ABSTRACT: The report will provide ample pragmatic information about E-business models by discussing every element in detail and applying the concepts on the famous British Clothing Brand; ASOS. The eight elements pragmatically delineated here are: 1. Value proposition 2. Revenue Model 3. Market opportunity 4. Competitive Environment 5. Competitive advantage 6. Market Strategy 7. Organizational development 8. Management Team The equal significance of all of the above mentioned elements has been highly taken care of. Have a contented reading :-) Regards; Summaya Sharif (summaya.2544@gmail.com)

1. © BAHRIA UNIVERSITY , KARACHI CAMPUS www.cms.bukc.bahria.edu.pk
ASOS (AS SEEN ON SCREEN)
April 2, 2017
Authored by: SUMMAYA SHARIF (STUDENT OF BAHRIA
UNIVERSITY, KARACHI CAMPUS)
02-111141-222@student.bahria.edu.pk
Report on ASOS
TO BE SUBMITTED TO: SIR AMIR MANZOOR

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Report on ASOS
[Abstract]
The report will provide ample source of pragmatic information about E-business models
by discussing every element in detail and applying the concepts on the famous British
Clothing Brand; ASOS.
The eight elements pragmatically delineated here are:
1. Value proposition
2. Revenue Model
3. Market opportunity
4. Competitive Environment
5. Competitive advantage
6. Market Strategy
7. Organizational development
8. Management Team
The equal significance of all of the above mentioned elements has been highly taken care
of. Have a
Contented reading 

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A. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I am the student of BBA 7E, BAHRIA UNIVERSITY and I’m thankful to the
Almighty Allah who, in His infinite mercy, has guided me to complete this term
report. I also wish to thank my parents for their personal support and attention
that inspired me to go my own way. I’m blissfully honored to have such parents
and I’m grateful for them that they gave me a chance to prove myself.
Second of all, I would like to present my deep and heartily gratitude to my
Ecommerce Professor; SIR. AMIR MANZOOR; who not only asked for such an
informational project which made me highly conversant with new, enlightening
and pragmatic information but also gifted me with preciously valuable guidance
and support for the accomplishment of this report.
Lastly, I would also, gladly, like to present my thanks to Bahria University,
Karachi Campus that it provided me a platform via which I could get such an
intriguing experience that’s a sine qua non for becoming sagacious.

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[ABSTRACT]...........................................................................................................................1
A. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT............................................................................................. 2
 ACQUAINTANCE WITH ASOSTM ............................................................................... 6
 BUSINESS MODELOF ASOS..................................................................................... 7
1. VALUE PROPOSITION:.................................................................................................................................. 8
A) PERSONALIZATION................................................................................................. 8
B) CUSTOMIZATION .................................................................................................... 8
C) CONVENIENCE ....................................................................................................... 8
D) REDUCTION OF PRODUCT/SEARCH AND PRICE/DELIVERY COSTS.............................. 8
2 REVENUEMODEL; ....................................................................................................................................... 10
A. ADVERTISING MODEL;......................................................................................... 10
B. SUBSCRIPTION MODEL.......................................................................................... 10
 FREE-MIUM MODEL; ............................................................................................ 10
C. TRANSACTION FEE MODEL;.................................................................................. 10
D. SALES MODEL; ..................................................................................................... 10
E. AFFILIATE MODEL;............................................................................................... 10
3 MARKET OPPORTUNITY; .......................................................................................................................... 11
4 COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT: .............................................................................................................. 11
5 COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: ................................................................................................................... 12
6 MARKETING STRATEGY: .......................................................................................................................... 13
7 ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT:..................................................................................................... 13
8 MANAGEMENT TEAM:................................................................................................................................ 15
A. EXECUTIVE BOARD:.........................................................................................18
 BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................................................................................19

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ACQUAINTANCE WITH ASOSTM
ASOS is a Britainbased clothing brand that wasfounded by NickRobertson
and Quentin Griffiths on June 3, 2000. The company is now a global
fashion and beauty retailer that offers men & women attires, footwear,
accessories, jewelry, and beauty products (successfully operational in 243
countries) for 20-somethings and has grown from a 2-people’s company
to 4000+ dedicated employees with over 75000 products offered online
and 3000 new products added each week, And don’t think that’s it, they
have 13.4m active customers, 19m social followers, and sell up to 300,000
dresses each WEEK, and an annual revenue (as of year-end 2015) of 1119.9
million pounds.
The company used to offer the exact replicas of celebrity attires at
affordableprices so that young generation could afford it but it, then, also
started to offer second hand products, for which it asks customers to sell
their clothes at the web for a considerable return on it. The company then
expanded to marketplaceaswell in 2010-2011 that we shall discuss later in
thisreport. After which thecompanyalso introduced its magazines, mobile
apps (which is currently the greatest source of visits.
The companytargetsaffordability, accessibility, style, trendiness, and most
of all “democratization of fashion”-THAT IS FASHION FOR ALL
APPROACH. Apart from the mentioned ones sustainability and waste
reduction is also equally important for ASOS since their target market is
youth, and ergothey’ve been sweating blood to cut the waste down by 99%,
and design all packaging with the recycled stuff and congeries.
The company has a trait of creativity, imagination, dedication, limit-less
innovation and hard work till people sweat blood, ergo they did not only
rely on the bricksand mortar storethat they took off from and stepped in to
the online business where profitability can’t be put to barriers. They are
incessantlydriving out ways to drive traffic and increase the level of brand
awareness when the physical stores are absent.
The main reason behind ASOS success is that they are not just among the
ones who live the customers, and sniff out the trends from them but they
are thecustomersthemselves. Because when they went for the market place

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expansion step, they actually shared the power to sell their congeries,
attires etc. in return of the transaction fee charged on 20% commission.
The most important reason behind its success is actually the relationship
building with itscustomersvia the SocialMedia Platformsand providing all
that the customers want 24*7.
Now the question that arises is what is the actual business model that is
followed by ASOS? Or that elevated it to this level of success, rather almost
near the apex of success.
Let us now delve deep in to the business model thereof.
BUSINESS MODEL OF ASOS
ASOS canbe synonymized as INDI-ZON on the basis of its business model
because it’s partially Inditex and partially Amazon.

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The figureexplicitlydelineatesthe above statement but the only thing that
isn’t there is that it even owns a multiple revenue model just as Amazon
has.
Now let’s segregate its Business Model in accord with the 8 elements
thereof.
1. VALU E PROPOSITION:
The value proposition of the business firms is the answer to the famous
aphorism “why should the customers buy from you?” and it generally
includes:
a) Personalization
b) Customization
c) Convenience
d) Reduction of product/search and price/delivery costs
Personalization referstothe process of altering the site, product/services
as per the needs, wants and desires of customers make them feel who is
actually reigning.
Customization isthe amalgam offlexibility and personalization, itself, of
the custom-built products at the low unit costs related with mass-
production.
Convenience can simply be defines as accessibility or the level thereof.
Whilereduction of product/service and price/delivery costs owns
an explicit appellation.
ASOS is the organizationthat usesALL OF THEM-literallyall of them-as
its value proposition to satiate the customers and consumers needs in the
best possibleway. The questionnow is how? How exactly a firm can use all
of these all at once?
But the answer is actuallysimpler than the question seems like, that lies in
its offerings, and targeted priorities that are:

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I. Dresses offered at very affordable rates that everybody can afford
with a greater ease thus reducing price offered and offering free
shipping all over the world leaving absolutelyequal to zero barriers
to checking out anything customer likes.,
II. The trait inheritance of trendiness, and the power to sniff it from
customers with the never-ending innovative and, sometimes,
improvising ways which enable ASOS to keep on innovating and
altering as per the consumer needs, wants and desires so that they
could feel beatifically satisfied.
III. It does not just keeps on altering or coming up with the new trend
in accordance with the sniffed ones but also keeps on
changing/altering itssiteto gift itsYOUNG customersthethrilling,
and energetic experience.
IV. It also caresabout the convenience in a way that it expanded itself
in over 243countriesplus stocked an inventory level of over 75000
productsjust so the customerscanreach with the greatest ease and
get whatever they want.

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2 REVENUE MODEL;
It answers the typical business query; that is “how the company plans to
make money from its operations?”; and ensures the return on company’s
investment-no matter if that’s on human capital, as in this case.
The revenue model includes the following:
A. Advertising Model; where firms offer content, services and/or
products and provide a platform for advertisement in return of
advertising fee.
B. Subscription model ; where companies offering content charge a
subscriptionfeein return of an allowed access to some or all of its
offerings.
 Free-mium model;
Here companies offer contents on free subscription but at a
certain level, after which they charge a fee.
C. Transaction Fee model; it’salsoa means of generating revenues for
firms, because they charge certain fee and receive commission on
the basis of the volume for transactions’ execution and
enablement.
D. Sales model; A modelvia which companiesdrivealmost most of its
revenue by selling goods/services/contents etc.
And,
E. Affiliate model; the model is purely based upon the coded affiliate
links that the website display to drive the customers to the
intended web and gets paid on commission basis per click, lead,
impression and sale.
ASOS being a very successful e-business owns multiplerevenue models that
are;
 Advertising model
 Subscription fee model
 Transaction fee model
 Sales model

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It started itsfamous“Market place” in2010-11where it allows customers to
sell their congeries on reasonable prices (frauds or misrepresentation of
prices are not tolerated) and are even permitted to promote them via
promotional codes (the codes are strictly prohibited to use in return of
money). The Marketplaceis, hence, a really creativeway to sniff the trends,
satiatethecustomers, lower theprices, advertise itself and the rising talent
and most importantly earn revenue in the form of a transactional fee on
20% commission.
ASOS also offers subscription either via Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and
Pinterest or simply by creating a new account. It helps ASOS in keeping a
record of the customers’searches, sniffing trends, likings and disliking and
it also eases the customers as the items are shown to them as per their
recommendations. However, the checkout process demands a payment to
be done first but all and every content is offered to the customers to search
for and view for free subscriptions.
Since ASOS is an e-business that sells items it offers (men and women
attires, footwear, accessories, jewelry and beauty products) ergo it also
owns a sales revenue model but it can explicitly be said a subscription
based sales revenue model.
3 MARKET OPPORTUNITY;
Since it deals with the intended market space and the overall potential
financialopportunities available to the firm in the market space, ergo, the
market opportunity of ASOS in 2017, when sales have been reported to
boost, can be an introduction of a new product line exempli gratia:
fashionable and trendy household stuff or trendy music protected or not by
DRM and eradicate its weakness of being less-popular outside UK, even if
operating.
4 COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT:
Since there is equal to zero barriers to entry in clothing/apparel ergo the
number of ASOS’ competitors is humungous but the most challenging
DIRECT competitors include:
 AMAZON with Stockprice:AMZ (FRA) €819,76 +0,81 (+0,10 %) and
135.98 bn revenue, & 4.186 bn operating income as of 2016

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 INDITEX with Stock price: IXD1 (ETR) €32,63 0,00 (0,00 %) and
20.900 bn revenue in 2015
 Bershka with 1.664 bn euros as of 2014
 Zara with 15.9 bn revenue in 2016
IN COMPARISON TO THE ASOS’ CURRENT Share Price: 6,080.75 GBp -0.56 %
and 1.158 bn GBP, But ASOS Is by far the most liked retailer with 4,664,425
facebook likings and 4,555,509 following-after Amazon with 27,185,010
liking and 26,205,908 following. ASOS offers affordable rates for UK, but
it’s the currencythat’smaking itsproductsgoout of reach in countriessuch
as Russia where a pound equal 70. Something and in Pakistan where a
single pound equals 130.56 rs,
Inditex-intentionally-offers high rates in countries such as US, CHINA,
SOUTH KOREA ETC.
Zara offers itsproductsat premium and Amazonoffers productsat the best
prices just as ASOS does.
5 COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE:
The major competitiveadvantagethat ASOS hasisthe brand differentiation
strategy that it has chosen-EVOKED FEELINGS. It always focuses on
building strong and long term relationships with the customers and does
whatever is their want by providing them highly innovative, trendy and

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stylish products on reasonable prices and caring about the preciously
valuable customersvia their 24*7 available customer consultancy-and this
type of business is hard to imitate.
6 MARKETING STRATEGY:
ASOS offers ordering ease, delivery ease (referring to time, accuracy and
care of the product), and even customer consulting on its official site and
via its social media platforms.
It also offers the return guarantee/offers, and the return note is even
availableon the website. Albeit, the companyfacesa tad loss due to returns
but it offers it to ease the customers and is in process to work on it.
The pricing strategythat ASOS haschosenis thePenetrationstrategy while
the product strategy chosen is augmented product offerings differentiated
on thebasisof form, customization, performance and conformance quality
and style.
The placement strategy that it has chosen is accessibility and convenience
and goes for the sales promotion strategy for promotions.
7 ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT:
The functional areas that ASOS works in are:

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And ASOS hires on the basis of the level of creativity, imagination,
dedication, un-ending innovative mind and ability to work hard till the
people sweat blood. It offers a wide range of jobs, due to the large size of
firm; at its official career site:
https://asoscareers.asos.com/ASOS/BusinessAreasJobs.html
And these jobs are displayed with explicit elucidation of appellations as
well, leaving no confusion at all.
It’s said that ASOS’ Marketplace is the perfect example of the alignment of
business and operating models and that the work is well organized in
accord with thefunctionaldepartmentswith special emphasis on customer
relationship building.
Moreover its corporate responsibility known as Fashion with Integrity
works delicately to embed shining stars in people’s lives. It was formed in
2010 and enhanced in 2011 so that the business could flourish and work
efficaciously on to what its real aim is; “become the world’s number one
fashion destinationfor 20-somethings”. They have worked prominently for
Human rights and have ensured the reflection of 10 principles stated by
UN’s Global Compact thereof. Via FWI they not only support ethical trade,
relationship with stakeholders, human rights but also work on promoting
products that are manufactured via the use of sustainable business
practices, thesaid promotionis done via its “Green Room” from where the
customers can not only learn about but also grab the leading ecological
fashion. Since their customers are increasingly concerned about the
sustainability ergo, this step ensures that the customers are well aware of
the sustainable ways company has so far chosen plus the products that
promote what the “kings” are interested in and how they can buy them.

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8 MANAGEMENT TEAM:

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The board of directors of ASOS is:

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A. EXECUTIVE BOARD:
Apart from the board of directors, thereis the Executiveboard that includes
the executive director and key functional director and is led by the CEO.
The meeting is held weekly, and the board is held accountable for the
formulation of the suggested strategic focus proposed to the board, the
daily management of the group’s business & its aggregate trading,
operational and financial performance in fulfillment of that strategy, and
the plans and budgets approved by the board of directors. Internal control
procedures are delegated by the board to the executive board.
Apart from checking for and enhancing the skills rather traits in the
employees they also make sure that the remuneration strategy keeps on
acting as a motivating tool; even after the deductions of the employee
donations (that’s a part of the Fashion with integrity-CORPORATE
RESPONSIBILITY). The remunerationand business strategy in the year in
review of ASOS is:
The management teams all work as one unit, and prioritize customer
relationship themost. They all make sure that they have a good know-how
of every department and affairs, and they arewell updated with all the news
so they can work efficaciously.

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 Bibliography
ASOS. (2016). Year 2016 in review. Year in review, 1-104.
https://www.asosplc.com/media
https://www.asosplc.com/corporate-responsibility
https://www.asosplc.com/careers
https://www.asosplc.com/investors
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zara_(retailer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inditex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASOS.com
https://rctom.hbs.org/submission/asos-effectively-delivering-style-affordability-and-
accessibility/
https://www.slideshare.net/Helixa/asos-the-next-online-retail-model