Strengths
While implementing our lost property app, we have noticed some strengths that could work extremely well for our business. One of the strengths is that, the main objective of this application is to assist worried users by helping them find their lost items. Some of these lost items could hold sentimental value to the user, causing them to feel stressed and uncomfortable so by clients using this app, it would give a feeling omf hope and relief as they know that someone might be kind enough to return the item as the returner knows that they would get a reward. Furthermore, this app can be easily customizable and distributed to large businesses and organisations. Most finders would only return items which they know hold value such as a wallet and not return items such as an umbrella or notepad. If this is the case, then the user can just log onto the application and post whatever they have lost in the company, and someone would hopefully find the item that they are looking for. In addition, we have implemented a search feature into our app, therefore users could just simply type in the location on where they think they lost the item and all the lost item results will show from that particular location. We will generate lost item searches by looking for keywords in item descriptions such as “goldsmiths”. This method will ultimately save the user time and effort and therefore increasing user satisfaction to the highest. By users continually using the application, it may allow users to meet other user from different ethnicities and cultures which could widen their knowledge and help the community as a whole. It is also possible that new contacts and friendships between users can be made because of the frequent meet ups that happen. Another strength is, when conducting our research, we have noticed that at the current moment there are hardly any businesses targeting lost property, as a result we can fully take advantage of this market and create large amounts of income because people lose items on a day to day basis. Moreover, we will include a premium membership service so we can generate a source of income. When users apply for the premium membership, it will permit the app to share a post automatically in all the user’s social media explaining their item, where they lost it and how much value this item holds to them. Their friends/followers from all of their social medias will be able to see their post and may perhaps give additional support to help them find their lost item. When the item has successfully been found, another post will be posted stating that the item was found – this will give our app more publicity and consumers will have more trust in our services. Both the finder and the person who lost the item will be asked to give a review on the overall experience of the process, this review, depending on the review, it will be added into the app to guarantee customer satisfaction. Another feature that will be included in the premium membership is a postage service. This will eliminate the security risk of meeting random people.
Weaknesses
As there are certain strengths to any business, there are weaknesses as well which would eventually need addressing. One of the major weaknesses that we have encountered while brainstorming is security. As this application sometimes requires face to face communication, consumers might feel unsafe to go through a basic security system and therefore would lead them to stop using the app. Even if additional security is added, consumers may still be resistant and would not like the fact to meet random strangers they don’t know, which is a major weakness to our business model. To overcome this weakness, we have added a postage service but for only members who pay for premium. A lost property postage service will eliminate the security risk of meeting random people Furthermore, some people may possibly experience bad face to face involvements and consequently give bad reviews to our application – this could reduce the amount of current users. To overcome this weakness, we have implemented a rating system onto our application so users can rate their experience. They can also raise the concern to the live chat and our employee will escalate the concern. Although users are required to pay £2 per a post they make, bots making fake posts will still be a foremost issue which would need addressing further. Users may still pay the £2 and bots may still submit fake posts leaving finders wasting their time and energy trying to find a missing item which isn’t actually missing. If this happens often, it will leave many users very frustrated and angry, causing them to not use the app. To overcome this weakness, we will ask the users to provide a form of ID to confirm that this is a person signing up and not a bot. In addition, unfair rewarding will be a problem as both parties might not agree or not negotiate fairly on a reward scheme that works well for both. This will cause friction and hassle between both people, so will decrease the customer’s satisfactions on using the app. To overcome this weakness, before placing a found or lost item, both parties have to confirm that this will not happen and if it does then further action will be taken.
Opportunities
As our app has to expand into the current market massively, looking into the opportunities can be a key advantage. One of the opportunities we could use to expand our application is to improve our finances. When evaluating our competitors, we have noticed that most of them have only a single purpose and no additional features to increase user experience. Looking into this, we could consider adding an additional feature which will allow users to sell items on auction so users have the option to buy or borrow an item they want for a price. This will permit the application to keep up with some particular competitors and therefore excel in the current market. Furthermore, as lost property is normally seen as a general everyday occurrence, we can easily make this application accessible to other electronic platforms for example computers, so if consumers who don’t have a mobile phone can use other alternative devices to access the application. Likewise, expanding the application internationally can deliver an increase of users and an increase of publicity. We can ensure that this particular application will be beneficial to all users around the world as everyone has the fear of losing important items. This application will give everyone a sense of faith that their lost item has been found. Additionally, local events could be organised through the app in certain days of the year so users can come together, bond and participate in fun games. By holding these events, it will give the chance for people from different communities to get together which will create a more positive, friendlier atmosphere for all. To generate more income of revenue, our application should offer a more variety of services on the premium membership instead of only two services which is posting on all social media of the person who lost an item and postage. Adding more services to the premium membership will ultimately engage the user to use the application more often where necessary.
Threats:
We have researched some of the major targeted threats that our business encounter. One threats are the weather. If it is an extremely rainy or snowy day, users could ignore the item because they are more focused on getting to their desired destination. Another threat that we have encountered is competition. In the lost property market, there are hardly any competition but the competitors that are doing a similar idea are well established organisations, for example Gumtree. Gumtree are doing a similar lost property idea which could disrupt the growth of our application. Gumtree is also trusted by many people so if consumers happen to lose an item, they would most likely use well established organisations first then use our app – this is a massive threat to our organisation. Furthermore, well established organisations such as Apple can implement some sort of lost property feature in some on their upcoming phones – if it is implemented, our business and application will face a very difficult time as Apple has a huge market span so their users will use every possible additional feature on it – there will be no need of people downloading our application if its already built in on their devices. This could potentially make our business fail, and if this does happen, pivoting is the only logical option to take.
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