Hhello tutor please I need help with this case in e commerce
manning Read the following case carefully, and answer all questions. Use a critical and analytical style and be clear in anSwering the questions. Please do not provide general answers, be specic to the questions asked. MixedMade is the combined efforts of Casey and Morgen, who found that the most interesting things come from mixing the unexpected. They set out to make the most useful and delightful hot sauce using just two ingredients: honey and chili peppers. They've quickly grown their small batch honey business into an extremely successul online store that has expanded into retail locations. As a business, MixedMade is meant to serve as an example and an inspiration for how simple it can be to launch your own business. Since they had only 30 days to get from idea to shipping product, they had some additional pressures in creating and sourcing their product. A full day of intensive online and phone research turned up a bunch of leads for their main ingredient, honey. Simultaneously Casey (the mastermind behind their products) was busy in the kitchen, testing dozens of avor and spice combinations to get the perfect blend. They really believe in building relationships and thus prefer in person meetings whenever possible, which led to a few days and coffees with beekeepers in the Hudson Valley. They were fortunate to rely on help from their community and friends in Brooklyn, like how one talented designer came up with their beautiful packaging injust three days, for free! The time they \"invested" into in-person meetings and building solid relationships with their suppliers and partners in the rst months of business paid off exponentially as these partners all came to their aid, and never let them down, during a December holiday rush that resulted in 2200% growth in sales over previous monthly averages. Instead of perfecting their recipe over months they intensively tested, revised, and rened options until they had something they thought was amazing. They decided to put their product to the real test by selling it to paying Customers ASAP, since paying Customers are the best feedback they could ever gather. As spicy honey is a new category, they knew that creating awareness would be key to sales. Their rst efforts included emailing their personal contact lists and posting to their personal Facebook pages (asking for feedback is much easier than askingfor sales) which led to our rst $1,000 in sales. They also dropped off samples in person and attempted to build a personal relationship. 9.200% growth for 30 days; it was a curse and a blessing, as they loved the sales but were unprepared for this boost. In their first year of operating they had revenues of $l 70,000. They also spent a lot of time focusing on segmentation, which is essentially thinking about their entire customer group in different ways depending on where they fall in the sales lifecycle. In addition, they were focusing a signicant portion of their resources supporting and growing their wholesale accounts (mostly small retail stores) as those accounts have proven to be valuable and often send customers back to their e-commerce store, and vice versa. They manage all their production and fulllment manually. When they suddenly had 6.000 battles to produce, fill, and ship in a week's time in mid December - they almost went crazy. However, they had invested in systems and partners that could support sudden chaos and growth. Their community really stood behind them when things went nuts, and they couldn't have pulled off that growth without their help. Besides friends and family helping pack boxes in 20 hour shifts, they even had one customer volunteer to help just so he could be part of the ride! There is a great tool available (in the Shopify App Store or elsewhere} for virtually anything you need to accomplish or automate on the back-end of your business. Think of these tools and systems like insurance they are nice to have when things are slow, predictable, and the sun is shining. However, having the good ones in place and properly set up reveal their true value when you get a boost in sales, have major issues with other areas of the business, or need to focus your time elsewhere. They considered these tools and systems essential and spent time and a little money setting them up as they depended on them when their business was shaking. It is not important which tools or systems you use, but rather that you are constantly evaluating your business and making adjustments to improve its performance and also pave the way for growth. It goes without saying that Shopify is the base platform they've used as their foundation. They know zero coding and they're not good designers but their site looks great and functions perfectly. Their most essential and favorites that they've integrated include: 35:11; for accounting Way for fulllment W for email management 1019;: for product reviews o PopUp Window for gathering email subscribers and improving conversion 0 Google for Business I Analytics (email and analytics, of course) 0 M for making things look pretty as a non-designer Starting a new business can feel overwhelming what colors to choose, which systems do you need, how many products to launch with, what prices are right and 100 other scary decisions. Fortunately, you can follow a few steps to make your life easier and gain progress quickly. They almost launched with two products, but realized it would be nearly twice as easy to launch with one instead. You don't need every bell and whistle on day one. Determine what the absolute essential components you need to launch are, and focus only on them. Once you're comfortable the essentials are in place begin testing (selling), make adjustments, and focus on the next most important steps 1. Identify and explain MixedMade's e-commerce 5 support areas. 2. Classify MixedMade EC by the nature of the transactions and the relationships among participants, what type is it? 3. For MixedMade case, what are the benets of their e-commerce at the three levels: organization, consumers, and society? 4. What social media tool(s) must MixedMade apply to their business in order to market their honey sauce, and why? 3/3
