Unit IV Case Study

Unit IV Case Study The owners of "Cliptomania, LLC, a limited liability corporation" took a venture to sell "clip-on earrings" online, the owners Jim and Candy Santos, were not well versed in the operation or the creation of a profitable "webstore" website for the display of their merchandise and payment options (Brown, Dehayes, Hoffer, Martin & Perkins, 2012, p. 309). The first notable strategic issue at hand was in the launching of "the URL Cliptomania.com" e-business website (Brown et al., 2012, p. 309). Jim was determined to seek a way to get their business up and running. Jim found many of the resources that could potentially work, some of the resources the Santos pondered utilizing included: 1) contracting for hire a "internet service provider", 2) software purchase and installment fees (if applicable), and 3) hiring an employee with IT development knowledge and applicability (Brown et al., 2012, p. 309). Consequently the options are not favorable due to the high costs to utilize such measures. The second strategic issue at hand was the rising cost of running their e-business. The Santos' found that Yahoo! began to charge more and more over the span of four years (1999-2003); Yahoo! began to charge insignificant fees that the Santos would be giving away approximately "2.5 to 3.5 percent" for the processing of payments, not to include the "3.5 revenue" taxation to sell on the yahoo website (originating from "Yahoo! store search"), individual processing fees for items sold of "0.5", adding up the minimal fees and the variable percentage paid to sell merchandise and the ability to continue to make a profit (Brown et al., 2012, p. 310).The spike in the cost of utilizing Yahoo's! services was too much. This prompted the Santos to revisit the alternatives to reproduce a site dedicated to their business. The Santos eventually, hired a freelance consultant to provide assistance when needed (Brown et al., 2012). The third strategic issue involved the shrinking availability of profitable merchandise. Besides the issues with setting up the Cliptomania site, the resource of clip on earrings seemed to be smaller and smaller. In response the couple spent countless dollars on making purchases that would turn out to be non profitable, due to the quality, fashion trend, or un-interest from customers. Some purchases were profitable, but the Santos ran into roadblocks to reach vendors and new vendors (Brown et al. 2005). The couple began attending fashion jewelry accessory shows (Brown et al., 2005). Networking and reaching out to others at the helped them breakthrough the barriers, in order to network and eventually expanding their connections with vendors and resources for clip on earrings. The fourth strategic issue that the Santos faced was calls to verify that the business was indeed a business and not a scammer waiting to steal vulnerable consumers. the calls stemmed from the content on their site.
Recommendations and Analysis As a recommendation based on the assumption that the Santos could navigate thru the Yahoo! services and establish their own site after setting up their own site before, I assume that they would benefit substantially by taking further training in the creation and formatting of HTML and website creation. The recommendations to the Santos would include taking classes to establish a larger capacity to manage their own website. If they took more time in creating a more professional and reliable looking site, it could possibly cut down the potential loss of customers due to the misconception that the page may be outdated and no longer an existing business, or a hoax site. As a consumer myself these reasons would discourage me to purchase from their site. I would probably not call and continue to search the internet. Furthermore the Santos may be able to eliminate the calls due to the questionable site or the "need to speak to a real person" (Brown et al., 2012). My second recommendation to the Santos, would be to continue to visit shows and network. Eventually they may be able to be introduced to new wholesale fashion jewelry merchants for them to continue to cut and monitor costs to make more profitable sales.
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.