Bizrate Case study- SWOT analysis Essay

1. Bizrate.com (1996) is the US Internet service involving a portfolio of shopping web sites as a price comparison service. It also collects consumers’ feedbacks and reviews of stores and products. Later on, the Red October company also created price comparison toolbar where people can search and compare the products’ prices no matter which website they are browsing at. Bizrate or Shopzilla uses the common model called Pay per click (PPC) and Cost Per Click (CPC) and the main revenue comes from sellers to merchants. Value delivers to online buyers is Trust and Being online judicatory thirdparty providing non-bias product and service information and reviews for purchasing the item. Value for the merchant and e-commerce website is a â€Å"creditability† and â€Å"image† and being a middle person to communicate between customers and merchants. Bizrate also acts as online â€Å"advertising tools† as well. Suggestion: Separate into 2 different market oriented firms – E-commerce: Sales Ads or top search position, develop e-mail marketing on existed customers’ database. Create variety of customized choices for its own search engines and research products. – Keep the research firm as it is 50% of total revenue and was renowned for reliability for buyers and merchants for years. SWOT Strength: 1. Bizrate was renowned for online reliable sources on its original market research business. It also establish before any others in the same kind of business/industry. 2. The company has a huge customer analysis and database, which cover all categories. 3. It includes real-time customer feedback at the point-of-purchase Weakness: 1. The company has to push forward its business in order to be competitive among other companies doing the same business. 2. Being the comparison search engine has nothing much to develop in terms of income besides selling PPC, click-through and customer analysis information for merchants. 3. They have not decided whether they will keep being the reliable research firm or go for e-commerce campaign (e-mail marketing, etc.) Opportunity: 1. In a globalized and technology based century, there are many opportunities for online investments in marketing. And people start to shop more online rather than going to local department store because it is convenient to buy online in terms of saving travellingc y costs and cheaper products (Some websites also provide Free Shipping Deals). 2. Nowadays, the customer insight and information is considered vital for any business to develop a marketing plan and improve their product innovation and services. Many business give more attention to CRM (Customer Relationship Management), which requires these useful information in order to develop long-term relationship with the customers. Threats: 1. Big e-commerce business like E-bay and Amazon started to have their own rating and comparison system. With bigger budget and newer technology, they might come up with their own strategy so customers don’t need to rely on a price comparison tools website anymore. Indirect threat* [ 2. Local shops might promote themselves with sale and promotion on being the place to give more proper information (Advice from professional sales or product’s technician) and seeing as a place to socialise among sellers and buyers, which might attract online buyers. The need of comparing the price will be less if they were distracted by local shops’ real deals or big sales where they can try and test the affordable and quality products themselves. ]