Black Friday’s Sales
November 24th, 2011 • Uncategorized • No comments
Black Friday could be consider as a holiday. It is the day after Thanksgiving in which the prices go down dramatically and people shop like maniacs. There’s new research that indicates the psychological reason of why people shop so out of control on this day. It is because “crowds make us happy” but the “competition creates what’s called hedonic shopping value, or a sense of enjoyment from the mere process of buying goods”. As a result, Black Friday is a legendary opportunity for any business.
Companies and business take advantage of the scarcity of the product and the intense competition for the product. Given the extremely low prices the demand would increase dramatically causing the business a lot of sales and huge profit.
This is a video that shows Black Friday at its best:
And now, here is a video that show the immensity and the craziness of Black Friday:
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Facebook, A Form Of Marketing?
November 16th, 2011 • Uncategorized • 1 comment
This is a student’s response from Jade Su‘s blog post called “Fashion’s Next Frontier for Social Media“.
Facebook is a social networking service in which “focuses on building and reflecting of social network or social relations among people, who, for example, share interests and/or activities”. However, now that Facebook has become extremely popular, its purpose seems to changed. Instead of building a relationship with your friends, it is now a site in which you can advertise the product you are selling. Apparently its very affectedly and it has become a very popular form of marketing.
The following describes the uses of Facebook groups and Facebook pages – all directed to marketing a business
And this is a graph that shows how is Facebook being used as a business-related social media/ networking initiative.
I believe that it is good for business to advertise their product in Facebook because it is a 100% someone will look at it. However, Facebook was not designed for that and thus, should only be use as entertainment.
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Zappos.com – Customer Service Is What Really Matters
November 3rd, 2011 • Uncategorized • No comments
This a response to a blog about a girl’s experience in Zappos. She specifically shares information about Zappo’s quickness and attention towards customers. It’s true, Zappos focus on customer service as their marketing device. They believe that treating the customer as nice as possible will attract new customers and the former customers will remain loyal and continue to shop online.
Now here is a video that shows Zappos business employing their customer service as a strategy:
This is definitely an innovative strategy when handling business because both parties end up winning. The customers win because they received, each time they call or shop, personalize and charming service (through call centres) and a few benefits such as free shipping and 365 days as a refund policy. On the other hand, Zappos is also happy because as more people buy their shoes online there is more demand. Therefore, the profits increases and the company grows as they have more room for expansion and diversification (ex. clothing and accessories). Plus the workers at Zappos like going to work which implicates a better environment at the office and classier work etiquette. Sounds like fun to work at Zappos.
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Money Is NOT The Real Meaning Of Life
October 26th, 2011 • Uncategorized • No comments
This is a student’s response from Christian Flores‘s blog post called “Is money the real meaning of life”.
This is a rather subjective question that must be answered personally. For some, money is the whole reason we live and continue to work everyday. For others, life is much more than that. For me, is a little bit of both.
Personally, I believe that money is important in life. Definitely true. But that doesn’t mean that all your life revolves about how much money you have or make in a year. If you want to live without any limitations or money-related stress then study, have a career and work everyday. However, always have on mind that the most important thing of all is being around your family members and friends.Better to be poor and have love than being rich but alone.
In business, it is true that most companies have as a goal to make as much profit as possible so they can grow exponentially in the following years but it is also true that they are other companies such as Facebook that were created purely to succeed and not to make huge amounts of profit.
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Apple’s Sustainability Project
October 15th, 2011 • Uncategorized • No comments
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple decided to remove all toxic chemicals from all their products. Steve Jobs believed in sustainability and environmentalism and so “he improved Apple’s environmental image” and made Apple a leader in this area.
The following are some of the chemicals that Apple has remove successfully:
- Lead (eliminated all lead from products in mid-2006)
- Cadmium, Hexavalent Chromium, Decabromodiphenyl Ether ( restricted in 2006 because of the RoHS – European Union)
- Arsenic & Mercury (eliminated completely at the end of 2008)
- Polyvinyl Chloride Brominated flame retardants (eliminated since 2002)
Other companies such as “Dell, Gateway, Hewlett Packard and Lenovo” have not eliminated or decreased their levels of chemicals in their products while Apple has making it the leader in environmentalism and sustainability.
In my opinion I believe that it is super important to a company to create for themselves this title of being sustainable because it attracts new potential customers and gains the respect of the former customers. This creates loyalty and as a result profits will continue to increase. Going “green” is a very big movement that is crucial for a company to be involve into not only because of the money-related benefits but also for the world.
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BlackBerry Services Collapse
October 11th, 2011 • Uncategorized • No comments
The BlackBerry company had a major fallout when “a fault occurred at RIM, the canadian company that made the devices”. This made BlackBerry users “unable to use the web, send instant messages and revise their email”. However, the most upsetting part of the fallout was the fact that users could not use the BBM application (BlackBerry Messenger) which funny enough is the whole appeal and advantage of having a BlackBerry phone. RIM admitted that there was a problem and that they “are investigating, and we apologize for the inconvenience”. The problem was solved a couple of days later.
This fallout had a huge impact on BlackBerry’s sales. This is because now they seem to be unreliable and not professional. As a result, new customers were scared to buy a new product from the company in case this happened again. Moreover, that same week, their competitor Apple released the new iPhone 4, and so they needed as much stability as possible. As that didn’t happened sales greatly fall and BlackBerry is now at a major disadvantage compared to others cellphone companies in the market.
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Netflix Separates DVD Business From Movie Streaming
October 6th, 2011 • Uncategorized • No comments
Netflix has decided to separate its DVD Business (and called it Qwikster) from their Movie Streaming(remains Netflix). They are now two different companies with different websites. Reed Hasting, Netflix’s CEO claims that its an opportunity for the company to grow and expand. However, customers are not happy and Hasting has received many angry letters for which he had to do a public apology. Nevertheless he claims that “the separation was necessary because the businesses has different growth trajectories”. Is he correct? Will this be a positive decision for Netflix?
Personally, I believe that the idea Hasting had sounds excellent in paper but when it transfers to reality, it won’t have the same welcome he hoped for. For one, the prices are too high already and making these separation will make the customers completely switch to another company that is cheaper and is not that complicated (ex. Netflix before the change). If customers are not happy at the moment and the shares are going down then it is not a good time to make a huge decision like this one; unless Netflix is ready to loose most part of their clientele and future profit.
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Facebook In Rivalry With Google
September 28th, 2011 • Uncategorized • No comments
This article puts in display the rivalry between Facebook and Google. Facebook is the leader in social networking with “$4.3 billion expected in 2011” but now that Google is competing against them with Google+, things are becoming difficult. It is said by analysts that Google will be a long term threat to Facebook and now Facebook is trying to be on top by adding new features on their site.
After hearing about it in class, I think brand positioning is very important for a company because it determines if it will grow to a international level. The brand created for both companies are equally important since they are both internationally recognized, however it is the brand position that makes it company different. In this case Facebook is making its brand grow even bigger due to the recent competition. This is perfect since it will force each company to be constantly changing to fit the customer’s wants and needs.
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Business Confidence in U.S. Economy Drops to Lowest Level since 2009
September 25th, 2011 • Uncategorized • No comments
“Confidence in the United States economy fell to its lowest level in more than two years, according to the most recent quarterly Business Optimism Index from Grant Thornton LLP.” In other words, people are in fear and are in need of constant reassurance that the future is stable enough. Not only USA citizens are not able to live feeling secure but also they are unsure to what to do. This leads to economic uncertainty and this consequently “is bad for business”. According to Stephen Chipman, “uncertainty about global economic policy and sovereign debt are weighing on the business decision-making across the country. Business leaders are waiting for a sign that there will be some stability out of Washington and the European Union.”
As it can be seen in the table above, it shows how there has been a major decrease in the hope that the economy will increase. This will lead to uncertainty and a weakness in their decision making as customers or businessmen. Either way, the economy is not stable and neither is their confidence. Once its regulated, businesses can improve, earn profit and implement decisions for the company to increase exponentially.
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Steve Jobs resigns, is there trouble ahead?
September 15th, 2011 • Uncategorized • No comments
Steve Jobs resigned and ended his “14-year reign” as Apple’s CEO. In his resignation letter he declared that his illness was the cause and that Tim Cook will replace him and his duties. Apple is not worried but one must wonder if Apple’s future is really at stake. Is it all going to work out? Now that Cook is in charge, he is going to make all the decisions. Is he ready for that responsibility?
I believe that as long as Steve Jobs continues at Cook’s side and guides him through the challenges, Apple will be stable. It is true that Jobs is a unique person with many brilliant traits and so it is very hard (to not say nearly impossible) to replace him. Fortunately that’s not the case since Cook’s job is to maintain Apple’s stability and continue to develop its brand. I believe that as long as Apple continues with its creativity and constant production of inventions and upgrades, the profits will continue to rise as they have before. If Cook follows Job’s plan of success, Apple’s finances, brand and future will maintain high.
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