Foreign Trade University

___________

E-commerce Group project – Final Report

Candle Land - Scented candle online shop

Subject: E-commerce – TMA306E

Teacher: Dr. Nguyen Thi Hong Van
Group 11: Do Thanh Dat 1912280007
Nguyen Thi Yen Nhi 1912280720
Doan Dieu Thuy 1912280025
Dang Thanh Vinh 1912280551

Ha Noi, November 28th, 2021

I. Introduction
When life gets busy and the pace becomes hurried, there are moments when we want to escape this noisy
city to find a haven for our souls.
It can be a beach with golden sand sparkling in the sun with the refreshing smell of salty sea water.
It can be a green forest with the smell of trees, woods, and grass.
Wherever you want to go, let the scent guide you.
With the aim of bringing an experience of feeling like being on a trip, Candleland wants to create a
connection between the scent and the customer's dream destination, so that each time the candle lights up is
a once we are freed from the constraints of geography to enjoy our trip.

II. Business plan

1. Analysis

a. SWOT

Strengths − low start-up cost

− low producing and processing cost
− meaningful and unique products
− effective and strategic use of e-platforms

Weaknesses − inadequate knowledge on candles and scents

− inability in mass production
− insustainable amount of customers
− financial limitations

Opportunities − adaptation to current situation of Covid-19 pandemic

− willingness to learn and practice

Threats − Ambiguous demand: Vietnamese people haven't got the habit of lighting candles,
questioning if it's just trendy and goes out-of-fashion one day.
− Difficult in pricing
− Appearance of similar products
− Huge competitive firms
− Large number of competitors

2. Porter’s 5 forces analysis

Competitive − The number of competitors is high, products are diverse, product quality also has a
Rivalry big difference between brands.
− few loyal customers, low brand identity
 − Easy entry of new competitors due to low barriers to entry

Supplier Power − There are many suppliers that produce raw materials of candle, it will be easy to
switch to a cheaper alternative
− The quality of raw materials is not much different

Buyer Power − The number of customers is not large, the number of purchases is not small but
often
− Customers have a high rate of using substitute products
− High price sensitive

Threat of − Many replacement products with the same quality and design / not much difference
Substitution − Substitute products can overcome the weaknesses of candles, but there are very few
to replace them completely

Threat of New − Small business model, does not require much capital
Entry − Products do not have high requirements on machinery, materials and gray matter,
so new brands can easily enter
− Customers are almost not loyal to one brand, but use many different brands and are
willing to change to use a new brand.

3. 4Ps
a. Product
− specialty good
− environmentally friendly materials, safe for users
− Wide range of products, unique in fragrance, diverse in designs and colors
b. Price
− fixed price 186,000
c. Place
− Direct sales to individual customers
− Multi-channel options:
• online: e-commerce platform, fanpage, website
• offline: store in Hanoi
d. Promotion
− Advertising: social media, mail...
− Print flyers
 − Loyalty strategies, lucky draws, promotional cards, event-based programs of the year
− Organize candle making contests for customers, for example making candles for mom...

4. STP
a. Segmentation
− Geography: Vietnam, Big cities
− Demographic:
• individuals: ages: 15-25, 18-30, 22-50, man and women, income from 10 million VND per
month
• wholesale: supermarkets, coffee shop, hotels, event organizers,...
− Psychographic:
• People who like small things, decorate house and living space, love travelling, romantic
space
• Busy, do not have much free time
• Willing to pay for luxury products, enjoy living
− Behaviour
• Social networks’ frequent users
• Having a habit of shopping online
• Buy for personal use, or as a present
• Know/used scented candles or substitute products
b. Targeting:
− Individual customers who love home decoration, love cute little things, love romantic spaces,
age from 18-30, usually buy online products and used scented candle or substitute products
before, love travel but do not have much free time, love enjoying life and trying new things
− Positioning:
• Bring to customers luxury quality products with a suitable price
• Let the light lead you to your dream destinations
• To reach the market, shop posts stories of each candle on Fanpage to attract customers to
read, like, share, have marketing promotions on social media, cooperate with KOLs, ...

5. 8 key elements
a. Value Proposition:
− The variety of scents which are the symbols of cities.
− Quality assurance
− Convenient to order
− Reduction of product search
b. Revenue model
 − Sales Revenue model
− Advertising Revenue model
c. Market Opportunity
− Hotels, resorts
− Basic consumers
− Book stores
d. Competitive environment
− Traditional Candle Retailer
− Many Candle E-Tailers
− Fragrance Oil Shop
e. Competitive Advantage:
− Unique and meaningful products: help customers travel at their place.
− Lower cost
− Excellent Customer Service
f. Market Strategy
− Online Marketing:
• Run ads on many social networking sites like Facebook and Instagram
• VIP discount (especially for hotels, resorts or bookstore that often order our candles)
• Free shipping over 200,000 VND
• 5% discount for customer check-ins and post on social media
− Offline Marketing:
• Promotion “Buy a collection of 4 candles and get 20% discount”
• 5% discount if customers’ hometowns and the candle matched (city)
g. Organizational Development
− Sales and Shipping Department
− Marketing Department
− Customer Service Department
− Product Development Department (Future)
h. Management Teams
− Have credibility to investor
− Has experience in candle industry

6. Revenue Model
a. Online sales : 65% total revenue (Facebook 35%, Wix website 30%)
b. Online advertise : 5% total revenue
c. Shop Sales: 30% total revenue
III. Web presence

In this day and age, thanks to the arrival of Digital era 4.0, every aspects in human life has been digitalized
and every distant has been shorten. With more and more people entering online communities, it has become
more and more easier for entrepreneurs to get access to their targeted customer. Hence, we reached a
conclusion that is to build and make effective use of internet platforms to perform our business.

1. Logo and color pallet

Decisions on the logo and color pallet are obviously important which ensures your brand and products will
enter in people’s minds. Our brand identity emphasizes simplicity and familiarity through two colors as
shown below. The logo was created using Adobe Photoshop symbolizing our unique and meaningful
products.

2. Gmail
ID: group11ftu@gmail.com
Gmail is a powerful tool in creating web presence which helps creating accounts on other platforms and
ensures the connections between them. Additionally, one gmail account also eases the adminstration of these
platforms. Registing to Gmail is quite easy through the following steps
− Step 1: Enter sign-in interface and click “create an account” and choose “to manage my business”.e
− Step 2: Fill in the forms with your required information.

− Step 3: Complete information on security and you have successfully created my business account.
 3. Website (created by Wix)
Link to frontpage: https://group11ftu.wixsite.com/candle-land
Wix is a well-known platform that facilitates users to create their own designs including logo, website,…
More interestingly, Wix’s users are not required to learn about coding but only need to concentrate on the
website’s visuals and functions. Specifically, HTML5 websites and mobile sites can both be developed
through the simple use of online drag and drop tools.
To create a website for our business, we are required to register with our Gmail account and start designing
as presented in following steps.
− Step 1: Register with Gmail account

− Step 2: Start designing and developing the website

− Step 3: Public the website
Our website provides an automatic chat feature. We have developed our own chatbot script which helps
enhance interactions with our customers.
Key words
1 xin chào, cho mình hỏi,
2 sản phẩm, nến thơm, Mộc
Châu, Huế, Đắk Lắk, Phú
Quốc
3 sales, khuyến mãi, giảm giá
4 tiền, giá
5 Không chứa từ khóa nêu trên
4. Shopee
Link: https://shopee.vn/shop/601582721/
Automatic reply
Xin chào, Candle Land chúng mình có thể giúp gì được cho bạn?
Cảm ơn bạn đã quan tâm đến sản phẩm nến thơm của chúng
mình.Nến thơm của chúng mình có 4 loại: nến thơm Mộc Châu,
nến thơm Huế, nến thơm Đắk Lắk và nến thơm Phú Quốc. Mỗi loại
có mùi hương đặc trưng cho vùng địa lý ở đó. Chúng mình còn có
thể giúp gì được bạn nữa không?
Chúng mình đã thông báo về chương trình khuyến mãi trên page và
website. Bạn hãy truy cập <link> nhé. Chúng mình còn có thể giúp
gì được bạn nữa không?
Cảm ơn bạn đã quan tâm đến sản phẩm nến thơm của chúng mình.
Nến thơm của chúng mình có 4 loại: nến thơm Mộc Châu, nến
thơm Huế, nến thơm Đắk Lắk và nến thơm Phú Quốc. Các sản
phẩm đều có giá 186,000 đồng. Chúng mình còn có thể giúp gì
được bạn nữa không?
Cảm ơn bạn đã quan tâm đến Candle Land. Hãy chờ một vài phút,
tư vấn viên của Candle Land sẽ có mặt để giải đáp thắc mắc của
bạn nha.
Shopee is a popular C2C and B2C e-commerce platform. It acts as a supporter for many brands and firms’
business. Moreover, it is among the most consumed e-commerce platforms in many countries. In Vietnam,
in 2021, despites of severe attacks from the pandemic Covid-19, Shopee still witnessed remarkable growth
with numerous champaign deals. To register our shop on Shopee, we made the following steps.
− Step 1: Register with Gmail account and click “Kenh nguoi ban”

− Step 2: Fill in the forms with information on your address and contacts
− Step 3: Add your products with its price and other necessary information. After that, click “Cap
nhat” to public your products
On Shopee, we also update our own chatbot script which helps enhance interactions with our customers.
 5. Facebook
Link: https://www.facebook.com/candleand
Facebook is the most popular social network around the world with 3.78 millions monthly active users.
More importantly, the huge number of users means a giant amount of access. As a result, having a fanpage
on Facebook promises to get our brand to access to people who may become our customers. Creating a page
on Facebook is shown through the steps below.
− Step 1: Sign in with your own Facebook account and click “Page” on the left task bar. Click
“Create new page” and fill in the form with required information

− Step 2: Enter the page to upgrade logo on avatar and cover page to customize

− Step 3: Choose Settings to change necessary settings and add administrator who shares the control
of the page
 − Step 4: Post your products

On our Facebook page, our own chatbot script is also updated which helps enhance interaction with our
customers. Further than chat features, we also customized automatic commenting as a way to be able to
update our customers with the products.

6. Instagram
Link: https://www.instagram.com/__candleland/
Instagram is a growing social network which is well-known for its aesthetic interface. Our brand introduces
our products on Instagram through steps below.
− Step 1: Fill in registration form with our gmail account
− Step 2: Upload the logo as avatar picture
− Step 3: Post your products and related information
 On Instagram, we make use of features such as Story to provide content with the aim to engage our
customers to our products. The interface is also effectively used to represent our brand identity and concept.

IV. Limitation
Due to the limited budget, we can not invest in better marketing strategy. If we had more money, we would
expand our promotions through more platforms, such as Google and Youtube. Besides, as the time goes by,
improving Website is a must. In the long term, we will purchase our own URL to get rid of “wix” in our web
link.
At the moment, we only accept online order through inbox and DM on Facebook and Instagram
respectively. After more serious discuss and research, we will decide on selling our products on market
place on Facebook.
Last but not least, we have a plan of providing a product named “Your dream travel” which allows
custimization on scents and packages. But it would be only performed onced our budget is extended.

V. Work evaluation
No. Member Tasks Hours Notes
1 Do Thanh Dat − Design logo 12
− Make presentation slides
2 Nguyen Thi Yen Nhi − Build Web presence 12
− Complete final report
3 Doan Dieu Thuy − Develop introduction and business plan 12
4 Dang Thanh Vinh − Develop business plan 12
− Post products and brand information on e-commerce
platforms

VI. References
Laudon, Keneth C, and Traver, Carol Guercio. E-commerce: business, technology, society. Pearson,
13th ed., 2017.
KoKo. Kinh doanh nến thơm – Bắt đầu từ đâu?. NemNem, Jan 08, 2021,
https://www.nemnem.vn/kinh-doanh-nen-thom-bat-dau-tu-dau.

City of Scent – Những thành phố kể câu chuyện mùi hương. Morra, https://morra.vn/the-city-of-scent-
nhung-thanh-pho-ke-cau-chuyen-mui-huong/.