Our Customers Targeted Will Be Undergrad Students in Need of Books. the Potential Size

1. Market Analysis

Our customers targeted will be undergrad students in need of books. The potential size of this target will be 4460 students the first year. The projected market share would be 5% of targeted students at a total forecasted sale of $356,800. Total forecasted sales continues at 5% the second year, and would result $360,320 from 4504 students, and third year would sale $363,920 from 4549 students.

1.1. Target Market Demographics

Booktruck.com will target two segment markets include six campus and online which will cover 48 continental states.

The trailer-based Bookstruck.com will be targeting Six Southern California University segments: California State University, Fullerton, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, California State University, Los Angeles, University of Southern California (USC), University of California, Riverside and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Bookstruck.com is participating in 11062 undergraduate student markets.

Bookstruck.com is participating in 11062 undergraduate student markets

Undergraduate In Fall 2002 Student California State University, Fullerton (Cal State Fullerton) 24568 California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona) 17580 California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) 14296 University of Southern California (USC) 16145 University of California, Riverside (UCR) 12714 University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) 25318 Total 110621

1.2. Market Growth and Trends

The retail book market has undergone significant concentration in recent years. An American Booksellers Association study found that second generation business, which is traditional bookstore, declined by 9.4% between 2000 and 2003. However, the rapid growth of Amazon.com in the last two years suggests that Electronic Commerce may lead to further market concentration. The increasing concentration of the industry has been a concern of many small booksellers. The college textbook market is substantially different from the trade book market. Textbook shoppers have a list of books that they need, and they will go to the store to buy those books. The convenience of online shopping is thus well suited to serve those customers. The local bookstore can satisfy customers by having the books right away and customers are not worry about shipping time when comparing to online store. Therefore, Booktruck.com combines the strengths of the first two generations, while avoiding of their weaknesses.

1.3. Customer base defined: the main customers will be undergraduate students at six colleges who want to buy lower division GE textbooks at their convenience.

1.4. Market size and Potential: Initially, Booktruck.com targets six major college campuses along Southern California all of which are fifty miles in diameter apart:

University Forecasted targeted students at 5% market share Cal Poly Pomona 173 University of California Riverside 197 Cal State Los Angeles 212 University of California Los Angeles 281 Cal State Fullerton 123 University of Southern California 129

2. Product and Service

Products BookTruck.com focuses on high volume low variety textbooks, which is English, History and Mathematics only. English  Basic Communication Skills  Basis Sill for ESL  College Composition  Freshman English I  Freshman English II  Introduction to Modern Fiction History  History of Civilization  Introduction to United States History  World History: Twentieth Century  Europe Since 1845: Cold War Mathematics  Intermediate Algebra  Liberal Arts Mathematics  College Algebra  Pre-calculus  Calculus Multivariate Calculus 3. Competition

One of our main industry competitors is College Bookstores, which is based on inside of school and targeting to college students, such as UBE in Cal Poly With a “click and mortar”. Our online competitors are Amazon.com, Barnes & Nobles, Boarders, and textbooks.com.

3.3 Comparison of Strengths and Weaknesses and Key Competitors

First generation such as Amazon.com only operated on the Internet; second generation such as Barnes & Noble supplemented their existing sales and services facilities with extensive Internet capability. BookTruck.com represents and advanced approach to E- Commerce because it combines the strengths of the first two generation, while avoiding many of their weaknesses, it can penetrate sizable existing niche markets more effectively than Internet only business, it more cost effective than establishing and maintaining substantial retail network or a major freestanding Internet portal web site.

3.4 Competitive Success Factors

The competitive factors listed below are used to compare BookTruck.com to the other players in the industry. These factors are critical for attracting new users and retaining existing users.

3.4.1 Price (ADM}

Pricing is a vital factor for Booktruck.com. Purchase price reflects selling costs therefore negotiations among suppliers is a must. We aim to buy books at the cheapest price available.

3.4.2 Promotion Strategy

We are totally new company in the bookstore industry and there are some big competitors in this area. Therefore, to compete to those competitors, we are offering some promotion based on differentiation comparing to others. Customers can take an advantage in promotion such as discount and building credit to get other books for free.

3.4.3 Strong Relationship

BookTruck.com members post variety of information such as project, news related to class subjects, text information and so forth. The users can share this tremendous source of critical textbook information. It is available on a membership basis for any college or university professor, and best of all. Therefore, member of Share Text maintain their strong relationship in a community by referral effect.

3.4.4 Direct Transactions Selling and buying between members who have the books to sell and buy is accessed autonomously based on the enormous users. The users can set the price of textbook between users who are willing to buy and sell the textbook. We help matching buyers and sellers by providing price and product information. In case of half.com operated by eBay, Half.com gets a 5 dollars commission whenever customers succeed the transaction. However, because BookTruck.com doesn’t take any commission from our users, our users can take better deal without deducting the commission. If our users can get 5 dollars more each transaction, they are willing to pay the membership fee to BookTruck.com in order to use our website. BookTruck..com will take the idea from Barnes & Noble that BookTruck.com evaluates the transaction quality about each transaction as a ranking such as on-time delivery, buyer’s satisfaction, payment, and so forth.

3.4.5 On-time shipping service

We will offer the best service to customers from ordering to shipping. Based on contract to carriers such as Air Borne Express, FedEx, and UPS, we will try to meet you on time.

3.5.5 Competitive Market Niche

Truck can be move around freely, like mobile homes; Booktruck.com can travel to the customers

3.7 Barriers to Entry

To be a new comers which enters an existing business, there are some obstructions that make difficult for our company to enter, such as capital requirements-Amazon invest huge financial resources in order to produce computer microprocessors to any competitors; Economic of Scale-some existing companies has a significant cost such as Amazon; Access to Distribution Channel: we have difficulty obtaining book market because Amazon are priority known by consumers.

4. Marketing Strategy

4.1 Overview of Competitive Strategy

Booktruck.com is a startup company and the financial capital is not enough to compete with big dot COM companies such as Amazon.com. We try to provide convenience and focus on low variety and high volume textbooks to forward a lower price. However, we would not be the low price leader, and we will use percent of markup depend on the discount rate from our publishers. Also we will support better customer service such as free shipping and easy refund and return; students can sale their used textbook on trucks and pick up their book, which ordered on line.

4.2 Pricing Strategy BookTruck.com aims to provide convenience. In a market with such high competition (i.e. Amazon.com) Booktruck.com would not be able to be the low price leader. Because of this, percentage of markup would depend on the discount rate from our publisher. Depending on the break-even analysis, the markup on books will differ. For discussion purposes, we will say that we are marking up the books from between 10-15%.

4.3 Advertising Strategy

Booktruck.com will advertise online with banner, passing out flyers on campus, and with event booths around the school.

4.3.1 Customer Surveys

Surveys are an easy way to find out what your customers think about our business, products and services. And we do not have to spend a great deal of money to conduct these surveys. Some techniques include mailing written surveys to your customers and hoping they will respond, telephoning them and asking them a series of question, or giving them a card to fill out and mail back in.

4.3.2 Banners, Flyers

Banner ad is an important component in our promotion campaigns. We will place our ad on a page linking to the next. Text in ads will include a call to action, the shaping of ads to appeal different demographics on different site, do well to rotate ads. The banner on Booktruck.com can attract traffic by designing it professionally and effectively. For offline business, flyers will be pass out to six campus during the first week of school.

4.4 Public Relations and Promotions

Public Relations: There are several ways that used to keep a good public relations in our society: We give free gift during lunch time at first week on campus, such as pen, pencil, notes pad with logo; we will mail coupon to our customer for purchasing more than $200 without refund during the first week of school, the coupon is 5% of total value and it can be spend on campus restaurant such as Panda Express and Carl’s Junior; We will coordinate with each school to build a scholarship program, which used to reward student who keep a GPA 3.9 by $1000 per year. We hope these ways will let our company is knew by more people.

4.4 Marketing Budget

Deciding how much it would cost to ring more students to our web site and truck through promotion and advertising. Notepad (with booktrouck.com logos) 5000 pcs $6250 Stick in Pens 5000 pcs $1915 Flyers 5000 pcs $ 499 Total $8664 4.6 Estimated market share-by time period

Year Total Students Total Sales 2003 4460 $356800 2004 4504 $360320 2005 4549 $363920

4.7 Start-Up Market

Booktruck.com is a third generation, which represents an advance approach to E- Commerce. Booktruck.com seeks to be recognized as the pre-eminent retailer of college textbooks, initially in Southern California, and in time nationally.

4.8 Sales Forecast (table)

Calpoly TB USC TB

English 2320 Total students English 251 Total students 1972 85% buy books 213.35 85% buy books 749.36 38% buy books online 81.073 38% buy books online 1124.04 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 121.6095 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 98.6 5% market share for Booktruck 10.6675 5% market share for Booktruck

History 1439 Total students History 1327 Total students 1223.15 85% buy books 1127.95 85% buy books 464.797 38% buy books online 428.621 38% buy books online 697.1955 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 642.9315 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 61.1575 5% market share for Booktruck 56.3975 5% market share for Booktruck

Math 322 Total students Math 1462 Total students 273.7 85% buy books 1242.7 85% buy books 104.006 38% buy books online 472.226 38% buy books online 156.009 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 708.339 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 13.685 5% market share for Booktruck 173 62.135 5% market share for Booktruck 129 UCR UCLA

English 1993 Total students English 1883 Total students 1694.05 85% buy books 1600.55 85% buy books 643.739 38% buy books online 608.209 38% buy books online 965.6085 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 912.3135 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 84.7025 5% market share for Booktruck 80.0275 5% market share for Booktruck

History 1600 Total students History 1646 Total students 1360 85% buy books 1399.1 85% buy books 516.8 38% buy books online 531.658 38% buy books online 775.2 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 797.487 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 68 5% market share for Booktruck 69.955 5% market share for Booktruck

Math 1048 Total students Math 3076 Total students 890.8 85% buy books 2614.6 85% buy books 338.504 38% buy books online 993.548 38% buy books online 507.756 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 1490.322 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 44.54 5% market share for Booktruck 197 130.73 5% market share for Booktruck 281 Cal State Fullerton Cal State LA

English 732 Total students English 1883 Total students 622.2 85% buy books 1600.55 85% buy books 236.436 38% buy books online 608.209 38% buy books online 354.654 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 912.3135 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 31.11 5% market share for Booktruck 80.0275 5% market share for Booktruck

History 460 Total students History 1646 Total students 391 85% buy books 1399.1 85% buy books 148.58 38% buy books online 531.658 38% buy books online 222.87 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 797.487 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 19.55 5% market share for Booktruck 69.955 5% market share for Booktruck

Math 1711 Total students Math 1462 Total students 1454.35 85% buy books 1242.7 85% buy books 552.653 38% buy books online 472.226 38% buy books online 828.9795 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 708.339 57% buy books from Brick and Mortar 72.7175 5% market share for Booktruck 123 62.135 5% market share for Booktruck 212

This chart is used to forecast the total books sold on each campus. Total student in each field represents the population taking the class. 85% of this total student field will buy books, and total estimated students to buy books are displayed. 38% will buy books from online, and 57% will buy books from bookstores. We will anticipate 5% penetration into the total market of 7.12 million.

5 Sales Strategy

5.1 Sales Process Description

On Booktruck.com, we will support the best services to minimize customer’s time on selection, shipment and the collection of payment. When customer select a textbook and send the order form to us, our customer service department will reply immediately with the code of the book, the date of shipment, estimated arrive date, the amount they paid, so customer can keep track with their orders. At the same time, accounting department will confirm customer’s credit information with bank. The shipping department will contact UPS and give them the textbook package for delivery.

5.2 Distribution Channels

We rent truck when and where needed We will transport inventory between sales locations We provide different schedule of different school

5.3 Customer Order Life Cycle On Booktruck.com, after a customer sends their order, usually there will be 48 hours deliver time for shipment.

5.4 Service and Warranty Policies

 Provide sales location for customer to identify their special need for book.  It’s convenient for student to bring their used textbooks to the sales event  The signs and folding table will be set at the sales even.  Offer customer service via the Internet and sales event  Reservation on specific textbooks  Building a community to provides customers a place to share their opinion and negotiate better price  On the Internet, we will enable students to advertise the used books they plan to sell at the sales event  For customers convenient, we accept money order/check.

5.5 Warranty Policy

Customers are guaranteed will get refund or return during the 5 days after their purchase.