guarantees and Warranties

Finally getting into online should enhance the value of your product and the same time should have the competitive advantage.

Recommended Reading: Marketing Mix

How to Use the Internet to Advertise, Promote and Market Your Business or Website with Little or No Money

Electronic Commerce

Internet Marketing and e-Commerce

Internet Business Startup

Starting up internet business is a good idea, but designing a business model is where the actual risk lies. You might even have a good business model with sure fire ideas but still it requires a lot of confidence to start up your own business. You may think hosting website with any content will boom your business and large amount of people can visit and make purchase from your website. If you have such a mind-set first banish it because setting up your own business require lot of hard work, planning, innovative and thought-provoking ideas etc.

Every business confronts risk and when it comes to internet business the level of risk rises as if the temperature rises due to hot scorch sun. People might think every internet business owner owes a website and “it “would be the easiest business on earth so that you can reap currency as and how the water gushes through the stream. Managing internet business requires the lots of energy, consistency and risk.

Define E-Business:
Before defining E-business, I’d like to say one thing the word ‘e’ will eventually will go-off in the near future leaving E-business as just any normal business. The term ebusiness is associated with internet business and online. It might differ in the context but still holds the same meaning.

E-business means using internet and World Wide Web to conduct business operations. The Term E-business and E-Commerce are used interchangeably, but both are entirely different leading to the same path. To know the difference between E-Business and E-Commerce,

Benefits of E-business Over Traditional Business In General:
E-business, when implemented strategically will improve your ROI, increase customer database, increase productivity etc. The following are some of the benefits of E-Business

1. Round the Clock Service: E-Business provides a facility to keep in touch with your customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to be precise it works on 24x7 principles. Customers can view your product or service information at any time and from any place, which would lead to developing new niche markets, identify new prospects etc.


2. Competitive Advantage: If you want your rivals to beat-up in the business consider e-business as a business tool which can communicate, help customers to find products at low operations cost etc. This would eventually boost up your ROI and customer satisfaction.

3. Increase Productivity: E-business can also help your business to enhance productivity. The outstanding advantage of e-business is streamlining the business process and operations. You can get in touch with your staffs and suppliers to communicate about the production process, set up e-supply chain, improving sales cycle etc.

4. E-Business can also lower your procurement, inventory cost. It can also improve the customer service.

The MAJOR ISSUES involved:

Cost: Cost is one of the biggest factors. But fortunately setting up an e-business will not cost huge amount of investment (still depends on your business turn over and how hot is your pocket)

Technology: Most E-businesses fail because they lack in understanding technology.

Security: Electronic Payment, confidential information of your customer, viruses etc. But thanks to tech-guys, the security issue can be resolved if you set up your e-business with proper and advance technology

How to Start Internet Business- An Overview

To start a successful internet business, individuals/companies must pen down their goals and mission statements.

If you run an offline business and want to make an online presence write clear-cut goals on why to extend business online, what are you going to achieve if you extend business online. Create a plan and take step-by-step approach to start a successful internet business. Understand the basics of internet business and its interrelated issues, read my previous articles to know more about the basics of internet business.

Here are the links to some of my previous articles related to internet business:

Ebusiness Basics

Understanding Internet Business Options

Steps-to-Start-Internet Business

Benefits of Internet Business

Competition Analysis for Ebusiness and Marketing

Competition Analysis:

Competition Analysis will give comprehensive information about your competitors business, about his strategies, about his customers etc. To start online internet business conduct competition analysis. Understanding and analyzing competition is a core part for any successful online business. To Start an Ebusiness every company has to conduct competitive analysis to identify the key areas of competition.

How to do competition analysis?

Since you are going to start online business, probably your first source would be search engines. Try few search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista etc to find out about your competition. Try few keywords pertaining to your business. Say if you are into Shoe Business and you want to extend your business online.

Steps to Conduct Competitive Analysis through Internet:

Step1: Find Top 3 Competitors by using relevant search phrase (Keywords: Cheap Leather Shoes, Quality Shoes etc) sway

Step 2: Go to each Competitors website
Step 3: Study their Website

What to Study from the Competitors Website:

Concept Analysis
How the Website has being conceptualized?
What is the theme of the website?
What are the links they have conceptualized?

Design Analysis
Look and Feel of the Website (Here you can rate the website by setting a benchmark)
Navigation Analysis and its Structure
General Layout Study
Software Used to design a website

Marketing Analysis:
Who is his targeting? Local or Global
Is your competitor a pure online merchant or he is a brick and mortar company?
What is his pricing strategy?
Does he do Internet Marketing for his website? If yes, find out how he does and what are the strategies he adopts to conduct online marketing?
What is the marketing pitch in the website? CALL-TO-ACTION
What and how the product information has been presented in this website?

SEO Analysis:
Search Engines are one the best marketing channels. Try to analyze Search Engine ranking for some important keywords.
Sites ranking for Specific Keywords
Keywords they have used in the on page
Link Popularity

Understanding e-business and marketing option

Consider XYZ is likely to start an ebusiness. XYZ Company has the following E-business Options:

XYZ can market its product through Email and Internet:Any business can easily get connected with an internet and can set-up an E-mail address too. Since Emailing is considered as one of the cheap and powerful ways of communication you can easily get in touch with your suppliers, Customers, Prospective customers and partners.

Website:
XYZ Company can set up its own website for its business. XYZ Company website can be simply an online brochure or electronic storefront. With the help of the website XYZ company can promote its product, sell product directly to its customers, generate greater awareness, gather customer information etc.

E-Commerce: XYZ Company now has to decide, if they want to sell the product through online. Since the business is all about B2C (Business – Consumer) and all goods and services can be sold virtually XYZ Company can also sell its product online. There are basically four types of Ecommerce website to sell your product online. For successful Ecommerce and Marketing XYZ company has the following options...

Browser- based Storefront
Individual Shopping Cart Software
Online Market Place
Advanced Ecommerce Software

Consider the following scenario:
XYZ is a shoe company (A Shoe Retailer) located in India. XYZ Company sells 300 pairs of shoes in one month through it 3 offline stores. XYZ Company is planning to expand its business globally and would like to achieve it by starting an online business.

XYZ Shoe Company is specialized in Only Leather Shoes.

XYZ Company has its own USP: All Kind of Genuine Leather Shoes Only at Rs. 499/- (local Price)

Goals:
XYZ Company wants to sell from 300 pairs to 500 pairs
XYZ Company wants to increase its profit by Rs.XXXX

Strategies:
Extend Business Online
Form New Pricing Strategy

Tactic:
Set-up a website through which XYZ Company can sell its product online.
Redesign the Price of each product to achieve the target profit – Include all delivery cost in the price of the product. Say if XYZ Company is selling a pair of shoes of Rs.499/- include Global delivery charges (it can be a flat fee or fee for each specific region).

So XYZ Company can now set up B2C Ecommerce Website to achieve it objectives.

The Feasibility Study to Start Internet Business

After setting up an objective it is imperative to conduct a feasibility study. Feasibility study is an important tool to analyze the effectiveness of a proposed business plan; it is a safeguard against the wastage of investment or resources. The feasibility is conducted before the commencement of the new business plan or business expansion. Conducting a feasibility study to start new business online or to extend your existing business online is the one of the good decisions because you are analyzing its viability to ensure that you have taken the right decision at the right time. The feasibility study will assist you to know your strength and will also help you to analyze the possibilities of extending and marketing your business online.

What Factors should I consider to conduct a feasibility study?

The business feasibility study will identify the hurdles and the roadblocks in the proposed business concept and will also determine the effectiveness of business concept. The following are the factors one should consider in feasibility study.

Market Viability

Technical Viability

Business Model Viability

Financial Viability

Management Model Viability

The above are the important dimensions of the feasibility study. Based on these viabilities one has to go further in making the right decision. All the above factors must prove feasible for the proposed business.

Business Feasibility Study Outline:

1. The Executive Summary: Prepare the executive summary about who you are and what do you do? This is usually prepared at the end of the study but it is presented first.

2. Introduction: Here you have to introduce yourself and your company in detail. Your goals and objectives of why do you want to extend your business online. And where you would like to see yourself after few years. This section will also include the vision and the mission of your company.

3. Product or Service: Here you have to tell about your product or service which you are going to market online and offline as well. Also tell your product mix, if you have any. OR if you are going to market other's product tell more about that product and its popularity in internet marketspace. Also describe, how your customers will use this product, what benefits you are going to deliver to them, if you sell it through online. Who are your target customers etc.

4. Technology: Technology has already driven businesses to the horizon. Study about the existing technology. Analyze your technological strength and try to figure out what the existing technology is?
   

5. Online Market Environment and Competition: Be clear about your target market(s). Try to find out who are your online customers and end users. Why should they buy product from you? What is the distribution system available through online market? How your product or service will benefit your end users. What is the market trend of your product or services? Who are your online competitors? How do they distribute the product through online?
   

6. Business Model: Describe how your business will generate revenue
7. Marketing and Sales Strategy (Both Offline and Online): Layout the basic marketing plan. Differentiate your offline and online marketing plans or mix it up as a single marketing plan. Also list out what are the e-tools you are going to use to market your product through online. What is the online selling strategy you are going to adopt?

8. Production and Operation Requirements (not required if you are marketing merchants product): Describe the complexity of your production system. This study is not required if you are marketing merchants product/service.

9. Management and Personnel: list down your company staffs details and their role also list down who will be managing online operations and marketing etc

10. Critical Risk Factors: Try to study the risk you’ll face in the entire business system if you extend your business online.

11. Financial Projections: This section will include Balance Sheet, Income Statement Projections, Cash-Flow, Break Even Analysis, and Capital Requirements. All the financial terms and expenditures you had spent and also the ROI.

12. Findings and Recommendations of the study

Do you have anything to say about this? feel free to add if i have missed out anything.

E-Commerce and E-business – What is the difference?

How to Start an ebusiness is one of the basic questions every wanna be ebusiness man asks to himself. But before starting it try to understand the terminologies and the similarities in it. The term e-commerce and e-business may sound same but technically they are different.

In both the cases the letter ‘e’ indicates electronic which includes internet and EDI (electronic data interchange) to improve business processes.

Ecommerce is narrower than ebusiness. It is a subset of ebusiness. Whereas Ebusiness is very broader, it refers to using of the internet technologies to conduct business which in return provides the great impact in the overall business process.

Ecommerce refers to the using of internet for Online Shopping i.e. to buy a product or service. For Example: Ecommerce occurs when a customer orders a ticket or book or gifts or any tangible or intangible product through internet. It occurs when an organization or individual pay money to another organization or individual via internet.

The term Ebusiness is covers all the areas of business. Ebusiness occurs when a company or individual communicate with their clients or customers or suppliers through email. Marketing done through Internet, Sell Products or Services through internet, Use internet to conduct market research, use internet to hire people, use internet for product or service promotion etc.

Lastly i'd like to conclude be it E-commerce or E-business the word 'e' will eventually disappear and in future ebusines will have great competition, accomodate your self in the right place before the crowd falls in.

Recommended Reading:
eBusiness & eCommerce: Management der digitalen Wertschöpfungskette

e-Business Intelligence: Turning Information into Knowledge into Profit

5 Steps to start an internet business

This article will tell you about Steps for starting up an ebusiness and marketing it through internet. Any business be it offline or online should know the basic steps to seek success. The following are the steps which will take your business online.

Step 1: Re-define your goals and objectives

The first step is to redefine your business goals and objectives because you are extending your business online. Online presence will generate a profitable market because internet is an attractive tool to create a buzz to your offline business.

This Step includes

o Define your goals (Fine Tuning your Goals)

o Study your existing business

o Create your whole new system

Step 2: Analysis and Requirements to your business:

Analysis (investigation) is the core part of any business. Before starting up an internet business one has to analyze business based on existing business operation (Offline).

This step includes

• Choose your business model
• Inventory your product
• Requirement Analysis
• Market Analysis
• Competitive Analysis
• Product Delivery Model

Step 3: Website Designing and Development

To make your presence online it is very imperative to have your own website. This process is very critical and care should be taken to design and develop a highly usable website that suits for your industry.

This Step includes…

• Set your website goals and objectives
• Content and site Structuring
• Website Conceptualizing and Prototyping
• Website Designing
• HTML and SEO (On Page Optimization)
• Website Development (Web Application Development)
• E commerce transaction (Online Payment Gateway) – (Payment Structure)
• Website domain and hosting - Affiliate
• Trust Factor – The Important Issue

Step 4: Marketing Plan

Marketing website is the most critical yet interesting Step that can facilitate companies to grow in the online market space. Marketing your website is not a one time process; it requires time, effort and money. The following are the steps to be followed…

This Step includes

• Marketing Re-Mix
• Internet and Marketing
• Website Promotion – Growing Inbound Links - Affiliate
• Search Engine Introduction
• Marketing through Search Engine
• Marketing through Directories
• Marketing through Email - Affiliate
• Marketing through Affiliate program (Hiring Affiliates) - Affiliate
• Online Branding and advertising - Affiliate
• Online Advertising Models
• Blogging for Business
• Offline Marketing to drive traffic online
• Measuring Success

Step 5: Legal issues

There are some of legal issues prevailing over the internet. Since there takes lots of scams and spasm you have to very careful. Some the legal issue which can put in trouble.

This Step includes

• Content theft
• Online payment theft
• PPC fraudulent
• Pornography Stuffs
• Search engine penalizing

Step 6: Customer Service

• Happy your customers
• Customer service
• Automate your customer service
• Handling Unhappy Customers
• Create Your Customer Service Policy