According to the Wall-Street Journal report about Asia’s 200 most admired companies in China, Alibaba.com is ranked number one. Alibaba’s consumer-auction site is Taobao. This year’s gross merchandise volume of Taobao will be $60 billion. Alibaba’s founder, Ying Ma, is a secondary school English teacher. He had no knowledge about computer but 10 years ago he foresaw the future commercial trend would be heading into E-commerce. Therefore, he created the Taobao. 10 years ago, E-commerce had three big problems; the first problem was the security of paying online; the second problem was the credit of sellers and buyers. And the third problem was computers were not widely used by people. However, after years and years developing, these problems were solved. Taobao setup a paying system called Zhi Fu Bao. When a buyer buys products online, the buyers will make a order to sellers. The buyer pays the bills to Zhi Fu Bao and Zhi Fu Bao will hold the money until the buyer receive, check the quality of the product and confirm there is no mistake. Then Zhi Fu Bao will transfer the money to the sellers. Through this process Zhi Fu Bao earns huge commission through billions of transfers and also earns huge interest by holding the buyers’ money on its bank account. At the beginning, buyers and sellers worried about each other’s credit; but nowadays, even diamonds can also be traded widely online. Lately, computers are widely used by everyone; Therefore, E-commerce must be tremendously increasing. Ying Ma said that if entrepreneurs don’t invest in E-commerce within 5 years from now, they will regret deeply.
3rd blog-TAOBAO- The great successful of E-BAY in China
My Own Marketing Strategies
The marketing states that to be successful, a company must provide greater customer value and satisfaction than its competitors. I have created a way that makes marketing more efficient, less expensive and actually really put companies into customers’ hearts. Everyone wants to be regarded by others. When you friends buy you a gift on your birthday, you will probably never going to forget about this in your rest of life. My marketing way is really simple; it is using various ways to collect email addresses and just the BIRTH DATE NOT YEARS from the population and send everyone an email on their birth date saying that a company has gotten their email addresses or information from their true friend-(put down their friend’s name and maybe phone numbers,as phone numbers are hard to get) and states that the company will give a birthday gift to them. The gift should be given by the name of their friend not by the company, but the gift is prepared by the company. The company can even phone them. By doing this, the receiver will never forget who has sent he a gift on his B-day and the customer-relationship value that the company wants to create. Also he will need to go to the store to pick up his gift from the company in his friend’s name. When he is in the store, he will buy stuffs from the store. When he leaves, the store can ask him to write down his friends’ contact information and this process will circulate until everyone is familiar with the store. The most important thing is let previous customers know that the gifts will be given in their names not the company. I will say email in my marketing way is easier as your friends may not know your street address. This type of marketing strategy saves a huge money from TV Ads, newspaper Ads and other marketing intermediaries. This is a customer-generated marketing that spread to individuals faster and more friendly. It creates an image to customers that the company cares about their customers and customers will never forget their experiences with the company in their rest of lives.
Nowadays, everyone has email addresses. The marketing strategy by using email addresses from customers is the quickest way and cheapest way to send to customers about ads whenever the company wants.
How do companies collect their customers’ contact information-email address , birth dates (not years as people sometimes do not want to tell their age) or other information? Here I list them all:
1) companies’ web pages states that if you browse certain pages of ads on their web, you can get a discount coupon to print out; before printing out you need to input in your email addresses, birth date….
2) on customers’ receipts says that if your go to this website and enter your information then you could win a prize or get a free discount coupon
3) buy from credit card companies; needs a large amount money but once it is done the company can have huge amount of customers
4) computer software automatic generated email addresses from each computers’ browser history
5) junk mails:some specialist can gather junk mails from people’s junk boxes
6) from customers’ friends who were its companies’ customers previously
7) some computer hackers buy and sell emails secretly
8) find people’s emails on facebook or google search
The company can also contact people through other Internet related media such as facebook
Paradigm shift
Innovation+ application = value When an innovation is created and is widely used by people, it brings value to people. Innovation must be long-range strategic. Application must be practical and highly demanded. Value must match people’s perspective and it must has market demand. Every great company has a long-term strategy; for example, 30 years ago, Microsoft’s long-term strategy was hoping everyone had a computer on his or her desk. This idea was considered impossible for everyone. However, with Microsoft’s long-term strategy and people’s hard-working, this innovation became reality. This innovation can satisfy people’s want and this process is called “paradigm shift”. Paradigm shift is a way of thinking that matches the trend. For example, Steven Jobs had already know the trend of the mp3 players in the future. Steven Jobs combined an-easy controlled display , a large music storage, and an interactive software, iTunes. Steven Jobs had predicted that the storage for music would be much cheaper and had predicted that the mp3 player could be made into a non-volatile storage-the mp3 player could be put into people’s pocket and would not be easily broken by shaking. when people pay a fee for downloading music from iTunes. Itunes is like a money machine for Apple company. Apple company became so successful due to this innovation. This is paradigm shift. Unfortunately, Sony ‘s Walkman was unsuccessful. The reason is Sony didn’t complete a paradigm shift.
Horizontal Integration
Horizontal integration means when a few advanced-technology companies come together to produce a product that lower their costs. For example, 15 years ago, Steven Jobs created the best computer; however, the value of the Apple computer is more than $5000 which is too expensive for people to afford. Later then, with the practice of horizontal integration, Microsoft who specialized in creating software, IBM and Compaq who specialized in creating hardware and Intel and AMD who specialized in creating computer chips came together to create a cheaper computer. With this action, each company quickly reduced their products’ costs. So this caused the computers’ prices became cheaper and cheaper . Now everyone can afford them. This brought a PC revolution. Coincidentally, Steven Jobs has created the best mobile internet cellphone-iPhone, but the price of the cellphone is expensive. However, in the future, with the practice of horizontal integration, mobile internet cellphone will become cheaper and cheaper. If companies like Android and Window Mobile who specialize in making cellphone applications, MEDIATEK and QUALCOMM who specialize in making cellphone chips, HTC and Foxconn who specialize in making cellphones all come together to create cellphones. Therefore, we can predict that the future mobile internet cellphones will become cheaper and cheaper. Everyone can afford one. This is what horizontal integration brings to a big change in products and markets.
Mobile Internet In the Future
As Bill Gate says: “mouse is out, touch screen and natural language interface are in”, our future PC has 3 big components: 1) touch screen 2) voice control 3) vision technology
Nowadays, people need to bring three things when they go out: cellphone, key and wallet. However in the future, people do not have to bring all of them but just one mobile internet cellphone. With this mobile internet cellphone, it can help people to close the door and open the door. The door has vision technology that it only recognizes the owner of the house. When a person goes into a car with vision technology and voice control, he can talk to the car where he wants to go. Now the car can determine which way is the shortest and without any traffic jam. When he arrives at a park. He can use this cellphone to take pictures and upload them onto the internet to share with friends. If he looks ugly in the picture, he can amend his skin colour…. He uses the cellphone to buy tickets to enter the park. This mobile internet cellphone replaces credit cards. When he sees something he really like, he can use this cellphone to take picture of what he wants to buy and upload the picture onto internet. So many e-commerce websites like eBay will show many links for him to choose from. These technologies have been started. I believe within the next 5 years, these technologies will be used widely.
The greatest enterprenuer
On may 26th of 2010, in US Nasdaq Stock Exchange , the Apple company’s market value of shares is $225.10 billion. It is the first time exceeding Microsoft’s $222.7 billion. In 1985 , Steven Jobs was expelled from Apple store. Since then, Apple’s business performance is really bad. In 1997 he went back to the company and he introduced the new iPod. With the new iPod, Apple won a tremendous success. After that iPhone and iPad were also introduced. Inamori Kazuo, the god of management in Japan, said Apple ‘s products are the greatest invention in this century. In the computer industry, Dell is better than Apple. In the software development, Microsoft is better than Apple. In the music industry, EMI is better than Apple. Almost all MBA textbooks state that few second-rate technologies combined cannot exceed first-rate technology. However, Steven Jobs combined hardware, software and music resources; he uses them to create iPod. With the invention of iPod+iTune, Apple exceeds any other MP3 players markers. Over 10 billion music are downloaded by people from iTune. And with iPhone+AppStore, Apple goes beyond any other cellphones markers. iPad+AppStore is a revolutionary stage of PC. According to Strategy Analytics Inc. Marketing report, this year’s 3rd quarter, iPad ‘s market share of tablet computers is 95%. Because, Steven Jobs is the greatest entrepreneur, Apple can exceed Microsoft in a really short time.
Buffett and the Magic of Compound interest
Albert Einstein said: ” The compound interest is the greatest inventions in the 20th.” According to the article “Beaten by Buffett”,Shareholders in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway have seen annualized gains of 20% for the past 45 years. If $10000 was invested by Buffett on October 1st of 1964, the investment would today be worth $80 million. In the calculation formula of compound rate, the “n” is the key to the answer. Buffett’s investment is always long-term. He’s willing to buy a company and holding it for many years and even now with all his success. Buffett’s investment of every stock is never less than eight years. Buffett has another investment rules: “Be cheap; Be patient; Go against conventional wisdom” (when others are greedy you will be to be fearful and when others are fearful you will be greedy). If we fully understand the power of compound interest, we can invest well. However, we should understand it is hard to do.
http://marketwatch.com
Innovation
In a warehouse of San Francisco，Steve Jobs, together with the finder of Apple, worked together to created the Apple products.He did that when he was 22-year-old. Apple is of value more than two thousand million dollars and it is ranked No.1 technology company in the world.This is the power of Innovation.Two Chinese brothers, Pan Yong and Pan Yong, who worked in a warehouse at Shenzhen. They created the Apple Peel 520. The Apple Peel 520 is a device that adds voice and text messaging capabilities to the iPod Touch. This is another example of innovation. Due to the fact that iPhone has exceeded to sell over 2.75 hundred million, the product’s market prospect is very broad. In Chinese black market the Apple Peel 520 just sells 50 dollars,(US $) so the price of an iPod touch adds an Apple Peel is just half of an IPhone. The couple brothers said they will apply for a patent as soon as possible. The “Patent Pending” products are already selling by the GoSolarUSA company in USA market. This is a big challenge to Apple iPhone. Therefore, we must learn how to innovate, dares to innovate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation
Market Orientation
Market Orientation of product is methodology or philosophy about business, that focuses on identifying and meeting the need of the existing customers or the hidden of potential customers.
producers need to be considering about the market positioning:
1. The target consumers of your products.
2. The competitor’s products.
3. How the product’s market prospect.
4. How the products can be quickly expanded reproduction.
5. The production technology of product is not easy to imitate by the competitors.
6. Whether your products have better brand awareness and image.
The producers compared their products with other competitor’s products at:
1. What is the competition advantage of your products.
2. Your advantage of your products is better than the competitor.
3. Whether your products can meet the needs of the consumers.
4. Your products are more attractive to consumers.
On the other hand, an over-emphasis on focuses on existing products and market needs can also have significant drawbacks. The major drawback is that you may lose focuses on innovation and lose focus on longer-term strategic planning. The successful market orientation is to balance the focuses on identifying and meeting the need of customer with a long-term strategic perspective.
http://www.easy-marketing-strategies.com/market-orientation.html