Marketing Mix & Plan of eBAY

TASK 1

P1 Mention about basic responsibilities and roles of marketing department within selected business firm

Marketing is a process that includes the use of various techniques and tools so that existing and potential customers of a company can be acknowledged about offerings of a company. Marketing will help eBay in increasing their sales and revenues due to increment in their customer base. Marketing function is basically a role that is performed by the employees of marketing team of a company so that offerings of company can be promoted properly (Blythe and Martin, 2019). Marketing team of a company perform varied activities and operations so that organisational targets can be attained in a proper manner. Below are mentioned some responsibilities and roles of marketing function in context to eBay:

• Identification of customers demand: It is considered as the basic role of marketing in a business firm. Marketing department of a firm have the responsibility to identify and analyse the present needs of the consumers so that company can provide them appropriate services.  For example, In case of eBay, marketing manager of organisation have the role to perform market analysis so that changing needs of people can be identified properly.

• Managing marketing budget: It is most essential responsibility of marketing department. By preparing an appropriate budget, overall activities of department can be performed in a proper manner. In this context, manager in eBay is required to prepare effective budget so that all the costs and expenses of department can be summed up without any confusion. For example, Formulation of marketing budget will help the employees in understanding the amount which they can invest on a particular activity. By this, organisational productivity of eBay will improve and company will attain their expected targets in proper manner (Lipsman, A. and et. Al., 2012).

• Development of market strategies: This is another important role of marketing team within business organisation. It is the responsibility of marketing unit in eBay to prepare marketing strategies so that high competitive advantage over competitors can be achieved in a successful manner. By formulation of appropriate strategies, market environment for eBay can became advantageous. For example, marketing manager of company can adopt a new promotional tactics or introduce products of company in new marketplace so that maximised sales can be achieved. By this, eBay will be able to earn maximised growth in limited time period.

• Advertisement and promotion: This is an important responsibility of marketing function in market environment. This is because, if marketing team in eBay will not advertise and promote the services of company, customers will not be able to acknowledge the offerings of organisation. Due to this, company will not be able to achieve their expected results and targets. By promoting, marketing team increasing customer base and sales for company which assists in earning of high revenues and profits (Mihart, 2012).

 

M1 Analyse responsibilities and roles of marketing in market atmosphere

P2 Discuss the manner in which roles, duties and responsibilities of marketing unit is related with wider context of an organisation

Main role of marketing team is to advertise and promote the offerings of an organisation so that concerned company can achieve their sales targets without any compromise. But, it is not possible for marketing team to achieve expected goals by themselves. Hence, Marketing team is needed to work in collaboration with other departments so that high productivity can be attained by eBay. In context with eBay, interrelation in marketing team and other department is specified below:

• Marketing and HR department: Role of HR department is to hire, recruit, select and train efficient employees that are capable to perform complex work in a simplified manner. Vacant position and jobs of a company are promoted by marketing team due to which skilled individuals apply for vacant positions. In order to perform marketing activities, HR team hire employees (Fırat, 2013). For example, If HR team in eBay will not hire skilled employees, marketing team can not perform their activities in productive manner. Due to which revenues and profits of company will be compromised. Hence, these departments are interrelated for their organisational work.

• Finance and marketing department: Finance department of a company have the role to manage all the activities related with funds and finance. This department allocated funds and finances to marketing department due to which they perform their business operations. In return, marketing team finds investors which can invest in eBay so that no shortage of funds can be faced by finance department. Without the assistance of marketing team, finance unit can not perform their work. Due to this, these departments are required to work in a coordinated manner.

• Marketing and production department: In an organisation, responsibility of production team is to manufacture products which are then advertised by marketing department. If production team will not produce products and services in a timely manner, marketing team will not be able to advertise them. Due to this, working of marketing team will get disrupted. Marketing team of a company performs market research due to which production department is able to acknowledge which products are in demand. If these departments will not work  in coordination, then production team will not be able to produce right product and customers will shift their presence to other organisations (Khan and Adil, 2013). 

M2 Analyse value of interrelationship among marketing and other functions of an organisation

It is very important for marketing team of an organisation to have efficient coordination and working with other departments. For example, if marketing team will not work in coordination with finance team then shortage of money can be faced by a business firm. This will disrupt the entire working of company due to which revenues and profits will suffer. In case of HR team, if marketing and HR manager will not work efficiently, then skilled employees will not be hired. This will reduce the overall working potential of company. If all of these department will work together, complex situations can be handled in a simplified manner. Also, all the work will be accomplished prior deadline. By this, eBay will be able to achieve their objectives and targets due to which high advantage over rival will be gained in a proper manner (Papasolomou and Melanthiou, 2012).

D1 Critical analysis of key aspects of marketing function and their relationship with other functional units

Key elements in context to marketing function are market research and analysis, development of business strategies, promotion and advertisement of products etc. All of these activities which are performed by marketing function, impacts the working of other departments. Due to advertisement and promotions of products, sales team is capable to achieve their sales targets.  If marketing team will not introduce new strategies, earning high profits will not be possible by this shortage of finance will be faced and finance team will be unable to perform their work efficiently. Hence, all of the functional team in eBay are interrelated with marketing functions and department for their efficient working. Appropriate relation between these departments will help the company to achieve their expected outcomes in a timely manner.

TASK 2

P3 Compare the methods by which various firms apply marketing mix to attain their business goals and objectives

Marketing mix is the technique through which a business firm  can adopt and implement multiple strategies and tactics so that potential and existing customers can be attracted to purchase offerings of the organisation. As eBay is a For-Profit company, main business objective of the firm is to augment its profits and revenues so that they can became market leader in e-commerce activities. Amazon is also a US based e-commerce organisation which have same business objective as eBay (Baker and Magnini, 2016). This means that these organisations have similar objectives and working. To evaluate their current position in market, manager in eBay is going to compare their organisational performance with Amazon. In this context, marketing mix of eBay and Amazon is mentioned below: 

Marketing mix of eBay and Amazon

Basics	Ebay	Amazon
Product	eBay is an e-commerce company which offers online shopping facilities to their customers. At first, company offer their services and associated products at local level only but later own company started offering shopping facilities in global context. Main products available at E-bay sites are books, home appliances, electronics, home décor etc. Services provided by eBay includes their subsides like PayPal, Skype etc.	Amazon is one of the best organisation in e-commerce industry. They initiate their business activities as online book retailer. Before long management of company predicted different doors in online market. So they enhance their product portfolio and provides different items to their customer base which cover all aspect, for example, appropriate targeted market, services for wide range of customers (Jones and Rowley, 2011).
Price	Products available at eBay are moderately priced so that maximum number of people can purchase them. To increases the interest of customers in the products of eBay, company uses bundle pricing in which customers are given good discount if they buy products in bundles (Muralidharan and Raval, 2017).	Amazon choose the cost of their items according to market demand of products. As they carry out their business via online medium which confirm that to continue in industry it is fundamental for them to beat prices of rival firms. Competitive pricing is the significant pricing technique that is execute by Amazon to choose the cost for their items. It specify that they generally chooses low cost for its items until they beat their rivals.
Place	As eBay is an online site due to which business of firm is designed as online platform only. This is the reason, infrastructure of eBay is not very robust. But website of eBay is accessible in almost every part of globe due to which people can easily use the services of company.	Most of the Amazon work is performed via E-trade due to which they hold their activities through online stage. Alongside this, organization has stores and centres explicitly for books and journals. This is because selling of books is the basic source for Amazon to earn high revenues. Â
Promotion	Ebay is a popular e-commerce organisation in global context but due to presence of rival organisations, it is important for concerned company to promote their services in efficient manner. In this context, company adopts promotional strategy in which products of firm are advertised via online and traditional platforms like social media, digital platform, radio and TV advertisements etc.	Amazon is notable online organization that is selling various items through online stage. For impacting enormous number of client, organization execute aggressive advertising tactics to advance and advertise their items. Organization significant way to promote its items is through inventive commercial advertisements at social media platforms (Wirtz, Tuzovic and Kuppelwieser,  2014). Â
People	Organisation has good relation with their customers and employees. Employees of firm are given regular training about IT and use of internet so that they can perform their work in efficient manner. Customers are given timely services and their grievances are resolved in an efficient manner.	Individuals for a business firm is defined as the workforce that work with a company to achieve organization objective and targets. The top administration of Amazon give advantages to its workers without distinguishing on the basis of their level and office position. It implies that organization encourages their representatives so they carry out their work viably.
Process	Company has influential digital and delivering processes due to which employees of company are able to fulfil orders of customers in a proper manner in global context. Due to this, it can be said that company has influential processes to perform their work.	  Amazon is the pioneer in web administrations, services and E-business. For this organization has created robust ordering, production and delivering procedure that help to assign their work deliberately between various divisions in proper manner. Â
Physical evidence	Online website of company and mobile application are the basic physical evidence for the company. Other than this, packing packages, suppliers and employees of firm are also physical important physical evidence for firms. Â	Amazon is operating in global context all world through its site. As this organization work in E-business sector so they create diverse application and site through which they can deal with various clients in global manner. For instance, Amazon make their site easy to understand with a systematic structure due to which E-marketing is very friendly. Main physical evidence of company is its website.

 

M3 Multiple tactics adopted by selected business to achieve their organisational objectives

There are multiple kind of tactics that has been adopted by the concerned company so that expected goals and targets can be achieved in a proper manner. In case of price, company has chosen the tactics of bundle pricing so that maximum number of products can be purchased by the customers. In case of advertisement, eBay has adopted the tactics to promote their offerings via both digital and traditional media. In case of place, company has initiated to sell it via online site only. These tactics will help the company in gaining maximum attention from customers. Due to this, they will be able to earn high revenues, market shares and sales in a proper manner. This will help eBay in accomplishing their business objectives in a timely manner (Nicholls and et. al., 2013). The company eBay adopts effective tools and techniques such as benchmarking as well as market analysis in order to compare business processes as well as performance metrics and it involves the dimensions of cost, time and quality as well which gives a competitive advantages in a open marketplace.

TASK 3

P4&M4 Produce an effective marketing plan for selected business to attain organisational objectives and targets efficiently

Marketing plan is the basic prerequisite of a marketing function through which they can execute their advertising tactics in accordance with their item or services. This planning is advantageous for the eBay in deciding the action-plan which ought to be taken for guaranteeing the accomplishment of the new service or offering gave by the organization to their clients (O Ogunmokun and Hsin Tang, 2012). Marketing and Promoting plan acts like an outline for executing the showcasing exercises. The advertising plan for the eBay is as per the following:

Executive summary: eBay is an online shopping platform which is mainly popular for its electronic products. In this context, company is planning to introduce wireless earphones in market so that sales of company can be rise exponentially.

Vision and mission: Vision of company is to became best online shopping site in global context. Mission of firm is to gain competitive advantage over rivals.

Objectives: Main objective of organisation are stated below:

• To increase their sales by 40% in upcoming 1 year.
• To gain high profit margins and achieving a hike of 20% in overall profitability of company.
• To achieve 10% increase in market shares of company without any acquisition or merger.

STP

Segmentation: It is the way of dividing the clients into section and gatherings with the goal that the items and services can be given according to their presence to fulfil their requirements. eBay will segment the clients on the basis of their lifestyle and demographic dependent like age and income.

Targeting: The concerned organization is targeting the clients who are progressively active on Youtube or like to listen the music on regular basis. Organization is additionally targeting the Gym individuals as device will be helpful to them in listing music while performing exercise (Bačík, Štefko and Gburová, 2014). 

Positioning: Amazon is world known E-commerce trade organization because of which the item will be set on the site of organization. As people are already aware about the quality of product sold by eBay, new product is going to gain wide advantages.

SWOT framework

It is an analysis which will help the concerned organisation in identifying the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities for their new product in marketplace. By this concerned company i.e. eBay can carry out required improvements and modifications so that best outcomes can be gained in an advantageous manner. SWOT analysis for wireless earphones are stated below:

Strengths: This product has powerful music and sound quality due to which hearing experience of customers will be maximised while using this product.

Weaknesses: These wireless earphones has limited range of Bluetooth connectivity. Due to which it is important for customers, to keep their phone near the earphones at the time of use.

Opportunities: eBay can offer additional discounts and vouchers to their customers which will purchase these earphones. By this, consumers will feel enthusiastic in purchasing these earphones and overall sales of eBay will increase (Baker and Saren, 2016).

Threats: Rival organisations like Amazon, Flipkart etc. are performing very well and offers high quality product in genuine rates. Due to this, sales and profits of eBay faces big threat from these organisations. 

SWOT analysis of marketing plan:

Strength: Systematic planning, appropriate skills, team work, effective applications of marketing tools, positivity and confidentiality are considered as a strengths of this marketing plan.

Weakness: As limited resources along with the small budget of advertising considers as a weakness or disadvantages while making a marketing plan.

Opportunities: During formulating marketing plan manager gets many opportunity to develop their knowledge towards the uses of several tools and techniques which are required in marketing activities. Also, this facilitates future opportunities to conduct further market research and designing effective market plan.

Threats: Increase in the prices of raw material creates some kind of threats at a time of formulating marketing plan. Also, while positioning the brand image in front of customers results in threats because of huge market competition.

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Action plan

Budget allocation: The organization has estimated a measure of € 500, 000 for the manufacturing of this product on huge scale. This spending will be utilized for the different purposes, for example, acquiring the raw materials and machines, for hiring the workers and for promoting tactics.

Forecast

Particulars	Amount (€)
Marketing	100000
Workforce	100000
Equipment	150000
Raw materials	150000

Budget evaluation:

For evaluating the budget estimations a company eBay use sales analysis for the effective evaluation of marketing plan. The sales analysis are shown below:

Sales analysis: By introduction of this product, company is estimating a hike of 40% in their sales in next 1 year. As company launch new products or services in the marketplace so they need to estimate their sales on the basis of budget requirements as well as marketing plan.

Control and monitor

For controlling the procedures and operations of a business firm, the executives of the eBay has chosen estimation instruments like Key performance indicator and benchmarking. Likewise, the firm will contrast & evaluate the past and present performance so as to decide the development or achievement of this new product in a proper manner (Brady, 2014).

D2 Development of a basic marketing plan including marketing mix to achieve organisational targets

Marketing Mix for new product will help in analysing the right position of product in marketplace. In this context, marketing mix for new wireless headphones are mentioned below:

Product: The new offering of eBay is a decent quality earphone having great and exquisite sound quality. This product will come in two appealing shades which are Red-dark and Yellow-dark. The sound nature of this new earphone is exceptionally great just as Dolby encompass for an appropriate experience of the clients while listening the music.

Promotion: The organization has chosen to utilize the online networking channels for the promotional and advertising exercises. Concerned organization will gift the products uninhibitedly to the famous people having huge fan base for drawing the attention of maximum people towards the product. Organization is also planning to publicize the product on Google and different sites for drawing in more clients (Clow and James,  2013).

Price: The organization has chosen to adopt penetration pricing policies and system for introducing, propelling and selling the new products in marketplace. Through this charging strategy and system, eBay will keep low prices in the early phase of this product and will improve the prices dependent on request of the clients or after the product become widely popular in the market.

Place: The organization will give the product through their sites so as to sell the products around the world. Also, concerned organization will give the product on electronic retail locations sp that maximum number of people can buy it (Desai,  2013).

Sustainability of marketing plan

To acknowledge the sustainability of marketing plan, opinion of customers can be identified. For this, traditional methods like face to face communication and digital method like social media marketing is used to interact with customers. If maximum number of people will acknowledge this new product of eBay and company have attained their objectives and goals properly. This means sustainability for this specific marketing plan is very high. Otherwise, marketing plan was not good enough to gain the attention of customers.

CONCLUSION

As per this given report, it has been summarised that marketing team of a company plays different roles like analysing, research, identification of needs of people, advertising etc. so that services or products of a company can be popularised among maximum number of people. It is essential for marketing team to work in coordination with other departments such as HR team, finance unit, production department etc. so that business operations and tactics can be performed efficiently. Marketing mix helps a company in evaluating their performance in context with rivals so that important modifications in strategies can be carried out. A marketing plan helps in promotion and advertising of products in a proper manner so that high sales and profits can be earned by concerned business. 

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REFERENCES

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