The Cliptomania Web Store, Essay Example

Cliptomania seems to be a great online store that happens to be one that appeals to many individuals within the United States and other countries around the world. The largest benefit of an online store is the amount of business that company can do based on where it sells its products. The owners of Cliptomania quickly realized this and were able to sell all of their products online to individuals everywhere that they liked. However, this company, like many others, had a few strategic issues that they faced while launching and developing their e-business.

One of the first problems they had was that they did not have any IT experience in order to design their own website. This is crucial when developing an online business as this is what your customers see as your advertising. This would have been easier if they had had some kind of experience with computers and web design. Another problem was that they could not find a decent variety of clip on earrings to sell. This, they quickly saw, was a big problem for them as they needed good, stylish earrings in order for their business to prosper. It wasn’t until Mr. Santos took it upon himself and went to the jewelry district in Manhattan to seek out distributors that they found out where to find these stylish earrings. Mr. Santos took the initiative and found that there was a national show in February and September called the International Fashion Jewelry, Accessories and Gifts (IFJAG). Here, Mr. Santos was able to connect with distributors that would help him along this journey. Another problem they ran into were the problems they encountered by doing business overseas. Here there was a language barrier. They couldn’t not speak or understand all of the languages in order to help their customers. In addition, the cost for the Santos family to ship to foreign customers was exceptionally greater than the cost for shipping to a customer within the United States. Therefore, they had to restrict their sales to English-speaking countries such as Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and some people in Japan.

Though they had a few difficulties in developing and launching their business, the Santos family ended up creating something that many women never had access to before them. At least, not online and not in such a large variety that is. It was a great idea and with Mr. Santos taking the initiative to learn more about the industry, the company was able to succeed and prosper in a very short amount of time. Starting out with little information and little guidance, the Santos family was still able to jump through the hurdles and make a company out of their idea.

There are several recommendations that come to mind when thinking of this particular case. First, it would be suggested that Mr. Santos do a little more planning before deciding to open this company. It probably cost him a lot of money by not planning ahead of time. If he had planned how he would create the website before starting, he may have saved himself a lot of time. Also, this goes for finding distributors as well. This took a lot of time for him as he was not sure where to start. By doing this before all of the other happenings of starting a business, he would have saved a little time and money as well. The planning stages of a company are the most crucial stages of building that company as that sets the foundation for how the company will be run. Another recommendation would be to be organized in the process. Do things in steps. Sometimes this saves a lot of time and money. It didn’t seem as if Mr. Santos knew exactly what to do or how to do it and he just went off of a whim. However, luckily, he was able to accomplish what he set out to do. This isn’t always the case for everyone. Organization is another key to a successful business. Finally, the last recommendation would be to stick to what is familiar. It was clear that the family needed to more space to successfully run their business and moving to Indiana would help them do this. However, they did not have to change Web Services Providers. This could have really cost them their business. Knowing the importance of rankings and ratings on websites is very important for an online business owner. Mr. Santos was not aware of how changing providers could hurt him or his company until it was already done and over. If he had stuck to what was familiar, he wouldn’t have lost his rankings. Sometimes change is good and necessary. However, knowing when to create that change is also much more necessary than many think. Overall, the Santos family did a great job developing and launching this business and jumping through the hurdles.

References

Brown, C. V., DeHayes, D. W., Hoffer, J. A., Martin, E. W., & Perkins, W. C. (2012). Managing information technology. (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.