Report On Market Position Of Booktopia Private Limited

Discuss about the Report for Market Position of Booktopia Private Limited.

Background

Booktopia Pty Ltd has seen a downward trend in sales. The company is looking for market trend and digital innovation route to change the position of the company in the market (The Booktopian, 2016).

This report was prepared to evaluate the declining sales of Booktopia’s books and to look for new digital innovation ideas to augment the sales figure. The report also discusses the current state of the Booktopia and its existing concerns. Suggestions are included for digital innovations/ technology options which may help the company to achieve its target sales.

The report is restricted to a discussion of the declining sale of books in Booktopia website. The report includes a market analysis which consists of current market scenario, industry trend, and analysis. Options for digital innovation are explored to increase sales. A suitable value proposition is added in the report.

Current market scenario

Online book purchasing has revolutionized the manner of reading as the user can buy books from the various online bookstores (Chang, et al., 2016). There has been huge growth in e-commerce and online book market in last few years. As people prefer e-books which can be accessed from anywhere anytime (Yang, et al., 2010). Booktopia has combined new technologies with old technologies, financial and social technology to create flexible and secure online bookstore (The Booktopian, 2016).

As per The Booktopian, (2016) Booktopia Pty Ltd runs an online bookstore in Australia. It sells through its online portal books, CDs, DVDs, eBooks, calendars, and several products to Australia citizens, schools, businesses, libraries, universities and government departments. The company is making more than $85 million a year. The online bookstore Booktopia was voted as the Australia's favourite bookshop in a poll conducted by the Australia Booksellers Association (The Booktopian, 2016).

The online bookstore is most sought after for book purchasing and when an online bookstore offers the products as per the needs of the customer, it is widely preferred. The Booktopia has become most used online book store in Australia to purchase books online. The company has accommodated the technology and support system to assist the customer via dedicated customer helpline number (Chang, et al., 2016). The rapid growth of sales of books under the Booktopia website has stagnated. The company was the given priority by customers over Amazon as the company offers books at least price. The company is a member of the Australian Booksellers Association (Booksellers.org.au, 2016).

Scope of Report

Online bookstores have undergone rapid growth in the last five years. Consumers use to prefer e-commerce transactions more and enjoying online books via delivery (Chang, et al., 2016). According to Gray, (2013) the transformation from bricks-and-mortar retailers to online bookstore have converted into revenue growth for these online retailers like the Booktopia. The decline of traditional book retailers due to parallel import restrictions and regional and overseas online competition has forced many consumers to buy from industry operators (Carrico, 2015). Industry revenue of online bookstore is forecast to grow by a compound annual 14.7 percent over the five years through 2015-16, to reach $115.7 million in 2020-21 (Chang, et al., 2016).

As the current trend showing a drop in sales and analysis shows a declining trend in sales. It was found out in the analysis that younger customer segment in the age group of 18 years old to 30 years old which is placing less and fewer orders using the Booktopia (The Booktopian, 2016). The company wants to increase its revenue in the next five years and to become geographically located with an increase in revenue by 20 percent year by year. The current technology used by the company is not enough to fuel the fire of growth company needs to expand (Chen and Cheng, 2012).  The company is looking for digital technology and new concepts to further augment the sales to raise revenue and increase its long-term goals.

As per the view of Gray, (2013)many big brands, retailers and all e-commerce business use the internet as selling and advertising platform in the recent era. Now the sales channel of marketing has become double-digit growth indicators (Yang, et al., 2010). It has become the most useful medium for sales purpose (Carrico, 2015). However, this digital innovation and its growth increase sales revenue of any business. Consumers like to gather information about new products or services every day. They have become time conscious and prefer browsing internet (Carrico, 2015).

People are now covered with a digital world that fills with new products, services, and digital innovations. Digital innovation is the latest buzz phrase (Chen and Cheng, 2012). Digital innovation means to carry out of innovative combinations of components- digital and physical for producing novel products. The basic definition of digital innovation is turning paper records into electronic records (Gray, 2013). This change requires data collection, processing, and analysis of the data. After digital media, digital innovation is the next iteration. Digital Innovation is the important source to make consumers life easier, more productive and more enjoyable (Chang, et al., 2016). Many companies recognize that the online marketing or the digital marketing is moving rapidly to the mainstream business. Over the past two decades, the way of shopping has evolved rapidly.

Market Analysis

People now can shop with clicks (Gray, 2013). Digital innovation makes the consumers more digitally savvy. Speed and sophistication are on the rise for innovative digitization. It lets the social platform to drive the world. Productivity and efficiency rise for digital innovation in recent trends (Yang, et al., 2010). In order to understand the characteristics of digital innovation of recent trends, it is important to know how digital technology differs from previous technologies (Carrico, 2015). Chen and Cheng (2012) have explained that new digital innovation has three unique characteristics: (1) the programmability, (2) the homogenization of data, and (3) the self-referential nature of digital technology

The programmability- Digital innovation includes programmability as a digital device is reprogrammable. It can separate the semiotic functional logic of the digital device from the physical embodiment that executes it.

The homogenization of data- Digital innovation provides homogenization of data.

• The self-referential nature of digital technology- The meaning of self-reference is that digital innovation requires the use of digital technology.

The recent trends in digital innovation include many new things. Many e-commerce business organization use Snapchat as their advertising platforms. Marketing automation software is used to send mass emails in recent trends (Chang, et al., 2016). There are many mobile-friendly apps that are helpful in digital marketing.

Value proposition serves as the base for all the marketing efforts of the company and defines what makes the company different and unique from its competitors. The value proposition of the company should include:

Assurance to solve a specific problem or achieve a particular goal

Clear description of how the prospective customer will benefit from using your products and services

Identifies visible results customers can expect due to using your services

Enables the company to offer must-have services and create tempting marketing messages

Demonstrates the company lucidly its target customers, what they are looking for and where competitors fall short

Carrico (2015) has defined Value proposition solves the problem of a customer or satisfies his needs.  Each value proposition includes a selected range of products or services that serve the requirement of a particular customer segment. In this manner, the value proposition is a bundle, or an aggregation, of benefits which a company offers to its customers (Yang, et al., 2010). As the value proposition requires the Booktopia includes in a bundle of benefits, not just one thing. The value proposition of the Booktopia includes:

Fast and easy service

Cheap delivery charges

Huge discount and coupons

Gracious return policy

Good customer service with full customer helpline

Full availability of all types of books, e-books, CDs and DVDs

Industry Trends and Analysis

Most trusted online bookstore in Australia

Following Chen and Cheng, (2012) it can be recommended that Booktopia need to follow certain key aspects to increase the target sales and company growth of the company. In the digitization era, customers become the powerful part of the business (Chang, et al., 2016).The company believes in online reviews. The company should use video reviews or reviews containing product image can work (Yang, et al., 2010). The company can use feedback programs to increase the volume of feedback which is submitted by the customers. The company can introduce sponsored products list as this can make the products to be displayed below search results (Carrico, 2015). The company should give discounts on products if the buyer buys in a bulk.

Conclusion

The report has analysed the Booktopia declining sales and digital innovation technology to increase revenue. The purpose of this report has been fulfilled by searching new digital innovation technology and providing a clear discussion of how the sales of the company in the young customer market will increase. Digital innovation has unique characteristics of the programmability, the homogenization of data and the self-referential nature of digital technology (Chen and Cheng, 2012).  Building a suitable value proposition is very significant for the growth of the company.

Booktopia value proposition is prepared in such a manner the target customer will be attracted towards the online bookstore. Fast and easy service with cheaper delivery charges and gracious return policy will be given a warm welcome by the customers. The company can include Snapshot as other e-commerce businesses are using for their advertising platforms. Recommendations such as video reviews and products reviews are given to lure young customer market. Discount on bulk purchase is one of the techniques to attract youth consumer segment.

References

blog.Booktopia.com.au, 2016. The Booktopian - Booktopia Blog. [Online]
Available at: https://blog.Booktopia.com.au/
[Accessed 24 August 2016].

Booksellers.org.au, 2016. About ABA - Australian Booksellers Association. [Online]
Available at: https://www.booksellers.org.au/about-aba
[Accessed 24 August 2016].

Carrico, S., 2015. Online Book Selling at the Smathers Library Bookstore. Library Resources & Technical Services, 49(4), pp. 276-283.

Chang, J., Lee, M. & Wang, T., 2016. Integrating a semantic-based retrieval agent into case-based reasoning systems: A case study of an online bookstore. Computers in Industry, 78(2), pp. 29-42.

Chen, C. & Cheng, C., 2012. How online and offline behavior processes affect each other: customer behavior in a cyber-enhanced bookstore. Quality & Quantity, 47(5), pp. 2539-2555.

Gray, D., 2013. Out of the Box and Into the Bookstore: Non-Traditional Use of the Bookstore. Against the Grain, 15(3), pp. 56-94.

Yang, J., Zielinski, A. & Cheng, L., 2010. Purchasing college textbook from online e-bookstore: an empirical study. IJMIE, 3(2), pp. 162-174.