Industrial Revolutions Impact on Families - MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss aboutthe Industrial Revolutions Impact on Families. Answer: Introduction Technology is upgrading rapidly and this has a great influence on common people in their daily life. This technology has also influenced citizens of a country to purchase their products like groceries, cloths and medicines through online. Online shopping has become popular at present as there are large numbers of available platforms for customers to choose their products. It also helps people to save their time from their busy schedule as they do not need to go to a retail shop. They can easily order their products from anywhere. Hence, it is important to learn business report of an online portal to understand their conditions in market. In this report, Redmart of Singapore is chosen to prepare a business study report. This is also an online supermarket that offers home-delivery of grocery products like fresh vegetables and essential goods through internet shopping. Hence, it is not a traditional retailing shop like others. Moreover, Redmart provides a platform for manufacturers to s ell products directly to their customers instead of depending on retailers. Manufacturers or producers also directly promote their new products through this online portal. Hence, from this online portal, manufacturers can easily analyse data with leading marketing capabilities and can expand their business. Hence, there will be various economic points related to this e-commerce platform, which will be discussed within this report. There will be a description of this business, production costs and scales, macro business environment and sustainability practice of the Redmart. Under those categories, a detail overview and deep analysis of this company will be described. Moreover, after analysing all those points, a conclusion will be drawn to complete this business study report. Description of the Business Redmart Limited runs its business through an online portal of grocery in Singapore. The company was founded in 2011 by Roger Egan, Rajesh Lingappa and Vikram Rupani. It delivers products 7 days a week. This e-commerce company is supported by well-known investors and advisors. Those investors and advisors are Toivo Annus, the co-founder of Skype, Edaurdo Saverin , co-founder of Facebook, Garena. There are also some other wellr-respected advisors and investors like Jason Ackerman, CEO of FreshDirect, SoftBank Ventures and Visionnarie Ventures. Hence it needs its own transport system to deliver door-to-door products. Therefore, Redmart conducts its own transportation business to deliver products directly to their customers house, all over the country. This company allows its customers to purchase fresh foods like dairy, meat and seafood, alcohol, commodities for baby, child, pet and household and so on. Redmart offers those products to its consumers with a standard price. It also allows its customers to choose two-hour delivery windows. Those delivery windows offer consumer benefits, which is supported by the supply-chain management of Redmart. The chief customers of Redmart are common citizens of Singapore. The company also reaches out to its potential customers, like Ntuc Fairprice Co-Operative Ltd. to capture their interests. In Singapore, a large number of customers buy their products through online. Redmart provides more than 25000 products to its customers. Fig1: Customers of Different Age Group Source: (Doan, 2017) It can be seen from the above diagram that, there are large numbers of customers with different age groups, who demand products through online. People, aged 21 to 34, demands 30% products through online. Generation Z, aged between 15 and 20, orders 28% grocery items from internet. Generation X, aged 35 to 49, orders 22% products. Moreover, people above age 50, orders 17% products through online. However, the percentage of demand from senior citizens of above 65 years old, order only 9% products through online. However, the chief customers of Redmart are women, aged between 25 and 44 years. Competitors of Redmart: In Singapore, there are also some other online grocery stores who have become the strong competitors of Redmart. Honestbee is the strongest competitor of Redmart. It is also an online platform that delivers food and grocery items. This online supermarket operates its business with its business to business (B2B) clients. Honestbee covers wide areas to operate their business. These places are Singapore, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Manila and Bangkok. This online platform offers more than 40000 types of products to its customers. This number of different types of products is larger than the number of products that Redmart offers. HappyFresh is also a large competitor of Redmart. HappyFresh and Redmart have competed with each other for a long time. However, the number of competitors has increased over time. There is a strong competition among Redmart, Honestbee and HappyFresh (Abuzahra Imraish, 2017). On the other hand, there are also some other companies which have online p ortals to shop. That delivers fresh vegetables in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. Those online grocery stores are Gofresh and The Fishwives. Gofresh provides its customers fresh foods like crabs, seafood and lobster and so on. Their customers also order their products through this online portal. On the other hand, The Fishwives also try to supply healthy, fresh and clean food to their customers in Singapore. Redmart is trying to maintain and access its own warehouses and logistic system. This can control its customer service cycle. It also helps to expand rapidly into other vertical companies. However, its competitors, HonestBee and HappyFresh, have increased its significant equity finance. They have adopted a model. This model is depended on third-party logistics and delivery services. This model has taken to expand their business across te markets of Southeast Asia. Redmart also tries to adopt a market strategy to compete with some other competitors. These competitors are like Rakuten, Alibaba and Amazon. These e-commerce companies are enjoying a higher level of success in this e-commerce space. General Business Environment: Redmart operates under the e-commerce market environment. In Singapore, this e-commerce market is expanding rapidly (Hoppe, Lamy Cannarsi, 2016). Hence, it is increasing the percentage of retail sales among people. This is because, 83% people use internet connection over there. Singapore is famous as it has the most mature market of e-commerce in Southeast Asia. The country has a very small number of populations compare to other countries. However, it captures 25% online retail value of Southeast Asia in 2013. This value is greater than Indonesia, which has only 20% value (Vaithianathan, Hool, Hurd Rohwedder, 2017). Indonesia is the largest market of Southeast Asia. Citizens of Singapore are turning online to purchase basic needs, like groceries. They generally use mobile internet to order products. Redmart has launched mobile apps. This also helps customers to place their orders. On the other hand, this increasing number of online retail shopping attracts investors to invest more funds for Redmart and Honestbee. Marketing structure of Redmart: Those online portals operate under the perfectly competitive market (Cattani, Porac Thomas, 2017). They sale same types of products to their customers like fresh foods, vegetables and other grocery products. Hence, every e-commerce portal shares a small share of market. Online grocery stores cannot set prices for its products. As Redmart sales necessary goods to its customers, the demand curve of this grocery store is downward slopping and inelastic (Varian, 2014). That means a small increase in price of a product will not decrease the quantity demanded for this product. Cost structures of Redmart are low compare to other cost structures of traditional grocery stores. This means as Redmart improves its business, advertising costs and customer acquisition costs will be decreased compare to its revenue. However, the customers of online grocery stores always try to find out products with lowest price. Hence, for Redmart, it is difficult to sale their products at a lower rate. Moreover, for common people, the cost of products is high. Production Costs and Scales In Redmart, the labour cost is high. This is because; online grocery stores need to hire more labourers to deliver its products door-to-door, all over the Singapore. Hence, this labour cost is huge compare to any other traditional grocery stores. It is the variable cost of Redmart. The online portal can increase or decrease the amount of labour at any point of time, with its requirement. To compete with other grocery stores, Redmart should generate competitive margins. Hence, it is important for Redmart to operate efficiently and should utilise its labour resources as it is the chief factor of their company. Moreover, this online grocery store needs huge number of delivery cars to deliver their products to its customers within time. Hence, the company should invest huge amount of money to purchase delivery cars. Other costs of Redmart are cupboard to pack products, portal maintenance, cold warehouses to store foods and medicines and so on. Costs differentiation between Traditional and Online Grocery Stores: In general, the business margin of grocery is low. If cost structure is compared between traditional grocery store and online grocery store then the first and important point will be delivery and rental cost. Retail store pays huge amount of rent to obtain strategic location in a populated place. This is because; a good location helps those physically existed retail shops to attract their customers. On the other hand, rental charges for a retailing shop are not required for online grocery stores. This online store only needs to bear costs for a warehouse. Online portal bears higher amount of transport costs to deliver products to their customers. However, large retail stores do not bear any kind of transport costs. They only bear distribution costs to distribute their products from warehouse to their customers. The company also has packaging costs. It is important to pack products nicely so that they can deliver to its customers nicely. Redmart is the first, who starts a large online grocery in Singapore. However, at present, there are more than two online grocery stores. They deliver same kinds of products to their customers. Customers can easily switch among those online sites freely. Hence, to run its business with full capacity, Redmart needs to invest money for making its warehouses. By increasing the number of warehouses, Redmart can also expand the scale of their business. This will be the fixed costs of this company. The fixed cost of Redmart is huge compare to its variables costs. As the company is building or hiring warehouses, the cost is very large. Moreover, an electric connection and internet connection is also required with a warehouse. As the demand of grocery products is increasing day by day, the company will expand their firm size. As the costs of Redmart is high compare to its revenue, the firm is currently operating its medium optimal size of production. Macro Business Environment Singapore has the best political environment to operate a business. Hence, the start-up cost of any business is very low in this country. If different factors, relating to a business is considered, then Singapore is one of the best business-friendly countries in the world. These other factors of business are business licensing, credit legal rights, taxes and protections of investors. Investors also have accepted that the level of transparency and reliability for a business in Singapore is very high (Valera, Holmes Hassan, 2017). Economic and regulatory conditions are also very good to conduct a business. The political structure is stable with parliamentary democracy. The judicial system of this democratic country is nicely established. The domestic institutions with a strong corporate governance practices have created a good environment for business for global investors. The economic condition of Singapore is indentified by a high level of openness and extreme financial condition. The economic condition of Singapore is always good. The current balance of payments of this country is always remained in surplus. Moreover, the country has a huge reserve of foreign exchange. Singapore also provides financial help and benefits with a large extent to increase spending on social services to local businesses. The government always gives priority to confirm quality of growth and to create a large inclusive society. To maintain a competitive position rather than increasing wages, government is looking to promote business with higher added value. In 2016, Singapores budget deficit was 1.2% of total GDP. However, in 2017, the government of Singapore recovers its budget deficit. The government also tries to encourage local enterprises to improve their connectivity and to digitalise. The reason behind these initiatives is to improve their level of competition and t o promote innovation. The per capita wealth of Singapore is very high. The country faced a long period of full employment. However, after this phase, the country has facing unemployment due to structural changes within the economy (Xie, Alba Chia, 2017). This situation becomes worst at the time of global economic crisis. However, this situation is currently overcome and the current rate of unemployment is only 2%. Singapore is also facing an increasing level of income inequality and a discontinued society. This is caused by overpopulation and a highly competitive environment of employment and housing. Singapore is the hub of regional commerce. The port of Singapore is one of the important ports, all over the world. This port is dominated by trade, transportation and business services and financial services. The economy of Singapore is highly industrialised. This industrial sector captures one-fourth part of total gross domestic products (GDP) of this country. Inflation in Singapore: The current rate of inflation is low compare to its previous year. This can be shown by a suitable diagram. Fig2: Inflation rate of Singapore compare to previous years Source: (GRAHAM BILGER, 2017) It can be said from the above diagram that inflation rate of Singapore was -0.5% in 2016. With an economic slowdown and the uncertainties of a restricted political environment, the living cost of citizens in Singapore remains relevant. The inflation rate is used sometimes as an indicator of price levels and the living cost of common people. It can be seen that Singapore is experiencing a negative inflation for last two years. The labour demand of Singapore is expecting to improve in the near future. However, Accumulated inefficiency will take time to absorb in the market and wage pressure will increase rapidly. According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), domestic cost pressures will be moderated. Moreover, due to some factors like subdued commercial and rentals of retails, this cost pressure will also be increased. The unemployment rate of Singapore was 2.1% in the third quarter (Rouxelin, Wongsunwai Yehuda, 2015). This rate is low compare to the first quarter of this year. Redmart does not export their products till now. Hence, exchange rate of foreign currency does not have any effect on demand for Redmarts products. However, the company is planning to expand their business in other countries. Potentil targets of redmart to expand their business include Jakarta, Hong-Kong and Indonesia. However, the chief aim of this firm is to maintain a market leadership in Singapore. Hence, it can be seen that the economic condition of Singapore is increasing rapidly. This will further help domestic business to grow further. Hence, this condition will be more favourable for Redmart to expand their business in near future. As Redmart chiefly sales normal goods, the demand of those goods will fall during a recession period (Fernald, 2015). The reason behind this outcome is due to decrease of income of common people in Singapore. However, at present, the economy of this country is not facing any recession. Hence, the probability of decreasing demand for products of Redmart is low. If business trend of Redmart is taken to analyse then it can be seen that the company is growing rapidly. It will expand more in near future. Sustainability Practice of the Business: Redmart is an online portal and it does not produce any products. Hence, it does not have any huge amount of negative externalities (Clemons, Dewan, Kauffman Weber, 2017). People can easily buy their products through online. However, there are some factors which can create negative externalities of Redmnart. The first one is use of excessive plastic bags. This e-commerce company delivers its products with plastic bags to its customers (Lin, Wijedasa Chisholm, 2017). The government of Singapore is imposing taxes on some e-commerce companies to restrict the use of plastic bags in an economy. However, the company is using bags to keep its products fresh and unbreakable. Hence, Redmart is using technologically upgraded plastic bags. Conclusion Technological innovation has made online shopping safer and easier for customers to choose and purchase goods and services easily according to their choice. This has excluded consumer doubts and allowed them to accept e-commerce for conducting their daily purchases, especially for grocery shopping. Redmart, the start-up e-commerce company in Singapore is taken the first initiatives to conduct a business through online. It helps customers to order their products easily from anywhere. The selling price of each product is almost same for both online grocery stores and normal retail stores. Hence, it is the basic choice for those customers who want to shop their products from home. This is because this practice helps those customers to receive their products directly to their home. It also helps people to save their time. Moreover, there are many well-known producers, who choose Redmart to launce their new products. Hence, customers can also get new products from here. What Redmart offer s to its customers is quite common in United Kingdom. However, this shopping practice is increasing rapidly, at present, in Singapore. On the other hand, maximum citizens of Singapore use internet connection. Hence, the demand of Redmarts product is increasing rapidly. The economic condition of a start-up business is favourable in Singapore. This environment also helps Redmart to expand their business. Though there are two strong competitors of Redmart in Singapore, its profit is increasing over time. This company is adopting various new business strategies to compete with its competitors, like, HoneyBee. Moreover, it is trying to expand its business on other courtiers. 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