ShopUp: transforming business through product optimization

Abstract

ShopUp is a desktop application integrated in Facebook which helps the merchants (sellers) who uses Facebook’s ‘pages’ features to run a business. Through ShopUp sellers can sell more by taking advantage of ShopUp’s store management feature where merchants can manage and track their inventory, process and create orders for the buyers ("ShopUp - One stop solution for Facebook Shops.", 2018). In addition to store management, ShopUp application also includes delivery services, Facebook boosting and loans to expand the business where the users can apply from home with minimal paperwork ("ShopUp - One stop solution for Facebook Shops.", 2018). ShopUp currently caters to over 2500+ stores in Facebook. As the number keeps increasing every day, users have difficulties taking advantage of the entire ShopUp platform through cellular devices as the application was primary built for desktop or laptop computers. Because of the recent surge in cheaper smartphones in Bangladesh, mobile phone users increased from 128.3 million in January 2016 to 150.4 million in April 2018 according to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission ("Mobile Phone Subscribers in Bangladesh April, 2018. | BTRC", 2018). Not only that, the existing users having difficulties using the platform when there are not at home or do not have access to a laptop. According to the supervisor of customer support of ShopUp, based on the user feedback, active users are having problem using and accessing the application though their smart phones when they do not have access to the computer. Not only that features like ‘upload product’ for buyers does not work without the internet, that is the entire software is completely depended on having an internet connection which is sometimes very difficult for users when they are in remote locations with telecommunication coverage difficulties. Considering the issues mentioned above, ShopUp plans to address these by optimizing the software to a mobile friendly platform though which the seller can take advantage of the entire ShopUp features to perform their daily operations. This research paper studies the viability of moving the software from a desktop platform to a mobile platform through product optimization and extension. The research will emphasize and find the problems associated with the current version of the ShopUp software used by the user, so that the problems in the desktop software will not be carried forward to the mobile version of the software. In addition to that, we will also find to add more features which are essential for the users to perform their day to day operations easily. Such as, business analytics, where the user can see their growth in sales vi (increasing or declining), number of customers (increasing or declining), most sold products, top customers which will be represented in graphs and charts with accounting feature where the user can calculate their profit and loss.