Introduction
The cosmetics business got realized upon researching the profitability it brought and the success rate. With women being the target market for the industry as they are the highest consumers of beauty products, the business venture was quite lucrative. The cosmetics business is very profitable as beauty products are constantly in demand. Dream World Cosmetics aims to provide more products related to women’s usage, including foundation, mascara, skincare items, haircare items like shampoos, and toiletries. The company will have a website where purchases can be made online and delivered. All the everyday items such as hair food, gel, braids, wigs, weaves, necklaces, bangles, shampoos, and conditioners are the first to be purchased as the business starts. At first, offers will be made to attract customers to the online platform through social media and other mediums. The e-business will focus on providing women with cosmetics online, identifying main competitors, and all legal and ethical obligations.
The E-Business
Opportunity and Market Basis
Electronic business is a process of selling and buying that a business organization overlooks through a computer-mediated network. The business to be conducted by Dream World Cosmetics will be entirely online, where ordering and purchasing get conducted via an electronic device such as a smartphone, laptop, or desktop. Currently, e-business is rapidly evolving and becoming the most preferred mode of purchasing (Kabrilyants et al., 2021). Easy access to the official company website will be through the proposed URL, where only customers inside Australia can make purchases. Its structure is a partnership, where two co-founders combine their resources to form it and agree on sharing the profits, risks, and losses. The main objectives of the e-business are to reach the maximum number of customers at a given time to increase sales and make profits, improve customer loyalty and identify the right target audience (Wynn, 2022). Customers are the most critical factor in any business as they are the consumers.
E-Business model and Target Customer
Dream World Cosmetics is a B2C type of business where products are exchanged between the organization and the consumers. The business-to-consumer model bypasses third-party retailers and directly deals with clients (Wynn and Olayinka, 2021). Dream World will operate in a constantly changing environment hence the need to adopt promising organizational development interventions. Emphasis will be on the technostructure and human resource management interventions, which constitute the critical business structures. The company will adopt an e-commerce structure where the information technology (IT) development team will be at the top. A marketing director, human resource, and finance managers will be present, overseeing specific areas of the business. An operations team will ensure that goods are delivered on time and can be accounted for in transit and within the company warehouse. The customer support team will be at the lower level, communicating with customers through phone calls and chats and offering advice and solutions to presented queries.
Like any other e-business, Dream World Cosmetics has a target market at which all the products are aimed. Young girls and women aged between sixteen and forty are the potential customers. A large portion of the population in Australia falls under the category, with over fifty percent. College and university girls and millennial women are most likely to purchase beauty products; they naturally consume them daily. Consumers are comfortable with the purchase online as they can compare the commodities with many different ones simultaneously before making a decision. Dream World gives them this option while providing quality merchandise at an affordable price. They are much more likely to be comfortable with the products. It is also easy as they are not required to travel and go to shops, thus saving them time.
Value Proposition
The business is entirely customer-centered, with sales on beauty products such as shampoos, perfumes, deodorants, skin care products, and hair products such as weaves and braids. Dream World will provide various products, ensuring all needed items are available on the website. Offering multiple products will increase market reach, boost sales, and result in profit-making. The target market’s benefits likely to be experienced include boosting self-esteem, enhancing appearance, and providing skin protection. The chosen products getting sold are at the top user list for every woman and young girl in Australia, making them a guaranteed sale. All the products sold by the company are sourced wholesale from big brands like Estee Lauder, Unilever, and Colgate-Palmolive (Meyer, 2021). The e-business adopts a markup pattern as the sole revenue model. Revenue is created by buying products wholesale and reselling them to customers at an increased fee (Wynn and Olayinka, 2021). The products range from 10 to 500 Australian dollars depending on the item purchased; it is moderate and affordable to all customers.
Industry and Market Analysis
Market Opportunity
Women purchase more beauty products than men, making them the ideal target population. The Australian beauty and personal care products were valued at 3.73 billion in 2020 and are projected to register a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.87 percent during the forecast period (Meyer, 2021). The Australian market is willing to pay high prices for a product if its supply is low (Meyer, 2021). Competition in the beauty industry in Australia is high; big companies like Beautopia and AMR Hair and Beauty make more sales as they have gained customer trust. Millennial women are the highest consumers of beauty products in Australia, with the majority residing in cities like Queensland and Canberra (Meyer, 2021). In a recent trend report on the online shopping trend in Australia, the web traffic in the beauty and cosmetics industry increased in the first half of 2022 compared to the year 2021 (Karim and Gide, 2018). The demand for online purchases has increased, making this venture realistic. Web traffic will be used to measure the effectiveness of the online business through the measure of sessions or visits to the company’s website.
SWOT Analysis
There is rivalry in selling similar products to the same target market and from the same suppliers. A SWOT analysis will help the company understand its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (Karim and Gide, 2018). The business must offer affordable products with fast delivery within twenty-four hours for nearby destinations to be outstanding and unique. Dream World Cosmetics has to offer free deliveries to clients within Canberra as this is where the headquarters will be stationed, thus enticing them. Customers must be awarded loyalty points, which can be redeemed to purchase without funds. The major problem faced by the company is recognition from society which can be fixed with proper marketing strategies. Many people prefer making purchases online, reassuring the success possibilities of the business. Taking advantage of the marketing preference is an opportunity that Dream World addresses. Threats can be handled by implementing proper strategies to facilitate growth, such as having all products and selling them at affordable prices.
Marketing and Web Presence
Market Strategy
Marketing strategy is essential for the success of any business as it provides an overall plan that aims at reaching prospective consumers and turning them into potential customers. The company needs to adopt strategies like search engine optimisation (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, email marketing, and social media (Karim and Gide, 2018). Email marketing links to the official website can be included to attract visitors right from their inboxes (Sanaei and Sobhani, 2018). SEO is effective as it will help the company’s website rank higher in searches, thus enabling more people to get knowledge of the company, which results in more customers (Sanaei and Sobhani, 2018). PPC is an advertising model that allows the company to pay for ads that potential customers have viewed (Sanaei and Sobhani, 2018). The company can use social media to engage with users and provide them with all the necessary information about the business (Sanaei and Sobhani, 2018). It is a must-use online marketing strategy since the target market consists of youths and young adults.
Web Presence
Every e-business has a web presence on the World Wide Web where it is represented. Online presence is vital to the company, as it majors in e-commerce. The firm will be competitive in the market with an excellent online presence. Customers can easily access the company’s products if it has frequent visibility on the internet, as it is the first place they opt to look when needing some products. The system functionalities highly recommended include fast speed, an easy-to-use checkout, promotion, and discount code tools, email marketing features, multiple payment options, and content management capabilities (Islam and Karim Miajee, 2018). Since marketing is done online, the website layout needs to be outstanding and eye-catching. Detailed and easy-to-read descriptions should be provided for each product, accompanied by high-quality pictures of the same merchandise (Islam and Karim Miajee, 2018). The products should be clickable and optimized with familiar titles and all information about the price and shipping details.
Taxation, Legal and Ethical Issues
Every business is entitled to legal and moral obligations, including paying taxes. Dream World Cosmetics is a partnership company, hence the need to apply for a tax file number (TFN) and register for the Australian Business Number (ABN) (Cruz, 2022). The organization will be subjected to Goods and Services Tax (GST) registration (Cruz, 2022). As a requirement, the GST directs a 10 per cent tax on goods and services consumed by the Australian population (Cruz, 2022). The company can opt for the annual submission of Business Activity Statements (BAS) to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) (Cruz, 2022). Some ethical problems likely to be experienced include online piracy, email spamming, and web spoofing (Thamik and Wu, 2022). Imitative logos, fake websites, and the sending of malicious emails can affect the relationship between the customer and the company.
The firm needs to install monitor systems to surveil emails and implement company policies that protect the users. Potential legal issues likely include copyright protection, transaction, and trademark security problems (Thamik and Wu, 2022). The solution is to abide by the law and avoid publishing content from other e-commerce websites. Secure customer information and provide a clear and complete description of the purchases made, including delivery information, the cost, and purchase price, to avoid being subjected to consumer law penalties.
Conclusion
Dream World Cosmetics is projected to be very profitable as it aims at providing products that are in constant need by the target consumers. Online buying is the preferred mode of getting products for most people. The proposed e-business adopts the B2C model, where transactions are made between the consumer and the provider. It has a clear hierarchy headed by a manager who oversees all the company actions. Unlike men, women and teenage girls are the preferred target market as they engage primarily with beauty products daily. The company is to buy products in bulk and resell them at a higher price to gain profits, thus adopting the markup model. A SWOT analysis is conducted to determine where the company lies in the competitive industry. Online marketing strategies are preferred as the target market constantly engages with the internet. The business must abide by the law and pay all taxes. It needs to adopt appropriate strategies to attend to the legal and ethical issues likely to arise, thus preventing losing customers.
Reference list
Chouhan, N. and Vig, H. (2021) Cosmetics market by category and distribution channel. Web.
Cruz, M., 2022. A startup’s full guide about e-commerce tax in Australia. Web.
Islam, A. and Karim Miajee, R. (2018) ‘Exploring E-Business in SMEs’, International Journal of Small and Medium Enterprises, 1(1), pp.16–18.
Kabrilyants, R., Obeidat, B.Y., Alshurideh, M. and Masa’deh, R. (2021) ‘The role of organizational capabilities on e-business successful implementation’, International Journal of Data and Network Science, 5(1), pp.417–432.
Karim, S. and Gide, E., 2018. ‘Barriers to adopting e-commerce with small to midsized enterprises-SMEs in developed countries: An exploratory study in Australia’, Global Journal of Information Technology: Emerging Technologies, 8(1), pp.24-36.
Meyer, M., 2021. Beauty industry Australia (2021): statistics and market analysis. Web.
Sanaei, M.R. and Sobhani, F.M. (2018) ‘Information technology and e-business marketing strategy’, Information Technology and Management, 19(3), pp.185–196.
Thamik, H. and Wu, J. (2022) ‘The impact of artificial intelligence on sustainable development in electronic markets’, Sustainability, 14(6), pp.01-16.
Wynn, M. (2022) ‘E-business, information systems management, and sustainable strategy development in the digital era’, Sustainability, 14(17), pp.01–05.
Wynn, M. and Olayinka, O. (2021) ‘E-business strategy in developing countries: a framework and checklist for the small business sector’, Sustainability, 13(13), pp.01-20.