You already have made up your mind or have an opinion about lots of products that you use in your everyday life. Maybe you love the type of shaving cream that you use. Or you really hate the new TV show on Fox. Perhaps you think that new soda in the market is way too sweet. You might tell a friend not to watch a certain movie. On the other hand, you can't stop recommending a great new wine that you tried at dinner.

In a typical day it's easy to identify dozens and dozens of opinions and preferences you hold. Well, you might as well get paid for them. You can and you should. Here is some news for you: Corporate America is dying to know what you think about their products. Why? Because if they make a mistake and offer consumers a product or a service that people don't like, don't want, or won't pay money for, they stand to lose millions of dollars. So what do they do? They spend money upfront to test their products first. They get regular folks like you and me to sit in a room or fill out a survey and ask you questions about their new product. This is called a Focus Group. Based on the answers from the Focus Group, they will either keep the product as it is, make some changes, or scrap the whole thing. Corporations spend millions of dollars every year to find out what people like and dislike about thousands of products. From movies to soft drinks to toys, you name it, if you see any product in a retail store, chances are the company that makes it has tested it out with a Focus Group first.

Focus Groups, Surveys, & Other Market Research Opportunities Demystified Businesses and other organizations use focus groups to research consumer and public opinion concerning a variety of issues. Corporations look to focus groups for general help in selling their products to the world at large instead of any type of direct marketing efforts. Focus groups are usually conducted by Market Research companies. Market research companies are hired by the big corporations such as Coca-Cola and Nestle. The reason they do this is because the market research companies have the experience and expertise to make sure the focus groups are accurate and unbiased. If the corporations did this themselves they may not get impartial information and could make mistakes costing them millions of dollars (not to mention their jobs!) So from here on out, when I talk about companies that conduct focus groups, I am referring to market research companies. These will be the companies whom you will contact, register with, and get paid from. This is VERY important for you to remember.

OK, so what kinds of focus groups exist? Well, generally there are two types: Offline and Online. Offline These are small, roundtable discussion groups on topics ranging from the latest features on internetworking hardware to new flavors of ice cream. They usually involve about 10 participants plus the group leader or moderator. Each session usually lasts about 2 hours and the discussion is "focused" on a particular topic, about which group members share their opinions. An honorarium of $40-$80 for time and effort is very common. It is not unusual for observers from the client corporation to watch the group in action. In focus groups, unlike telephone surveys, people can be shown products or ads and can be given an opportunity to express how they feel and what they think in a normal, conversational setting. As a research method, the use of focus groups is less about statistics and numbers and more about qualitative matters such as whether people find an ad humorous, and why they find it humorous, or if people believe a product is appealing and why they think so.

Online Online focus groups are a cost effective alternative to conventional "face-to-face" focus groups. Online focus groups generally invite 8 to 10 people to join for a specified period of time (90 minutes to two hours) in a specialized chat room. This controlled environment allows participants to view text, graphics, sounds/jingles, video or multimedia for evaluation and testing. It is not uncommon for observers from the client corporation to watch the group in action and send private messages to the co-moderators as the group is progressing. Another type of online focus groups is surveys. Surveys can take anywhere from 1 minute or up to 10 minutes. Once you provide a market research company with your profile, you will be notified about surveys that match your demographic information. The more sites you sign-up with, the more surveys you can fill out, and the more incentives you can earn. Participation in paid surveys is fun, interesting, and financially rewarding.

Introduction

As more and more businesses move online, it becomes increasingly important for a company to have vision, scope, and strategic decision-making. A sharp online vision and a well-defined business plan are critical for starting a successful online store. The objective of the paper is to make a business plan for an online storefront implementation.

The business I have chosen is online airline ticket booking service. The site will be business-to-consumer storefront. It offers a better price or some other cost advantages and travel information to attract travelers to buy airline tickets on the internet. The site will offer easy navigation that leads customers directly to their shopping needs. In addition, the site will be organized in a convenient manner that answers customers¡¦ inquiries.

The vision and scope of the site
The web site will keep on design principles and accomplish strategic tasks of attracting customers, fixing their attention, and moving them to action. The site will provide key information and facilitate customer interest to attract customers to purchase. The site will be organized with efficient directories and indexes through a suitable method that enable the customers directly to their shopping needs or specific area of interest.

The site will implement a navigation method that make sure products or services that are categorized and formatted in an uncluttered manner and allows access to all of product categories. The site will implement a method for customers to sign up for e-mail newsletters and to specify their preferences.

The site will be compatible with 4.0 and higher web browsers on variety platforms. The logo and design layouts will remain consistent between pages so that the customer will gain a sense of the site sameness, and will further have a unique feel for the site. Our checkout and shopping cart will allow customers to check account balances, verify their account profiles online, and view current or previous account statements.

Customer service
The site will develop online customer-care strategies in order to acquire customer loyalty and create long term customer relationships. We would use email and private mailing lists to stay in touch with customers; follow up on customers¡¦ purchases and ensure their satisfaction; ask for suggestions about our services or products and make our services more efficient; offer newsletter subscriptions about special bargains and promotions. We will examine periodically customer-care package such as online troubleshooting, customer support functions, and customer service follow-up.

Conclusion
Planning is important as part of the site¡¦s preparations. That includes the goal of our storefront design and how internal management to undertake the project. We aim to build a site that conforms to the expectations and demands of our customers. We would like to establish an effective and customer-friendly interface to let customers navigate throughout the site easily. Because how the site looks is the first impression to customers we will attempt to make a manageable and easy-to-read format atmosphere in attracting and holding the attention of customers.

One of the most popular Internet myths claim that building an online store is easy: All the customer has to do is point, click, and buy. But in reality, successful e-commerce is far more complex and unlike any other web site project you have tackled in the past. Before that first cyber buck finds it’s way into your bank account, you need to do considerable research and planning.

To get started you can begin thinking about all the issues that need to be addressed before you can even put together a successful online business plan.

You can now imagine a real company that suddenly decides to regard the “welcome” announcement of e-commerce.

Say you’re working for the Ford Motor Company, the nation’s leading supplier of heavy-duty trucks. Your CEO is catching up on the past several months of business journals and when the spark plugs start firing. Those screaming headlines cannot be ignored: “Consumer E-Commerce Will Jump To 26 Billion By 2002” and “U.S. Online Business Trade Will Soar to 1.3 Trillion By 2003”. Most importantly, Chevy has rumored to begin its own e-business plan. So the big wig meets with the board of directors, and after an agonizing long deliberation, you are told that they want www.ford.com open in six weeks. Plenty of time they insist. After all there are millions of schmucks out there building award winning web sites and making a plethora of cash to pay for college.

Immediately go register the domain name ford.com for the company and then make your plan. Planning ahead for the unexpected gotchas of e-commerce that can hit you unexpectedly. Planning ahead will not only save you redevelopment time down the road, but it will also help you make educated decisions as you choose the right e-business solution for your company.

The Many Choices of Beginning
Before your can select the right setup for your e-business, you must determine exactly what you need to be competitive online. Most likely you will need some software to help you manage your products, your promotions, your customers, and their orders. You may also need some additional programs to handle the tax, shipping, and payment processing of your orders.

2 of 3
A number of off the shelf solutions have grown over the past few years that give you these core features and allow you to plug-in other software modules to handle the complexities of taxation, the varieties of shipping options, and all the popular forms of payment.

Solutions like Intershop’s ePages, iCat’s Lemonade Stand, or Yahoo’s Stores provide pre-fabricated storefronts that are ready. Just pick a design and fill in your products and you are ready for business.

Other applications, like Intershop 3.0 and iCat Professional, allow you to change the pre-made storefronts to your own personal look and feel. These programs also allow you to extend the html setups to even more alter the features and behaviors of the storefront.

The above solutions rely on other e-commerce software from CyberCash or OpenMarket for payment processing, Taxware for tax calculations, and Tandata for up to date shipping information.

Building Your Plans
As soon as you are building your plans you should construct a requirements document. At this point it is a good time to get the attention of all the corporate departments involved. That way everyone’s input is in at the beginning, instead of too late. All ideas and potential conflicts are confronted early.

It is hard to know which technology solution is good for you, until you have a detailed list of requirements that you can compare the solutions against. Therefore, you can choose an e-commerce platform that will deliver your goals to the online customers. You should also take the chance to plan for where the company is going to be in 2, 5, and 10 years. If you set your solution up correctly now, when your company grows and expands its range for service, you can simply add to the original foundation and not throw out your work.

More specifically your plan should answer the questions of how the products will be presented. The organization of how you would expect your customers to shop online, pretty cautiously when looking to order an automobile. The cars may be searched for through keywords or features. Prioritizing all the raw information to allow the most important information to be readily accessible.

The first version of the project concentrates on building up the company’s online customer base from the promotion of the unique service. Then once a minimum monthly order volume is sustained, the company will commit to putting resources toward automating the back office and fulfillment systems. Until then the current employee’s will just key in the orders.
Requirements Document

Displaying products:
You will want the customers to tell us what kind of vehicle they are looking for and you can tell them what you have to fit their needs. You will need a tool that can make changes to the product you offer in real time.

Order and transaction processing:
At this point the Internet is not reliable enough to take this high of priced orders safely so consumers will only be able to compare features and make requests online.

Attracting customers:
Banner ads, registering with search engines, and sending direct email to get qualified customers to the site. Then you can figure out which tactic effectively brings the most customers and invest in the one that makes the most sense.

Fulfillment and customer service
Orders that arrive on the server need to be relayed to the fulfillment center quickly so that you can pick, pack and ship the product before the fed ex truck leaves the dock at 5:00pm. Also let customers know the status of their orders so they don’t need to call the company.

Software and hosting:
A third party host may be a wise choice, as you don’t want to stay with the orders around the clock.

Individuals trying to make an easy fortune on web business beware of the task at hand, and do not start by patronizing the buy a plan sites already on the net.

Business is any activity that seeks profit by providing needed goods and services to others. The nature of providing these goods and services has changed drastically throughout the history of time. During the last thirty years of business activity, there has been new ways and means of conducting business through something we call technology. Technology is the advancement and uses of electronic devices and other high-tech equipment to produce and progress knowledge into the future. Today, in 1999, nearing the new millenium, the number one technique of tying business into technology would be the use of the Internet. The Internet is a computer application that connects tens of thousands of interconnected computer networks that include over 2.0 million host computers around the world. The basis of connecting all these computers together is by the use of ordinary telephone wires. Users are then usually directly joined to other computer users at there own will for a small connection fee per month. The connection conveniently includes unlimited access to millions of web sites twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Since the Internet can be accessed by millions of people all time, it would be a great incentive for businesses. The Internet can help businesses in number of extraordinary ways. First, the Internet is an excellent way to make business information available to possible consumers. Say a person hears about a product that your business produces and would like to know more information about that product. Well, through Internet access, that person can easily locate your business web site and browse through the information needed. Included in the web site found, there could be many documents, pictures, small movie flicks, and unique question and answer sections available. All of this can be gathered in the convenience of a person's home, twenty-four hours a day. A business can be very pleased with the amount of information they can readily have available to publish to the entire world. If the consumers are satisfied with a particular product with all the public information made available, why not make a product or service obtainable through the use of the Internet. Well, many companies use that method of distribution right now. The Internet can sell products on-line very effectively. It is just as simple as making a selection at a regular store, only you are using the computer and probably using a credit card as the method of payment. Depending on how developed and advanced the companies web site is; customer service may be available to help some customers with expert advice. Or, it could just make them feel comfortable.

Another plus about the use of the Internet is that most of the time it is user friendly and all of the time cost effective. The term user friendly refers to making the use of the system untroubled and easy to understand. Making the computer web site user friendly could greatly encourage the user to continue to absorb the available information. Having resources like big bold titles and pictures would increase the appearance to the viewer. Simple order forms and instructions should be made clear. A messy and complicated web site could turn the user off and make them unhappy with the services provided. Even with the hundred of services available, one thing is for sure that it is very cost effective. Providing web sites over the Internet is far more cheaper than advertising in magazines, on the radio, or on television. In addition, web sites may be modified with current changes within a company at any time. Therefore, most of the information tied into the web site is currently up-to-date and very competitive.

Making business information available is one of the most important ways to serve your customers. By using the Internet, the customers can feel at ease with the information given to them. They can scroll through what they want to know and quickly bypass useless information at there own speed. There is no pressure on the customer to continue they may even take a break or a short pause whenever they feel it is necessary. Because the Internet is entirely at the touch of your own fingers, it can make customers and even browsers feel very comfortable. If that does not bring connivance to the users, the twenty-four hour service of availability should accommodate them even more. Some consumers could say they would rather stay home all day and do all of their business with the Internet. Well, today all that is possible. No driving around from store to store and no negotiating with pesky salesmen would greatly help some. Technology today can deliver business to us and not make us travel to businesses.

Another benefit of using the Internet would be the chance of curious people coming across your web site that did not know it existed or the existence of the products and services you are advertising. There are millions of people out there that are constantly stumbling on and across new sites, products, and services.

The Internet is a fun and exciting way for consumers to learn and review more about a product or company. As forementioned, many documents may be included with 3D graphics and sound. There are many clever and imaginative ways and ideas that can be expressed. Web sites pertaining to children can come across in a more colorful approach, while material directed toward on older generation can be presented in another perspective. Whether targeting a younger or older audience, the outcome of the results gathered can be phenomenal.

The Internet has numerous advantages and advances for preparing a business. The Internet can connect consumers with valuable information about a product. The Internet can also possibly retail specific products to consumers online, all while being user friendly and cost effective. The Internet can give useful information to consumers whenever they are interested. And the brightest aspect of all is that it is the most exciting way to learn more about a product or service. So as you can see, The Internet can help businesses just as well as customers. The amount of information that can be gathered from the Internet is infinite. The Internet is an information super highway. As far as the negative aspects are concerned, I believe that there are few to none. The Internet is a positive, extraordinary growing market for businesses and services. As we head into the future, technology will bring more excellent and exciting advancements into the business world.

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