BuyQuik

About

BuyQuik is a start-up model to make the online shopping experience efficient and more convenient for customers. The main idea behind this is to solve the problem/s that people face while doing online shopping.

Problem Statement: General online shopper (including me) usually when visit online store to buy some products like home essentials, clothes, grocery, electronics etc. they all need to switch between different E-commerce websites like Flipkart , amazon , Myntra, Grofers, Big basket etc. in order to get a better deal and we could save few pennies.

Solution: To avoid these problems I am here with an idea of developing a website portal/application which will integrate all these E-commerce websites combined into a single website portal/application where it will compare the prices of same products across each app and offer best price of the item. This will save the time and money of the customer as switching between the multiple websites or apps for better deal will not be required anymore.

Market Demand

In this Covid era and even before that most of the people always prefer to buy online rather than purchasing it from the market offline due to many advantages of online shopping like more product options, better deals and convenience. With people being so busy in present scenario this application will come as blessing for many like me and will save their precious time which they spend on switching from one site to other to compare prices as well as will help them to save some money.This application will combine the major applications and help the customer to compare and choose the best deal.

Relevant Products in the Market

Currently there is no other product like this available in the market.

Though there are few sites like Trivago which are based on similar model compares prices and helps the customer to grab a good deal but those are only for the purpose of travelling whereas this application has a different purpose and is helpful for a larger section of the people.

As an online buyer myself I understand the problems we face during the time of shopping. This product would be developed keeping those problems in mind and will help the customer:

1. This product will save their time they spend in switching the apps for a better deal.

2. This product helps the customer to get the best deal for the same products available across the internet.

3. The application also allows the user to buy the product through the same payment gateway which would be linked to the payment gateways of respective sites.

Target Customers

Online shopping is mainly used by people:

1. Who prefer the comfort to buy products by just sitting at home.

2. Who want better deals for products than offline deals

3. Who prefer to get reviews about the product before purchasing.

Basically all those people who prefer online shopping would be our target audience. From a teenager to an old person all are more driven towards online shopping especially in this Covid era.

Required Knowledge or Expertise

The things which we would require while implementing our start-up idea are:

1. Research:-

a. First step in research would be qualitative research which will play a huge role in determining what problems do customers usually face and research for collecting data required to add comparison of products from all websites/apps would also be required.

b. Then, concept testing would be required whether it will work successfully or the changes would be required

c. After concept testing, product development would start and after completion of the product development, product testing would take place which will identify anything in the product which requires any change.

2. Hardware:-

We would require few computer machines with good configurations like processor would be at least i5 10th generation intel or Ryzen 5, minimum 16GB RAM and 512 HDD. On the other hand, the user can access our product on any device like smartphone, tablet, PC etc. and this application will be available on browser as well as mobile platform in the form of app for iOS, android and windows.

3. Software:-

The development of this product would require a decent knowledge of programming languages like Python, C++, Java, and HTML. The knowledge of App Development is also required like

a. Mobile user interface design:

The UI of an application is responsible for interaction between the user and the software. When it comes to developing mobile applications, it’s not enough for them to simply have adequate backend functionality. With a plethora of apps available to download, the most attractive are the apps that are easy to use, have a superior design and run smoothly.

b. Cross-Platform App Development:

To reach the maximum customers the app should be available for every platform and to make it possible the knowledge for Cross-Platform App development is must.

c. Backend Computing:

This is one of the most important aspect for the development of this product.it involves security, Database management, Hardware interaction and implementation of memory allocation.

Solution

The working of this product can be visualized below for a better understanding:-

Estimated Budget

The estimated budget for our start-up would be

1. Hardware cost would be approx. $5000

2. For purchasing domain name and cloud hosting:$1000/year

3. For publishing app on

a. Apple app store:$99/year

b. Google play store:$25(One Time Cost)

The idea will be proposed to people who are interested in funding this project as resources like team of 4–5 members, funds for marketing, server , database of customers will be required in making this start-up a successful venture.

These are rough cost of estimate and will vary as we move towards more detailed plan.

Marketing Plan

Any plan exist requires a really great marketing strategy to be successful. So, to make our product successful we first need to create a good yet affordable marketing strategy. First of all for any start-up to be successful it requires a name that attracts the people and it requires a catchy slogan for attracting people towards the product and this will also help us in attracting those who are interested in funding this proposed model.

Few strategies I would use for the marketing of my product are:

1. Email marketing: it is one of the most cost efficient marketing strategy.

2. Social Media marketing: it is becoming one of the most convenient way to reach the masses as almost everyone uses one or the other social networking site. It is free of cost as well.

3. SEO(Search Engine Optimization): This helps in attracting a high traffic towards the site which will make people aware about our product.

4. Referrals: by giving discount offers if a person refers it to other.

5. Using forum and social media groups: these are very effective in order to marketize the product and they doesn’t even cost a single penny.

Product Pricing

This product would not require any kind of pricing model like periodic subscription or pay as you go and would be available free of cost across all platforms.

How we will generate revenue:

· Advertisement: the more people visit, the more revenue it will generate from product advertisement

· Revenue from Affiliate partners affiliate: Each affiliate partner/advertiser can determine the amount that it wants to pay for each referral redirect by bidding for advertisements on the website

Risk Analysis

The risk in implementing the project as whole are:

· Market risk: this risk plays an important role in start-up as everything in my proposed model is based on market of online buyers and it is very important to analyse which type of sites they trust and which products are in high demand.

· Financial risk: the proposed model is dependent on the funds and it would be very difficult to make this venture successful without funds as funds are required for marketing, for team members, for other resources like app Development and launching it on platforms.

· Team risk: any startup can only be successful if there’s a good team involved and each one understand their role and responsibilities with in the team.

The risk involved in this online model :

· E-commerce online security: phishing , data errors, etc.

· E-commerce intellectual property: the risk of fraud websites using the name, logo and motto of our product.

· Customer disputes & chargebacks: resolving these problems with the e-commerce websites can become difficult at times.

The probable risks in the implementation of this start-up are the availability of information like the product availability, the product pricing, the syncing of all these information with the respective applications from which they have been purchased.

Milestone & Timeline

We are targeting this project to complete within the time frame of 8–10 months based on initial assumptions and availability, following are some of the milestones with tentative timelines:

· Validating the business idea by creating a prototype and getting a customer feedback. Expected time is approx. 2 weeks.

· Raising fund for kick start of the project by 1st February 2021

· Project Plan within 1 month post approval from stakeholders.

· Gather required resources. Assuming team of technical people already on board.

· Creating the team of 4–5 members for marketing, developing website, proposing a launch model.

· Development of project in phases.

· Marketing strategy execution before the launching of the first phase of the project.

· Launch of the first phase of the project will only be in website form which will firstly have E-commerce sites including Amazon , Flipkart and Myntra.

· Focus on increasing direct as well as organic traffic, followed by referral traffic(Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) and then finally paid traffic.

· In the second phase, the Application for all the platforms will be launched.

· In third phase, the addition of the grocery sites like Grofers , Big Basket would be done .

· The Updation of the application with additional features as per the customer reviews will be done time to time.

Target date for the final product release is tentatively on 1st November 2021.