Bangin\' Books Project PDF

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Business Plan...

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By: Marena, Emma, Emma, Jeff, Sarah, and Kery

Table of Contents Executive Summary.....................................................................................................................................3 Bangin’ Books Business Description............................................................................................................4 Mission, Vision, and Goals.......................................................................................................................5 Marketing Plan............................................................................................................................................6 Products & Services.................................................................................................................................7 Target Market..........................................................................................................................................7 Marketing Strategy..................................................................................................................................7 Competition.............................................................................................................................................7 SWOT Analysis.........................................................................................................................................8 Operation Plan.............................................................................................................................................9 Key Officers..............................................................................................................................................9 Daily Operations......................................................................................................................................9 Public Relations.......................................................................................................................................9 Legal Form of Ownership.........................................................................................................................9 Professional & Advisory Support...........................................................................................................10 Financials...................................................................................................................................................11 Income Statement.................................................................................................................................12 Balance Sheet........................................................................................................................................13 Statement of Cash Flows.......................................................................................................................14 References.................................................................................................................................................15

Executive Summary Bangin’ Books is the answer college kids are searching for when it comes to purchasing textbooks. Our ecommerce store offers affordable textbooks to any student. Although we have carefully marketed our business towards college students and have a specific target demographic across the country, the educational level of our customer base will range from undergraduate to graduate school, meaning our clients will be of a diverse age range. Our marketing strategy will be focused on social media but will not be limited to just those platforms. On Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other sites, we have profiles that will showcase our newest inventory as well as help attract new clients. We intend to do activities such as “following sprees,” and sending private messages to new followers to direct them to our website. This, combined with paid ads, will allow us to reach as many potential customers as possible. Several platforms will allow users to contact our page with any questions or concerns which will increase our public relations because we can immediately respond. Along with social media, we want to ensure we are reaching everyone by using word of mouth promotions and visual aids. Our group members will hang flyers around local campuses that will catch the eyes of students and professors as they pass by. We will also hand out business cards in public which will encourage students to visit our website each term. Our competition is school bookstores and websites like Chegg and Amazon- all which have the same general concept. Business Operations are fairly simple. There are six of us starting this business, and we are all students. Each group member will have an assigned job such as Purchasing, Marketing, Finance, Customer Service and Packaging/Shipping. However, it is critical to note that we will operate on a rotating cycle, allowing each group member to experience each field. It is important to us to keep a steady reputation and therefore, we want each member to have full knowledge of operations. If all of our members are able to do each job, we will be able to work smoothly should a member leave for any reason. Financially, our company will start with an investment of $250 from each group member, totaling $1,500 to buy our inventory and start up necessities. We plan to have a profit of around $5,000 our first year that will go back into the business allowing us to create a stronger name as well as gain more clientele. This will also allow us to stay up to date on new editions and a larger variety of books. Because we will be working for this company in our dorm rooms, along with our current jobs, we are focused on building a steady business instead of making a quick profit. Our second-year profit is projected to rise to around $22,000 leaving each employee with around $2,000 in profit and a remaining balance of $8,000 to be put back into the business once again.

Bangin’ Books Business Description The concept for Bangin’ Books arose out of the frustration our members have when purchasing textbooks each term. As college students, we are struggling to balance expenses. With all of our money going towards tuition, student loans, rent, food, gas, and many other things, we can’t always afford to purchase the books we need. According to Statistic Brain, in 2016, 65% of students say they had skipped buying a textbook book because it was too expensive (Citation). This is why our mission as a company is to provide affordable books to struggling college students; we relate to them and we want to help. The textbook industry is considered a “broken market” for a few reasons. First is that there are only five suppliers in the entire textbook industry. This means that there is little to no competition. The five suppliers are spread across the United States and generally stay regional so that they leave the other suppliers’ distribution locations alone. Second, students do not choose the textbooks they will purchase; they are preselected by the professors that require them. This eliminates price as a purchasing factor because there is potentially only one price for a specific book. At that point the only way to save money is by not purchasing said book. Without any competition to drive the price down, students are being forced into buying overpriced textbooks in order to do well in school. This info allows us to form our opinion on the topic; it is safe to say the textbook industry needs to be reevaluated.

Mission, Vision, and Goals Our vision is to see a world where students don’t have to spend every last penny in order to get an education. Lightening the burden by offering textbooks at a reasonable price could be the difference between passing and failing a class, considering how difficult it is to do well in a class when you are missing all of the supplemental information, the homework/practice problems, and the readings. As a company, we have three main goals that we will always have in the back of our mind while we do business. First, we want to help students save money. We will accomplish this by doing everything in our power to keep book and shipping costs as low as possible. In order to accomplish this, we will be acquiring our textbooks from thrift stores, libraries that are clearing out inventory, students selling their textbooks, and donations. This is still a business and it is also important for us to make money but with most bookstores making a 21.1% profit on books, it won’t be hard to compete (Citation). Our second goal is to be a sustainable company. Our whole concept of reusing textbooks not only lowers costs, but also means we are recycling books and thinking green. Textbooks are notorious for being lengthy and heavy, some getting if 700 pages. Sometimes, textbooks are only needed for one trimester and then after that, they just take up space. Instead of this book potentially ending up in a landfill somewhere, we are trying to recycle these books so the tree that made them didn’t get cut down for nothing. Our third goal is to provide individualized customer service. Because this is a small business run by six college students, we are very dedicated to making the customers book buying experience as painless as possible. We promise to respond to customer questions within 24 hours and will work with students to find books that work for them in their price range. We understand how stressful money can be and we are here to tell you, you have people on your side. Bangin’ Books could be revolutionary to the textbook industry by interrupting the vicious cycle that is this broken market. By adding in competition by providing textbooks at a discount price, textbook companies will have to respond by reducing their prices. Although this business will start small and most likely local, our plan is to grow to the point of providing textbooks to people all over the country. There is a hole in the textbook market that needs to be filled and that is our plan with Bangin’ Books. College students need options and shouldn’t be punished for not having the money to buy the resources they need. College students need Bangin’ Books.

Marketing Plan Marketing Plan is an important key factor on the startup of a new business. The definition of a market place is “describing activities involved in achieving specific marketing objectives within a set timeframe as this type of product specific, market specific, or company-wide plan.” (enter website lawdictornary.org) A Marketing Plan is made up of five key roles, these being roles include Product & Services, Target Market, Marketing Strategy, Competition, and finally the SWOT Analysis (Competition, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, & Threats). For any Entrepreneur to become successful they have to put time and effort into the marketing plan and shouldn’t think it is not as important and should receive much time. With Bangin’ Books we plan on catching the attention of College Students all over the United States to help attending college be less stressful.

Products & Services To begin, the first two key roles of a marketing plan is product & services, and target market. For Bangin’ Books the product and service is a dorm room business founded and operated by college students who want to buy and sell textbooks for affordable and reasonable prices. Universities bookstores don’t understand the struggles a college student goes through when it comes to finical problems. Bang’ Books understands that because we are college students who go through the struggle of trying to buy a book at a reasonable price. When the semester, or trimester, is over trying to sell a book back at the store you’ll only get 10% back of what you paid if you’re lucky.

Target Market The second role of a marketing plan is the target market, the main target market that Bangin’ Books well be targeting is struggling college students from all over the United States who can't afford to purchase the full price for a brand new book, as well as college students who want to sell back their textbooks after a trimester or semester and want to receive a reasonable price for their book.

Marketing Strategy Furthermore, the next step in the marketing plan is marketing strategy. Marketing strategy is important because this is how word of Bangin’ Books well be heard and make it known to all college students. Bangin’ Books has an Instagram and Twitter account, which could be followed @Bangin_Books17, that is ran 100% by Bangin’ Books employees. A following spree well occur on both of these accounts, and anyone that follows back well receive an information message about what Bangin’ Books is all about and including a link to our website. Another social media platform that’ll be used well be Facebook, and the Facebook page could be liked or seen by anyone. These are free ways of getting the word out of Bangin’ Books, an another way of getting information out of Bangin’ Books is through direct contact with college students. Handing out flyers and business cards at nearby colleges and universities, posting flyers all over campuses, and popular student hangouts. On top of this we would make and order 500 business cards that well be handed out to everyone that is interest in Bangin Books and what we are about. On top of this we well communicate with Facebook and Instagram to get ads on each social media platform. Using $200 on advertising towards Facebook (50 days per quarter, $1 per day) and another $100 for Instagram advertising ($6.70 per thousand views). This well be huge advantage on helping get the word out on Bangin’ Books and catch as much eyes of college students.

Competition The last two roles of a marketing plan are competition and the SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, & Threats). Competition is just figure out who is going to give your company a hard time or who you are going to compete against. With Bangin’ Books our biggest competitors are going to Universities’ book stores, and online website such as Chegg.com, Amazon.com, and any other website that sells and buys textbook. Another competitor that isn’t as big of a threat would be College students who sell their books to other students around campus.

SWOT Analysis The last role for marketing plan is the SWOT analysis and this goes over the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The strength for Bangin’ Books are affordable and reasonable prices, the specific target market, perspective, and it being a small company. Some weaknesses are no one has entrepreneurial experience, and the limited resource. On the other hand, one opportunity Bangin’ Books has is adding competition to the “broken” textbook industry. Finally, some of the threats towards Bangin’ Books would be, it’s a new company it could be a huge hit or it could fail and be a loss of money, another threat would be all of our competitors.

Operation Plan Since Bangin’ Books is run in on-campus living, it is important that the daily operations remain manageable throughout the lifetime of the business. In order to maximize the resources at hand, each of our 6 team members will hold their own position within the business, but will help in every position because we will operate on a rotating schedule. This focus on interoffice work rather than each of us working in strictly one department will allow us to become well-versed in all operations, should something change. This concept also works well for a college business because if a member of the workforce graduates or transfers schools, other employees can cover the position until it can be filled again.

Key Officers Our positions will include Packaging & Shipping, Customer Service, Purchasing, Marketing and Finance. Since we will all be well-versed in each position, no particular member will be in charge of a single position. However, Marena will be the main employee in Finance because she is extremely good with numbers. The Marketing position will handle both interactions with customers on social media as well as the printing and distribution of paper flyers and business cards. Packaging and Shipping will receive orders, fulfill them and send them out. Customer service will handle all customer interactions aside from social media. This may include emails regarding orders, taking questions and clarifying any further information about the business. The Purchasing position will collect donations for books, keep track of inventory and order books that the business needs, such as new editions of popular text books.

Daily Operations Because our business is run by students, it is important for us to keep the daily operations as simple as possible. This means that instead of spending all day answering emails, taking comments and shipping orders, we will delegate a few hours to do these tasks, and then we will continue the work the next day. This enables our members to keep up with their grades and extracurriculars while still requiring us to be accountable for our time-management. For example, the Customer Service employee at any given time will be allotted two hours each day to answer any emails received through the business address.

Public Relations When it comes to public relations, our main focus is to remain relatable and affordable to students across the country. We are spending time and resources on social media marketing, which will increase our interactions with our target demographic due to comments, likes and shares. We have found that business that interact with us online increase our trust with them,and wanted to bring that into Bangin’ Books. Our Customer Service personnel will also play a large role in public relations. By kindly and professionally answering questions and giving information, our customers will feel like their concerns are heard. We have put emphasis on being relatable to students because we are students, and we want our customers to feel like a part of the Bangin’ Books community.

Legal Form of Ownership We decided to make our business a partnership because there are multiple owners involved. Also, we aren’t severely concerned with increased personal liability because our business isn’t likely to get sued. Since we didn’t borrow money to start the business, a partnership allows us plenty of freedom and the liabilities are not a serious concern.

Professional & Advisory Support Because we decided to open a shop through an existing platform, Etsy, we are protected from several customer related problems. Etsy’s seller protection program, Dispute Resolution Program, prevents customers from wrongfully attempting to claim damages, retract payment or sue. Because of this, Bangin’ Books reduces the chances of being taken advantage of. Though this protection is optional, we continue to use it because of our student-run angle.

Financials In order to reach product sales of $10,000 for the first year our company must sell 143 textbooks. We offer an average of $70 per textbook to maintain our goal of providing super affordable and reasonable costs for college students. Each of our six founders will contribute an initial investment of $250 to put towards opening the business which gives us a total of $1,500 to cover startup costs and inventory. After calculations, our startup expenses total $1,460 leaving us with $40 extra to save for backup in case of any miscellaneous or non-forecasted expenses. With our startup investment, we plan on spending $800 to purchase 200 textbooks. At the end of the year, we will have an extra 57 books that will be put towards our second year inventory. Shipping textbooks requires several complementary supplies which include packing envelopes, postage stamps, and a printer. We will spend $30 on 250 shipping labels, $36 for 200 packing envelopes, $100 for a printer, $26 for printer paper, and $20 for 500 business cards. In addition, we will be using a basic $100 small business accounting software to keep track of our accounting. Our company will be advertising on Facebook and Instagram which will cost $300 all together. Since our inventory will come from a combination of donated textbooks and purchased textbooks, it...