Jewelryworld.com case

1.

Before appraising favorable/unfavorable factors to the development of Jewellworld.com’s B2B platform, we should realize what this movement might bring first. Needless to say, there were a lot of noticeable advantages of developing the B2B platform. To begin with, by bringing buyers and sellers together, one were allowed to meet potential business partners, gather business contacts, look at products and designs, and even place orders through the B2B platform. Among which, one of the most important functions of Jewellworld.com’s B2B platform was the shopping basket which not only enabled sellers to showcase their products to buyers online but also allowed buyers to contact sellers through the information provided on the B2B platform or even to place their orders online. In addition, the platform also provided additional web-based functions such as a chat room, a message board, web mail and recruitment news.

Due to products’ maturity and standardization, it was not inconceivable for buyers to make the purchase decision online without seeing the actual product anymore as long as good quality digital pictures and supporting product information are provided. The key point of favorable factors to the development of Jewellworld.com’s B2B platform given above is easy to make sense, but on the other hand, there were also unfavorable factors to the development of Jewellworld.com’s B2B platform.

At the beginning, the jewellery in Hong Kong was so traditional that only few members took advantage of Jewellworld.com’s B2B platform. Some had never had a computer until they joined Jewellworld.com. To overcome the obstacle, Jewellworld.com found ways to encourage its costomer base to use its service, for example, they had been providing training support on how to use computers and the B2B services through various means.

2.

The competitive advantages of Jewellworld.com are basically on the innovation side. They were the innovator of this kind of platform for jewelry industry and they can base on their physical jewelry shop to provide their resources. In our opinion, jewelryworld.com can survive and prosper by their services provided to their customers with helping them to set up their online business. Because of the switching cost of change from one online platform to another is considerably high and not necessary. We think that these advantages can be leveraged because once their customers adopted the online services, they will get more and more rely on other service or platform Jewelryworld.com provided. Jewelryworld.com can be more and more trustful to their customer and thus attract more business to cooperate with Jewelryworld.com.

3.

First of all, we suggest Jewellworld.com consider to cooperate with other related

corporation to increase its brand image and exposure. In modern society, It seem

s that jewelry is a symbol of status of a person, so if Jewellworld.com could affiliate

with some fashion company like brand leather bag, clothing or watches, it might be a

chance to expand their market chare in fashion industry.

Second, Jewellworld.com should segment its product lines and create more surprise

to it customers. To segment its market, it may use age, social and economic status or

price or products etc. it can also try to hire more young designers through holding

competitions or provide a platform for new jewelry designers to show their ideas and

creativities. For customers of Jewellworld.com, it can also be a new inspiration and

create more desire to shop.

The last but no the least, Jewellworld.com can be a channel for foreign jewelry

company to reach manufacturers and retailers. And it may expend their product styles

to fit more different demands.

4.

The following are two options presented in the case: IT support and

re-packaging the web-based services.Since the former option is a new

technology to Jewellworld ,and it will cost more, so we don't suggest

Jewellworld to adopt IT support. We think that customization is important in

order to satisfy the diverse customers,so Jewellworld should keep improving

re-packaging jewellery services.

Beside B2B businese,we think Jewellworld could consider B2C businese to

provide customized services since B2C market might grow up to a important

market.Therefore,Jewellworld could take the following suggestions:

1. provide more customized orders between jewelers and customers.

2. Provide the recycle services for old jewellery in secondhand auction

market.

3. Provide the professional knowledge of the jewellery for customers.

4.provide on-line shopping system.

MedNet.com case

1. If Internet media is so measurable, how can Heather Yates and Bill Bishop be in such a predicament?

Though the numbers of click-through can be a way to measure the effects of advertising, there’re still other factors and reasons about the revenue from online advertisements. MedNet is a website that provides based medical information free, and most of the audiences turn to MedNet when they’re in crisis, like feeling uncomfortable or sick from diseases. And MedNet mainly generates its profit from advertising sales. Marvel, which is an online search engine, has a lot of visitors who behave in a predictable pattern.

As the website traffic indicators, CPM and CTR just represent how many people went through the website and click the advertisements and contexts fit their interest or need. Both of they are not enough to be evaluation methods of revenue. Maybe they need to put attention on cost and other factors. There’re not only click-through that is relevant to the profit issue, also a lot of other related factors like how to evaluate real performance from those click numbers.

2. What does an advertiser want? Sales leads, brand awareness? What are the best metrics for measuring these?

According to this case, sales number seems more attractive than brand awareness for a practical advertiser. The reason why Windham considered shifting its MedNet ad dollars to Marvel could be a good example to explain this condition. In view of preferring “sales leads”, advertisers would like to ask sites to charge only for click-through instead of cost-per-thousand impression (CPM) which is the metrics for measuring effectiveness of brand awareness. As a matter of this, the key metrics for measuring“sales”is the click-through-rate (CTR), measured as the number of clicks divided by the number of ad impressions delivered. To sum up, advertisers always considered website click-throughs to be the equivalent of customers interested in potentially making a purchase.

3. What specific consumer behaviors determine whether or not a business model produces the results an advertiser wants?

In this case, the target consumers are those who are interested in medical issue. They may browse websites to get the information they need by search some issues on the search engine or on a specific medical website such as “MedNet.com.” We can divided consumers into two groups, the first group includes consumers that are actually looking for some medicines which would cure their illness. When they are searching on internet, they may click on the advertisement related to what they are searching for. The company who advertised may get some profit from this kind of behavior of consumers. Another group of customers are those brows websites not for a specific reason; they may interest in some medical issue but may not in an urgent circumstances. For them, they may be caught by those advertisement on the websites and have some impression on the brand, next time when they are really searching for something, they may choose the brand for a try.

MedNet.com provides a professional, trustworthy and promptly brand image for customers and their customer are more like the group one we discussed above, which is more in urgent, more loyalty to websites. Based on the reasons, MedNet.com choose a business model which is (1) free of charge to consumers for medical-related information (2) charge fees for advertisement (3) charge by CPM (4) monitoring their eyeballs at anytime.

As to Marvel, they provides general information and search functions for customers, their browsers will use Marvel to get some websites that provide more detail or specific information. The business model for Marvel is (1) charge by CPC/CTR (2) alternative advertising model.

For Cholesterol.com, they provides interactive platform and specific illness information for consumers, their target customers are those who have strong knowledge of this disease and are seeking for some professional help. The business model for Cholesterol.com is (1) personal consulting service (2) international therapy tour (3) high-focused audiences.

4. What steps can MedNet take to address emerging competitive threats?

MedNet has two main competitiors:one is Marvel,the search engine, the other

is condition-specific sites those who focused on particular problems, such as Cholesterol.com.

Facing those competitions, we think MedNet could take the following steps:

1) The goals of MedNet is to provide free health-related knowledge, and to

stick with this goal,they should keep providing professional information or

team up with more medical authority to attract more consumers in order to

attract more advertisers.

2) To compete with Cholesterol.com,"customization" is one way MedNet could

take.Since it is importance to fulfill consumers' needs, Mednet could provide

more personal information service,like individual health recommendation or

provide Q&A service that visitors can ask their own question without telling

their private information.In this way,MedNet could get more attractions from

visitors who are the target audience of MedNet's advertisers and increase

their loyalty.