IKEA Website Evaluation and Electronic Marketing Plan

General description of site
The moment you open www.ikea.com you get into a global gateway display. The page allows the user to voluntarily select their location. The page is not country specific. No country, even Sweden, has a preferential billing on the site. To add on this, each country supported by the website is denoted by 2 letters on the domain name. For instance, Germany domain is titled www.ikea.de while France domain is denoted as www .ikea.fr. The U.S. domain is denoted as www.ikea.us (Yunker, 2007). The website uses a banner that covers the entire home page. The banner communicates the niche covered by the site i.e. furniture. The banner also allows the website visitors to easily maneuver to their country details. If the website does not contain store information for the country specified there are alternative details made available.
Beneath the banner, there are country-specific domains with regional organization, that is, Caribbean, Europe, Asia Pacific etc. The IKEA website contains a surplus of information and information. The abundant information is denoted in such a manner as not to overwhelm the user rather guiding the shopper to what they need.
The core focus of the website is E-commerce. IKEA is known to be the most conspicuous and largest furniture retailer in the entire world. The process of making a purchase is quite simple on the website. The site has buttons that help users locate stores nearest to them. The site also has detailed information on the various modes of delivery, FAQ’s, and other fundamental tools situated on the website’s homepage.
Products are priced based on the need to ensure affordability alongside the need to achieve a determined sales target. The profit target set by IKEA significantly determines price levels. IKEA has adopted a number of pricing strategies. The future objective of IKEA is based on an analysis of the desired market position based on 3 proposals. IKEA seeks to ensure the Furniture titans are financed adequately. The items purchased by a customer will be shipped to where the customer is located.
Target market
Based on internet population information and details from alexa.com women enjoy higher levels of website presence compared to men. The people holding some college education or none at all also record higher levels of website presence. College graduates are not adequately represented. Compared to the general population on the internet, school going individuals visit the website more often. The people accessing the website from their homes are lesser compared to those accessing the site from their workstations. These statistics reveal that online shoppers and the people visiting stores are most likely the young populations. Young women between the age of twenty and thirty are overrepresented. Women averaging 38 years of age are shown as the most frequent visitors to IKEA website. The company has had a recent goal of capturing the young couples market, specifically those who have their own apartments (Kerin et al., 2010). A recent survey that entailed a sample of young adult couples with active professional carriers and those who shopped for furniture a first time had the following to reveal:
According to Kerin, Hartley, and Rudelius (2010), various regions ascribe to different backgrounds depending on market segment and geographically identifiable activities. Such market segments and varying backgrounds are shown to align themselves to the local conditions in the region. IKEA is segregated into various geographical units both for the Asian and European markets. More sales are recorded in the region of Scandinavian, the region accounts for 80% sales. North America records 15% of sales while the 5% sales are left for Asia and Australia continents (Kerin et al., 2010). Statistics disclose that the main target markets for IKEA are Asia, America, and Europe.
Workers with salaries show a higher ability to spend and accept new ideas and products. The market segment that has shoppers who bought from IKEA for once and for the students who bought from IKEA indicate higher levels of price consciousness probably because of the budget constraints and the need to get value for money spent. Some products are more inclined to respond to the purchasing behavior shown by customers over time (Evans & Bridson, 2005). The purchasing behavior of customers, income levels, consumer attitude, commodity prices and consumer demand dictates how furniture at IKEA sells. The range of income at IKEA is divided into three categories i.e. low-income earners, middle-level income, and the high-income earners.
Strengths and weaknesses of site
Strengths
The website’s homepage is easy to navigate and has adequate information. The display is also user-friendly. The website is loaded with enough content and information. The information is put in such a way as not to overburden the user but offers assistance to the users. The different website pages are neatly designed and the photos are professionally uploaded. The website also uses authentic infographics. Various aspects of the website pages have unique designs. Some of the pages are quite beautiful due to their simplicity and grid.
The aesthetic value of the website is also quite pleasing. The website uses a white background and a blue bar containing the menu right at the top. The area below the menu bar has a slideshow which encompasses scrolling pictures with details on offers and other product relevant information. Beneath the slideshow block, there is some more information directing the shopper regarding product recalls, sustainability, or such as IKEA information. The website hosts no advertisements. The website is quite clean, consistently organized with respect to font size and color contouring.
Each aspect of the web pages is properly organized. A big picture ware is positioned on the background for the purpose of allowing a better viewership. The price and name details are conspicuous enough. Social media links are also found on the bottom of the page. Variations of ware pictures are also available on the page bottom. There is a save to list tab which is grey in color hence camouflaged to the white background.
Easily navigable: The website easily maneuverable. All details and links can be located on the bottom and top of the page. The site also has a search area for easy location of desired items and products.
Proximity: the positioning of items on the website is strategically organized, placing related objects together. The grouping of items helps avoid cluttering of objects helps to avoid cluttering of the objects giving the user an easy to locate the items they want easily. Employing the proximity principle enables the spacious positioning of items giving the website an organized feel. IKEA’s website is categorized according to the regional blocks. This gives the user the direction on which to follow the different processes. Additionally, there are clear links to redirect the user to other websites to access more information.
Weakness
Ease of use. The website requires an upgrade to make the user experience easier and more efficient. While being less cluttered with images and texts, the website requires an improvement to help the users access the different items they require promptly. These can be achieved by the addition of a description pane for items. The message should be brief, clear, and address the users’ needs precisely. The home page should include all the categories of products available. This makes it possible for the user to access all the products available at a glance. This increases the turnover of products from the platform. Accessibility of the different varieties of products on the homepage eliminates the need for the user to follow other links to the product and scrolling up and down the website. It also helps the user to access the different variety available for them at a glance.
The optimization of the website may also be done by removing redundant content. Elimination of the contacts and the about us page makes creates a more deliberative management of the content. The process also contributes to decluttering of the website and more versatile layouts. Currently, the layout has numerous pages which require the user to follow and scroll up and down (Strauss, 2016). Users are less likely to follow explore exhaustively the products available on the site since it is time-consuming and requires more effort. For first time users of the website, they find it a little bit startling due to the full-screen banner on the background of the homepage. It creates a hurdle for the users to locate the items they are interested in easily. Consequently, they resolve to seek competitors who have a friendlier interface. Therefore, it necessary for the position of all the catalogs on the home page with simple straightforward links and tabs for the users to follow in case they are interested.
Recommendations
Use of visual graphics and animations. The use of video, graphics, and animations make it the website more appealing to the users leading to more website visitation. Graphics and animations could be developed based on the products the organizations are dealing. Thus, they serve as a source of marketing strategy and give the website a more authentic appeal. Creating awareness of upcoming products release or new products available therefore becomes easy for the management. The use of visual aids also makes the website feel more professional which is more compelling for the visitors and users who have not been on the platform before.
Adopt a straightforward layout. Today’s development allows the users to develop dynamic more efficient plat websites. Relying on traditional designing strategies results to a platform that is not compatible with the modern devices. Consequently, the platform losses customers. Therefore, the design should answer to the basic elements of web designing. These encompass the text organization, color, styles for the page, graphics, and the font of choice, page size and contrast. To design a well-organized web page, the management has to address the different needs of the user. There should consistency on the website not to confuse the users on the legitimacy of the platform and create an acquaintance for the audience.
Administrators should be able to access statistical analysis of the website’s activity. This helps the designers to identify areas that are presenting the users with challenges and identify the trends and performance of the platform. The management should be keen to make it possible for on such information in their decision making on the products which the will be introduced on the platform and those that should be taken down. The designs should attempt to meet the expectation of the majority of the users.
I would recommend the use of graphics navigation bar, rollover effects, and use non-frame pages. It should also incorporate a text only navigation bar to engage the ease of control. The developer should also include cascading style sheet to establish a consistent feel and look at the website. The use of interactive platforms makes it possible the website more user-friendly making the accessibility of products and the organization's commitment easy.
Electronic market plan
a) Situation analysis
IKEA’s website is ranked at the 195th position globally and 176th in the United States. The global ranking of a website is based on its popularity and is arrived at by getting the average visitation of the site on a daily basis and the page viewership over three months. The visitation of the platform is by people from the US, France, and Germany. Visitors to ikea.com have a 17.3 percent bounce rate, which a one percent drop from last month. This means that 17.3% of the people who visit the site are only on the site only view one page. The daily viewership of the webpages is 11.12% which is a one percent improvement (Crain & Abraham, 2008; De Chernatony, 2010). The average time that a visitor uses on the website is eight minutes and sixteen seconds. These analyses illustrate that visitors to the platform are active and engaged.
b) Identify the target stakeholders
Ikea.com necessitates the coordinated efforts of photographers, commercial designers, and decorators. The website designer, therefore, has to foresee the effective development of the UX and the UI. According to the platforms objectives.
c) Formulating the objectives
The objectives that should be set are classified into different classes as discussed below:
Transactional behavior goals: IKEA’s transactional objectives are to build sales done on the internet and increase their distribution through the platform. And to increase the frequency of the sales made to new and the current customers.
Attitude and cognitive goals: Among the most core objectives of the platform is the increasing awareness of the company globally. Other cognitive and attitude objectives include to build a relationship with customers on the website based on visitation, to create more positive attitudes among consumers through effective customer service, and through real-time updates, profile products accordingly.
Efficacy of internal activities: The objectives under this category include to increase the supply chains conditions, reduce the ordering process expenses, increase the lifetime value of each customer and increase customer retention rates.
d) Marketing strategies
The marketing strategies are aimed at the realization of the objectives laid out. The strategies employed are as follows:
Marketing mix
Model

Product
Affordable and high-quality furniture

Price
Cutting costs by capitalizing on e-marketing
Segmentation of pricing depending on products

Distribution
Content development
Eliminating middlemen
Intermediaries:
Online auctions and online exchanges
Agents :
Affiliate programs
The manufacturer's agents
Reverse auctioning
Buyers cooperatives
E-tailer
Physical items
Jiffy vendors


Communication
e-marketing
online advertising
the building of a community
content publishing

Relationship management
Rigorous customer relationship management



I. Designing an action plan
Project scope: IKEA purposes to redesign their website in order to implement the recommendations made earlier on. Implementation will be executed by the IT department. The resources will be appropriated from the finance and accounts department.
Site redesign: these will encompass the development of new content, graphics and a restructure of the website’s layout. Activities like content creation will be outsourced to specialists in the different fields.
Advertising: these will involve the registering with search engines, listings with the appropriate doctrines, electronic press releases to registered users, enquiring with complementary platforms to link ikea.com and the use of metatags to increase the changes of appearance in searches. As a cot control of the restructuring, IKEA will leave facilitate development internally rather than outsourcing.
Budgeting: the budget is for the platform will be roughly US$250,000, an equivalent sum for the social media platforms, US $167,000 will be spent on search engine optimization, the US $62,000 will be spent on content development, and US$5,000 on prizes.
Evaluation plan: After the implantation. Evaluation will be necessary to make sure redesigned systems function accordingly. The evaluation plan will be carried out against the objectives and how effective the customers find the platform. This will involve analysis of the bounce rate, the average order value and lifetime customer value (Strauss, 2016).


References
Crain, D. W., & Abraham, S. (2008). Using value-chain analysis to discover customers' strategic needs. Strategy & Leadership, 36(4), 29-39.
De Chernatony, L. (2010). From brand vision to brand evaluation: The strategic process of growing and strengthening brands. Routledge.
Evans, J., & Bridson, K. (2005). Explaining retail offer adaptation through psychic distance. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 33(1), 69-78.
Kerin, R. A., Hartley, S. W., & Rudelius, W. (2010). Marketing. McGraw-Hill.
Pipes, A. (2011). How to Design Websites. London: Laurence King Publishing.
Roger, K. (2010). Strategic Marketing Problems: Cases and Comments, 12/E. Pearson Education India.
Strauss, J. (2016). E-marketing. Routledge.
Yunker, J. (2007). IKEA: behind the best global retail website. Multilingual, 18(4), 36-40.