Background
Steiner was a business school professor at a university in New Jersey. When Steiner and his wife were in Maryland, Julia Steiner was unhappy at her job. The couple settled on the idea of starting a business of their own so that Julia could quit her current position. They explored various business possibilities, none of which panned out. Steiner focused on online companies while their search was going on, given his expertise in that area. He started an online store selling iPod accessories but quickly sold it, as he determined the market was too competitive. Then, he came across an online lingerie store called Classy Delicates (www.ClassyDelicates.com). Steiner talked about his reasons for buying this business: “Classy Delicates was an affiliate site directing users to online vendors and collecting a commission. I liked this site because vendors offered drop shipping to end-users, which meant that I didn’t have to carry inventory and the drop shipper took care of the details. Since I wanted to change it from an affiliate site to a retailing site, drop shipping was important. In addition, the price was $75,000; I was able to bargain it down to $30,000 plus one and a half times the profits for the first three months, which turned out to be a measly $450 because of all the changeover expenses! I essentially paid $30,450 for a domain name and site traffic.” Steiner completed the purchase of Classy Delicates. He immediately changed it from an affiliate site to a retail site. He contacted two leading vendors, and they agreed to drop ship products for Classy Delicates. Steiner redesigned the website that now featured large product images and a shopping cart system to handle customer purchases. He relaunched the site six weeks after purchasing the business. The business was extremely slow in the first few months of the relaunch.
Problem Statement
Imagine you are a product manager working with Steiner,
- What are the methods of advertisement you recommend addressing the slow business problem?
- What are the financial metrics that Steiner should focus on?
- What are the website metrics providing the best customer experience?
- What are the KPIs and metrics to be focused on by Steiner to gauge success?
References
- https://www.getdor.com/blog/2019/12/11/key-metrics-to-measure-retail-store-performance/
- https://www.insider-trends.com/the-5-most-important-new-kpis-of-retail-and-how-to-improve-them/
- https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/ecommerce-metrics/
- https://databox.com/website-kpis-and-measuring-performance
Instructions for submission
- All submissions should be converted into .pdf format and any of MS format (.pptx or .docx) can be used
- Deadline for submission is 24 hours prior to the mentor-led intervention on Sunday
- The individual submissions cannot be discussed with any cohort participant
- Showcase creativity and originality