Mazula bookstore

Executive Summary:
The Mazula bookstore is a student-to-student Internet marketplace providing college students with
the opportunity to buy, sell and trade college textbooks, participate in auctions, post classified ads,
provide teacher evaluations, and buy products for college. The Mazula bookstore's target market
consists of over 15.8 million college students who spend $200 billion annually.

Description of the business:

The Mazula bookstore will enable students to buy, sell, and trade used textbooks directly to
other students, by-passing the university bookstores. By selling textbooks to other
students, the seller can receive more money than the bookstore will pay and the buyer can
pay less than the bookstore charges. In addition to textbooks, students will be able to sell
class notes, old tests, computers and dorm accessories, used CDs, tutoring services or
anything students wish to sell via an online student-to-student marketplace. In
addition, the Mazula bookstore will offer other services such as classifieds, teacher
evaluations, weblogs (bloggers), specialized content and retail.

The Mazula bookstore will establish itself as the leading online student-to-student
marketplace by combining extensive market-specific expertise with Internet technologies
to generate revenue while creating a win-win solution for students. The Mazula bookstore
will achieve market dominance by utilizing extensive domain experience, a local grass
roots marketing strategy, an exceptional management team, superior software, and the
formation of strategic alliances, memberships and partnerships with companies within the
college market.

Mission statement and objectives

Mission:
The Mazula bookstore's mission is to provide college students a valuable and unique source for
products, services and information. In order to achieve our mission, The Mazula bookstore
commits to the following philosophies:
● It's all about the product.
● Our customers are our employers.
● Don't be greedy.
● Keep our employees happy.

Objectives:
The Mazula bookstore will strive to achieve the following objectives:

● Become the leading Internet student-to-student marketplace.

● Attract 500,000 registered users in the first year.
● Achieve 50,000 visits per month.
● Establish sustainable profitability within the first year.

Ownership

The Mazula bookstore is a Limited Liability Company and is solely owned by its founders.

Start-up Summary
Our start-up costs assumptions are shown in the following table and chart, and include Web
hosting, software, development and marketing expenses. The start-up costs were financed by
direct owner investment.

Start-Up Requirements

START UP EXPENSES

Domain Name Registration RM3.99

SSL Encrynption RM339.99

GeoTrust True Site Certificate RM339.99

 Auction & Classified Software (Xcent) RM3377.60

Legal Fees RM409.40

Utilitizes RM339.99

Merchant Account Fees RM674.99

Site Hosting (1st 3 months) RM349.99

Computers (2 @ $2000) RM4000.00

Total Start up Expenses RM9,151.97

START UP ASSETS

Cash Required RM2377.60

Other Current Assets RM3400

Long Term Assets RM5000.000

Total 10,777.6

Total Start-Up Requirements 19,929.57

What makes the service unique?

The Mazula bookstore will offer college students a unique blend of products, services, and content
that is not offered by any single company on the Internet. The Mazula bookstore will aggregate
participants, products, services and content to create a student-to-student marketplace and retail
website targeting 15.8 million college students. The following describe The Mazula bookstore's
uniqueness:

➢ Textbook Exchange

The Mazula bookstore will offer functionality to allow students to buy, sell and trade their used
textbooks with other students. Specifically, the Textbook Exchange functionality allows students
to post their textbooks online for sale or trade, upload images, and indicate the condition of the
book. Students looking for used textbooks will be able to search for used textbooks for sale or
trade in their local area or nationwide. A fee will be charge for posting textbooks. The fee may
vary based on the asking price of the textbook. Sample textbook categories include:

● Accounting
● Business
● Computer Science
● Engineering
● Marketing
● History
● Law
● Physics
● Political Science

➢ Bloggers

The Mazula bookstore will offer Weblogs (Bloggers) services with topics tailored toward
students. Weblog functionality will be a value added service to encourage students to return to the
site. Revenue for the Weblog will be generated from the sale of banner ad space located within
the Weblog pages. Depending on the Weblog topic, banner ad sales will be targeted toward either
local businesses in or around campus or national companies. The fees for banner ad space will be
determined by the length of posting, number of users for the Weblog and demand. Weblog topics
will include:

● College Sports
● Politics

● Entertainment

● Technology

● News

➢ Auctions

The Mazula bookstore will offer a powerful auction package. The Auction functionality will have
many features such as Standard, Reverse, Multi Item, Dutch and Blind auctions; Flash Buy and
Proxy Bidding. A fee will be charged for posting items to be auctioned. The posting fee
structure will be similar to eBay's. Sample auctions categories include:

● Textbooks
● Class Notes
● Old Tests
● Used CDs & DVDs
● Computer Equipment
● Tickets
● Electronics
● Games
● Dorm Furnishing
➢ Teacher Evaluations

The Mazula bookstore will enable students to post and review teacher evaluations. The teacher
evaluation functionality will be a value added service encouraging students to visit the site each
semester. Revenue for teacher evaluations will be generated from the sale of banner ad
space located within the teacher evaluation pages. Banner ad sales will be targeted toward local
businesses on or around campus. The fee for banner ad space will be determined by the length of
posting, number of users for teacher evaluations and demand.

Competitive Analysis
Competitors of The Mazula bookstore includes traditional university bookstores, online textbook
retailers, textbook exchange sites, textbook price comparison sites, online auction sites and online
content specific sites targeting the college student market.
 ➢ University Bookstores

The major objective and strategy of university bookstores is to maintain competitive pricing and
customer service. The strengths of the traditional university bookstores are current customer
relationships and location to the University. The major weaknesses of university bookstores are
the limited product selection and lack of value added services that can be offered online.

The majority of stores are owned or operated by the university they serve. On-campus stores are
mostly institutional, but they may also be contract managed, cooperatives, or student
associations. Off-campus stores are typically privately owned.

➢ Online Bookstores & Retail Websites

The major objective and strategy of online competitors is to maintain brand awareness, offer value
added services, product selection/availability, order fulfillment and customer service. The
strengths of existing online bookstores and retail sites are current customer relationships and brand
awareness. The major weaknesses of online competitors is barriers to entry, concern about
security & fraud, shipping charges, on-time fulfillment and returns processing.

Based on the 20011 College Store Industry Financial Report, total online sales at university
bookstores for 20011-20012 are estimated to be $150 million or 1.41% of total college store
sales. With a "click and mortar" strategy, the university bookstore can offer the convenience of
web ordering, paired with:

● Ease of returns.

● The ability to pick up items for immediate use.

● One-stop shopping.

● Accurate information on what textbooks students need for their courses.

● The trust and security of buying from a well-known source with an on-campus location.
Marketing plan and strategy
➢ Marketing Plan

The Mazula bookstore will attract customers by using a mixture of traditional and
online advertising strategies to create a grassroots marketing campaign.

Since the majority of The Mazula bookstore's customer acquisition will result from direct
promotion local to universities, The Mazula bookstore will recruit current college students to fill
positions in the areas of campus marketing, local advertising sales and implementation of a
"grassroots" marketing campaign.

The following is a list of advertising and promotional channels The Mazula bookstore will utilize:

● Posting Flyer in and around campuses.

● Direct Mailings.
● University and local newspaper advertising and inserts.
● Promotional item distribution.
● Advertisements at on-campus.
● Sponsorships of campus or community events.
● University and local newspaper advertising.
● Indoor/outdoor billboard advertisements at college sporting events.
● Banner ads on select related sites with a significant level of traffic.
● Links on related web sites.
● Traditional media including direct mailings, magazines, radio and TV.

➢ Marketing Strategy
The Mazula bookstore's customers will be the 15.8 million college students in the United
States. This segment is a niche market that has no single business entity accounting for any
significant percentage of total aggregated college student purchases.

The main business model for The Mazula bookstore relies on college students providing textbooks,
auctions and classifieds and teacher evaluations available on the website. Therefore, our focus
will be on the marketing strategy to increase student traffic and usage. In turn, visitor volume and
transactions will maintain the inventory of products and services offered.

The Mazula bookstore recognizes the key to success as an extensive promotion strategy to attract
users. Once additional funding is secured the advertising and promotion plan will be implemented.

● Promotion Strategy

The Mazula bookstore's overall advertising and promotional objectives are to:

● Acquire customers and generate sales.

● Position The Mazula bookstore as the market leader.
● Increase company awareness and brand name recognition among college students.

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