Objective:
- Utilize critical thinking skills to research, analyze and develop an improved strategy of ecommerce (including mcommerce and other devices) digital marketing and social media for a specific retailer that can be implemented to maximize growth and profit.
- Demonstrate the ability to synthesize the knowledge gained from the course with research findings into a well thought out strategy for the retailer.
- Look beyond present customer experiences and utilize your imagination (supported by research) to create an effective strategy that will serve the millennial customer of the future. (Think 5 years out).
The Procedure:
Each student chooses a retailer from the list that follows. The retailer must be chosen by the start of Unit 2 and the choice emailed to the professor. The student should start researching, visiting the retailer in the brick and mortar location and online environment from the start of Unit 2 to adequately complete this assignment by the due date in Unit 7. I strongly recommend visiting the ecommerce and social media sites of your chosen retailer and their competitors daily to properly asses your retailer’ strengths and weaknesses.
- Bloomingdale’s- Contemporary departments ONLY.
Anyone who chose Bloomingdale’s – Please use only the Contemporary departments when you do the project. Meaning,think about the term contemporary, ( remember back to FM 114 if you do not know what that means), look at the brands the retailer carries and make sure you are looking at the contemporary area of the store when you determine what solutions they have now for he customer and what they are lacking and need to incorporate in the future in regards to omni retailing. Do not use the entire store mix — only the contemporary department.
- I value critical thinking so make sure you properly analyze and identify your target customer and state who she is and how old she is now and will be in 5 years. Millenials are now 22 – 38. So choose the customer at the lower or middle end and focus on her /him in 5 years from now.
- Remember to address all aspects of omni retailing as stated in the assignment. Remember we are dealing with omni retailing – not merchandising. Merchandising strategies is what you do in FM 422. So, please do not suggest to me that the retailer incorporate more plus sizes, or change the price of their merchandise or the retail mix. If you are in any doubt about this go back to the syllabus and look at the Course Objectives — there are 7 of them. That is what this course deals with.
Please be sure to submit as a PDF with one with one page to a slide. I had some difficulty opening some of the video links in your work last time. Submitting as a PDF should help.
The report will include the critique of current practices and the development of multiple new omni channel strategies in the categories of:
The Deliverable:
Each student will prepare a Power Point presentation with visuals to convey this information.
The Power Point should be divided into the following sections:
- Introduction in which you identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current retailer and illustrate this in relation to a competitor in their business segment or best practices in the industry. Think carefully about who your competitors are and use international competitors as well.
- Ecommerce – current and future strategy (concentrate on future strategy)
- Mobile commerce
- Marketing ( the use of analytics should be incorporated in this section)
- Social Media
- Brick and Mortar should be discussed briefly with findings incorporated from Assignment 1.
- Conclusion
- The Power Point presentation is limited to 15 slides. There should be a separate Works Cited page in a Word Document that is properly documented according to APA format with live hyper-links.
Text and visuals should be incorporated to properly explain the student’s strategy. Short statements of text supported with research should be combined with appropriate visuals to explain the strategy chosen for improvement. The written word must be presented in a grammatically correct manner. The professionalism of the report will be considered.
See the Grading Rubric included in Assessment in Couse Information to understand how you will be evaluated. Please read the grading rubric before beginning the project.
Please submit the Power Point as a PDF. It will make it easier for me to download and view. Only one slide to a page in the PDF.