ASSIGNMENT

TMA 04 Assignment

TMA 04 Assignment

Part (a) Describe a situation where you personally have come into contact with marketing in some shape or form.

Revolution in internet industry created a boom in business growth. Opportunities were created for businesses with a significant change in the business operations. Firms having global approach timely adopted IT strategies to take their business up scale. Waterstones is one the renowned Bookstore that is having its sales operations on Internet. Waterstones now has a dominating presence in e-bookseller industry. An exceptional increase in its customer base was observed since 2005. It currently has more 3 million loyalty cards customers globally. This has enabled the Waterstones to be the biggest e-bookseller in UK. I believe that the Consumers are more likely to buy on impulse while browsing in a shop and are more likely to be influenced by personal recommendation from friends and family. Another influential factor that is essential in development of marketing strategy for Waterstones is the knowledge level of customers, their preferences for book type, and book selection mechanism. Waterstones is offering books in many categories; top reading genres are romance, fiction, and crime. Majority of people read books for enjoyment and leisure purposes, while commuting or when they are free. Other segments of customers include students and people who read books for educational purposes. Researches show that one in five people wish they had the time to read more (Thompson 2005, pp. 57).

I observed that in terms of price, Waterstones had adopted value pricing and bundle-pricing methods to attract customer and increase its sales volume across the globe. Currently, many e-books such as 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'The Lost Symbol' are available at heavy discounting prices, almost 50% of retail price. This is basically done to rule out competition from market and increase market share rapidly by incurring losses in short-term.

Part (b) Analyse the situation you have described above, using concepts from any two study sessions of Book 4.

Place has been a crucial factor in defining the growth extend of an e-book store. Waterstones' presence on web portal has enabled it to position its brand across the globe, while allowing customer pool formation by extending market reach and availability of books on its website. Progressive shift has been observed in the preferences of people for e-books by emergence of e-readers in markets. This has shifted the objective of contemporary business to move up scale further by maintaining their presence on internet medium. Main sales of Waterstones are generated from sales of its e-book products. This enables them to target consumers who are more-oriented towards technology-integrated products.

The most important environmental factor that influences the marketing strategies of Waterstones comes under technological factor. More than 70% business for Waterstones is generated from its e-book store. This enhances the need of technology integration in its core operational strategies of business (Baines, 2008). Software compatibility, piracy, and online data theft is the most challenging issue that Waterstones is required to ...