Egghead Business Customers example essay topic

What is business model? Business background: EggHead. com is a leading Internet retailer and auctioneer specializing in technology products for the office and home. Egghead. com offers a wide range of items from computer hardware and software to consumer electronics. Hours of operation: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Egghead. com is now recognized as one of the leading companies in on-line sales of software and hardware products. The company is fast becoming a major value-oriented on-line retail enterprise.

Do firms compete on value proposition or value cluster? Any company that is engaging in Electronic Commerce in not technology but service orientation. Egghead customers are allowed to remotely manage and expand their site licenses as they grow with minimal effort. Customers can purchase site license for soft products from leading vendors including Microsoft Corporation and Symantec Corporation. Egghead offers over 70,000 items for sale or auction daily including computer products, electronic and office product. Egghead. com offers a set of tools to "make your shopping experience as convenient and informative as possible as possible The 'Reference Desk' is an information resource offering 'buyer's guides', recommendations, tips and tricks, product tours, best selling products etc After you place your order a variety of on-line service tools and email, allow you to be kept informed of the progress of your order throughout the fulfillment process.

Orders can be tracked anytime with the automated 'Order Status' feature or by contacting the online 'Customer Service Center' 24 hours a day. As any self-respecting web-site should do, Egghead clearly states its Privacy Policy, Secure Transaction policy and it different Payment and Shipping Options. What are the approaches to developing an online offering, whether the business is providing a product, service or information? By offering retail sales, auctions and deep-discount products under a single umbrella, Egghead. com enjoys a key advantage in the competitive Web marketing place. Shoppers can take advantage of the broad assured selection of technology products in the Superstores section or can seek out exceptional deals through the Auction or Smart Deals areas of the site.

Superstores: Egghead. com superstores provide easy, one-stop shopping for computer products, software and consumer electronics. Smart deals: This section offers discount deals on popular new and refurnished products ranging from personal computers and consumer electronics. Auctions: Visitors bid on products supplied by vendors seeking to move products that may be overstocked or discontinued. This web site offer daily auctions, hyper auctions, product category-specific auctions are going on around the clock. People who are comfortable with technology and are looking for computer products that come to Egghead. com site are comfortable with shopping and browsing on the Internet.

Egghead claims that its on-line transactions are safe. The Egghead site uses a secure server. This means that if the customer uses a secure browser such as Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer, the credit card information will be encrypted. Users not using a secure Brower basically supporting SSL will not be able to proceed to the order form page and therefore cannot order on the Egghead web sites. Egghead uses a proprietary IT system. What is a successful, unique resource system?

What are characteristics of good resource systems? Egghead. com demonstrates that Electronic Commerce is all about: 1. Integration of a number of core technologies to support a particular set of business process: marketing, selection of products, ordering, payment, shipment etc. 2. Offering a service package with multiple options for the customers at all levels: different selection methods, different payment methods, different courier services etc.

3. Offering a service package: leasing option, return of goods, guarantee programs etc. 4. Building a Real-Time Enterprise: Auctions are held very hour, goods are shipped on the same day; sales representatives can be contacted on-line.

Egghead saw that every aspect of its business could be more efficient in the virtual world and less costly that the physical world. Egghead. com's superstore in cyberspace offers a larger total number of products available with much less inventory on hand; sophisticated technology at the hands of ewer people; capital facilities nowhere near brick-and-mortar with less total investment overall. What are the revenue models available to firms? The company made a choice to focus the resources and priorities of its management and its financial capital on developing a pre-eminent position in Internet commerce.

Electronic Commerce has enabled Egghead. com to overcome part of its financial challenges in the physical market and to drastically enhance its corporate image towards consumer and investors. It had become clear that if the company wanted to achieve its goal of reaching profitability it would have focus on its more profitable segment its business customers and at the same time eliminate unprofitable areas of sales. Business customers now have the possibility to open an online purchase account no need for credit cards, transact a lease for computer hardware or negotiate volume purchase. By focusing on this high value business customers, Egghead. com should be able to more efficiently and quickly amortize the cost of customer acquisition. Egghead business customers can directly via Toll Free phone or via the Web contact the sales representative of their region. Faxing purchase orders's an option.

Business customers receive Weekly Specials and / or Hot Deals. Egghead also offers a range of service agreement terms from 24 months to 48 months on most new and refurbished computer hardware products. It offers up to four years service plan for many of its products sold. All products purchased from Egghead are warranted against defects. Egghead offers a variety of shipping options with UPS, FedEx or Airborne Express with Next Day, 2nd Day and Ground delivery option delivery available. All Egghead Auction orders are shipped within 24 hours to 48 hours of the close of the auction from which the item was ordered.