An example of E-commerce failure and its causes


In the 21st century, many companies try to develop their business in the internet and sell their products and services through e-commerce. Some companies carried out the plan successfully;yet, some experienced failure in doing so. Some of the B2C websites that failed include toysrus.com, eToys.com, Xpeditor.com, Chemdex.com and Webvan.com.

Now, let's talk about eToys.com. eToys Incorporation is an on-line retailer of children's products. One of the top products that the company sell is Barbie dolls. eToys will fulfill any specialized requirements requested by customers on the Barbie dolls' appearance. In others words, it retails different products with 750 brands. Since eToys started to involve its business in the e-commerce world, there were many challenges faced by them such as competition with ToysRUS.com ,which is also a retail sales of toys. However, since February 12, 2009, Toys“R”Us has acquired eToys company. In the early stage of its business conduct via internet network, eToys failed in surviving in the e-commerce world.

The causes that lead to the failure was due to eToys' founders were lack of experience in the retail toys industries. Management experience is one of the important factors in determining the success or failure of business in e-commerce. However, the founders of the eToys, Inc did not have any management experience. The business was being run by a bunch of “twenty-something’s” with no management experience. Without experience, the business was unlikely to be successful.

Another cause that lead to the failure of eToys' e-commerce is its poor demand forecasting. This can be seen clearly in the case happened in 1999 during the Christmas season, where eToys with no experience in managing the business was unable to forecast the demand for the production of the toys. The number of orders was large and eToys was unable to meet the required orders. During that season, all the children celebrated Christmas with sadness and it is known as a disaster for eToys.

Besides that, eToy's poor customer services also caused its failure. For example, no toll free call was provided at the site and this caused inconvenience to customers. If consumers have any questions or problems about their orders, they were unable to contact eToy and make any correction. This lead to the lack of confidence and trust from consumers on the website.

Next, competitive environment also caused the failure of eToys e-commerce network. In the e-commerce world, eToys was not the only one in the retail toy industry. There were other companies such as Toys R’ Us involved in the same industry too. Therefore, eToys has a strong competitor to compete with. Compared to eToys, Toys R’ Us not only has online presence, but it also has the perceived stable infrastructure of bricks and mortar. Furthermore, eToys' strategy to offer more diverse product was in conflict with the strong “toy store” branding they had developed. The pricing competition with other retailers and high customer acquisition cost also lead to the failure of e-commerce.



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