1.1 Objectives
The College Cafe will strive to achieve the following objectives:
- Become the leading Internet student-to-student marketplace.
- Attract 500,000 registered users in the first year.
- Achieve 50,000 visits per month.
- Establish sustainable profitability within the first year.
1.2 Market
The U.S. college student market is a growing yet underserved niche market. The U.S. Department of Education expects the U.S. college student market to grow from 15.8 million students to 17.2 million in the next five years. According to Harris Interactive college students are expected to spend over $200 billion this year.
1.3 Management Summary
The strength of The College Cafe's management team stems from the combined expertise in both management and technical areas. The College Cafe recognizes that additional staff is required to properly support marketing, sales, research, and support functions. Currently, The College Cafe is supported by three people with experience in e-commerce strategy, website architecture and design and graphic design. Additional employees may be required in the areas of senior level management, Web development, marketing, sales, human resources/recruiting, administration, customer support and other critical operational positions.
The College Cafe will utilize current college students to fill positions in the areas of regional campus marketing, local advertisement sales, administration, customer support other non-critical operational positions. These positions will be full-time, part-time and intern positions depending on the local market. Using current college students will enable The College Cafe to receive inexpensive local employment and valuable market feedback from The College Cafe's target market while also providing real world work experience to college students.
The College Cafe will utilize consultants and contractors during website enhancements and development efforts. At this time The College Cafe is seeking individuals for a Board of Directors. These individuals will include highly qualified business and industry professionals/experts along with members of the investment team. These individuals will assist our management team in making appropriate decisions, forming strategic alliances and taking the most effective action to be the industry leader.
1.4 Target Market Segment Strategy
1.4.1 Overview Of Online College Bookstore
The Online College Bookstore is a model for that implemented in a College Cafe. It is a student-to-student Internet marketplace providing college students with the opportunity to buy, sell and trade college textbooks, participate in auctions, post classified ads, provide teacher evaluations, and buy products for college. The College Cafe will enable students to buy, sell, and trade used textbooks directly to other students, by-passing the university bookstores. By selling textbooks to other students, the seller can receive more money than the bookstore will pay and the buyer can pay less than the bookstore charges. In addition to textbooks, students will be able to sell class notes, old tests, computers, dorm accessories, used CDs, tutoring services or anything students wish to sell via an online student-to-student marketplace. In addition, the College Cafe will offer other services such as classifieds, teacher evaluations, weblogs (bloggers), specialized content and retail.
The College Cafe will establish itself as the leading online student-to-student marketplace by combining extensive market-specific expertise with Internet technologies to generate revenue while creating a win-win solution for students. The College Cafe's target market consists of over 15.8 million college students who spend $200 billion annually.
The College Cafe was founded in July and is presently in its start-up stage. The College Cafe website has been in operation with limited functionality since August of last year. The College Cafe is currently being test marketed at Georgia State University.The College Cafe will achieve market dominance by utilizing extensive domain experience, a local grass roots marketing strategy, an exceptional management team, superior software, and the formation of strategic alliances, memberships and partnerships with companies within the college market.
1.4.2 Market Expected
The U.S. college student market is a growing yet underserved niche market. The U.S. Department of Education expects the U.S. college student market to grow from 15.8 million students to 17.2 million in the next five years. According to Harris Interactive college students are expected to spend over $200 billion this year.
The potential market for The College Cafe consists of 15.8 million college students enrolled in over 4,180 institutions. For the Phase 1 launch of The College Cafe, the plan is to focus in marketing effort on a subset market located in the Southeastern U.S. Their plan to expand to new markets with a phased approach focusing on a new region of the country each semester. The Phase 1 target market segment will consist of the following universities:
| University/College | Enrollment |
| Auburn University | 21,505 |
| Clemson University | 16,396 |
| East Carolina University | 18,271 |
| Emory University | 11,300 |
| Florida State University | 30,401 |
| Georgia State University | 23,000 |
| Georgia Tech | 13,800 |
| Miami-Dade Community College | 46,834 |
| Mississippi State University | 15,628 |
| North Carolina State | 28,281 |
| Tulane University | 10,921 |
| University of Alabama | 18,342 |
| University of Florida | 45,114 |
| University of Georgia | 31,280 |
| University of Kentucky | 23,540 |
| University of Miami | 13,651 |
| University of North Carolina | 24,368 |
| University of South Carolina | 25,447 |
| University of Tennessee | 25,401 |
| Total | 419,940 |
Phase 2 will focus on additional colleges and universities located in the southeast with the addition of colleges and universities in the Northeast.
1.4.3 Why We Choose This Bussiness Plan
The College Cafe business plan is one of Online College Bookstore. This business plan is implemented in College environment which is suitable and understandable for us to be chosen. The flow of the plan will be a benefit among the student if they want to implement such of business plan. One of the reason is students are looking for convenient, money saving ways to purchase textbooks and to receive more value when re-selling textbooks at the end of each semester. Because of the employee and customer are the students themselves, finally this kind of business plan will enthusiastic college students to find ways to get "quick cash" at the end of every semester.
1.5 Summary
The U.S. college student market is a growing yet under-served niche market. The U.S. Department of Education expects the U.S. college student market to grow from 15.8 million students in 2003 to 17.2 million in 2008. According to a Harris Interactive study conducted in the spring of 2002, college students spend an estimated $200 billion dollars per year. As of 2003, it is estimated that college students were spending $1.4 billion online.
John Geraci, Vice President of Youth Research at Harris Interactive concludes: "The college consumer is easily overlooked since most information sources that marketers rely on for tracking consumer behavior tend to under-represent college students. However, it is a consumer group that marketers should recognize as offering substantial opportunity. Connecting with consumers during the college years can pay great dividends, both now and well into the future.
The College Cafe will offer college students a unique blend of products, services, and content that is not offered by any single company on the Internet. The College Cafe will aggregate participants, products, services and content to create a student-to-student marketplace.