The business plan is to start an online gaming virtual trading platform. The name of this new online games business will be Zuki. The business will have headquarters in Europe and United States (U.S.). The opportunity of trade in these countries is vast. People of Europe and U.S. are extensively involved in playing online games and purchasing virtual gamming items from these online sellers. Especially, this has a growing popularity among young internet users. Therefore, similar to other traders of online virtual gaming items, Zuki will have numerous opportunities to run a profitable business in these countries.
The business will be based on sales of virtual gaming items like, amours; swords; food items such as, burgers and orange juice; and tokens and coins for moving onto further levels in various games. It will also provide opportunities to purchase a new home, car, lands and other objects on the gaming site of the company for real life currency. The users will additionally get privileges to create their own avatars and socialize with other users. The company will charge real life currency for selling these virtual items and will consider immediate payments for the services by card. This virtual gaming item business has great opportunity in reality. The business will be run extensively on the online communities. Advertisements will also be featured on the websites and especially, on the social networking sites in order to grab the attention of valuable customers. Thus, the company will hope to achieve success all over Europe and U.S. with premium services provided by it.
The product as mentioned above will be virtual items like, coins, tokens, avatars or objects, fruit juices, burgers and dresses in exchange of real life money, which will be paid online through cards. The target market of Zuki will be Europe and U.S. The people of these countries are quite rich and are extensively involved in playing online games as well as interacting on the social communities in their gaming avatars. Therefore, it will be profitable to consider these two countries as their target market.
Business Model and Competitive Advantage
The purpose of the business will be to sell online virtual items for games. The virtual items will range from coins, tokens and food items to dresses and new avatars. On the web page of Zuki, there will be options like, game currency, power levelling and game cards, besides the virtual items. The customers will have to make online payments for purchasing these items through cards.
The target customer of the company will be young, middle-aged and older generation people based in U.S. and Europe. It would like to reach the masses with proper online advertisements on the social communities.
Offering strategies used by Zuki will be simple. The virtual game items will be offered at appropriate rates. During particular hours in a day, it will sell these items to the customers at discounted rates. Sometimes, it might distribute the items free of cost to customers so as to gain preference from both new and existing customers.
The organisational structure will be uncomplicated with least number of lower level staffs. It would have headquarters in Europe and U.S. It will only contain a management team and a group of developers.
Trading practices and operational policies of Zuki will be efficiently formulated. The company would abide by all online policies and operate in a manner that would not violate any legal practices and rules laid down for online operations.
Competitive advantage of the company, unlike other online virtual game items sellers, will be the payment system and free gifts provided to the customers. The customers will be given huge discounts more often on the purchase of their gaming items. Besides that, at the time of the payment, the customer might get some huge attractive discounts and virtual item bonuses. This will be the strategy for competitive advantage of Zuki over other online gaming items selling companies. Most of the gaming companies of Europe and U.S. sell their virtual gaming items at discounts, but does not provide any discount at the time of payments made by them; nor do they offer any extra bonuses for game items to customers. Time and again, the company will develop new strategies in order to be the top virtual games item seller of Europe and U.S.
The results of various researches conducted by economists and analysts show that online selling of virtual game items have huge craze, especially among the young generation (Makzan, 2010). There is a growing market for the trade of virtual items, which shows that the current status of this business is healthy. This business is making immense profit over the years. Recent reports also revealed important similarities between the revenue patterns and exchange processes of the real and virtual world (Guest, 2010). Although it might have few constraints among users, the developers are trying their best to solve the same. Therefore, the online virtual item selling business is gradually gaining more popularity and within a few years, this business will thrive all over the world. The requirements of this business are high visibility through online advertisements and to make websites flexible enough the users of all age groups.
II.The Management TeamThe company will hire experienced managers and fresh set of talented developers. The company would not compromise with the quality of employees.