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6. Conclusion
Pylones products have the unique touch of brilliant color combinations with creative fairytale like design themes, which utilized the concept of personification, bringing the objects that are used every day to life, and they are perfect gift ideas. To bring these products into Taiwan, Pylones-Taiwan.tw is to be etablished as a private company, with the special franchise agreement obtained from Pylones France, it will be authorized to use the Pylones trademark and logo, along with the sale of its products.
Research implied that Taiwan market for differentiated gift products is growing, and based on the rapid inclination of online shopping trend and frequency, consumers are adopting the habit of ordering goods through the Internet. In 2012, among the total population of more than 17 million people using the Internet in Taiwan (more than 15 million are users above the age of 12), the Internet usage rate is about 75.44%, and among those 17 million Internet users, 59.62%
are utilizing the online shopping services. And Internet shoppers are most likely to be influenced through word of mouth, peers influence, convenience, time efficiency, easy of search and comparison, delivery, and the pricing advantages. Specific online marketing strategies will be considered to make the business successful:
1) Market differentiation - by one-to-one marketing to study customer preferences and purchase behaviors.
2) Brand awareness and Positioning – through various virtual and physical media to announce the launch of brand and product design concepts.
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development, various payment methods will be offered in a secured manner.
5) Reliable products/services Delivery – the key to satisfy customers through reliable and speedy delivery services.
6) Reasonable refund policies – favorable 7-day appreciation period.
Individual interviews and data are collected to indicate the target customer group to be specifically female, it is highly important and absolutely critical to catch the ongoing trend of social media marketing with various promotional methodologies and by leveraging powerful tools such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), enhanced brand awareness and products exposure will certainly take place within a short period of time. And since Pylones is not quite popular or widely known in Taiwan, marketing campaigns, such as events, activities, product promotions, and designer ideas postings on facebook, are key success factors to achieve higher brand awareness and sales.
Competitive analysis as well as SWOT analysis have been constructed to show the even though competitions (Zakka Idea, CDPiazza, BeHome…etc) are coming on strong (some with both physical and virtual stores) with advantages over Pylones-Taiwan.tw on pricing, however since the brand can be differentiated and have its own market segment, it will emphasize on design, style, and utilization. Certain promotional tactics will be used via the most influential and FREE social media platform – facebook. The key strategies to attract fans and traffic are to embed fan page hyperlink on the web store and tag other well-trafficked Pylones fan pages, customize the fan page URL and put it on any printed documents that are related to business, have fans posting a link to the fan page, use QR code, humanize social media with personal presence, create viral contents, combo sales and periodic free delivery services by occasions.
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From the operational aspect, the company and domain name would first need to be registered, website constructed, and along with the product import tariff rates, shipping and handling estimated, and employees’ salaries projected. Based on the above mentioned categories of expenses, the initial startup cost would come to NTD 274,175, and with the observational data collected from an actual Pylones store in Paris, a monthly sales projection of NTD 570,152 is likely to take place (with consideration of converting country GDPs and physical store location).
A 12-month sales forecast based on weighted percentage of product categories is projected to be NTD 5,113,260. To be even more precise on the cash flow, the Net Present Value for a period of 5 years has been calculated to be NTD 8,330,160 with the calculated cost of capital (discount rate) at 10.86%, cost of goods sold at 50% and operating expenses at 32% of the forecasted sales, and business tax at 17% of the net profit.
In order not to be overly optimistic about the NPV outcome, a sensitivity analysis is done by picking out two variables that might have some influences on the overall estimation: forecasted sales and cost of goods sold. If the cost of goods sold went up to 70% (from the expected rate of 50%) of the forecasted sales revenue, then the NPV will drop from the expected value of NTD 8,330,160 to NTD 4,562,272; however for the sales forecast, if pessimistically sales could only reach 70% (a rather conservative scenario) of the projected forecast, the NPV will drop from NTD 8,330,160 to NTD 1,486,376. This explicitly indicates that forecasted sales is the most important factor/variable which would seriously influence whether or not the business will be successful.
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product characteristics and designs to meet the contemporary need for differentiated creativity, targeting women as the specific market segment through a virtual platform (which is widely accessed and utilized in today’s era), business prosperity and growth can be easily projected and foreseen.
After seeing the calculated financial projections based on market prospects and observational findings, analytical assessments and reports all point to the fact that with continuous marketing and promotional strategies, Pylone-Taiwan.tw will be a highly prosperous business with growth and sustainability for years to come.
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Reference
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