Business Concept Proposal

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BUSINESS CONCEPT PROPOSAL

IDENTIFYING AND EVALUATING OPPORTUNITIES

As an artist and artisan I am, I have identified three business opportunities before choose one to develop. That's the following:

a) sell decorated flip flops following my own creations, as I have always done through more than ten years, but now in a new venture;

b) educate interested people how to make decorated flip flops, building a craft school;

c) provide the materials ( every type of them) in a shop where people themselves can create their own decorated flip flops.

My business option chosen is the first one: sell decorated flip flops created by myself , iniatilly. I have so much experience selling them directly with so many customers along fourteen years. I want to sell online now, to a much broader public than I have today .That’s my decorated flip flops, Havaianas sandals garnished in various crafts forms and materials, with different models and colors: an original product of mine in which I have created and developed on my own style, always updating it according to the new trends in fashion. I have developed almost 200 different types of them over time. This is not a "superfluous" product but something useful and a real need for many people.

The customer’s pain is her need: how is difficult to find a really comfortable footwear, stylish and beautiful so they can walk on the streets without feeling bad dressed with hurt foot . Many people solve this problem today using only a raw or an ordinary flip flop or even a simple Havaianas with a small expensive and insignificant apply placed in it in shopping centers . Others buy common and graceless sandals which hurt their feet. Besides, there are a few specific sale points for it. It is hard to find such a product and artisans who sell it. A decorated flip flop is just found in a very few places, such as crafts fairs ,street vendors or some few shops. There is a particular market price, but it is variable according to the material utilized , the type of flip flop and the sale local. So, that's why I am proposing this product and want to sell it on web. Crafts has been an excellent business opportunity, and it is growing. Along all the time I have been worked with it, I have sold many sandals like this, but now I will increase the range of clients. This product involves beauty and comfort: they are the two key points on sells. And there are still a great trademark behind, Havaianas. The value of this so famous product ( Havaianas) have increased a lot worldwide and its industry are in my country, Brazil, allowing me to pay low prices .The great beauty, originality and comfort attracts the customers, thus I have offered to customers what they expect, so they are willing to pay for it.

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UNDERSTANDING MY CUSTOMERS

As crafts is something exclusive and unique, which is not found the same anywhere just to be related to the artisan who created it, once the product is defined , now it is time to define who are the customers. Till now, my segmentation or current customers are women basically who wants to be beautiful, elegant and stylish, feeling comfortable , and vain people who attend beauty salons and like to be fashionable .In my experience most of them are trade and cleaning workers. As initial target customers' segment I choose trade and cleaning workers. They have to work at standing, that's why their need is comfort, but combined with beauty and stylish. . These people like to be well dressed and combining sandal colors with their clothes. They even like to take a ride using it, many of them on the beach. All of them prefer their decorated Havaianas well - adorned but without exaggeration , especially a beautiful, unique and comfortable sandal. This product can be a gift too, which the same customers or others can buy. On web , this segment will be extremely expanded. They will save time when they do not need to seek everywhere and they will receive an emotional benefit such as satisfaction to feel beautiful and fashionable, as long as they acquired the flip flop . It is certain the customers will have to invest some money and a certain specific time if exist orders, but certainly they will have quality and a good product, durable and according to what was requested. I will do everything to guarantee it. Never a hassle. And if something bad occurs, I prefer give a new product to them.

BUILDING A COMPELLING VALUE PROPOSITION

My distinctive competence is originality and beauty. It defines my positioning. That's what differentiates my product from the competitor's one and that's why they buy my product in preference to the others. And I know my competitors. They are in a few stores, on web, crafts fairs, on the streets and hidden around. Much of them are crafts teachers in crafts supply stores. I have made research on web and I found them on several crafts sites. I observed the kind of sandal they make, in their majority they are not so beautiful .Only a few ones are. In Brazil there are much more artisans who make this product, but around the world there are much lower offerings. I can beat them because of beauty and originality. My product sells by itself because of having those attributes. So, I know I have great chances to succeed. By now, according to what I have been observed, my product is in the range of "must have" and "should have", depending on the clients. So, as it is a product sold through many years and still is standing up and selling, my timeline of when I can acquire the reffered features and benefits does not exist, because I have just achieved it. Certainly I can not know about future, nor I can know everything, but I will try to adapt and modify my product according to the new place of sell (web), the economic situation, the market and the trends over time. Along those years I have modified some features, materials and styles, according to trends and my own creation. And in the next paragraph I will show how I can diversify and improve it in the future.

I used the opportunity exploitation roadmap to verify if I can expand my business in the future, and I came to the conclusion that it can be diversified into another types of Havaianas, for example: similar to clogs, in which has a sandal heel ( for people who has back pain); adding an

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innovative softness technology for rubber sandals or even creating a revolutionary new type of them; also make thematic sandals, involving decorative themes on Mother's Day, Christmas, Carnival, New Year, etc; adorned with themes on folklore and culture according to each country; decorated on wedding themes, as a fundamental trousseau piece; a  decorated according specific theme and still more comfortable for new mothers in maternity hospital; a sustainable sandal ( made of recyclable materials) ; or even a decorated sandal with gemstones, as a real jewel. Or still the plans B and C cited in the first phrases above ( establish a crafts school or a shop when people create their own personalized flip flop ). My plans to get growth resides on one or more of those possibilities, as I will explain more forward. My option to sell decorated flip flops is the best one because there is a large crafts market which supports the sells, growing increasingly, mainly on web. And also because it is a difficult product to copy ( it is unique and personal) , and as an artisan I will always create new models .

Fleshing out the customers profile, I can say they are more less homogeneous, at least in terms of being people with a real need : comfort and beauty. According to what I noticed, the customer benefits I told before fit in my customer profile, because they are willing to pay for a product like this directly. So on web it tends to increase because of the large quantity of customers, where will much more easy and comfortable for a client to buy a sandal like that. What will determine the sells then is a really good photograph, a successful marketing plan and a good service in terms of catering and delivering, demonstrating quality to customers. Price will count too. There are several types of customers: those who is passionate by my product and sell a collection of them ( like my several customers on a Hospital ) and buy always; those who likes very much, but do not buy always; and those who buy just one time. And it has already happened people who did not like my product, because they do not like decorated sandals or they are discreete people. That's not my target segment .However, I believe these customer profile is large enough to support the business, even too large because on web the range will be really very large.

And people love my work but they do not give me much value because I am small and without resources to have a venture. They give much value on my product, but not on me. There is a lack of a mark, a lack of a marketing plan, a lack of a venture. That's why I decided to found my own venture , but on web. In the future I can also expand to physical stores, that's a possibility. But my plan on web consists on creating a professional sells site, focusing in some important aspects like how many products have to sell, the details and features of each one,  delivery logistics (providing delivery forms), number of employees (who will have access to the system), etc. It is necessary to choose the better kind of platform according to those cited aspects and also consider, for instance, if I only have 50 products available for sale, it does not make sense to hire a service that supports 1000 products for registration. Obviously, at first, I may sign a more appropriate plan which fits on my business, and the sites and systems I want to explore are blogs ( Wordpress), A Loja Integrada ( Integrated Shop ) and Wix, which are less expensive in the begin. Over time, as my business grows I can change to a better and broad platform, with more resources.

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