Market & Marketing Viability:

Easybuy.co.za is part of the Advertising industry, offering a service to the Retail industry (Dependent variable). The retail industry is characterised with seasonal fluctuations, with its busiest time being November – January (Festive holidays). More aggressive marketing will be conducted prior and during that time.

Competition:

Direct competition:

  1. Price check (Price check has a national presence and is conducting large advertising spend, both online and offline)

Indirect competition:

  1. Retailers themselves (Incredible connection, Hi-Fi Corporation, Makro, Game, Dion Wired, Takealot.com), employing sales consultants and running their own specials or requirement matching software.

Barriers to entry for competitors:

  • Supplier relationship: By creating strong supplier relationships, and potentially signing service level agreements with retailers could create a barrier to entry for competitions
  • Large Advertising spend required
  • First mover advantage 
  • Brand Equity

Marketing:

Mostly online marketing will be used to attract users (consumers) as easybuy.co.za is solely a virtual (Online) business. This includes Google ads, email marketing, but most importantly social media.

Social media will be incremental to the success of easybuy.co.za and is considered a viable platform to use due to the innovativeness of the easybuy.co.za concept, increasing the probability of sharing (word-of mouth). Social media is also considered to be more cost efficient than other marketing means.

Direct marketing is to be employed to target retailers as there is only a hand-full of large scale retailers. The success of the relationship depends on the ability to convince retailers of the concept and to build a mutual beneficial relationship, with direct marketing (face to face) considered as the best channel. This will be conducted by management.

A market penetrating strategy will be used, offering low-initial cost to retailers for products displayed, increasing it incrementally as the concept proves itself.

After-sale support will be a key priority to obtain feedback from consumers on how they experienced the service and to build brand loyalty. An optional evaluation will be offered to the customer on completion. Prizes/Rewards will be offered to consumers to encourage them to participate in the evaluation.