4000302260center095000 1073041103571 Electronic Business Assignment Name
4000302260center095000
1073041103571
Electronic Business Assignment
Name?Ziran Xu D16122897
Lecture?Patrick Doran
Electronic Business idea
The website what I plan to operate named “Locals”. It is the website that offers customers the private guide tour. There is only one theme in the tour: Regional Cuisine.
Source of ideas:
Normally, most of the “private guide tour” websites have no characteristics. The scheduling that arranged by private guide tour are regular, like leading customers to the restaurant that is popular but not traditional, introducing scenery that has lots of tourists but has no local characteristics. On the contrary, the theme of “Locals” is to provide tourists the most traditional cuisine in the local place. In other words, the tour routes designed by tour guide are based on the background of the most traditional food.
Source of theme:
There is an old saying in China, “Food is the paramount necessity of the people”. Nowadays people would like to wait in long lines for a meal, especially in China, people are willing to drive hundreds of kilometers for a dish. Therefore, it can be an attracting idea to use “Cuisine” as the background to guide tourists.
Source of Regional Cuisine:
Nowadays, people advocate eating in the restaurants with first class service and environment. But honestly, many restaurants with ordinary appearance have hundreds of years history with the traditional cooking methods. This type of food we call that “Regional Cuisine”. These restaurants have been passed down from one generation to another, however they are facing extinction gradually because of the pressure of high rent, low profit and even demolition by government. That is the reason why I choose “Regional Cuisine” as the theme because the traditional dished are worth to be excavated, reserved and inherited, the centrality of food is an expression of cultural identity, history and memory.
Identification of URL
www.locals.international are chosen to be the URL of my website. “locals” stands for the tour guides are natives and “international” means the services are available in different countries.
Source: Register365
Online competitors
The first online competitor named “Wanzi Earth” with the URL http://www.wanzi.cc/. The company was founded in Shanghai, China in 2012, it is a social and trust-based travel platform. There are more than 3000 tour guides on the platform which have covered over 60 countries and mainly composed of local Chinese. (Wanzi Earth., n.d.)
Source: Wanzi Earth
“ToursByLocals” is the second online competitor which was founded in November 2008 in Vancouver, BC. There work has grown to include 2421 guides working in 155 countries around the world. The company commits to the goal of connecting travelers with local guides everywhere the people want to go. (ToursByLocals., n.d.)
Source: ToursByLocals
Generating traffic
1. Use On-Page SEO: On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing individual web pages to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines. On-page refers to both the content and HTML source code of a page that can be optimized, as opposed to off-page SEO which refers to links and other external signals. (MOZ., n.d.). The internal optimization and external optimization are included in my project:
The optimization of META tag, such as Title, Keywords, Description.
Link optimization such as Tag, anchor text, navigation and picture.
The optimization of external link such as News, YouTube, Blog and Instagram.
2. Use Social Media Posts With Hashtags: Social media could be an effective way to get more eyeballs on my content and tap into the personal networks of your existing fans. By putting hashtags like “A trip just for foodie” in popular social media such as Facebook, Instagram that will help me precisely target my ideal customer and expand my reach beyond my existing audience.
3. Post Content to LinkedIn: LinkedIn has become much more than a means of finding another job. It is the world’s largest professional social network. It is necessary for me to post new article like “An amazing food trip for foodie” to LinkedIn to boost traffic to my website.
4. The utilization of Google Analytics: The google analytics will be used to analyze the following detailed data:
Which keywords are driving the most quality visitors to my website. The data help me Optimize my website around these keywords.
Which websites are sending the most quality traffic to my website. The data help me identify which websites are worth for me to put ads.
What days do I have the most traffic to my website.
The data gives me the info of what is the best time for me to publish new content or launch promotions in order to capture the most attention.
Marketplace analysis (Target audience)
Customers
The “Locals” are built for the target people who would like to taste the most traditional local food and deeply experience the local culture and life. These group of people are young and interested in discretionary leisure trips.
Competitors
“Wanzi Earth”, a social and trust-based travel platform. They provide the one-to-one guide service for tourists since 2012. A sound operation model is its best advantage. They collect the details such as travel dates, destination, number of people and any requirement for tour guide from each tourist. The backstage crew will integrate the guides resources from the platform and build the connection between customers to the local guides. However, the company has the restricted market. “Wanzi Earth” focuses on Chinese market and most of its local guides are Chinese which becomes their disadvantage. Also, the company is lack for marketing strategy which brings them the weak effect on the tourism market.
“ToursByLocals”, an online travel agency which was founded in November 2008 in Vancouver, BC. The company starts to connect travelers with local guides worldwide since 2008. The biggest advantage of this company is its wide market. They are available to provide local guides from 152 countries and that gives them more opportunities to gain customers. The deficiencies could be its website. The same problem occurs from “Wanzi Earth” as well. The website only has one language provided which means they basically lose the foreign market.
Suppliers: The products and resources of “Locals” are local guides which means there are no specific suppliers.
Intermediaries:
Search Intermediaries: The main search engines used are Google (For international market) and Baidu (For Chinese market). These two search engines are effective in harnessing search traffic by using search engine marketing or affiliate marketing techniques.
Intermediaries and media sites: Companies need to assess potential online media and distribution partners for example Skyscanner, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
Society: According to the words from most tourists, when join the package tours, they have to follow exactly the travel agency’s schedule, but in Do-it-Yourself tour they can select their own restaurant and scenery. Also, some tourists in China will choose the destination according to the traditional local food, because these traditional cuisines attract them.
Country specific: The “Locals” are the platform to provide offline C to C tour service, therefore there is no special economic, legal or cultural problem. The only thing needs to be concerned is the offline security which means it is necessary to have a rigorous screening on our local guides.
Technology: The development of APP for “Locals” in IOS and Android is necessary. It is easier for customers to access our products. At the meantime, it can increase more opportunities to put ads in different apps and enhance the transmitting of information.
Description of the revenue model
An e-commerce revenue model is a plan for generating revenue for an online business. While e-commerce revenue models share many similarities with brick-and-mortar businesses, they also enable you to reach customers around the globe and offer more diverse methods of generating sales.
Display advertising (CPM): It stands for the advertiser agrees to pay the publisher a predetermined amount for every 1000 ads impressions served. (Johnston, M., 2018)
Text ad advertising (CPC): It stands for Cost per click. The advertiser pays the publisher each time one of their ads is clicked. (Johnston, M., 2018)
Cost per action (CPA): It stands for the advertiser pays only clicks that subsequently see visitors complete some specific actions such as purchase, download or communicate. (Johnston, M., 2018)
Run-Of-Site (ROS): It stands for the advertiser banner ads on any website that happens to rotate ads regularly. The programs like this is generally far less expensive than individually placing ads on particular websites at a time. (Run-of-Site definition and meaning., n.d.)
Affiliate Commission: It is a reward-based system that encourages to promote products in exchange for a commission. Usually, an affiliate program will pay via a flat dollar amount or a percentage of the total sale. (Schreiber, T., 2018)
As for “locals”, the several methods will be used such as CPM, CPC, ROS, and Affiliate Commission. The details of revenue model will not be given at this stage because of the lack of specific data. The only thing can be sure is the direct profit from local guides. The platform collects 10% of profit from them and the price per day is set by guides themselves. The price and route will be put on to the website after the approval by the backstage crew to make sure the price are reasonable.
Reference
Wanzi Earth. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.wanzi.cc/site/html/id/about_us
ToursByLocals. (n.d.). Company Story. Retrieved from https://www.toursbylocals.com/TBL/WebObjects/ToursByLocals.woa/1/wo/WhoSQ8X3ylJXSzVkNfi3jg/2.33.3.0
MOZ. (n.d.). On-page SEO. Retrieved from https://moz.com/blog/category/on-page-seo
Johnston, M. (2018, June 21). How to Sell Display Ads. Retrieved from https://monetizepros.com/display-advertising/how-to-sell-display-ads-cpm-vs-cpc-vs-cpa/
Run-of-Site definition and meaning. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/Run-of-Site.html
Schreiber, T. (2018, July 5). Affiliate Program for Your Shopify Store. Retrieved from https://www.shopify.ie/blog/53669701-how-to-set-up-an-affiliate-program-for-your-shopify-store
