Cfc Furniture Business Plan

CFC Furniture

Business Plan

Group 8

Zhengyang Yu, Zixiao Zhou, Yuheng Liu, Yiting Wang, Yixing Pu

Entrepreneurial Finance

Instructor: Jeffrey Hooke

Executive summary

Nowadays, twenty something including foreign students moves their houses frequently because of going universities or starting a new job in a new city in the US. There is a market of second-hand furniture for low-income people especially twenty something including foreign students, and it is inconvenient for them because there is no business involving this market. We establish a website which is platform for low-income people especially twenty something including foreign students who have demand to sell or buy second-hand furniture in US. The company’s vision is to become the largest online second-hand furniture platform to help low-income people to sell and buy second-hand furniture in time with a cheap price.

We use a functional organization to arrange our organizational structure by department: marketing, sales and finance. A functional organizational structure works well when small companies are heavily project-focused. We will have a director, two managers and two analysts in each of the department.

The market demand for second-hand furniture has also increased by thirty percent year on year. Second-hand furniture is regarded by many as undesirable and often discarded—a commodity that only poor people consume. For low-income consumers, purchasing second-hand furniture is a conflict-avoidance strategy, a consumer behavior alleviating the burden of poverty.

Social interaction is another motivation occurring during second-hand exchanges. Swap meets, flea markets, vintage/antique fairs, car-boot sales and rummage sales are sites where previous owners and buyers come in direct contact with one another and share information about their second-hand goods.

We build an online sales platform offer both private and commercial sellers a relatively easy way to put their used furniture on the market, for a finite amount of time. Buyers can bid for the used furniture in auctions or, if the seller allows, buy the car instantly.

Since our target clients are low-income group who are not able to afford new furniture, we would make sales projection upon the $30,000 income barrier. Our target share of the furniture market is approximately the low income percentile multiple by size factor (less than $30,000 annual income).

I. Business Opportunity  

- Business Problem

Nowadays, twenty something including foreign students moves their houses frequently because of going universities or starting a new job in a new city in the US. However, there is no furniture in most of renting apartments in the US. It is difficult and costly for people to move their old furniture to the new apartments especially when they move from a city to another city in a long distance like from Washington DC to New York. Most people especially low-income students prefer to selling their old furniture before they move house in second-hand furniture and to buy new furniture with low price in IKEA and second-hand furniture.

However, it takes people a long time to find customer who wants to buy their second-hand furniture because there are little platforms for them to put an advertisement of second-hand furniture. Also, it is difficult to find favorable second-hand furniture with low price. The place they can put advertisement of second-hand furniture or buy second-hand furniture are Ebay, the forum posts of each university, Wechat group or QQ. The second-hand furniture on Ebay are expensive for low-income people like students to buy. The second-hand furniture at forum posts of each university are random and not in a large amount for people to buy. The Wechat group or QQ have limits in 500 people so it is very likely that people cannot find customers to buy their second-hand furniture or people cannot buy the second-hand furniture they want.

The demand for a platform that low-income people can buy and sell second-hand furniture with low price in time is large but there is no such platform in the market. People feel straggle to throw away their furniture without buyers when they movie houses. And it is inconvenient and costly for people to buy new furniture at the new apartment where they will only stay one year or two. There is a market of second-hand furniture for low-income people especially twenty something including foreign students, and it is inconvenient for them because there is no business involving this market.

- The Solution

We establish a website which is platform for low-income people especially twenty something including foreign students who have demand to sell or buy second-hand furniture in US. The online sales platform aims to provide a free platform for people to put advertisement of their second-hand furniture, collect most of target customers in each city in US, sort the second-hand furniture according to types, cities and price, and provide a fast, cheap, and convenient platform for people to sell and buy second-hand furniture.

- Company Overview (Vision/Mission)

The company’s vision is to become the largest online second-hand furniture platform to help low-income people to sell and buy second-hand furniture in time with a cheap price. The mission to achieve the vision is to focus on foreign students’ market first in US to build our brand and expand our reputation. The main task is to attract as much as main customers all over the US. After we have a market of foreign students, we will expand our market to more low-income customers like twenty something especially people start to work.

II. CFC Solution Introduction

- Services

We choose transaction facilitators as our business model, namely, we build an online sales platform offer those who want to sell their second handed furniture a relatively easy way to put these merchandise on the market. When buyers find an ideal furniture, they can make contact with the sellers to discuss the price, shipping method or anything that matters, they can bid for the items, or they can buy them immediately.

- Community

The platform is built based on the geographical position, thus the platform is not only an online shopping website, but also a reginal community. For the customers, the transportation fees can be a huge trouble. If the website can divide customers on the basis of where they are, those transportation fees can be largely reduced, buyers can find sellers more easily, the probability of a successful transaction will be increased. Furthermore, this community can also illustrate consumption level, consumption habit and loads of useful information of customers from different regions. The information we collect through the community is of great value and can be applied to our future decision making when we try to expand our business.