Proposal – A Chocolate Cake Bakery in Seattle (Revised)

Team members:

Chao-Wei Wu & Yu-Lan H. Loken

Subject:

A website structure and business plan for a chocolate specific bakery located in Seattle.

Significance:

Seattle is a city with a great diversity of restaurants and food stores, but being one of the major American cities, it is surprisingly to know that there isn’t any Chocolate specific cake bakery in Seattle. We can find cheesecake stores, smoke salmon stores, Russian bread bakeries, Chinese and Greek restaurants, but there is no such a place where chocolate frenzies can find all kinds of Chocolate cakes. Usually they go to regular bakeries to buy chocolate cakes, but for serious chocolate goers where they can order heavy-chocolate-pudding-cake, or chocolate cappuccino cake, they either bake the cakes themselves or maybe just forget about it.

It could be a good chance to open a bakery that is only focus on Chocolate cakes. For a new business starter, starting an online store first would be a budget-saving solution. The website would have pictures and descriptions of every flavor, customers can review, order and even custom-make their cakes online.

Every featured promotion would be seen on the interactive website. The website would be easy to understand and easy to use, also, customers are allowed to design their own cakes on the website just by easy steps.

Case study:

1. The Confectional

http://www.theconfectional.com/boutique/

We’ll exam the case of The Confectional cheesecake specific bakery in Seattle, who successful opened a store only sells cheesecake in 2006.

The scope of final deliverables:

We will study the rules of IBS (Internet Business Solutions), website design rules and similar cases to support our plans. Further, we will deliver a website structure , the challenges it might face, and finally, the possible future for this chocolate specific bakery in Seattle.

Reference books:

1. Norman, D.A. (2004). Emotional Design, NY: Basic Books

Emotion is a part of our lives, affecting our thoughts and behaviors. Even in decision-making, we partly depend on our emotion. Sometimes, we do not really know why we make the decision, just because it feels right, and this is how emotion affects us.

The book separates a good design into three different aspects: Visceral, Behavioral and reflective. Visceral is the design’s appearances, including the aesthetic while using it and not using it. Behavioral considers the pleasure and effectiveness of use. Reflective has to do with the rationalization and intellectualization of a product, which is the design may generate a certain discussion or a story of it.

We could follow the three design aspects to design our products and services, which is a way to arouse certain emotion of customers and make the business flourish.

2. Tufte, E.R. (1997). Visual Explanation, CT: Graphics Press

The book is mainly about how to make explanation by graphics. In our project, we may need to design our menus, product instructions, promotion, advertisement, etc. We have to do it in a more attractive and creative way to attract customers and the book may be a useful reference.

3. Nielson, Jakob (2000). Designing Website Usability, IN: New Riders

This book introduces the basic rules of designing a usable website. We will follow the guidelines provided by the book and try to design a website that meets our customers’ needs.

References:

Wade, M., Johnston, D., & McClean, R. (Nov 8, 2004). Exploring the net impact of internet business solution adoption on SME performance. International Journal of Electronic Business, 2, 4. p.336. Retrieved October 22, 2008, from Expanded Academic ASAP via Gale:
http://find.galegroup.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/itx/start.do?prodId=EAIM

Lorber L. (2008, September 5). Small Business Link: QA: Building a Brand Around a Personality :Online edition. Wall Street Journal  (Eastern Edition),  p. 0.  Retrieved October 22, 2008, from ProQuest National Newspapers Core database.