RecordTrader is an online marketplace focusing on the buying and selling of new and used records. RecordTrader is not your ordinary music marketplace. Focusing on niche and specialty music genres, RecordTrader will give vintage and specialty record stores a platform to expand from their current local customer bases to an online global marketplace. Any record dealer will now have the opportunity to create a seller account on our site and upload product listings for sale. Online shoppers can then search through all seller music listings on the RecordTrader site, communicate with sellers via chat and email as well as discuss music interests and opinions with other buyers of the RecordTrader community via the site’s forum and blog pages. RecordTrader is not a music download site. It is a new way for traditional record stores to sell actual records while providing music collectors and specialty music lovers the largest selection of vintage music possible.

RecordTrader will take on a brokerage type business model. Essentially, we will serve as an intermediary. This business model is similar to that of Autotrader.com. We will bring buyers and sellers together and aid transactions. We will play a significant role in the following markets:

• Business-to-Business (B2B)
• Business-to-Consumer (B2C)
• Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C)

We will charge a fee for each transaction. Our offering will be a full range of services covering the transaction process, from start to finish. The exchange process will be fulfilled by the seller.

Before addressing the question of who are our direct competitors, we should explore the other side of the coin. That is, who is not a competitor? In general, we can be confident that companies such as Wal-Mart and Target will not be competitors for an indefinite period. These firms do sell music and lots of it. However, they concentrate on best-selling contemporary music. Their “classic” offerings tend to be “best of” and “greatest hits” CDs or period oriented compilations such as “Rockin Hits of the 60’s”. Serious collectors normally consider these products as inferior and of no interest whatsoever. In other words, these deep-pocketed firms show neither the desire nor ability to invade the turf of vintage music.

Now, turning our attention to competitors, we address first the “big boys” and then the “little guys”. The preeminent big boy is of course E-bay. The firm’s command of the auction market for all sorts of items is well-known. Many sellers list their wares on the site and many consumers have grown accustomed to searching the site with an eye for obtaining a bargain or rare item. Nevertheless, E-bay has vulnerabilities that can be exploited. First, the “all things to all buyers and sellers” is a weakness. Most would acknowledge that E-bay is an efficient collector of fees but has no expertise in the “Mersey Sound” of the early sixties, for example. That is, a site that specializes in vintage music or, indeed in any product, can offer specialized knowledge and better, more personalized service thereby developing a clientele with greater loyalty. While it is doubtful that a small specialty site can compete with E-bay on the basis of price (commission) for an extended period, there may be an opportunity to attract new sellers with price concessions for a limited period- especially sellers who face rising commissions and feel unappreciated at E-bay.

And now the little guys. And there are lots of them. A search using terms like “vintage records” returns literally millions of results. However, a quick survey of the sites shows that many have a “bare bones” web presence. Some list only name, address, and phone numbers with a note to call about availability. In other words, customers cannot actively search and see what is in inventory. Such sites are likely not strong competitors having forgone both 24 by 7 selling and ability to encourage impulse buying. Other sites do have online product catalogs with inconsistent search capability – some well developed and some quite primitive. Few have features engendering a sense of involvement or community. As such, a site dedicated to offering advanced features should fare well as long as it can be sure to attain high search rankings placing it among the first couple of pages of search results.

We will provide a Utilitarian shopping experience. Our goal is to provide a service that enables the buyer and seller to reach ends where both are satisfied. The benefits include the following:

• Buyers find hard to find items on our site
• Sellers list items they may have a difficult time selling in a store front with a limited target market
• Order processing and efficiency is a win for buyer, seller, and RecordTrader (service provider).

We will be providing the greatest good for the greatest number.

Given a world-wide web presence, there are literally millions of potential customers. However, our most likely customers can be classified by traditional market segments as follows:

Geographic: There are no technical barriers to selling worldwide. However, like many products, ours will be associated with a more affluent clientele. As a gross generalization then, we should expect the majority of our customers to be located in North America, Europe, and Japan with some interest from the rapidly developing economies of Asia – particularly the Far East. Except for the rarest of items, shipping costs to far off places may lead to a concentration of sales in North America. Various laws and regulations may further limit the geographic scope of business. For example, Quebec and France may require that our site fully support the French language before doing business in those countries. While it is certainly a wise decision to localize, not every language can be supported for obvious economic reasons. Where these limitations exist, consideration of the use of affiliate sites may be advisable.

Demographic: The population of collectors is generally quite male. As mentioned earlier, our clientele will be more affluent than average and, most likely, better educated than average. We can expect the ages of our customers to be anywhere from the early twenties to late fifties. These demographic characteristics are likely to prevail for an extended period with little room for change. Our best opportunity to expand beyond these base demographics is appealing to more females. As such, we may need to entertain the possibility of offering related goods that appeal to everyone. This includes concert tickets, tee-shirts, and posters and would most likely involve striking alliances with other websites. Promoting these as gift possibilities as well as personal purchases would widen our appeal.

Psychographic: Our site should strive to make music collectors view us as an indispensable tool. Given that collectors generally favor niches, we should be able to accommodate areas of interest ranging from British invasion or punk all the way to classical or opera. This wide range of offerings has consequences for the organization of the site, search capability, and personalization features among others.

As an intermediary, we have a double edged problem of attracting buyers and sellers. As for sellers, they have a natural incentive to seek the widest possible marketplace. This means sellers have a natural incentive to engage our site. The burden then falls on us to provide an extra push to attract sellers. This may include concessions on commission for some introductory period. Thereafter, we should assure there is no overwhelming incentive for sellers to leave. The greatest tool in our arsenal in this area is attracting customers!

To attract the customers, our site needs the flexibility to attract and engage specific types of buyers:

Impulsive: The key here is personalization. That is, if the site can present something relevant to the buyer, he/she is apt to purchase the item. Alternatives here are to present the buyer with personally tailored items in an eye catching area on the various pages of the site along with means to immediately add to cart or check out. Similarly, emails could be sent to registered users when an item of interest becomes available. The email should contain just enough information to pique interest along with a link to our site. Once on the site, he/she may purchase not only the listed item of interest but make additional purchases. In other words, we constantly leverage the impulsive traits of the customer. Of course, the underlying requirement is that the site records the buyer’s browsing and purchasing history to serve as a foundation for personalization. Also, to demonstrate our respect for the individual customer, emails should be limited to those who opt in.

Patient: The patient buyer’s hallmark is his/her ability to wait for a better deal. Our site should be able to nudge the patient buyer by displaying search results in such a way that items from different sellers can be compared. This would include not only price, but also service, reliability, and product condition. The foundation for this capability is the ability to allow customers to rate sellers and display those ratings with search results and separately on demand.

Analytical: The analytical customer thrives on research. While no one would expect the analytical customer to expend as much energy in researching a music purchase as, say, buying a car, our site can certainly indulge such buyers. We’ve already mentioned displaying seller rating information on demand. Similarly, providing information on what past purchasers think of a particular product should prove useful to the analytics. In fact, there is a certain amount of cross marketing here as the review that convinces the analytical customer to buy may also be the review that motivates the impulse buyer.

For all buyers (and sellers), we should strive to engender trust to help cement our relationship. One element of trust that must be prominently displayed is a formal privacy policy stating that information will never be divulged for any reason (except when legally compelled). Similarly, our technical infrastructure should ensure the safety of customer data and we should display our pledge to protect personal data prominently.

• Providing international access to a network of record dealers.
• Moderating an online forum so that the RecordTrader community of buyers and sellers can discuss music interests and opinions and make recommendations for purchase.
• Providing a chat feature so that buyers can instantly work with sellers.
• Making buyer data available to sellers enabling them to make informed recommendations based on past records purchased.
• Creating a blog for music lovers to comment on certain songs and artists.
• Providing an option to create an account or profile so that repeat buyers enjoy a quick and easy checkout.
• Providing an online record shopping resource, eliminating the need for travel to multiple record stores.
• Keeping the site active for 24 X 7 shopping.
• Conveniently providing a site which brings multiple sellers into one place which saves time and allows for direct price comparison.
• Delivering to buyers quickly or cheaply depending on shipping preferences.
• Informing customers of other products they may be interested in.
• Helping sellers reach more buyers in their specific niche.
• Lowering marketing expenses for sellers.

There are multiple factors that will play a hand in helping to improve our conversion. First, we will be differentiating ourselves from competitors by including more detailed information about each listing. In future upgrades the inventory of each item may be listed for buyers to see; i.e. “Less than 5 still available”. The site will also offer multiple ways to search for a product. Advanced search options that allow a user to search by genre, artist, release period, and record type will ensure that a user can easily find exactly what they are looking for. This way we are not limiting the types of users that will be attracted to use the site. Along this same line, the site will be relevant to all users by being visually appealing and will encourage browsing and searching. On the seller side of things, it will be a clear and easy process of how to post items for sale.

Another important aspect will be to gain the trust of all users whether they are sellers or buyers. In order to do this we will promise that no personal information is ever sold to any other companies. The site will also be encrypted for any areas where personal information is being entered or viewed. Lastly, there will always be continuous customer support available by phone, email or mail.

It is vital for our site to touch upon each area of the e-Commerce Value Chain so we acquire and retain customers. To attract customers we will perform search engine optimization to make sure our site shows up in search engines like Yahoo and Google. The site will be coded and designed to ensure that search keywords specifically target our site, returning the RecordTrader site to a high position in search results. Once brought to the site we will accept discounts for first time purchases. For returning customers who have registered but not purchased items in awhile, we will email special offers to entice them back to the site. To make sure there are many items up for sale, there will be a team dedicated to searching out new sellers who have no online presence or even current sellers who do not have much listed for sale.

Once users have made it to our site we will make sure to keep the interaction alive. There will be a robust search feature to look through genres or specific titles and artists. There will be a chat feature so once an item is found the potential buyer can talk with the seller directly. For those individuals who choose to register within the site, they will have the option of creating a wish list and also marking items of interest. The site will then generate emails to let buyers know when those items have become available or to recommend similar titles they may enjoy.

Once orders are placed the shopping experience still needs quite a bit of management. We will offer as many forms of payments as possible so as to not limit customers. After payment is made the seller will be immediately contacted. Shipping and delivery information will be arranged between the buyer and the seller. Sellers have the option of specifying one or more delivery methods for the buyer to choose from. It is the responsibility of the seller to provide tracking information to the buyer once the item has shipped. There will also be ways to access help by phone, email or mail as well as a self-help section on the website. Lastly, short surveys will be sent to buyers and those who register through the site to determine their specific likes and dislikes of the site as a whole.

• Requirements gathering - all products and site materials are branded, quality level is established and intellectual property protection such as patents and trademarks are obtained.
• Identify the purpose and goal of the website.
• Assigning roles and responsibility to team members.
• Establish reporting frequency.

• Defining end user requirements.
• Analyze and develop documentation.
• Establish the layout of the web design.
• Testing the application.
• Analyzing the target customers needs and wants.
• Creating a protocol.
• Integrate mobile ordering.
• Adding user enhancements such as chat features.

• Technical support for online clients and users.
• Database maintenance.
• Quality assurance testing and unit testing.
• Making changes, resolving problematic functionality and retesting.
• Planning the final testing production and support.

• Final review within the team.
• Ensure site development is brought to proper completion.
• Full implementation and launch the website.

Availability and Uptime
This will be essential for the success of RecordTrader, as our primary revenue stream is dependent on our website being available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Our tech support team will be connected on a continuous basis to a website monitoring system. In the event of a system lag, error, or system failure, the tech support team will be able to react swiftly to resolve the issue. Using performance monitoring software, our technicians can also monitor system performance speeds to ensure customers are able to transact without interruption or slowdown. A fast and seamless user experience is crucial to ensuring that customers leave the site with a positive impression of the RecordTrader shopping experience and the intention to return in the future. In addition to live performance monitoring, management will review performance reports on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis to analyze trends in consumer behavior as it relates to site traffic and volume. This action will ensure that greater attention to site availability and performance are provided during periods of the highest site traffic.

User-centered Design
RecordTrader will be put through continuous usability testing during development and also once put into production. Focus groups will be put together from various demographics within the target market. Once in production, site tracking and stats will be used to monitor areas of the site that are the most and least visited. Areas of the site and features that appear to be lacking in user acceptance will be reviewed for possible redesign.

Streamlined Backend/ Quick Response
RecordTrader will be dependent on various communications tools not only to bring our sellers closer to our users but also to ensure that quick and timely order fulfillment is possible. A chat feature will be available to buyers as they browse through the site’s listings. When a seller is online, a chat feature link will be enabled next to all of a seller’s listings indicating to the buyer that this seller is available for chat. When not available for chat, a user will also be able to communicate with a seller via site controlled email feature.

It is vital that all orders placed are communicated to the seller immediately. While a seller will receive a listing of all orders placed in real time when logged into the system via their system profile, they also have the option of being notified via email when a new order is placed.

Rigorous Coding Standards
RecordTrader will establish coding standards to be used by all developers and programmers working on the site. A version control system repository such as subversion will be used to ensure programming integrity among all programmers. It is important that the look and experience of RecordTrader is consistent throughout the website. Because of this cascading stylesheets will be used with W3C standards. All site HTML will be validated for strct XHTML adherence. With strict coding standards and methods in place, programmers and developers be able to seamlessly integrate and extend new functionality when necessary efficiently and cost effectively.

Cross-Channel Governance
The RecordTrader development team will form a committee to ensure that all web development is reviewed for cross browser and platform acceptance. Standards and documentation will be put in place defining methodologies and controls to be used in ensuring all development activity complies with company policies.

Behavior and Satisfaction Monitoring and Optimization
Customer behaviors will be tracked via various performance and tracking tools such as Open Tracker and Google Analytics. These daily, weekly, monthly, and annual reviews of site traffic statistics and user behavior will ensure that problem areas within the site are identified and improved. It is our goal to have sellers form relationships with its buyers.

User Preference Tracking; Customization and Personalization
Our sellers’ product is music which is a highly personal product. Sellers will be encouraged to use customer buying behavior data, such as recent purchases and searches, to make informed recommendations on other records and music. In addition to direct recommendation from sellers, RecordTrader will use search and purchase data to also make recommendations to individual buyers and steer traffic towards search results that will result in the highest likelihood of a sale. All product listings will be specifically categorized, so that product recommendations can be targeted, automated and presented to the shopper quickly and efficiently.

Tyler Wassell

• 7 Essentials for a healthy website
• Background and overview
• Compilation of all group member sections into an HTML document and posted to server.

Jeff Grove

• Competitors
• Intended Customers
• Attracting Customers
• Business Case Editing

Mo Onaneye

• Value Proposition
• Phases

Kelly Morris

• Improving Conversion
• eCommerce Value Chain

Oscar Bautista

• Business Models
• Shopping Experience