Chapter Nine:
Products & Brands
Lauren Gaites
Lauren Sabol
Vicky Paccione
Core Competencies Undergird
Online Competitive Advantage
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Core Competency: A company's core competency
is the one thing that it can do better than its
competitors.
Web Marketing Today
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, E-Commerce Consultant
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Assess your interests, abilities and strengths
Monitor your likes and dislikes
Identify your Competitive advantage
Decide how to sustain your competitive advantage
Examples: Google, Overstock.com, Amazon.com
Reports Readers Survey Suggests
Shopping Online for Electronics
May be Best
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You would expect that mass retailers would be the best place to buy
digital electronics, but consumer reports found that shopping online
may be a smarter idea
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Ie. Best Buy, Circuit City
Bricks-and-morters-specialty retailers often are shopping destinations.
Shoppers will travel considerable distances to purchase a certain
product.
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Ie. www.tiffany.com
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Mass merchandisers such as Target, Costco, Wal-Mart have great
prices but have low ratings in the service category
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Bricks-and-clicks- businesses who sell their products both in-store and
online
Mass Customization:
MadeForOne.com
• Mass customization- “enabling a customer to decide the
exact specification of a product or service, and have that
product or service supplied to them at a price close to
that for an ordinary mass produced alternative".
• MadeForOne.com- website designed to be a centre of
news on mass customized and personalized products,
and analysis of mass customization and personalization.
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Most recently MadeForOne.com has added:
• Personalization Directory: a directory of enterprises who
supply personalized gifts and mass customized products of
any type.