Monthly Archives: November 2013

I recently read the post by Angad Rehki where the business model of Quibids was explained. It was explained how Quibids is able to sell products for extremely low prices by earning money of auction bids from each user of the website. Although he did a good job of restating the article, there was a lack of insight in the blog which I wish to add. 

First of all, I believe Quibids is a scam and the article that was presented is one with bias and untrue facts. For example, at the end of the article it can be seen that the article was sponsered by Entertainment Retail Auctions which is mention once in the article. The article was most likely one that was paid for to reassure consumers suspecting of the website.

In life, and especially on the internet, there are often many tactics employed to rob people of their important personal information that can be used for personal gain, or acquiring money. This can be said the same for business as there will always be people asking for investments or money for something that seems like a great deal. Being blinded by the idea of  shortcut through life, people tend to forget that hard work, and immense luck, is the only way to achieve one’s goals. It needs to be remembered that in this world, when something seems too good to be true, it often is.

I recently read Zijian Mao’s blog in regards to the rapid rise of Android over Apple in the sales of smartphones. The blog outlines 3 main reasons that caused Android to overcome Apple to become the leading smartphone software sold. While I do agree with much of what was said, I would also like to add an addition thought to why Android was able to overcome Apple’s IOS series.

It is the ability for Google to install Android into a variety of popular smartphones that has allowed it to defeat Apple by such a large percent. While Apple only supplies the IOS system to their Iphones, Google has their software on phones made by Samsung, LG, HTC, Motorola, and Sony. Especially in the case of the Samsung Galaxy S3 & S4 where both of the phones hit roughly near 40 million sales.

Google makes these firms dependent Android as it has credibility and often creating one to compete will not be worth the return. This becomes proof that often the best way to conquer a market is to be able to be the supplier to as many firms that need your product.

         Employee satisfaction is a key part of any business hoping to be successful. It is proven to boost performance and increases productivity. However, to what extent should businesses take to ensure that their employees are happy and satisfied? One company in London called “DeskBeers” was created to serve local craft beers to businesses. Currently DeskBeers delivers craft beers straight to employees desks on Fridays, but hope to start delivery on other days in the near future. This may seem like a fun idea, but is it necessarily a good idea for workers to consume alcohol in the workplace, even on a Friday.

Whether this idea can work in the workplace is dependent on the organizational structure of the company. A company with a loose standard and promotes creativity among the workplace, such as a tech firm, may allow their employees to enjoy a beer on a Friday, but a business with strict rules such as a bank would not permit workers to consume alcohol in the work place. Ultimately, the standards of employee treatment is governed by the type of hierarchy and structure that best suit the operations of the business.

According to Lydia DePillis from the Washington Post, it seems that many large retailers find stocking large size of clothes inconvenient for their stores and unprofitable. Even the CEO of LuLulemon went on the say that “some women’s bodies just don’t work for [our pants],” and according to the NDP group, as stated by DePillis, sales of sizes over 14 only account for 10% of total sales.

However, it should be taken into the account of the growing waist size of the consumers as they age and as new generations are being introduced to these clothing brands. When consumers age, they will grow out of their once “slim” size and for companies that only cater to smaller sizes, they will suffer the loss of aging customers as they try to acquire new, younger ones. Abercrombie has taken this into account and has announced that they will be introducing a plus size line within the coming months. This change has contradicted their previous accounts that their clothing are made for the attractive “cool kids.”

It seems that as the consumers change, companies that notice and adapt to the change are often the ones that will continue to grow and sustain their business.

According to Pamey Olson from Forbes, Facebook seems to have a declining rate of interaction among its members. In fact, it seems more people have moved from the multi-feature platform to new apps that include specific features such as media sharing, or instant messaging.

Vine has certainly grown as it has become increasingly popular with smartphone users since its release onto the app store. This has introduced a new way of sharing media in the form of a 6 second video. In addition, Whatsapp and Snapchat has posed a threat to Facebook as they attract the same customer base as the large social networking company. The increase of the need to connect while being introduced to several applications that allow the act through different paths has caused consumers to use multiple platforms that specialize in their respective methods of connection.

This can mean that with the growing need for applications that allow for quick and easy access, consumers are going to focus less on Facebook ( a platform with multiple-features and requires more time spent than other applications) and more on applications that focus on giving the consumer the connections they need so that they may move onto the next platform before getting bored.

Lots of companies often face the issue of whether to earn and keep that extra amount of profit, or rather invest it back into the workers. Unfortunately it is often seen as a trade off as one can only come at the expense of the other. In the case of retail giant Wal-mart, they are notorious for low wages and poor employee treatment. This results in poor customer service given by those employees.

Even in the case of Target, they promote the idea that they offer the same prices with better quality and better employee treatment when in fact the statistics will show that their employee standard are much similar to Wal-marts, going as far as requiring employees to watch anti-union propaganda.

In reality this idea of a trade-off or sacrifice is untrue. Costco and Trader Joe’s, for example, offer their employees a “livable” wages, and yet, they experience far higher sales per employees than Walmart, or Target. This draws to the conclusion that rather than being a trade-off, profit, and employee satisfaction can be seen as compliments. When one goes up, the other will mostly have gone up as well.