NB: This is a sample project.
The main purpose for this
project was to come up with a system that will allow interactive marketing
online between both the farmers and the customers. The system is web
application that provide a platform for both the farmer’s and customers interactions.
The website allow the registration of farmers, uploading of their products,
their prices and required details in to the e-web-store display. On the other
hand, the system will also allow registration of customers, login, making an
order of products, secure payment mode and a customer delivery form that will
help the delivery of the product. The system will generate an automated short
message service (SMS) that confirms the ordered products with the required payment.
It will also offer a platforms for customer-farmer interactions, a blog that
enables the customers to reach the farmers. It can be applied by both individual
farmers and regional agriculture organizations. The system can also be integrated
with stores, county websites as well as National Irrigation Board sites in
enlarging market for farmer in the region.
Interactive marketing
system for farmers is a web based application. The main aim was to improve the
interactions of customers and farmers in Mwea irrigation scheme. It ensures
that customers from different part of the country are enabled to acquire
different types of rice from the farmers. The system is maintaining customer’s
payments, receipts, addition of new customers, products and also updating,
deletion for the same. It also support the uploading of farmers’ products,
viewing the ordered products form his online store and confirmation of
delivery. It supports system generated message to the customers after
completion of the order. This ensures high accuracy, design flexibility and
availability. The system provides search feature for customers that enables one
to find specific items of their interest. The payment mode is through M-Pesa.
The system will involve
three interfaces, that is, customer, farmers and system Admin. The system will
use SQL databases, JAVA –Scripts, PHP, CSS and HTML languages to execute its functions.
Kirinyaga County has
gradually grown in rice production. There is increased demand of rice both
locally and internationally especially the Pishori type. However, the increased
production has not raised the equal returns simultaneously to the farmers. This
is due to the poor marketing systems that do not provide a wide market
interaction between the farmer and the customers. For instance, presence of middle
men who exploit farmers by buying products at low cost and sells at high cost.
Hence the farmers are discouraged to continue with rice production due to low
returns of their production. Therefore there is a need to develop a system that
would enable efficient seller - buyer interaction.
i.
To develop an interactive system that will
create an efficient communication between famers and their customers in the
least cost possible.
i.
To study the current literature about
marketing.
ii.
To determine the requirements in the
efficient online marketing system.
iii.
To develop and implement a more efficient
online rice marketing system.
iv.
To test the prototype of online rice
marketing system.
v.
To recommend on the adoption of the new system.
The project scope was
major on marketing and distribution of rice at Mwea irrigation scheme in
Kirinyaga County to rest of the country.
The
system allowed the following;
1.
Allows the users (both the customers and the vendors) to register and login.
2.
Allows the farmers to upload their products with their prices.
3.
Allows automatically generate a confirmation message after transaction to the customer
(SMS).
4.
Enables the administrator to monitor the transactions.
5.
Provide an online platform for prospective buyer to communicate with the
farmer.
6.
Allow the updates, deletion and addition of products and customers.
7.
Displays products for farmers to
customers.
8.
Provide a platform for farmers to send feedback to the prospective buyers.
9.
Provide interactive session to hold discussions, through the system website,
Blogs, Facebook and twitter accounts.
10.
Allows produce receipts in the transaction.
11.
The farmer carries out delivery process at payment confirmation.
However
though the system is a brilliant idea it has the following limitation.
1.
Connectivity-sometimes internet is low or not accessible at all in some parts
of Kenya. This disables the marketing services. The communication between the
vendor and the customers is affected.
2.
Illiteracy/ignorance-not all members are interested of embracing technology,
some because of lack of enough knowledge and skills to operate the system,
while others are satisfied with current standards of living.
3.
The system involves one type of product, rice, this due to limited time for the
development of the system
1.
Laptop
2.
Mobile phone
3.
External hard disk (500GB)
4.
Printer
5.
Printing papers.
5.
Notepad++
6.
Xampp
7. Microsoft
office 2013
8. Windows 7
operating system
|
ITEM
|
QUANTITY
|
PRICE(KSH)
|
|
Laptop
|
1
|
40000.00
|
|
Mobile
phone
|
1
|
3000.00
|
|
External
hard disk(500GB)
|
1
|
5000.00
|
|
Xampp
|
1
|
200.00
|
|
printer
|
1
|
9000.00
|
|
Printing papers
|
1rim
|
500.00
|
|
Microsoft office 2013
|
1
|
500.00
|
|
TOTAL COST(KSH)
|
7
|
22,200.00
|
|
|
MARCH
|
APRIL
|
|
WEEKS
ACTIVITIES
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
|
Proposal and Feasibility study
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Requirement analysis
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
System design
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
User interface design
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Coding
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Testing
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Implementation
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Documentation
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Kirinyaga County is faced by great challenge
due poor old marketing methods. My main aim is creating larger market for the
rice farmers through providing an efficient communication platform between
farmers and customers. The high rice demand can also be justified by current
high rice requests in personal blogs for instance wanjohikibui.blogspot.co.ke
by Wanjohi Kibui in the website life in GIS 2017. The system will provide a
formal grounds for farmer-customer interaction as the as well as a platform for
buying goods online. The customers will be able to communicate their interests
to the producers enabling relevance in not production but also in packaging for
distribution.
This
will help rice farmers to have more confidence as they invest in rice production
due to enlarged market available through the internet.
This
will also ensure productivity in the society by embracing new modern advanced
technology. It will reduce the cost and time in travelling all the way to the
county in search of rice in the different parts of the County.
Marketing
is the management of process which identifies, anticipates and supplies
customer requirement efficiently and profitably as described by Chartered
institute of Marketing.Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, saying“consumption
is the sole and the purpose of all production and the interest of the producer
ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of
the customer.”(ADAM SMITH, 2014.ESSENTIALS OF MARKETING)
Marketing
focuses on adding value so as to bring more satisfaction of the consumers,
which is meeting the expectation/needs of the consumers. Therefore it’s
important to improve the relationship between the vendors and customers for the
greater satisfaction of the customers’ needs and wants. By employing the
present technology to boost this relationship is among the ideas. This will
bring the basis of distribution of rice from the county which will benefit the
rice small scale farmers as they will be free from middlemen who exploit them.
According to the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), the research done in
this area on rice by different stockholders (e.g. JKUAT, NIB) has focused on
how to improve production of different varieties of rice, hence marketing of
the production should also be looked into to avoid surplus production.There has been increased production due
to introduction of mechanization in rice farming as from the year 2013 through
Japanese International Co-operation Agency. The co-operation has been carrying
training in different programmes such as Rice MAPP (Rice based market oriented
Agriculture Promotion Project) and introducing machines for planting,
harvesting and mechanical weeding where the farmers hire them at affordable cost.There
has been an increase of yields of about thirty percent which brings about the
need to expand the market.
Online
marketing through use of websites is currently the most efficient way of having
as many customers as possible. One just need to enter the URL of the website
and will acquire the type of rice he/she want. Through use of a websites the
organization, can pass the messages immediately to their customers, investors
and to the affiliates in the world as long as there is access of internet. It
also helps in creating awareness on rice production in the County. Web application is also important in
controlling the systems, updating, and use of media, investors and local
communities. Though it’s not easy to know how many customers attend the
website, we can use ‘hit record system’ to know the number of customers visited
the website. It also enables telesales, which is the recent most, popular in
mobile commerce.
Online
marketing enables conversations between the customers, affiliates and vendors.
This will enable affiliates to reach as many customers as possible and refer
potential customers to the sales page through the affiliate link. (E-CASH KENYA.COM. 2015, AFFILIATE
MARKETING SUPER CODE ARTICLE)
Use
of internet is among the basics applied in the online rice marketing system.
Since the explosion of the internet; advertising paradigms have been constantly
changing. There is no reason that the organization’s website can not advertise
and sell the products. With the release of Web 2.0, websites are becoming
progressively innovative and interactive. By interacting with its clients, one
can effectively advertise and at the same time sell merchandise to buyers. The
internet has become a useful gateway to connecting sellers and buyers and from
a business and profit stand point; it would make sense for one to invest in
e-commerce. Another considerable problem is the impact on the image of the
company if it provides online retail. The trend in today’s society, in regards
to making purchases, again is shifting towards the internet. Shopping online is
becoming more and more common due its convenience, for instance you tube,
wikipedia, JumiaKenya. A problem that exists is establishing a reputation with
online buyers. Online buyers are concerned with security issues for purchasing
online items and for the reliability of the website to send the goods to the
customers. Hence in the website page there is ‘customer’ and ‘contact us’ links
if there are dissatisfactions, customers could always report them to the
administrator who will respond to the concern.
(www.slidesshare.net.internet marketing)
This
system will also bridge the gap of the institutional arrangement that would
enable reduction of the cost of transactions. This is fulfillment of the
recommendation in the report written by ONDIEKI, 2010, INVESTIGATION VARIOUS
INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS in Kirinyaga that small scale farmers use to
participate in export of rice. Improved marketing will enable farmers to sell
their produce to the consumers in order to alleviate rural poverty since the
farmers will earn better income from the sales .It will also enhance vision 2030 goal of establishing food
secure country and being the middle income country the living standard has
improved due to increased returns. This is in accordance to the report case
study in MIS by Edward Mugane Mwai as he carried out research on assessment of
marketing constraints affecting small scale farmers in Kenya supervised by
Prof. Mbogo in the University Of Nairobi College of agriculture and veterinary
sciences in the Department of Agriculture Economics. The online interactive
marketing system will be implementation of the above project.
For
instance PayPal is an American worldwide online payment program that is quick,
convenient and a secure payment method that millions of online shoppers demand
(PayPal). PayPal was initially established in December 1998 as Confined and continuously improved to date.
This payment method has proved to be very successful for many other websites
such as eBay. One of the contributions for its great success is the support by
governmental organizations like European Union. The challenge in the PayPal
system is that it may not be used to improve the production of certain product
since it is multiproduct oriented and also its commonly used in America and
European Union countries. They also do not support communication between the
farmer and customer.
Safaricom
Shop is an online marketing system which involves selling of electronics and
other services; Mobile Phones, Tablets, Mobile Money Solutions, Data plans.
This shows there is negligence for marketing cereals like rice.
Jumia
Kenya is an online shopping system that is involved in marketing Electronics,
Shoes, books, home appliances, fashion items, shoes, mobile phones and more on
their website. Goods are also delivered to the customer directly. Though the
system has greatly expanded internationally it is evident that it has leaned
towards certain products (like electronics) leaving other products (like rice)
which are also basic contribution in the country’s economy. The system also do
not support communication between the farmer and customers hence unable to win
the trust in their customers.
Another
example of online marketing system is the N-Soko properties Property for sale
and to let in Kenya powered by Nation media group. The system is used to market
properties like land, houses and estates and provide an interface for selling
or renting them online. One of the limitations to this system is that it
involves different variety of goods. It does not allow specialization which
encourages creativity and quality which is possible when concentrating on a
specific field (rice). It also does not support communication between the
farmer and customer.
Alibaba.com
is an international organization used in Pakistan to market their rice products
like white rice Supper kernel, and long grain kernel basmati. The system is a
web application that involves variety of products rice being among them. It
also does not support communication between the farmer and customer.
EBay
is also an international organization used in selling collectibles and arts,
electronics and entertainment memorabollia like videos. Though the system is
very efficient it does not offer a chance for farm produce like cereals. It
also does not support communication between the farmer and customer.
It
is a service provider which offer marketing privileges to different
organizations .This may not support efficiently the marketing of rice since it
involves variety of product in the same site and a long process of the establishment.
It does not also stand out as an official site for a specific vendors, the need
of a website is real to guard from internet fraud.
Like
yahoo service provider which offer marketing privileges to different
organizations .This may not support efficiently the marketing of rice since it
involves variety of product in the same site
and a long process of the establishment.
Amazon
is an American online marketing system for electronics, toys, books, groceries and
computing services. It allow selling and buying of different variety of goods.
It lacks chances of selling cereals like rice and also presence of many
products in the same site may force the webpage to be clouded giving
insufficient information about the products.
Facebook is an
interactive social media community that can be used in marketing of products
from different vendors where the customers are expected to follow a link or
call through a certain phone number to make their request. Though it’s an
interactive media, there is no guarantee of compensation just in case of an
internet fraud. Facebook polices do not give assurance of buying and selling
through the forum since it’s an open community. Therefore Facebook alone is not
dependable.
Channel
for streaming advertising is essentially an infomercial. Consumers can download
a streaming clip for a product or service from a advertiser's website. Two new
studies recently released suggest that the streaming advertising market is
going to boom now and in the years to come. The giant ad selling company media
turf uses this method for providing content to advertisers Conferences: By
their nature conferences are organized for special interests. Advertising in
conference literature, print and electronic, is an excellent way to contact target
markets. Collaborative Advertising: Team up with other business to: Cross-promote - e.g. setting up links from
one corporate Web site to another or offering special promotions in partnership
with complementary goods or services.
Participate
in joint sponsorship of events, initiatives, informational Web sites, mailing
lists, bulletin board systems, directories, etc. Link exchange with
trade/professionals associations to support. Credibility of firm provides
further market information to customers, build their awareness and prepare them
for the action of purchasing. Sales Promotion: Employing methods to stimulate
sales through immediate or delayed incentives to the customer. If the incentive
is attractive, the price: value ratio is adjusted favorably enough to affect a
sale. This strategy should integrate with the overall Advertising mix to
balance extra sales with long-term profit motives. Examples of sales promotion
strategies are: Sampling - offering product samples, electronically. - Bonus offers - offering additional goods or
services when making single purchases (e.g. buy-one-get-one-free).
In order to buy a product, a new customer
would be required to register where he/she will get a confirmation message as a
valid customer. After registration the system redirects back to login. By
logging in the customer can now view different varieties of rice in the
web-store from different farmers. The tool system allows the customer to make
an order and using dropdown to choose their amount he/she want. In submission,
the system will ask the user to confirm/cancel the transaction having displayed
the summation of the total of the products below the catalog. If the customer
confirms the transaction the request is submitted. After the payment, the
customer receives a confirmation text of transaction. The delivery form is
filled online by the customer to enable the planning of transportation process
and time allocation of delivering the product. The
customer is also able to print the receipt of the product.
Efficient
communication helps the customers build their trust in their vendors.
Since
the interactions are public, different customers can follow the conversations
which helps to win a customer’s attention.
Customers
can communicate with their vendors with the least cost possible.
It will also enable the country to achieve the
Vision 2030 goal of being a middle income country by improving the living
standards of the farmers through market expansion.
The interactive marketing
system will use waterfall method to explain its System Development Life Cycle
(SDLC) steps.
1.
Analysis: It is the process of gathering
and interpreting facts, diagnosing problems and recommending improvements to
the system. Analyzes end-user information needs and also removes any
inconsistencies and incompleteness in these requirements. Propose alternative
solutions, describe costs and benefits and submit a preliminary plan with
recommendations.
2.
Systems design: Describes desired features
and operations in detail, including screen layouts, business rules, process diagrams, pseudo code and other documentation.
3. Implementation:
·
Development:
The real code is written here.
·
Integration and testing:
Brings all the pieces together into a special testing environment, then checks for errors, bugs
and interoperability.
·
Acceptance, installation, deployment: The
final stage of initial development, where the software is put into production
and runs actual business.
4. Maintenance: During the maintenance stage of the
SDLC, the system is assessed to ensure it does not become obsolete. This is
also where changes are made to initial software. It involves continuous
evaluation of the system in terms of its performance.
5. Planning:
In this phase, plans are developed for discarding system information, hardware
and software in making the transition to a new system. The purpose here is to
properly move, archive, discard or destroy information, hardware and software
that are being replaced, in a manner that prevents any possibility of
unauthorized disclosure of sensitive data. The disposal activities ensure
proper migration to a new system. Particular emphasis is given to proper preservation
and archival of data processed by the previous system. All of this should be
done in accordance with the organization's security requirements.
The
system will involve three interfaces; customer and vendor and admin. The customer
interface (website) will show different links in the tool bar like home, login,
registration and catalogue to display of different type of the products in the
market. It also constitutes the description on how to carry out transactions
through the site.
3.3CONCEPTUAL FRAME WORK
Before develop a website some methodology used just like conduct online query
to know the
response about online marketing and what type of product would be use so
according to
ordinance response and website requirement and according to query website
framework
decided. The basis for a methodology for Web site development the Internet
changes constantly
due to rapid technological advances: hardware and networking technology; the
use of bulk SMS Apis; HTML, notepad++ and
Xampp software.
3.3 METHOD OF DATA
COLLECTION
The decided conceptual frame work required data which were collect from
following methods:
Secondary Data
collection.
The secondary data were collected from previous projects, related
books, thesis, internet, blogs or related websites. These data were used in
documentation and website development.
Through Facebook I was
able to determine the many requests
Online Questionnaire
Online query to know the response about online marketing and what
type of product would be
use so according to ordinance response. The online query was sent to all my
friends who could
understand and submit the query and send their value able response. The online
questionnaire
was very useful to understand the customer’s response and their best choice.
This
questionnaire was used as feedback in website. According to online questionnaires
I was able to know which product would be in a higher demand and the response
of the customer. The following were the questionnaire
for interactive
marketing system to customers:
1.
Do you know about online marketing system?
a)
Yes
b)
No
c)
I don’t know
2.
Do you prefer online marketing system?
a)
Yes
b)
No
c)
I don’t know
3.
Do you find online marketing interactive? If yes, at which percent.
a)
Yes
b)
No
c)
I don’t know
4. Do you think removing middle man will increase revenue of
producers?
a)
Yes
b)
No
c)
I don’t know
d. If no give your suggestion (………………………………………………………)
5. Would you prefer to buy online products directly from farmers
or from retailers?
a)
Retailers
b)
Farmers
c)
None of the above
RESPONSES
1.
Do you know about online marketing system?
90%
said that they are aware of online marketing systems while 10% said they are
unaware of such systems.
2.
Do you prefer online marketing system?
70%
said that they prefer online marketing system while 30% do not.
3.
Do you find online marketing interactive?
60%
said that it is interactive but at 20% fulfilling if rated
4. Do you think removing middle man will increase revenue of
farmers?
90%
argued that removing middlemen would lead to increase of revenue for farmers.
10% argued that there will be no difference.
5. Would you prefer buying online products directly from farmers
to retailers?
80%
would prefer buying from the farmers directly to retailers while 20% preferred
to buy from retailers.
Most
farmers have been using old marketing systems like bill boards and some have
recently been able to make attempts in use of Jumia online retailer shop. This
has brought about poor interaction between customer/farmer and poor record keeping
in the farmer store. The vendor (farmer) is unable to reach the customer due to
the restrictions in Jumia as a retailer shop.
There
have also been attempts in use of Facebook.com whereby the farmer describes the
product and gives a phone number for more communication and transaction. This
is a costly method of communication between the customer and the farmers. It
may also fail to win customers trust especially during the transaction process.
It also enhanced a poor way of keeping records.
The
following are the disadvantages of the existing system
- High
cost of product due to communication costs and long link between the
customers and the farmers.
- It is difficult to customers to trust
in farmers whom they don’t communicate to.
- Official receipts of the transaction are
not provided in some systems like Facebook.
- Daily sales and purchases details must
be entered into books are very difficult to maintain.
- Especially
in Facebook marketing through phone numbers the customers are vulnerable
to internet fraud.
The
interactive marketing system is web-based application that will enable the
interaction between the farmers and the customers as well as buying and selling
of the products. The following are the benefits of proposed system:
Through
use of SMS API, AFRICASTALKING bulk SMS, the system is able to generate
automatically an SMS to the customer to confirm the order unlike Jumia where
the customer care calls back after sometime.
Efficient communication helps the
customers build their trust in their vendors.
Since the interactions are public,
different customers can follow the conversations which helps to win a
customer’s attention.
Customers can communicate with their
vendors with the least cost possible.
1. Laptop
2. Mobile phone
3. External hard disk (500GB)
5. Notepad++
6. Xampp
7. Microsoft office 2013
8. Windows 7 operating system
A laptop with a window 7 operating system, installed
with notepad++,Xampp and Microsoft Office 2013word provided a platform for
codding and documentation respectively. The external hard disk was used as a
back up to incase of data losses or system failure. The mobile phone was used
in testing the working of the sms API.
The
database shall consist of seven related tables.
|
S.NO
|
NAME
|
DATA TYPE
|
DESCRIPTION
|
|
1
|
Username
|
Varchar
|
Foreign
key
|
|
2
|
Password
|
Varchar
|
Unique
key
|
|
3
|
Idno
|
Int
|
Primary
key
|
|
4
|
Phone
number
|
Int
|
|
|
S.NO
|
NAME
|
DATA
TYPE
|
DESCRIPTION
|
|
1
|
Username
|
Varchar
|
|
|
2
|
Password
|
Varchar
|
Unique
key
|
|
3
|
Idno
|
Int
|
Primary
key
|
|
4
|
Phone
number
|
Int
|
|
|
S.NO
|
NAME
|
DATA
TYPE
|
DESCRIPTION
|
|
1
|
Product
id
|
INT
|
Auto
increment
|
|
2
|
Farmer
username
|
Varchar
|
|
|
3
|
Product
name
|
Varchar
|
|
|
4
|
Paybill
|
Int
|
|
|
5
|
Cost
|
Int
|
|
|
6
|
Region
|
Varchar
|
|
|
7
|
Date
|
Varchar
|
|
|
8
|
Photo
url
|
Varchar
|
|
|
9
|
Description
|
Varchar
|
|
|
S.NO
|
NAME
|
DATA
TYPE
|
DESCRIPTION
|
|
1
|
Comment
id
|
Int
|
Auto-increment
Primary
|
|
2
|
Product
id
|
Int
|
|
|
3
|
Message
|
Varchar
|
|
|
4
|
Date
|
Varchar
|
|
|
S.NO
|
NAME
|
DATA
TYPE
|
DESCRIPTION
|
|
1
|
Sales id
|
INT
|
Auto
increment
Primary
key
|
|
2
|
Product
ID
|
Varchar
|
|
|
3
|
Customer
username
|
Varchar
|
|
|
4
|
Amount
|
Int
|
|
|
5
|
Total
Cost
|
Int
|
|
|
6
|
Date
|
Varchar
|
|
|
7
|
Status
|
Varchar
|
|
|
8
|
Delivery
|
Varchar
|
|
The
interactive system will help to the farmers to expand their market and also
will create awareness of the new products in the country. This system will
bring the solution in marketing of rice. The customers will also be able to
enjoy getting the products from the source. It will also save time and cost involved
in traveling for the customers to look for type of rice of their choice.
