Final E-commerce Project

Students are to work in teams of three to plan an e-commerce site for a real or hypothetical business and implement the site using open source tools. Students are to present their plan and implementation in an oral presentation using PowerPoint and in a written summary. The specific requirements for the project are as the following:

a. Create an Internet Business Plan
b. Implement that plan on the Web

First: Sections of an Internet Business Plan

1) Executive Summary: This section must concisely communicate the basics of your entire business plan. Keep in mind that your reader may be unfamiliar with the Internet and its tremendous potential.

2) Business Description: In this section discuss your firm's product or service along with information about the industry.

3) Marketing Plan: With the business described, next you must discuss your target market, identify competitors, describe product advertising, explain product pricing, and discuss delivery and payment mechanisms.

a. Customers: You must define who your customers are and how many of them exist on the Internet. There are demographic studies by organizations such as The Internet Society and The Internet Group that can help you determine this.

b. Competitors: Use Internet search engines to look for known competitors or similar products to yours. Remember, readers of your business plan will be very interested in how you are going to beat the competition.

c. Advertising: Describe how you are going to tell the Internet community about your product or service. Designing beautiful Web pages is only a first step. You must also get the word out about your Web site. Some tips: add your Web address to the databases of search engines, add it to the bottom of all of your e-mail messages, etc.

d. Pricing: How are you setting prices for your products or services? If your product is intangible information delivered over the Internet, you should try to create some sort of pricing model to justify your prices. You could start by researching what others are charging for similar products.

e. Delivery & Payment: How are you going to deliver your product and get paid? E-mail alone is not secure.

4) Research & Development: This is where to get into the technical aspects of your project. Address where the project is now, the R&D efforts that will be required to bring it to completion, and a forecast of how much the project will cost. Since the Internet is continually developing, you should also address continuing plans for R&D.

5) Management: This segment must address who will be running the business and their expertise. Because the business centersaround the Internet, be sure to discuss the management team's level of Internet expertise and where they gained it. Also, describe your role in the business.

6) Risks: In this section, you must define the major risks facing the proposed business. In addition to regular business risks such as downward industry trends, cost overruns, and unexpected entry of competitors, also include risks specific to the Internet. For example, be sure to address the issues of computer viruses, hacker intrusions, and unfavorable new policies or legislation.

7) E-commerce business and revenue models: Name and describe the e-commerce business model(s) used by the business. Explain why this model or models is appropriate for e-commerce for this business. Name and describe the revenue model(s) used by the business. Explain why this model or models is appropriate for ecommerce for this business?

8) Financial: Potential investors will pay close attention to this area, since it is a forecast of profitability. As in a regular business plan, include all pertinent financial statements. Remember to highlight the low expenses associated with operating on the Internet compared to those of other business.

9) Timeline: In this section, you must lay out the steps it will take to make your proposal a reality. When developing this schedule, it might be helpful to talk to other Internet businesses to get an idea of how long their Internet presences took to establish.

10) Conclusion: A summarization for the business plan that shows how is tis plan is promising and expected to be successful.

Second: Implementation Requirements:

The site must have the following features, at a minimum:
o Company background page listing location of corporate headquarters or equivalent;
o Business Policies, if transactions are conducted, including;
o complete and easy to understand rate charges if the business provides a service
o shipping policy and charges
o return policy
o Privacy Policy
o Security Statement

In designing your site, the following aesthetics must be considered:

o Appropriate use of colors and contrasts
o Appropriate amount of information on each page - do NOT clutter your pages
o Appropriate use of images (Relativity, resolution, and size)
o Consistent corporate image throughout the site