Upali's Restaurant - Authentic Sri Lankan Cuisine In Melbourne, An Essay In Flavors.

1. Identify the purpose of the a website and its web business model using a real-world example.

2. Identify the target market for the site and any consumer behaviour issues of that target market.

3. Carefully analyse the site and critically evaluate it using digital marketing analysis tools.

4. Examine internet marketing strategy of a given business and its relationship with business strategy.

5. Profile a company’s current customer base and potential target markets as well as its competitors.

6. Compare different elements of a company’s communication mix and justify the extent to which they should be supported or supplanted by digital and direct marketing methods. .

7.Examine the influence of the internet on the marketing mix.

Upali’s Restaurant is enriched with authentic Sri Lankan cuisine and it guarantees to provide a tickle to the taste buds with quality Sri Lankan spices. First started in Colombo, now Upali’s Restaurant is situated in Melbourne. Upali’s Restaurant provides the well-seasoned signature dishes of Sri Lanka in Melbourne (Upalis.com, 2018). Upali’s Restaurant has its website and this website provides access to menu, events, locations and gallery of Upali’s Restaurant. Moreover, Upali’s Restaurant has its Facebook and Instagram pages so that they can connect with the customers.

Upali's Restaurant has its own website and this website is designed with Active Server Pages, Microsoft's first server-side script engine. According to Saebi & Foss (2015), an organisation or institution makes the website as it helps to reach the wider audiences in lower costs. Traditional marketing methods are expensive than the website marketing as the organisation has to pay a fixed amount for each month or each year. A website helps to reach the global customers and it gives access to the new markets across the globe. Website of Upali's Restaurant can increase the better conversation rate when the customers click the link posted on social networking sites. Website marketing provides twenty-four-hour marketing for the organisation as the customers can get the news regarding the menu and information of Upali's at any time.

Upali’s Restaurant uses Business-to-Customer (B2C) business model as the target audiences of the organisation is mainly customers who like to have the Sri Lankan dishes. Upali's Restaurant uses the website so that they can build the brand name of the organisation and build the relationship with the customers. Upali's Restaurant website provides the menu, images of the restaurant and information about owners. Upali’s service-oriented relationship building website is helpful to stimulate the purchase and to build the relationship with the customers. The main intention of the service-oriented relationship building website is to encourage the offline sales (Ryan, 2016). 

Upali's Restaurant targets the behavioural segment of the market as Upali's Restaurant targets the customers who seek the benefits. In Melbourne or in other metropolitan cities; the customers may find the information on authentic Sri Lankan cuisine; therefore, Upali's Restaurant website can be helpful to get the idea of Sri Lankan food. Buying patterns of the behavioural segment is based on the customers' frequency, usage and brand loyalty of the customers (Bamossy & Solomon, 2016). Consumers who want to purchase Sri Lankan food definitely search for good Sri Lankan restaurant in Melbourne through a search engine and the consumers will find Upali's Restaurant's website.

Upcoming Events

The consumers of the restaurant always prefer the good quality food at a cheaper price. Some of the consumers prefer the good ambience of the restaurant and some prefer the value-for-money offer. Upali's Restaurant website visualises the ambience of the restaurant and images of the foods which they offer to the customers. The issue of the consumer behaviour lies in the fact of shifting preferences of the customers as the customers can shift their buying decision at the end of the moment (Leeflang et al., 2014). In the online platform, behavioural segment always creates issues in wider choices as they always search for the better option with right price value. Opinion rating and feedback is another factor which creates issues in the behavioural segment. Upali's does not provide an opportunity to observe the feedback from the users.

Upali's Restaurant website is made up of the ASP.NET framework and it is an easy to use website generated by the web server; it can contain the source and scripts. This ASPX files resulting HTML is delivered to the user's web browser (Martinez-Simarro, Devece & Llopis-Albert, 2015). This website provides six major elements, the menu provides by the restaurant, about the restaurant, events, locations in which the restaurants are located, a gallery containing image and contact information of the restaurant. In the website, the users can get connected Facebook and Instagram pages of Upali’s as it has link given on the website.

WEBQUAL

The information quality of Upali's Restaurant is not up to the mark; however, the information is accurate and gets updated with time. The information provided on the website of Upali's is appropriate and the customers can contact the restaurant easily. Functional Fit to Task is the extent to which the customers believe that the website can meet the needs of the customers. The customers’ need related to the information of the Upali’s Restaurant is fulfilled. The website helps to tailor the communication so that the website’s aim of meeting the user’s need get fulfilled. In addition, Trust is another factor of the website and the customers can trust Upali’s website to contact the restaurant by phone or by social networking site. Response time is to get the response after the request is made. Upali's website is not that instant response giver as the PR team does not message back instantly. The website of Upali's is easy to understand and read as it has been designed to be simple. In addition, the website is intuitive in operation as the users can operate and navigate the website in the right way. However, the website is not as visually appealing as the customers may not get attracted y the website as it is very simple. The emotional effect of using the website is not intense and the consistent images have been provided as the customers can see the dishes and ambience of the restaurant. 

Restaurant Locations

Upali's Restaurant follows the strategy of conversion rate optimisation (CRO) as it is the part of its digital marketing strategy. This website is designed to make a better relationship with the customers so that the offline sales of the organisation can increase. The website is connected to the social networking official pages of Upali's. If the users click on the social networking pages; they can visit the official website of Upali's. Therefore, the restaurant follows the system for accelerating the percentage of visitors to a website which may convert into the customers in generally in a desire for action on the webpage.

As stated by Stephen (2016), conversion rate optimisation helps the business to increase the website traffic. Offline-relationship building is the ultimate online business strategy of Upali’s and CRO tends to understand the consumers and it improves the overall sale of the organisation.

Table 1: Current customer base of Upali’s

(Source: Self-developed)

Upali's Restaurant can target the international students who come to study in Melbourne. In Australia, a large number of international students come for studying and they can be targeted through an online platform. The potential target market of Upali's can be young international students and their family.

• Chef Lanka: It is famous for Sri Lankan foods
• Cinnamon’s Sri Lanka Restaurant: It is specialist in music and Sri Lankan buffet
• Elephant Corridor: It has a spacious dining room with traditional decor
• New Hop & Spice: Traditional curries and spicy soups in an intimate corner

Upali's Restaurant website has phone number and address of the outlets. This contact numbers will help the customers to connect with the restaurant before visiting and it will be helpful to reserve a table for the purpose. Sales promotions can be done through social media and Upali's website has a connection with Instagram and Facebook page of Upali's.

• Facebook page of Upali’s (www.facebook.com/upalismelbourne/) has 2,850 likes and more than 2,755 users have already visited this restaurant.
• On Instagram, Upali’s has more than 1330 followers (www.instagram.com/upalismelbourne) and it has posted more than 200 images on Instagram in order to attract the customers.

Upali mainly provides vegan and vegetarian options along with providing the option to order through Deliveroo and Uber Eats. 

Social media advertising is very cost-effective for Upali’s and Upali’s can put the link of the website on Facebook or Instagram so that the customers can visit the Website. Social media official page making is free of cost and the advertising is also cost-efficient. Paid promotions on social media can be very effective to reach international students in Melbourne. Upali's can use e-CRM activities which are helpful for managing the customer profile information, data mining and mass customisation. E-CRM is helpful in targeting the customers in a cost-effective way and it provides loyalty of the customers (González-Rodríguez, 2018).

The Internet can influence the management of Upali's and they can change some of the food menus which they have already had. The menu of Upali's must be updated to the website on a frequent basis so that the customers can get the idea of the food or services provided by the restaurant. In addition, the price of Upali's Restaurant is competitive and the customers can have a look at the price of the food items through the website. It delivers the food using a third-party food delivery app. However, the restaurant does not have the feature to deliver the food by itself when the customers to order something by website or phone call. Place of Upali's Restaurant is in Melbourne; however, the website access makes the restaurant to access from the global arena. The people can find this restaurant on third-party food delivery apps also. Finally, the promotional elements got changed rapidly through the inclusion of the internet. Social media, app-based delivery and e-mail advertising brought change. In addition, Upali's can use the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) feature so that the customers see the website when they search for Sri Lankan food. 

Reference and Bibliography

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Martinez-Simarro, D., Devece, C., & Llopis-Albert, C. (2015). How information systems strategy moderates the relationship between business strategy and performance. Journal of Business Research, 68(7), 1592-1594.

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Saebi, T., & Foss, N. J. (2015). Business models for open innovation: Matching heterogeneous open innovation strategies with business model dimensions. European Management Journal, 33(3), 201-213.

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Upali’s Restaurant. Melbourne. (2018). Retrieved from: https://www.upalis.com/melbourne/about-us/default.aspx