Author Archives: yize zhu

Blog2-eCommerce

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Ecommerce has become one of the most popular and fast-developing industries in today’s world. As more and more well-known brands opening up their online stores and new enterprises starting their online businesses, the ecommerce industry becomes highly competitive.

Under such circumstances, some small online businesses, such as DodoCase, managed to thrive in this market. When DodoCase first started, they were well aware of the very crowded and competitive market they were entering. In the few short years they have been around, they have soared to become one of the most notable and respected iPad cases on the market. In fact, they won Shopify’s Build-a-Business Contest that netted them $100,000 cash. In this case, strong competition is not necessarily a bad thing as it serves as a signal that the market has been validated. DodoCase, a new entrant into the game, has achieved this feat and taken a large market share with a unique design, and well executed handmade manufacturing. It was all about quality in a market flooded with cheap plastic alternatives.

dodocase-920x650

While in an online market with many global giant brand stores, some small online businesses improve their competitiveness by investing new products that solve consumers’ problems and meanwhile ensure their own profits. It always seems troublesome for customers to choose their most preferred products among 50 similar ones but with different sizes and color combinations. Moreover, to small online stores, selling hundreds or even dozens of different products requires a lot of labour and costs too much to purchase the initial stock. With these considerations, it is less risky to have a product that has no more than 15 stock keeping units (SKU). MorningHead, a shower cap with an absorbent material inside. One just fill it with one cup of water, place it over his head and rub it around. Bed head is fixed and the customer can now style his hair. It solves a big pain point with a simple product, especially to guys with short hair and are in a rush in the morning. The best thing about MorningHead is that it is once size and thus only 1 SKU. In this case, the online store holder of MorningHead does not have to pay for extra storage in his warehouse; customers are not likely getting wrong versions, sizes and colours; time and money are saved and can be invested into better uses.

morninghead-920x541

In conclusion, ecommerce, a new shopping channel, has changed people’s daily lives. Surely more new enterprises and start-ups will join this game as the market gets more stable. With their own uniques and inventories, many small online businesses will continue to flourish and succeed in this competitive online market.

(450 words)

 

 

References:

  1. https://www.abetterlemonadestand.com/what-to-sell-online/ Reverse Engineering The Perfect Ecommerce Product; Richard Lazazzera

2. 1st Picture : http://www.dodocase.com; Reverse Engineering The Perfect Ecommerce Product; Richard Lazazzera

3. 2nd Picture: http://www.morninghead.com/#video-2; Reverse Engineering The Perfect Ecommerce Product; Richard Lazazzera

4. http://www.ecommercefuel.com/effective-email-marketing-for-small-business/#whynot           How to Boost Sales 25% with Effective Email Marketing; Andrew Youderian

5.http://www.ecommercefuel.com/ecommerce-experts/  10 eCommerce Experts You Should Be Following; Andrew Youderian

Comm101 BlogPost#1

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Bas Van Abel, a man who has created what he is calling ” the world’s first ethical smartphone”

Bas didn’t start as a company,  he started as a campaign instead which was about how can he give visibility to the situation in eastern Congo. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) , a home to minerals and metals essential to the manufacture of mobile  phones, but was suffering from conflicts and the spoil of mineral resources.

After the crowdfunding campaign went successfully, their Fairphone was launched in 2013 . Bas and his colleagues wanted to prove to customers and to multinational corporations, that it is possible to create phones that are ethical and sustainable.

Bas and his colleagues have faced difficulties in phasing out conflict minerals used in phones. One of the big problems dealing with the DRC is the small-scale informal mining common in the country. People are just digging this stuff out of the ground and selling it to intermediary buying organizations. There are some 1.8 million people carrying out small scale mining in the DRC. The informality and lack of structure in the minerals mining business in DRC adds to the difficulty of tracing the origins of the elements going into mobiles. Even Fairphone admits it has only managed to completely phase out two of the four conflict minerals used in phones.

Today, Bas’s company has now sold more than 82,000 phones. With such an unexpected success, he still insist on his original intention of starting the company, which is to source the phones’ materials from non-conflict mines and support local economies.

Bas is not deterred by the company’s tiny market share. He said that, “We’re not in it to become the biggest phone company in the world. But by doing what we do, we show that there’s a market, we grow the demand.”

 

References:

  1. Can an ethical smartphone change the world? By Anna Hooligan. BBC News, The Hague http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35094050

2)  Picture: http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/4D1C/production/_87204791_fairphone2,ethicalsourcing.jpg

3) “People are just digging this stuff … … scale mining in the DRC. “said by Bady Balde from the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative pressure group.