Introduction

Based on the sales meeting, this business proposal aims to outline the business needs and solutions to address the problems. It will present the business profile and background of Shopline to demonstrate how effectively the organization can cater for the needs through its products. For the defined solution, the business proposal includes cost and timing and an account statement to manage the financial constraints.

Background

Understanding the background, products, services, and potential customers of Shopline can help identify the potential potential for Parker Wood Works.

About Parker Wood Works

The organization sells crafted wood products such as city and world maps, minimalistic walls, multi-layer mandalas, clocks, sports and standee decors. It has been operating since 2010, grabbing the attention of individuals and interior decorators. It is a small team operating from New York and serving customers through email, phone and an essential e-commerce website that allows employees to manage orders and other data in a standalone system (Parker, 2023).

Shopline- background and history

Especially in the post-COVID-19 period, businesses are going online, and resources are working in a mix of remote and in-office work (Miller, 2020). Shopline thrives in a gap where inventory, online presence and marketing are challenging for small businesses. It was founded in 2013, and since then, it has been helping more than 5,00,000 merchants to sell their products and services across borders and enjoy an integrated system for all their needs. In 2023, the organization also entered the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, strengthening its position in the Asian market (Shopline, 2023).

Products/ services

There are not many products to remember as the services are grouped into three main categories: essential, starter and premium. The essential plan allows small businesses to start with an online presence, configure marketing and promotional activities and get insights to grow. The standard plan has some more features targeting medium-sized businesses needing more staff accounts and wanting to save more with each transaction outside the platform. The premium plan is mainly targeted to large businesses to reduce cost on each transaction without Shopline payments and enable the customers to have a 3D and augmented reality experience of the products (Shopline-pricing, 2023).

Client-base

Most of the clients are small and medium-sized businesses. Most vendors and merchants have limitations regarding staff to set up and maintain the infrastructure, market the products and develop insights using data (Shopline, 2023). Considering such clients, Shopline integrates a wider set of services in plans so that they can grow and expand with categories of the plans.

Identified needs

Order management

Previously, the organization received backlashes with unmanaged orders through email for bulk purchasing. Further, the organization is facing issues in forecasting the orders that may be received at the year's end due to Christmas and New Year occasions. Indirectly, the orders were ignored, or customers were promised false delivery dates.

In the next six months, the organization will expand to new markets, but the existing business process cannot handle and sort many orders. There is minimal information to the customers regarding the progress of their orders while the entire system works offline until the final product delivery to the customer (Mazzarol, 2015).

Cross-border sales

The country is selling products in local regions, and it is challenging to sell the products across the border because of changes in currency and regulations and handling of the payment using multiple modes. It is identified that the organization needs a system that can work with multiple inventories so that exceeding costs on inventory transfer and reordering can be adjusted to an optimal level. An integrated system for inventory management and sales records can benefit effective decision-making (Shemi & Procter, 2018). Due to staff and margin per product limitations, cross-border selling as an independent function is a challenge for the business. However, Shopline can take financial and legal risks to businesses across the border and simply the operations.

Marketing and insights

Currently, marketing is done in local regions using external marketing experts. The core challenge was managing the marketing practices and their outcomes while the business lacked an understanding of market demands, trends and patterns. The lack of insights has failed marketing decisions in the past two years. The organization wants to explore more options for marketing while all is expected to be done through a single solution to keep things interrelated. Providing recommended insights and visuals can reduce organizational efforts in decision-making and foster accuracy and reliability.

Solution

Essential plan

This is a basic plan to achieve an online presence through Shopline. This plan enables the customers to pay monthly or annually. There is direct support to establish the presence and try the products, while businesses can move to a higher plan as the business grows.

Features

The following are major features aligning with the business requirements and issues:

Faster setup time: Most systems demand significant time and skills to bring the products online, but Shopline is an exception. It is crafted efficiently so clients can set up accounts and migrate products and other essentials in less than 5 minutes.

Free add-ons: There are several add-ons for an online store, such as free SSL certificate, custom domain, on-page and structured search engine optimization, checkout page and responsive design. The organization can add more add-ons or modules with expansion and increased requirements (Subham, 2023).

Inventory management: It allows product categorization, threshold limit reminder, availability schedule, product reviews, hidden products and pre-order and gift-enabled products. It helps to manage the inventory on the go so that no order is late due to scarcity in production.

Payment and logistics: The end-customers can pay using online wallets, credit and debit cards, and even cash on delivery. Further, there is an easier option to integrate logistics partners and calculation of shipping and other charges.

Order management and customer relations: Order management system allows to split orders, generate reports, create custom orders, manage returns, tracks and cancel orders and send reminders for pick-up and abandoned carts. There is also a feature to manage customer relations with membership handling, customer grouping and bulk import and export of customer data across applications (Shopline-features, 2023).

Marketing and insights: Several marketing tools are integrated, such as Google ads tracker and Facebook business extension. There are other tools to generate insights on marketing on social media or the internet.

Advantages

• The online store from Shopline can help to centralize things so that the smaller teams can manage and save costs. Inventory, marketing, sales and orders are centralized through a single platform for better insights.
• There is high transparency in cost. There is no hidden or extra cost over the period, so the clients can confidently scale and stay using the platform at the same cost.
• Robust customer service and support enable the customers to set up their online store quickly. The services are guiding and simple to ensure the next-day life of the operations, including all configurations (Shopline, 2023).
• Security is handled as a priority. The servers are distributed across the world, and it is ensured that the end customers can use the service's security. Sensitive data is not recorded or managed with higher security while ensuring it aligns with regulations.
• The customers can enjoy the availability and reliability of the system as multiple accounts can work on the system in a live mode, and the same changes can be reflected to end-customers. It means to have no waiting time in implementation practices.

Benefits

• There is an easy-to-use and drag-and-drop-based interface so individuals with limited technical skills can design the storefront and bring the products online. It helps the clients save cost on technical resources and allows them to design the interface that best matches their profile.
• The solution is cost-effective from all perspectives. It offers costly services if procured as an individual package from any vendor. Further, integration, infrastructure maintenance and upgrades are not a matter of cost for the clients.
• There is enhanced control of core business functions as resources can work on their assigned modules and manage the data in synchronization to lead the business functions (Shopline, 2023).
• Working with multiple inventory, customer orders, marketing tools, and promotional activities is easy through a single solution.

Considering the issues and needs, the essential plan aligns to create opportunities and effectively handle operations and data. There is flexibility to upgrade the plan if a change is required.

Cost and timings

Costs

There is a straightforward cost for each plan at the initial. However, businesses with customized requirements and large teams may request custom pricing. In the cost estimation, there are some assumptions. First, it is assumed that less than ten staff will work on the online storefront to manage operations and data. Second, it is assumed that there is no need for augmented reality and 3D views of the products as images can effectively communicate the appearance and other features of the products. Third, there is the use of a Shopline payment gateway instead of the others so that each transaction has a minimal transaction fee.

It is also assumed that the Elite version is cost-effective to test the features, but it can initially limit the business. Similarly, using a monthly plan may need rapid subscription renewal and result in data loss if not subscribed back within a given time limit. Therefore, a yearly plan is recommended.

Plan name: Essential

Monthly cost: $69 per month or $828 in total

Yearly cost: $690 per year, including a $34.5 or 5% discount as a welcome offer

Cost for three years: $690 x 3 = $2,070, including a discount of $207 or 10% of total

All other costs, such as GST, are additional to the product cost (Shopline-pricing, 2023).

Payment schedules

The client can try the product for the first seven days. These days also can be used to keep ready the online storefront. Payment can be made in advance for the next years or paid within fifteen days after the expiry of the existing plan. However, in this period, the client will be unable to process orders and make product changes.

Timeline

1-5 days: Completion of the service subscription along with sharing of initial feedback

6-10 days: Prepare and upload the product data into the system.

11-14 days: Setup user accounts and permissions

15 and ahead days: Keep monitoring the orders, inventory, marketing and other things

Account management

Account and collaboration

Jerry John is a professional account manager assigned to the organization. Jerry has helped more than one hundred small businesses quickly start in social and online commerce. He has a customer-focused approach and ensures timely collaboration to avoid rollbacks and issues.

Figure 1: Jerry John

(Source: Shopline, 2023)

Key performance indicators

• Over half a million merchants use Shopline, and almost 20% of the online stores are using or using the platform earlier.
• The cost of marketing and inventory management is reduced to 10% in the initial six months due to automation.
• The complexities are resolved with the centralization of the features and functions, increasing executives' time to focus on core goals.

Conclusion

The proposal concluded that an essential plan is useful for the organization to test the service free of cost for seven days and continue to service with at least a 5% discount. Subscription for more years can return a benefit of 10%, savings on overall cost.

References

Mazzarol, T. (2015). SMEs engagement with e-commerce, e-business and e-marketing. Small enterprise research, 22(1), 79-90.

Miller, D. (2020). Accommodating. In Contemporary art and the home (pp. 115-130). Routledge.

Parker (2023). An imaginary business. Retrieved from: https://ofthewoodwork.com/. Accessed On: 25 August 2023.

Shemi, A. P., & Procter, C. (2018). E-commerce and entrepreneurship in SMEs: case of myBot. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 25(3), 501-520.

Shopline (2023). About us. Retrieved from: https://www.shopline.com/about. Accessed On: 25 August 2023.

Shopline-features, (2023). Our features. Retrieved from: https://www.shopline.sg/shophub/features. Accessed On: 25 August 2023.

Shopline-pricing (2023). Shopline pricing- start your today. Retrieved from: https://www.shopline.com/pricing. Accessed On: 25 August 2023.

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