文档内容
Objective
As a consultant in a leading consulting company, you need to work with a team to provide a proposal to
Koupon, a fast-growing e-commerce enterprise, which would like to transform its business that has been and
continues to be copied by an unlimited number of competitors, to a more sustainable and profitable one.
Background
Koupon is a local e-commerce marketplace that connects merchants to consumers by offering goods and
services at a discount in the United States. It operates its business in three categories: Local Deals, Koupon
Goods and Koupon Getaways. The Local Deals category includes deals in product segments, such as food &
drink, plus health & fitness, with local merchants and local events. The Koupon Goods category offers
customers the ability to find deals on merchandise across multiple product lines, such as skin care & health
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care, sporting & outdoors, toys, groceries and men & women ’s fashion. The Koupon Getaways category
includes travel offers, including hotels, airfares and package deals covering both domestic and international
travel. 学
Koupon’s business model is to earn a fee for connecting sellers of merchandise and services with customers
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by means of attractive and discounted offers. They discount a product a product by 50% and pay the
merchant 50% of the discounted sale price. So for a product or service normally retailing at $1, a merchant
will get paid $0.25 of the dollar. This negatively im会pacts Koupon ’s profit from a long-term perspective.
Koupon doesn’t really have a proven sustainable business model as it is struggling with profitability,
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retaining merchants and converting new customers into repeat customers. Koupon has spent heavily every
year on marketing expenses to attract and acquire new customers which is critical in taking the business
from the startup phase and growing审 it into a size where it achieves critical mass. However, very few existing
customers return after their first purchase of Koupon products or services. The following table represents
Koupon ’s financial highlights for its three segments.
：
(in thousands) 2016 2015
b
Revenue/收入:
Local Deals t 700,000 574,000
Getaways 883,000 643,000
Goods 1,064,000 980,000
Total Revenue/总收入 2,647,000 2,197,000
Gross Profits/毛利润:
Local Deals 393,000 377,000
Getaways 567,000 487,000
Goods 150,000 88,000
Total Gross Profit/总毛利润 1,110,000 952,000
Total Operating Expenses/总运营费用 1,080,000 880,000
Total Operating Profit/总运营利润 30,000 72,000The table below shows the percentage breakdown by business segment for Local Deals, Goods and
Getaways in 2016.
Subcategory in Local Deals Business
Food & Health & Delivery & Beauty & Event & Film
Drink Fitness Takeout Spas Tickets
Revenue of Subcategory
as Total Revenue of 23% 13% 11% 25% 28%
Local Deals
Gross Profit of
subcategory as Total 28% 15% 8% 27% 22%
Gross Profit of Local
Deals
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Subcategory in Goods Business
Skin Care Grocery & Men & Women ‘s
Sporting & Baby & toys
& Health 学Household Fashion
Care
Outdoors
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Revenue of Subcategory
24% 15% 30% 12% 19%
as Total Revenue of
Goods 会
Gross Profit of
subcategory as Total 35% 18% 30% 5% 12%
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Gross Profit of Goods
审
Subcategory in Getaways Business
Hotels Airplane & Customized Travel Package
： Tickets Deals
Revenue of Subcategory
36% 30% 34%
as Total Revenue of
b
Getaways
t
Gross Profit of
subcategory as Total 45% 31% 24%
Gross Profit of
Getaways
Competitor Information
Koupon’s direct competitor, Shopwithme currently holds an industry market share of 25% to 30%, followed
by Koupon with 18% to 22%. However, their market positioning seems likely to change in the near future as
Koupon’s other competitor, KNTDeals, is gaining rapidly on Koupon and is expected to catch up by the end
of 2017.
Competition in the online retail sector has heated up. The competitors listed below have distinct business
models with their own characteristics and are more profitable than Koupon. So Koupon ‘s top management
is considering whether Koupon should also develop a more focused strategy in the near future.
⚫ Shopwithme: is Koupon ‘s biggest competitor. It offers selection of more diverse merchandiseincluding baby goods, fashion, beauty products, home goods and decor,books and toys, sporting goods,
electronics and tickets for travel and cultural events. Furthermore, Shopwithme provides two-day
shipping across the United States to its Silver Card holders and even same-day delivery for certain kinds
of products.
⚫ KNTDeals: is a group buying site which is virtually identical to Koupon. KNTDeals, however, focused
on offering discount deals to mothers and new parents rather than generic deals to the general public.
KNTDeals sells products from kids’ toy to high heeled shoes to women ‘s glasses. KNTDeals is focused
on delivering the best deals to busy mothers.
⚫ Yasmere: has its business model focused on offering discount deals on merchandise from some of the
lesser-known specially retailers in the U.S. Each product is first tested by the Yasmere team to ensure
the highest quality standards before low-priced and exclusive discounts are offered.
Tasks
You are participating in a one-day activity today, with 80 minutes in the morning session and 120 minutes in
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the afternoon session. In the morning, you need to consider and discuss with your team how to improve
Koupon ‘s market share and its profitability and present the proposal to Koupon ‘s top management team. In
the afternoon, you will have an interview with the CEO to get a学s much information as you can and then
future discuss and revise your solution and deliver it in a presentation again.
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a) In the morning, you will present how to improve Koupon ‘s market share and its profitability to the
Koupon top management team.
b) In the afternoon, you will interview the CEO of K会oupon to get more information.
c) In the afternoon, you will revise your solution accordingly and present your solutions in a presentation
again, describing how these suggestions impact on the solution you provided in the morning.
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Morning Session
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Timing Activity Output
10min Material Reading
：
40min Case analysis and Work as a team to develop a proposal with
discussion（CN） the corresponding actions.
20min Presentatibon（EN） Everyone should participate in presenting
your proposal in English.
t
10min Assessor debriefing
80min in total
