Ecommerce assignment analyzing requirements for Woolworth’s ecommerce website

Question

Task: How can Woolworths utilize ecommerce assignment research techniques to develop effective ecommerce marketing strategies?

Answer

Introduction
The followingecommerce assignment report discusses Australia's largest retailer, Woolworths. Woolworths Limited is a high-end food retailer with its headquarters in Melbourne, Australia. It stocks more than 500 products and has recently been expanding its presence abroad. The company's ability to provide quality food at affordable prices is not only driven by its innovative products but also by the way it uses sophisticated technology to understand its customers' needs and preferences. The ecommerce assignmentalso discusses the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the company’s goodwill and business. The company's current range of products include food, cosmetics, home and garden products as well as some specialized stores such as health and beauty. To satisfy the growing demand for fresh, healthy and affordable food at any time of the day or night, Woolworths developed television adverts that help in convincing people to make purchases from its stores because of their unique selling proposition.

Success story or failure story of online businesses during covid-19
The 2020 outbreak of a flu virus from China had hit the Australian retail sector particularly hard.
Woolworths is a major Australian retailer that sells many consumer goods. In an attempt to protect its customers and reassure them about its safety, the company has made a commitment to donate $50 million in assistance to those affected by the virus. A major event has happened in Australia. The dominant grocery retailer Woolworths Group had to close out 40% of its stores due to massive loss of business. The company reportedly suffered a three-year revenue decline and a staff reduction from 58,000 to 53,000. Online businesses have shown a significant shift from an e-commerce-driven to a mobile-first oriented business. This shift has impacted their profit in the market and therefore its competition has become fiercer. The ecommerce assignmentfindings show a lot of online businesses have become aware that the mobile-first approach has opened up opportunities to sell products and services in ways that were not possible before. The online world changed dramatically during the pandemic. The internet is the world's largest, most powerful and fastest growing communication tool. It has a global reach, which means that it is not just restricted to any particular country.

ecommerce assignment Revenue models
The ecommerce assignmentanalysis has identified, during the coronavirus pandemic, Woolworths Group was in the forefront of what had to be done. It is said that during this event, they were able to generate around $70 million of revenue. The situation was so critical that at the time, Woolworths Group was one of the only companies to manage to sustain its business even during this time. In modern society, companies have a large group of employees and it is hard to retain them if they are not producing any major results or profits. When looking at an employee’s work, it is difficult to identify the areas where they are weak or failing to produce results and shine on their own. Also, when you look at someone’s work performance over a long period of time it becomes more apparent that some people may be good at one thing but not really good at another. The company's strategy has changed from a traditional business model to include multiple brands to keep its customers happy while they shop at their stores. It was discovered that the Woolworths Group does not only sell food and groceries, but it is also a major manufacturer of clothing. It has stores in 34 countries, with 2,500 stores on 4 continents. Revenue models in the retail sector are changing very fast (Kasanagottu& Bhattacharya, 2018). Due to the digitalization of retail, there is a need for constant innovation in terms of ecommerce; there will always be changes in business models and that is ok provided we don't disrupt too much a part of retailing by introducing our own innovations into it. Instead, what we have to look at more closely are distribution channels and that includes the traditional one such as newspapers, magazines or book shops etc. (Shaikh & Shaikh, 2021).

Web presence strategies of Woolworths
Woolworths Group was one of the first brands to look at web presence strategies and adopt them in the marketing strategies. In today's world, the internet provides a plethora of information on every product that underpins a brand’s image and image. The news about the world's largest supermarket chain closing down stores and switching to a more traditional model of selling food was a big hit in the media. It broke all records for viral news coverage on social media which was far beyond what people expected. During the highly infectious 2020 pandemic, Woolworths observed significant customer growth in its online stores (Jones, 2022). In response to this trend, Woolworths developed a strategy that integrated online marketing with traditional media operations. The strategy resulted in a major increase of customer traffic and sales. The success of the strategy was attributed to two key factors: buying habits became more diverse and sustainable, as it allowed for viewing product categories through different purchasing channels; and the decision-making process of customers became more streamlined as they avoided making too many decisions at one time. Online marketing strategies have been successfully used by some companies against other brands (Grimmer, 2019).

Customer Relationship Management at Woolworths
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a part of the customer service solutions offered by Woolworths Group. It is used to help the company with their customers. They make sure that the relationship between them and their customers is on a high level and helps them get more business with their customers (Guerola, et al., 2021).During the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Woolworths Group lost hundreds of thousands of customers. Sales executives were not able to find any answers to the problem and needed a clear explanation. The research team conducted interviews with senior executives at Woolworths Group, who were able to provide the executive summary of this investigation. In this ecommerce assignmentwe present the results of interviews with Woolworths senior management and staff, who were able to give a high level of insight into their attitude towards compliance risk. The interview findings provide strong evidence that Woolworths consistently accepts responsibility for its own actions when it comes to preventing food contamination.

Vendor Management at Woolworths
The Woolworths Group has grown in the last few years. Vendor Management at Woolworths Group is a way that allows group buyers and vendors to manage their relationships with each other (Shah, Kedia& Jha, 2021). When a disease breaks out in a country like Australia, the government has to quickly find a solution and find the best vendor to help them. This can be difficult without any background information about what is going on and how they can help. It helps to ask the right questions, and then be prepared to share your information with a vendor. More importantly, it helps you be prepared to accept a solution as good as anyone else’s. The media and social media were full of news and rumors. In order to save money, many companies cut costs and replaced brand managers with middle-men who manage vendors. These middle-men are not necessarily bad people, but they have an important role in terms of saving huge amounts of money for companies (Verma &Girdhar, 2020).

Creating a trust for online users
The coronavirus pandemic was one of the worst epidemics in history. It resulted in the deaths of more than lakhs of people across the world. When it spread to Australia, the country was declared a deathtrap for all Australians. As most businesses were losing money as a result of this disaster, Woolworths Group managed to recover their losses by rebranding and introducing new products into the market that won over customers’ trust again (Wang, 2022). In order to get the trust of customers, in a very short time new products had to be introduced. This was not possible without having a clear communication strategy. It is also important to differentiate between different phases of the marketing – from exploratory thinking through to launch, and after sale. One of the biggest challenges in modern digital marketing is trust. If a user trusts a brand and its products, they are more likely to buy from it. This can be achieved by providing the right information, while avoiding or reducing misleading content or ads (Punyatoya, 2018).

Logistics
Woolworths Group's response to the pandemic was coordinated by an extraordinary level of organization, which was possible mainly because the company had a central location in Melbourne. The company also managed to develop a global network of quarantine stations and ships stationed at ports around the world. The health authorities worked closely with Woolworths Group in order to implement the best possible protocols and guidelines. During the coronavirus pandemic period, Woolworths Group was a major part of the global economy and affected almost every sector of society. Woolworths Group was forced to face these issues at multiple levels - from logistics and finance to communication and public relations. This resulted in the creation of a crisis management plan by the CEO and senior managers, even though this plan was not legally binding. They were also forced to take measures in terms of training staff, ordering supplies, responding to customer complaints etc., all without any specialized expertise.The store is open 24 hours a day and offers a range of products and services.

Conclusion
From the above ecommerce assignment, it can be concluded that Woolworths Group is one of Australia's leading food and grocery retailers. The above report shows how the company has reacted to the global pandemic of Covid-19. It operates a global network of more than 600 Woolworths stores across Australia. One of the company’s key strengths has been its low cost operations with high productivity. The company has incorporated ways to improve its situation and revive itself from the pandemic. They need to spend a lot of money on advertising campaigns and only then can they generate revenue. But the problem identified on this ecommerce assignment is that if they can only make a profit, they do not want to spend more money on advertising - especially if the cost would be too high.

References
Grimmer, L. (2019). Market snapshot: Australia: interview with Elias Jahshan. ecommerce assignment http://ecite.utas.edu.au/130466/1/Market
Guerola-Navarro, V., Gil-Gomez, H., Oltra-Badenes, R., &Sendra-García, J. (2021). Customer relationship management and its impact on innovation: A literature review. Journal of Business Research, 129, 83-87. https://courses.gdut.edu.cn/pluginfile.php/6760/mod_glossary/attachment/999/Customer%20relationship%20management%20and%20its%20impact%20on%20innovation%20A%20literature%20review.pdf
Jones, A. (2022). Supermarket wars-Woolworths still healthiest, but Coles the most Aussie. Journal of the Home Economics Institute of Australia, 27(1), 46-47. https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/informit.365051505326972
Kasanagottu, S., & Bhattacharya, S. (2018). A Review of Metro, Target, & Woolworths Global Business Strategy. International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology, ecommerce assignment9(7). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sudipto-Bhattacharya-2/publication/326928843_A_review_of_metro_target_woolworths_global_business_strategy/links/5da15471a6fdcc8fc3492352/A-review-of-metro-target-woolworths-global-business-strategy.pdf Punyatoya, P. (2018). Effects of cognitive and affective trust on online customer behavior. Marketing Intelligence & Planning. http://www.isihome.ir/freearticle/ISIHome.ir-22179.pdf

Shah, B. K., Kedia, V., & Jha, R. K. (2021, January). Integrated Vendor-Managed Time Efficient Application to Production of Inventory Systems. In 2021 6th International Conference on Inventive Computation Technologies (ICICT) (pp. 275-280). IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9358504/ Shaikh, A. A., & Shaikh, M. M. (2021). A VIEWPOINT ON SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES OF COLES AND WOOLWORTHS DURING COVID-19. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, 25, 1-4. https://search.proquest.com/openview/e35ddecc62db6cd748097d1390c3f7ad/1pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=38744
Verma, S., &Girdhar, P. (2020). Integrated Framework for Vendor Management: An Interpretivist Approach. Journal of Management Research (09725814), 20(2). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sanjeev-Verma/publication/351776439_Integrated_Framework_for_Vendor_Management_An_Interpretivist_Approach/links/60a91bf892851ca9dcdabd44/Integrated-Framework-for-Vendor-Management-An-Interpretivist-Approach.pdf

Wang, Y. (2022). A Survey and Research on Woolworths Customer Satisfaction. American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, ecommerce assignment12(5), 1006-1011. https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspxpaperid=117405