Cara gives her ideas about why university student likes Starbucks in her blog Why University Students Like Starbucks? I agree with her that college students just love the symbol of the Starbucks and feel self-satisfied when having their premium cup of Starbucks coffee.

Starbucks is not originally choose students as their target market. Since coffee has been regarded as an adult’s drink for a long time, and primarily  Starbucks’ target customers are relatively wealthy professionals that are willing to pay for a quality cup of coffee. But the company did its business so good, they are not just easily selling coffee beverage, instead, there is a high-quality lifestyle involved.

Starbucks seized the opportunity of student market and provide services for them. Why the university students love Starbucks? Because students are always in need of a location to socialize outside of school or an informal location to study, this lifestyle just fits in with Starbuck’s mission to provide a“third home” as it gives students with an ambient and cozy setting to socialize, along with Wi-Fi andpower plugs so that they can easily bring their laptop to study or work on assignments. Additionally, Starbucks offer students discounts and special promotions respond to students’ loyalty. We can see that Starbucks always good at finding new segments, and I just heard the rumor that Starbucks are even trying to open the new market targeting on 3-15 year-old kids. I think that might be very profitable in the future.

Having used Gmail for seven years, I just feel I can live without it. Once I saw the title “Gmail Down as Facebook Email Goes Up”, I was upset for in a moment. I was in China seven years ago, at that time Google or in other words search engine is not that popular. I read about google in a tech magazine, which introduced the method of using google to search stuff and how to set up a Gmail account. I followed the steps to open Gmail account and stepped on my journey with it.

Google opened a brand new market on internet by providing free services and softwares. Some other companies like Yahoo!, AOL, Bing try to beat but no one really did in last ten years. Google is such a innovative company creates new ideas in every second; and the pace of google is so fast no one can catch up. However, after dominate the market more than ten years, google are facing a very strong competitor. What is worse, the competitor- Facebook is not even a search engine.

People’s behavior changed.

People are using facebook and twitter nowadays. Having a email with the same account as facebook seems very convenient. Young generations usually  don’t have much loyalty, therefore they are easy moved to new stuff.

The case makes me think if there is a another way to beat your competitor?  In such a way, you don’t provide better services, but customers choose you because you provide additional value for them, by create a new demand to your customers.

I read Pattie’s blog Mittens Again and find it is very interesting.

Since the Canadian Olympic Foundation is going to reproduce the red mittens aging, people is questioning if it can really sell.

The major concern is about the red mittens are specially for the  Olympic Games which is past for nearly a year, probably people will not buy them.

Personally, I think that may not be a problem. I think there are must be a great demand for the red mittens, otherwise the reproduction plan will not come out. Besides, the red mittens themselves are good product, indeed, well-designed with acceptable price, the most important is red mittens show Canadian spirit.

This advertisement for new coming office 2010 is caught my eyes. I find it is interesting and funny, break the old-fashioned and inflexible image of Microsoft. Maybe it reflects to the new office softwares may have some renovation changes.

But I really want to know is it worth it? 2 mins and half length ads with Hollywood movie level production perhaps cost ten times than a normal ad. However, with spending that much of money, the purpose is letting people know a existing product. Coco-cola may spend lots of money on advertising, I can understand since Pepsi is a big competitor. Same thing applies PC and Mac. However, office softwares have almost the whole market, I just can’t see reasons for making this office ad.

Beautiful! The Beatles a is now available on iTunes. “We love the Beatles and are honored and thrilled to welcome them to iTunes,” said Steve Jobs in a statement. “It has been a long and winding road to get here.”

I have to say this is another successful market strategy for Apple.

See, it’s The Beatles. Now go buy an iPad!

These are my favorite Heineken advertising. Each time after watched the ad, I always feel like to have a Heineken beer, even through I prefer the taste of Corona. I think this is the most successful part of the advertisement – persuading customers to purchase something not base on quality, blind the customers’ eye.

The textbook selling model in UBC is quite different than TRU, Kamloops. In UBC , Students don’t like to buy books from bookstore prefer to get their book online. Unlike students in TRU  always check the post board in the corridor, UBC students are more interested in online network (actually, there are not to many post boards in UBC anyway). Used books can be found in local forum and Facebook. However, UBC textbook market is so big, that these scattered books selling can hardly affect the market share of the campus bookstore. Therefore, in some way, to sell used book in UBC is much easier than TRU.

But I am not going to copy the business model which I used and succeed in Kamloops. To sell used books I have to buy books first and I can not recognize the profit after I sell them out. In such a huge university textbook market that means I need to invest a lot of money but I only have inventory in a long term. It would be very risk and beyond the venture I can bear.  I don’t want to give up my idea, and then, I find out this new way-renting books online.

The model is very easy. People view my website to find the book they need. For example, for a bookstore priced $150 book, the rent price may be only $40 for one semester, however they pay me $120 including $80 deposit which they cannot get until they return the book. And I will not purchase inventory until I know the order. Therefore, I only need a small amount of stating fund, since I rent text out and got cash back very soon.

Next week, I am going to build my website and think about how to do ADs. I hope everything go well. Happy thanksgiving.

Just read the journal from WSJ that Chegg.com raised $57 million in venture capital!  Chegg is  an online textbook-rental company in the U.S., it reminds me to write something about my new-born textbook business in Kamloops.

Before I transfer to UBC, I tried to start a business on textbook exchange in Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops. I got this idea in 2008. When I first came to Canada, I found that the textbook is unbelievable expensive. I tried to find substitute to survive. After I spend 2 months familiar with this unknown city and university, and built my net work with some Chinese students. Conclusion as following:

1. Most Students buy textbook in the campus bookstore. Local students just don’t care the price, as long as the book is required by the instructor.

2. Bookstore takes used book from students as the price 20% of the brand-new and sells used book as the 80%+ of original price.

3. Bookstore has some competitors, Amazon.com, posters and flies posted by students. Totally took less than 1% of the market from bookstore.

4. Chinese are rich!

Than I started to plan the used book exchange business. Last year I raised $10,000 from 2 Chinese students. My business began, and now it earns profit.

I will explain my market strategy and possibility operation in UBC next week.

Let’s see what have Apple recently done.

iPod, iPhone, iTunes, iPad. You can name lot i-products made by apple also apple TV and Mac. Apple uses its brand to compete across several highly competitive markets, including the personal computer industry, the consumer electronics industry, on line entertainment store, the smart phone market and more recently e-book reader.

Why apple is so successful?

Apple has a market strategy that focuses on the emotions. The Apple brand is about lifestyle, imagination, liberty regained, innovation, passion, hopes, dreams and aspirations.

The Apple brand is not just intimate with its customers, it’s loved.