Marketing Management - Report Example

Introduction

Asia has had a lot of restrictions for the past years regarding the use of online payment platforms. Most countries in Asia have their payment preferences; hence they ban the use of online payment platforms such as Paypal. Swipeseek is an online payment platform for both buyers and sellers that wishes to penetrate this difficult market and make online trading and payment between the United States, Asia and other countries worldwide easier. Swipeseek will partner with various banks in Asian countries and develop a customer protection policy and program to ensure all transactions between countries in Asia and other countries worldwide are safe and legit.

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Context

The society needs a new payment system where sellers and buyers can send money directly to an email address and have few restrictions after account approval. Swipeseek will be a multisided platform that will provide an infrastructure to ease transactions between buyers and sellers mainly due to the increase of online trading and payment over the past decade. Many of the existing payment systems MSPs in the world restrict people in some countries to transact using their services. This has inconvenienced most of the individuals in such countries. The indirect network effects that this payment method will have on the society is that it will increase the number of sellers and buyers who can transact online across countries with little or no inconveniences using international and local currencies. The more the sellers across different platforms will adopt this payment method, the more the value for opening a Swipeseek account for both the buyers and sellers will increase.

Value Proposition

Swipeseek will operate in more than 100 countries using more than 15 currencies, to begin with as a way to improve online payment methods compared to traditional paper-based methods for transferring money. This platform will help to ease transactions between merchants and buyers, especially in local and international transactions. Swipeseek will focus on providing services to most of the countries where online payment systems are banned. It will help reduce the inconveniences caused by a lack of online payment systems in various countries and improve the online transaction methods that other platforms have adopted over the decades. The forum will also major on building a secure and cost-effective payment method that will play a significant role in bringing financial services closer to the people, especially in developing countries across the world. This payment platform will offer a two-sided interface that will help consumers and sellers to perform digital transactions without restricting or discriminating anyone from using its services.

Targeting

Swipeseek platform will focus its service provision to service providers such as Small and Medium Enterprises and large enterprises. It will also focus on end consumers and buyers of these enterprises’ products. The company will target the fastest growing market in Asia and America, which has evolved at a rapid speed in the past decade. Such growth has created an increased need for token systems to cashless payments and cash pooling, allowing businesses in online retailing to collect money through customers’ banks without compromising sensitive data. The decline in ATM branches in most of the Asian and North American countries due to net banking and the rise in cards usage has boosted the growth of global online payment methods.

In the United States, the increasing reliance on electronic payment modes for shopping is triggering the need for increased and competitive online payment gateways that provide safe and secure payments. The rising initiatives to promote digital payments across the world, the rise in smartphone proliferation and increasing demand for more unique customer experiences has led to the growth of the Compound Annual Growth Rate. The targeted market segments are changing as consumer behaviors change.

Trends such as mobile banking, cashless economies, digital commerce, instant payments and regulatory agencies’ impacts are increasingly affecting the retail sector creating a need for more online payment methods across Asia and the United States. The COVID- 19 outbreak and the lockdown that has been implemented in many countries worldwide have made people realize the need for online retail and payment with e-commerce sales increasing rapidly. The target market, therefore, recognizes the need for online payment and how it will impact their lives.

Strategic Model

Swipeseek will also use the Porters model apart from the SWOT analysis to determine whether its projected profitability is above or below the average of the online payment industry. The basis for adequate profitability is a sustainable competitive advantage for this platform as compared to other platforms providing the same services (Jurevicius, 2013). Swipeseek will possess a competitive advantage through low costs and differentiation. When it combines these competitive advantages with the activities and objectives that it wants to achieve, three generic strategies derive from them, and they help to achieve above-average performance as compared to other competitive online payment platforms in the world. The three generic strategies include cost leadership, focus and differentiation.

The Porters model is useful because it will help to analyze the competition intensity in the online payment industry and the level of profits expected. This model will help to understand how vital competitive forces affect this industry. These forces include the threat of entry, buyers’ bargaining power, the threat of substitutes and suppliers’ bargaining power. These forces will play a significant role in showing the industry rivalry and whether the profitability levels are enough to push for the start of this platform. The strategy that derives from the use of the Porters model is the Strategic Characterization Matrix (Phillips, 2011). This strategy is in harmony with the confrontation matrix set because it shows which of the strategic objectives should be implemented first by Swipeseek platform. It also determines the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that the platform is likely to face.

Conclusion

Thus, this policy and plan will play a significant role in convincing the government of various countries in Asia to allow its use among their citizens for easier transactions with other countries. Swipeseek will operate in many countries using different currencies and slowly penetrate other markets.