1. Business Plan
F l o r i d a S t a t e U n i v e r s i t y
C O M 3 9 3 0 / 2 0 1 5 F a l l
Mountain
2. 2
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS 2
1. INTRODUCTION 3
2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4
3. MISSION, STRATEGIES, ETC. (COMPANY, STRATEGY AND MANAGEMENT TEAM) 5
3.1. VISION 5
3.2. MISSION 6
3.3. OBJECTIVES/GOALS 6
3.4. KEYS TO SUCCESS 7
3.5. STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS (SWOTS) 8
3.6. STRATEGIES 9
4. PRODUCTS AND SERVICES 10
5. MARKETING: 10
5.1. PACKAGING 11
5.2. ADVERTISING 11
6. MANAGEMENT/OWNERSHIP 12
6.1. COMPANY OWNERSHIP 12
6.2. MANAGERIAL STYLE 13
6.3. MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. 13
7. COMPETITION: 13
8. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND PROJECTIONS: 14
8.1. START-UP AND OPERATING BUDGETS 14
8.2. CASH FLOW PROJECTION： 16
APPENDIX: 17
REFERENCE: 20
3. 3
1. Introduction
Mountain is an online store that sells imported Asian products. The purpose of Mountain
is to establish Internet-based retail websites for the purpose of generating revenues through
online transaction. “Mountain” provides the imported East Asian products for people who are
born in East Asia but study or live in U.S., and for Americans who love Asian culture and
want to buy oriental products. As the population of Asian students and American Asians
keeps growing, our primary target market will be the Asian community in the United States.
We roughly categorized our customers into three parts: the students and visiting scholars who
are from Asian countries, the Asian employees who work in the United States, Students and
visiting scholars, Asian employees in U.S and Americans who adore Asian products.
We will gain the revenues mainly from the online transaction. The company will be set
in LLC structure, which is more flexible and good for a company that only have a few
owners. Mountain will be physically located and operated from Vernon, California. We chose
California because of the huge Asian population in California, we choose Vernon because it
is located in commute distance from Los Angeles and the rent fee there is much cheaper.
Initially, Mountain will provide each section within its website:
• Homepage, which provides general information and generate an overall view for the
audience of this website.
• All products, in which all products will be listed under this column. The products will
be divided into 30 categories based on their nature.
4. 4
• The Best seller, which will demonstrate the products that purchased most by the
customers.
• Customer service, through which customers can get with customer services.
• Latest products, which provides customers about the latest commodities we have.
The business incorporated on 12/4/2015. The corporation has two shareholders currently,
Binshan Fan and Chang Liu, each sharing an equal interest in the corporation. Binshan Fan is
the President and the Secretary and Chang Liu is the Treasurer and the Vice President.
2. Executive Summary
Purpose: “Mountain” provides the audience with various and qualified products with
compelling prices. Shopping with “Mountain” brings you the new globalization shopping
experience.
Target Market: As the population of Asian students and American Asians keeps growing,
our primary target market will be the Asian community in the United States.
Unique Selling Proposition: First of all, a most website who sell Asian commodities like
us do not provide free shipping or their minimum total for free shipping is relatively high. We
will distinguish ourselves by cut down the shipping fee if the buyer physically located in
California area. Secondly, the majority of competitors are focusing on Asian foods. We want
to do a website with a combination of foods, Asian cosmetic products, and high-ends
porcelain or handicraft articles. By providing broader commodities in our website, we are
trying to make our unique selling point by reaching a wider range of customers.
5. 5
Growth Plans: The majority of competitors are focusing on food and related products or
service. We want to do a website with a combination of foods, Asian cosmetic products, and
high-ends hand craft articles. The latter two are expected to become our development
opportunities. Our growth plans are to enlarge our customer base 7 times within a five-year
period and increased selling space by 15 percent by completing an addition to building within
a year.
3. Mission, Strategies, etc. (Company, Strategy and Management
Team)
3.1. Vision
Mountain’s vision is to be a reliable source of food, skincare, cosmetics, and handicraft
articles from East Asia on the web. We will earn our customers’ trust, and following, by
offering only the highest quality information, products, and services. The homepage will
provide general information and generate an overall view for the audience of this website. All
products page will provide all products will be listed under this column. The products will be
divided into 30 categories based on their nature. The best seller page will demonstrate the
products that purchased most by the customers. Customer service page will provide customer
services. Latest products page will demonstrate the latest products offered by Mountain.
6. 6
3.2. Mission
Mountain is an online retailer that provides imported Asian foods, cosmetics, and
high-end handicraft products to the customers who live in the United States. Our mission is to
build a reputation among the local Asian community as the most reliable and convenient
online shops with competitive price and broader selections.
3.3. Objectives/Goals
Based on our mission stated above, we have three goals to achieve as we start our
business: Build up a reputation, improve customer services and expand products and service
line. To achieve these goals, the objectives are as follow:
Reputation: Increase brand awareness. As a start-up business, we don’t have any
recognition. To build up our reputation, we will create a customer referral bonus, say if new
customers told us that he/she was referred by old customers, the old customers will receive
some bonus. Also, we will send our customers monthly newsletter to keep them informed
about our business.
Improve customer services: We try to enhance our reliability by stressing on our
customer services. We will hire two new employees to deal with customer services in the first
year of operation. As the business grows, more employees will be hired to support customer
services.
Expand products and service line: By enlarging customer selection, we will provide more
categories of products for them. At the initial stage of the business, we will provide 30
7. 7
categories include foods and cosmetic products. After achieving Business revenue in the first
year, we will double our categories by introducing more cosmetic brands to our website. By
doing this, we have to cooperate with some Asian cosmetic brands. Also, we want to enlarge
our customer base 7 times within a five-year period, and increased selling space by 15
percent by completing an addition to building within a year.
3.4. Keys to Success
Keys to success for Mountain are:
High-Quality Products: All products are of the highest quality to our target audience.
Price: Our price is competitive and we do not set minimum amount for free shipping·
Credibility: Since the websites being developed are in specialized fields and targeted towards
locals and students, credibility is a key success factor.
Reputation: Since it is an online retail store, it needs to generate organic traffic on the Internet
through referrals and word of mouth. Establishing a reputation as subject matter experts and
providing high-quality services and products is key to the success of this business.
Usability: Providing products and services people want, even if it’s free, only works if the
users can easily find what they’re looking for. Ensuring the usability of the websites is
smooth and visual clusters and should be avoided.
Broad selection of products: We provide various selections of products for customers to
choose, ranging from foods, snack, to cosmetic and skin care products, which other online
shops and brick-and-mortar store do not have.
9. 9
Figure 1. Top ten states with the fastest growing Asian population (2000-2012)
Figure 2. Top then States with largest Asian Population (2000 – 2012)
Threats
· Larger and better-funded companies can duplicate our products and services easily.
· Local Asian grocery store
· Existed Online store
· Imported duty fee unstable
3.6. Strategies
Mountain will provide its customers with the authentic and finest Asian food and
cosmetic products available. Mountain team ensures each customer has an outstanding
shopping experience by providing a high level of service and product information. Mountain
will:
· Create a unified look for the Web site, and product packaging.
10. 10
· Design a marketing plan to increase purchases by current customers and attract
new customers within the existing target markets.
· Increase operational efficiencies.
· Improve shipping capability so that perishable products can be ordered from
the Web site and shipped anywhere in the United States.
· Develop an employee-training program to further enhance all employees’
product knowledge and customer service skills.
· Continually adds new services, features and products.
4. Products and Services
Since the business model is to generate sales revenue from websites, Mountain will
provide authentic oriental products. To be more precisely, food, skin care products and
handicraft articles from East Asia. In order for those products to attract traffic to the
website, they must be of the highest quality. The products the business will provide are:
· Food/ snakes.
· Skin care Products.
· Handicraft articles.
· Product Reviews. Reviews of products such as foods, cosmetic products, and
other products will be provided on the websites.
5. Marketing:
11. 11
5.1. Packaging
a. Interface Deign
The “Mountain” website is our product.The way of packing is not like normal products.
Our product is a virtual product that audience couldn’t touch it. But the audience can see it
and feel about it. So, the style of website design is important and necessary. We will use
simple and clear style to design website, green and white is mainly tone. Because green
match the “Mountain” this word, it’s easy to make an impression to the audience, combining
green and white express the health and natural information to the audience, which is good for
building the brand image.
b. Build and improve trust relationship between the company and audience.
First of all, it is necessary to make audience know this website is stable and durable and
we have dedicated person manage this website. Therefore, it’s important to add the contact
information, law announcement, delivery method, return policy and etc. Connect to other
social media also is important, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Weibo.
5.2. Advertising
Due to our primary target audience is the students and visiting scholars who are from
Asian countries; the Asian employees who work in the United States. Most of them using
Weibo and Wechat as their daily social media more than using Facebook and twitter that kind
of American famous social media. Therefore, launching advertising between Weibo and
Wechat is our primary strategy.
12. 12
An activity that we decided to launch in Weibo and Wechat is a lottery. We will create
an official account between these two social media. For Weibo, if someone who follow this
account, reposting the particular discount information, for example, there is XXX item for
sale, only for 39.99 in Mountain, follow us, repost this information and @ 2 friends, you have
a choice to win the prize provided by our website. These prizes almost are particular snakes,
a make-up mirror that kind of small item. For Wewhat, if you follow this account, add we as
your friend, repost this information to your friend circle and get 150 people like, make a
screen shot and sent it to us, the top 10 people have a choice to win the prize provided by our
website.
6. Management/ownership
Because our business is launching the online shopping website, Binshan Fan and Chang
Liu consists of the two partners of the management team, hiring additional staff will not be
necessary.
The owners will not receive salaries or benefits during the initial start-up stage of the
company. The 80% cash profitability will be reinvested into the company for supporting the
spending of day-to-day operations of the company in an early stage when the company gets
to stable, spending could be decreased to 50%. Remaining cash profitability will be the
salaries and equal for all officers of the company.
6.1. Company ownership
Two persons own the company equally: Binshan Fan and Chang Liu.
13. 13
6.2. Managerial Style
Decisions Making: Binshan Fan and Chang Liu will discuss and make a final decision
together for all business decisions to make sure the company is in the right direction.
Project Management: We will use Gantt charts for management schedule.
Record Keeping: We will use Excel to record and manage our financial. Communication.
Inside the company, we will use oral, cell phone or through emails. For communicating
outside to the company, we will use the cell phone or through emails.
6.3. Management and Administration.
Basically, both Binshan Fan and Chang Liu will manage and administrate company
together because there are only two people during the initial start-up stage of the company.
For the specific division of work, Chang Liu is the technical lead, mainly takes
responsibility for Web page design, Web page development and updates, Web server and
Content Updating on Website, while Binshan Fan is president, mainly takes responsibility for
Accounting and Inventory, Payroll and Taxes, Product Development and Advertising.
7. Competition:
During initial start-up stage of the company, there are two competitors that we consider,
The Dealmoon and Yami.com.
The biggest competitor we consider is that The Dealmoon, which is one of the largest the
Chinese/English bilingual American discount information website. In 2011, Dealmoon
14. 14
improves itself status of the circle of Chinese in the United States by established the official
account on Sina Weibo, @the official weibo of North American. It received forty thousand
followers by the first six months, and the followers reach 2.29 million now. It becomes the
first choice of Chinese discount information website. 90% of users are Chinese, and a quarter
of the data traffic from Weibo.
The strengths of Dealmoon are abundant information, source, and big impact of brand
awareness. The weaknesses of Dealmoon is that it’s a discount information website rather
than a shopping website, it seems like transition channel that collecting all discount
information for the audience. It makes a little inconvenience.
Yami.com is our second competitor. It was founded in March 2013, after a year of
development, they enlarged its category from Chinese snakes to more than1, 500 kinds of
food from South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and other Asian countries, 1,800 kinds of
beauty and cosmetic products. The strengths of Yami is good brand awareness among
Chinese and abundant item choice. However, the weakness of this shopping website is they
don’t provide furniture and accessories products, moreover, the target audience is Chinese,
they don’t target American who love Asian culture, “provide a quality products and a better
life for Asian who living in the Unite States” is the goal of Yami.com.
8. Financial statements and projections:
8.1. Start-up and Operating Budgets
The company will be funded by an initial loan of $30,000 from the two partners Binshan
15. 15
Fan and Chang Liu. Due to Chang Liu will design and serve the website, and we will use our
own computer to work, and the office space will be in our home. Therefore, the cost of
computers, office space, website design and serve will not be necessary. The list of start-up
and operating budgets is below:
Item Category One Time Cost
Recurring Cost
(per
mo.)
Business Incorporation Filing Legal $200
Register Internet Domain Names
(2 years)
Marketing $70 $6
Gnatt Chat Software Software $200
Corporate Seal and Stock Certs. Legal $100
Web Hosting Web Hosting $400 $400
Website Design and serve Web Design $0 $0
International shipping $1,500 $300
Link Building Marketing $300
Export products $5,000 $2000
(since 2017)Develop product lines $2000
(since 2017)Advertising in Weibo and Wechat
(1 year)
Promotion $1000
Total Cost $8470 $5,006
Figure 3 Start-up and operating budget.
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Revenue $30,000 $90,000 $140,000 $200,000 $340,000
17. 17
Appendix:
Figure 1. Top ten states with the fastest growing Asian population (2000-2012)
Figure 2. Top then States with largest Asian Population (2000 – 2012)
Item Category One Time Cost
Recurring Cost
(per
mo.)
18. 18
Business Incorporation Filing Legal $200
Register Internet Domain Names
(2 years)
Marketing $70 $6
Gnatt Chat Software Software $200
Corporate Seal and Stock Certs. Legal $100
Web Hosting Web Hosting $400 $400
Website Design and serve Web Design $0 $0
International shipping $1,500 $300
Link Building Marketing $300
Export products $5,000 $2000
(since 2017)Develop product lines $2000
(since 2017)Advertising in Weibo and Wechat
(1 year)
Promotion $1000
Total Cost $8470 $5,006
Figure 3 Start-up and operating budget.
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Revenue $30,000 $90,000 $140,000 $200,000 $340,000
COGS $20,542 $72,072 $72,072 $72,072 $72,072
Operating
costs
$0 $4000 $14,000 $64,000 $133,964
EBIDA $9485 $13,928 $53,928 $63,928 $133,964
Figure 4 Financial plan in next 5 years.
20. 20
Reference:
Shin, L. (2013, September 26). Asian beauty products bring new glow to the U.S. market |
ZDNet. Retrieved December 4, 2015, from
http://www.zdnet.com/article/asian-beauty-products-bring-new-glow-to-the-us-market/
Ethnic Supermarkets Industry: Growing Hispanic and Asian Markets Have Kept Performance
Strong. (n.d.). Retrieved December 4, 2015, from
http://bi.galegroup.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/essentials/article/GALE|A273794055?u=tall85761&si
d=summon&userGroup=tall85761
