Edgar Martinez
Columbia Southern University
Management information Systems
Dr. Kimico Myers
October 13, 2014
To my observation, the first strategic matter faced by the company in launching and developing their new e-business venture is to streamline their mode of operation by setting up their e-commerce site (web) and making it practical to their needs. Jim and Candy and Jim made the decision to hire a vendor to host their site. I addition, they went on to use the computer resources of the same vendor to run their business. Come inauguration time, they decided to use the online giant, Yahoo Store. That move seemed to be the best idea, although with time the online Yahoo services deemed to be more expensive that originally though. Taking the vendor route, facilitated things for Jim and Candy to start up their e-business and without much guidance or assistance, two owners were forced to design their own website. Another strategic issue that plagues many start-up, first year companies (businesses) is that of credibility which posed a significant challenge when potential customers started to phone in to wishing to speak with actual employees/personnel before they would place an order.
About the most important issues that were related to the business was the challenge of finding the source for their products. As easy as it seemed, the manufacturers turned out to be more difficult to access. As a lead was narrowed down, the products (namely earrings that clipped on), were not of the most attractive in nature. Simultaneously, the company was not aware of what the latest styles were or what customer preferred. Sadly, the clip-on earrings were not the most appealing to customers. Likewise, when Jim and Candy purchased products from their wholesale suppliers, the jewelry prices were somewhat high. Only by reaching out to manufacturers, did Jim and Candy solve their sourcing problem. Soon after that, Jim and Candy began to
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. Case Study: The Cliptomania™ Web Store Laudon, K. C., Traver, C. G. (2013). E Commerce, Global Edition. Pearson Education.