Proposal for Setting Up Bookshop near University Concentration Area

 Proposal for Setting Up Bookshop near University Concentration Area

 Abstract: In this paper, I proposed a project of setting up a university bookshop near the university concentration area. My aim is to set up a modern bookshop community center. The bookshop can provide the services of books buying, borrowing, and E-commerce selling to the students, teachers and other customers. Based on my investigation results, the address of the bookshop locates in a bookshop street near the university concentration area. My final objective is to develop a successful bookshop which has a stable reading group and realize the total distribution amount of $30000 monthly. With a detail analysis on financial performance, I find that only the numbers of the books sold reach 400 and the books borrowed reach 600 monthly at the start of the project, the bookshop can be developed.

Introduction
 Most of the bookshops locate the places near the flourishing market area or university concentration area. The above two places can easily keep the distribution capacity of the bookshops. It can be seen that my proposed project of setting up a bookshop near the university concentration area faces lots of challenges.
 Based on some investigation results near a university concentration area, I proposed the project of setting up a bookshop in a bookshop street near the university concentration area. My objective is to develop a modern bookshop. The shop can provide the services of books buying, borrowing, and E-commerce selling. The customers mainly include the students, teachers and other customers near the university concentration area. The services provided by the existing bookshops do not fully satisfy the requirements of the customers. The shortage of book resources and the single selling method are the reason for the customers’ complaint. Based on my investigation and questionnaire results, SWOT Analysis is done to my proposed bookshop. With a detail financial analysis on the bookshop, I find that only the numbers of the books sold reach 400 and the books borrowed reach 600 monthly at the start of the project, the bookshop can be continued to deal in. My final objective is to develop a successful bookshop which has a stable reading group and realize the total distribution amount of $30000 monthly. In order to realize my objective, a detail 3 seasons action plan is made. According the action plan, the risk analysis and management is done. I find that normative rules constituted can effectively avoid most of the risks.

Finding
  In order to learn about the feasibility of setting up the bookshop near the university concentration area, find the potential opportunities and the response of the customers near the university concentration area, I did some investigations from three aspects, including bookshop location investigation and customer investigation.
 First, the investigation on bookshop location
 In order to find the location of the bookshop, I have to consider the problems of address selection, business area, the floor, building structure and shape of the address so on. There are two choices for me to select the address of the bookshop. Several bookshops have been set up in a bookshop street near the university concentration area. A stable reading group has been come into being here. Several small supermarkets are in other streets, and the people flow is not big. If I selected the bookshop in other street, I have to consider the business area. There are lots of problems, including the size of the bookshop, the area difference between the rented and used, the floor, business area, the floor, building structure and shape of the address so on. The area is about 50-100mm2 for the above bookshops in the bookshop street, and they are well operation for many years, so I do not worry about the above bookshop location problems, which saved my investigation time.
 Second, the investigation on the customers near the university concentration center
 The customers of my proposed bookshop mainly include college students, graduates, teachers and other resident. In order to find the potential business opportunities, I did a questionnaire to obtain the response of the customers. The content of the questionnaire is listed as follows:
 1. How about your present occupation? Student, teacher, or else?
 2. What type of books do you like to read? Study, Exam, Science, Novel, Biography, Poesy, Travel, Health, Sports,
Journal, or else?
 3. What type of books did you buy recently? Study, Exam, Science, Novel, Biography, Poesy, Travel, Health, Sport,
Journal, or else?
  4. Do you satisfy the services provided by the bookshops in the university concentration area? Good, common, not good?
You think what aspects of the services provided by the bookshops should be improved?
  5. What style do you like to read the books? Buy or borrow?
  6. What style do you select to buy the book? By Internet or go to bookshop?
   For the results of the questionnaire, I find that different groups have different requirements for the books. For most of the students, they like to read the types of book including science, novel, biography, sports and journal; the books in study and exam are bought more recently; 30% of the college students do not satisfy the services provided by the bookshops, 20% of them think that some books they want to read in the bookshops can not be found and hope the bookshops can enrich their books.10% of them do not satisfy the service attitude of the sellers and hope the sellers can improve their service attitude. 70% of the college students like to borrow the books to read. 60% of the college students like to buy the book by the internet. Most of them presented the suggestions of providing the services of buying book by the internet and sending service. The difference for the reading group of the teachers is big, 40% of them like to read novel, biography, poesy and journal type books. 30% of them like to read science, travel, health and sports type books. 20% of them like to read study and exam type books. 10% of them select else. 20% of the teachers show their complaints for the services provided by the bookshops, and they think that the books are not rich and some books can not be found. 80% of them like to buy the books to read. Most of them like to buy the books by going to the bookshops. Most of them give the suggestions of enriching the books to make them buy the books they want to read.
 According to the investigation results, I give the SWOT Analysis for the proposed bookshop in the aspects of strengths , weakness, opportunities and threats.
Strengths
 First, much time can be saved by locating the bookshop in the bookshop street because many problems mentioned above can be avoided. Second, the complaints from the customers can be my strengths if I solve their problems
Weakness
 First, there are big competitions from other bookshops. The better locations in the bookshop street have been selected by other bookshop sellers. Hence, I have to select a common location in the street. The people flow in the common location is less than that in the better locations. Second, some fixed and stable reading groups have been come into being in the existing bookshops. However, I have o develop new reading groups in my bookshop, which will need a long time (at least half a year).
Opportunities
 There are three potential opportunities as mentioned above. If I can enrich the book resources and make the customers can buy the book that other bookshops do not have, the selling quantity of the books can be more than other bookshops. The second opportunity is the selling method. Most of the students like to buy the book by the internet and other bookshops do not realize the better selling method, I can grasp this potential opportunity to develop E-commerce selling method and provide the service of sending the books to the readers directly. The third opportunities is enlarging the service range of my bookshop, other bookshops do not provide the service of borrowing books. I can develop this service and enlarge the reading group of my bookshop.Threats
 First, I have to face the threat of other shops. If I can not keep a good relationship with other shops, I have to close my bookshop door to avoid their comments. Second, I have to face the external problems such as power supply, the charge of the bookshelves, the delay of stock, and the quality of the books so on. Third, I have to face the threats of order withdraw, the breakage and loss of the borrowed books.
Financial performance analysis
 In order to keep the stable operation of my bookshop, a detail financial performance analysis is done, as shown in the followed list 1:
                  List.1 Financial performance analysis for the proposed bookshop
Investing money Costing Amount Marketing distribution  Distribution Amount
Rental pay(Including power and water pay) $5000/month 600 books/month sold  $12000
Materials(10000 stocked +200 updated books) $100000 (Fixed)+$2000/month 1000 books/month borrowed $10000
Equipment(Bookshelves, gathering equipment, etc) $5000(Fixed) Total Distribution Amount $22000
Staff wages (Two staffs) $5000/month Profit $8000/month
Consultants $500/month  
Revenue  $1000/month  
Service contingency $500/month  
Total Costing Amount $105000(Fixed)+$14000/month  
 It can be seen that the starting investment money is at least about $119000. Assuming the marketing distribution is 600 books sold and 1000 books borrowed monthly, the profit can reach $8000/month. In order to keep the operation of the bookshop, the total distribution amount is at least $14000 monthly with zero profit. At the start of the project, if the numbers of the books sold reach 400 and the books borrowed reach 600 monthly, the bookshop can be continued to deal in.
Schedule
 In order to manage the bookshop successfully and realize my final objective of having a stable reading group and realize the total distribution amount of $30000 monthly, I give a three-step scheme. First, the total distribution amount reaches at least $14000/month at the first season. Second, stable reading group can be come into being in my bookshop and the total distribution amount reaches at least $22000 monthly at the second season. Third, continue to enlarging the reading group and realize the final objective of having a stable reading group to keep the total distribution amount of $30000. A detail action plan is listed, as shown in List.2.
List.2 Action plan for my objective
Season 1 Action plan Season 2 Action plan Season 3 Action plan
Week 1-2 Decorate the bookshop, stoke the book resource,
 Week 1-2 Promulgate the advertisement, do questionnaire to the read group and other customers Week 1-2 Promulgate the advertisement, do questionnaire to the read group and other customers
Week 3-4 Recruit staffs,
Promulgate the advertisement for the bookshop practice
 Week 3-4 Promulgate the advertisement, improve the service quality according to the questionnaire investigation result, update the books  Week 3-4 Promulgate the advertisement, improve the service quality, update the books
Week 5-6 Promulgate the advertisement, develop the service of borrowing book and E-commerce business  Week 5-6 Promulgate the advertisement, do investigation on the E-commerce business  Week 5-6 Promulgate the advertisement, do marketing investigation and find other selling method
Week 7-8 Promulgate the advertisement, update the books Week 7-8 Continue to promulgate the advertisement, Find way to enlarge the E-commerce business, update the books Week 7-8 Promulgate the advertisement, develop a novel selling method, update the books a
Week 9-10 Promulgate the advertisement, go to find more book resources Week 9-10 Promulgate the advertisement, Go to find cooperation Week 9-10 Promulgate the advertisement, assess the result of the novel selling method
Week 11-12 Promulgate the advertisement, update the books, do financial performance analysis Week 11-12 Promulgate the advertisement, update the books, assess the service quality of the staffs, do financial performance analysis Week 11-12 Promulgate the advertisement, update the books, do financial performance analysis, make another three seasons plan

Risk and Management Plans
 
 According to my action plan, I do the risk analysis and management, List.3 shows the results.
 List.3 Risk analysis and management 
 Items Risk   Management
People-related 1.Customers’ dissatisfactory to our services
2.Staffs’ mistakes in selling
3.Competitors dissatisfactory to our bookshop
4.Book resource providers’ mistakes  Normative rules should be constituted to avoid the people-related risks
Time-related 1.Delay in stoking
2.Dealy in sending
3.Dealy in returning the books borrowed Normative rules should also be constituted
Product-related Quality problem Selecting the well-know book resource providers
Money-related Sustain losses in business  Finding relative cooperation

Conclusions
 A project of setting up a university bookshop near the university concentration area is presented. The aim is to set up a modern bookshop in a bookshop street near the university concentration area. My final objective is to develop a successful bookshop which has a stable reading group and realize the total distribution amount of $30000 monthly. In this paper, the methods of investigation, questionnaire, SWOT Analysis, financial performance analysis, and risk analysis and management are applied in this paper. I find that the bookshop to be located in a bookshop street near the university concentration area is good choice; the shortage of book resources and the single selling method are the reason for the customers’ complaint; only the numbers of the books sold reach 400 and the books borrowed reach 600 monthly at the start of the project, the bookshop can be continued to deal in; normative rules constituted can effectively avoid most of the risks.
In order to realize my objective, a detail 3 seasons action plan is made.