Your answer might be something along the line of:
Yes Walt, I think you should put up a site advertising your shops. You could find a lot of interested customers. While it is unlikely that you'll get customers from around the World, it is likely that you will be able to reach thousands of customers here in Metropolis. You can provide support for people who already know about your shop, and you might even be able to attract a few new customers. You can probably put it on your ISP's server for under 100 dollars a month and maybe even for free. You're not really going to be giving away anything to the competition: he's in here every week anyway. Finally, it might help you to learn something more about your customers, especially those shy ones who never speak to you when they come in.
You should be aware that, like you, a lot of music enthusiasts are hitting the Web. Some people are actually distributing music this way. This kind of delivery might cut into your business, but if you pay attention you might be able to use the medium to enhance your business.
Note that this is just an answer, not the answer. Other points are relevant. If you've come up with some different points, discuss them with your classmates.
Your answer might be something along the line of:
Well Walt, let me propose three options:
A simple yet effective site could include just a few pages, or even just one. Seeing as you're getting relatively handy with a computer, you might be able to do this yourself. This should have a list of the addresses of your stores, their phone numbers, the managers' names, and the hours that the stores are open. Of course you'd put in your email address. You might want to throw a bit in about your LP and CD collection, and maybe even advertise a few specials. You probably could put this together reasonably quickly for just the cost of your time.
A slightly more complex site would include all of the information mentioned in the first option, but would also have some more sophisticated material. You'd probably need someone who has some skills in Web-based applications, but they could put it together in a day or so. Once developed, you wouldn't have to modify it, so maintenance costs would be negligible.
This version could include a form for visitors to supply some information about themselves. This might include the music they're interested in, where they live, and their email address. You might want to send out mailings to your customers for special events, so you could ask them if they'd like to receive this kind of information. (Don't just send them information as the spam could offend your customers and do more harm than good.) If you do this, you should also include a text box so that the users can write in anything that isn't included in your form. Other pages could include details about your stock.
If the site grows to be more than 10 pages, you'll need to consider navigation issues to make sure that the site is usable and that visitors don't get lost.
You could go whole hog, and put your entire catalogue of records on the Internet. This would require a lot of maintenance, especially if the catalogue frequently changes. You could hook the website up to your stock-taking programme (you do have one of those, don't you? If not, you probably should invest in automating that). That'll take some serious coding, but this could be a real boon for your customers. They could search the collection from their home, and you might even provide a mechanism for them to reserve records, or to order records that you don't have in stock. If you do that you'll have some security issues, but they can be solved. This will probably also require some regular maintenance. You will need to recruit some extra help for this style of Web page. I wouldn't recommend that you try and produce this yourself.
Other neat things you could do include providing music samples, or perhaps links to other local music sites and live music venues. In fact, this might be useful to do for even the simple version of the site. It'll only bring more people to your site, even if they're on the way to elsewhere. The sites that you link to might be willing to link to you in return. You could even sell over the net.
I recommend that you go for the second option. It's not really that expensive, so you're not taking much of a risk. If it goes well you can always upgrade to the more sophisticated site later, or do so gradually, as you learn more about your customers' needs. Whichever option you choose, you will have to advertise the site to get people to come to visit it. If you want more ideas on that, just ask!
Walt needs to provide a way of showing the product and their prices to the user. This could simply be a list of album titles and artists, though more extensive information would be useful. For example, you might also include the album tracks, its release date, and all of the artists performing on it.
An interface for purchasing various items will be needed. Since it is likely that people will buy multiple items, a shopping trolley could be used. It would be really good to have a tutorial to help the first time user use the system if they needed it. For return customers, you might want to suggest products based on their previous purchases. This could be irritating to a customer, so there should be some way for them to turn this feature off.
You should consider the following:
The size of the website
How complex or how simple should the website be? Or does it need to be?
Should you employ external contractors or employ new staff?
What information should the website include about your product?
The advertisement should include the following items of information (the list is not exhaustive — it is only indicative).
Individual routes and a timetable.
Prices, including any special offers or cheap ticket deals. This may involve too much maintenance, but we don't have any information about budget constraints.
Quality of service, such as the type of coach you use.
Any guarantees offered regarding quality and punctuality of service. If statistics are available, such as percentage of coaches running on time for the last year, this would build customers' confidence in the offered service.
How a customer can book a ticket. For example: contact details for the booking office, and opening hours.
The main advantages of advertising on the Internet are:
It is open 24 hours, 7 days a week
There is a very big potential audience.
It is relatively inexpensive compared to, say, television advertisements.
You can easily find out more about your customers via forms and questionnaires
Sales via the Internet cut out the middleman, and hence reduce the product cost.
The main disadvantages are:
It is difficult to give the customer a realistic product experience. For example, The Web is not ideal for selling fruits or other products with a short shelf life.
Locality — a small Pizza Bar in Las Vegas, may be able to sell Bagels anywhere within Nevada via the Internet, however, it would be a stretch for a customer in Madrid to make an order.
Security breaches can have an adverse effect on your company.
Wholesalers/Retailers often order in bulk and therefore take away a large portion of your stock. If you are relying on sale from the Internet you may have to consider extra storage space for your advertised product.
Advantages:
Popular websites have a large number of hits (e.g. 1 - 2 million per day).
Popular websites charge for advertisement space.
The revenue created by advertisements can support the upkeep of the site e.g. see Yahoo.
Awareness is necessary because the amount of customers visit the site, as well as their behaviour, directly relates to your profit. On the Internet, customers have to come to you, and this means that you need to lure your customers to you.
You can increase awareness of your website by advertising on other sites such as the major search engines or interest group pages, and by making your website attractive. Good websites have very high hit rates (up to 1 million per day, a very big potential audience).
Advantages:
It is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It never tires, and never shows the emotions of working 12 hour shift.
You potentially have a huge audience (50 million).
It is relatively inexpensive.
You can gather information concerning your audience.
The price of your product is reduced by cutting out the middleman.
Disadvantages
Product usually cannot be physically experienced or demonstrated.
Your competition sees the site, and is aware of your product information and development.
A security breach can have a detrimental effect on your customer base.
Cutting out the middleman has implications concerning your organisational structure.
Changes that may need to be made include:
Increasing storage space for stock.
Retraining of staff to handle the increased direct customer contact.
Production will be based on a supply and demand strategy rather than mass production. The bulk of storage, and hence shelf-life, risk is carried by the wholesalers
Delivery channels may need to be set up or modified.
For returning customers, improvements might include: a hyperlink in the introduction that leads them straight to the pages they have often visited in the past; an option to keep a record of their details so that they do not need to be re-entered on each visit; free offers for customers who make several purchases.
For marketing, multiple products improvements might include: a search engine for your products; easier access to products and demonstrations; use of a shopping trolley with a running cost total.
The four transformations of DAGMAR could be interpreted in the context of Internet commerce as follows:
Unawareness to awareness may be achieved by, among other things: judicious use of the META and TITLE HTML tags so that search engines find the page; using synonyms carefully to maximise hit rates; adding a link to the page from those pages popular with the target audience.
Awareness to comprehension may be achieved by providing suitable information about your service or product, including descriptions, statistics and pictures, as appropriate.
Comprehension to conviction may be achieved by offering samples of the product or service. If the customer provides information through, for example, a questionnaire, this may be a sign of increased confidence.
Conviction to action is sometimes perceived to have happened when the customer receives samples of the product. However, from the producer's viewpoint, this transformation only occurs when the customer actually purchases an item.