QRT 2 E-Business Task 2
Online Business Expansion Proposal for The Children’s Hour
Western Governors University

Introduction
The Children’s Hour is an upscale fashion boutique specializing in unique women and children’s clothing, accessories, shoes and gifts. It has been in business for 30 years and in 2008, growth prompted a move to a larger location. The store has been very successful without a strong online presence, making online expansion an attractive and low-cost way to increase sales of its already popular merchandise. This online expansion proposal outlines a viable storefront solution, strategies for search engine optimization, international considerations, and customer relationship management in the online environment.
Storefront Solution A dynamic, easy-to-use storefront is critical for online expansion because it provides the portal through which internet customers will browse and shop at The Children’s Hour. We have selected Quick Shopping Cart by Go Daddy as our e-commerce vendor. They offer a premium plan at an annual cost of $299.88. This plan is beneficial for The Children’s Hour because it allows for an unlimited number of products with up to 10 images per product, and also provides a free domain for hosting the store website with a guaranteed 99.9% uptime (GoDaddy, 2014). This benefits customers by avoiding frustrating technical problems that could cause them to abort a transaction. It also benefits The Children’s Hour because technical problems on the website can give customers a negative impression of the store itself. The premium plan includes a merchant account, allowing The Children’s Hour to set up payment options for major credit cards and PayPal, so customers can use their preferred payment method. It also includes a SSL certificate, providing industry-standard encryption security at no additional cost. This is a very important