E-business, three case studies - Spreadshirt, Bigadj.com, Emusic.com

Résumé du document

Case 1 - Spreadshirt.net is a new website which allows to create its own shirts, apparels and to personalize a lot of items (mugs, aprons, bags, etc..). It is a German company which received several prizes for its business idea (for instance, the Hewlett Packard Business Innovation Award 2004).
Contrary to the other companies which make this kind of custom e-business, Spreadshirt.net is the first one which uses the concept of community. People cans make their own items but they can also sell it. There are about 200000 users / buyers / sellers on Spreadshirt.net (persons, companies, associations).

Case 2 - Actually, the Music's market is in a deep crisis. Sells are overwhelmingly low, the cd's format is totally has-been and nobody seems to find concrete solutions. They didn't think about their business when Internet began to develop and today, the big majors seems old and not enough creative for solving their problems. But around the main actors, there are actually several dynamic and courageous entrepreneurs who try to find new approaches for earning money in the music business.
Bigadj.com is one of the new company which tries to make new profitable business on this market. It is certainly not for sure the answer to the problems of the industry. It is simply a young and small company which tries to invest a new niche : the music renting for events of "the man in the street".

Case 3 - Emusic.com is an original service of online music retailer specialized in the independent artists. It is the world's biggest retailer in term of sell of independent musics (they have sold more than 300,000,000 tracks and 400,000 subscribers). They didn't develop their business as their competitors such as i-tunes or amazon and focused on a side of the music market for their catalogue : the "no commercial" songs and independent artists.
It is not smaller than the library or the choice of i-tunes (10 millions of files that the consumers can buy compare to Emusic.com, only 6 millions) but it is focused only on the music (no movies, tv shows or whatever). If I-tunes or Fnac are considered such as supermarkets without souls, Emusic.com worked a lot, on the perception of the consumers about the website and its image.

Extraits

[...] It is also a brake for the customers / buyers (less choice is sometimes better). But the datas allows to learn about the customers / buyers habits of searching. It is also a source of informations for understanding how the customers / sellers manage their business and a concrete approach for enhancing the service and its tools. In conclusion, even if the e-business model of this website answered concretely to several questions: how to recreate a business by using a new approach and strategy; how a company cans interest customers for buying a specific kind of products and include them in a tangible business game with real add values; and how an organization cans use efficiently the "Just-in- time" stock management by using Internet and the new technologies, they have to think to the future. [...]

[...] There are also different services available such as a commercial service (which can ensure the renewal of the subscriptions) and a department which is in charge of all the inquiries concerning the technical problems (difficulties for downloading, errors, etc . All the products are virtual, so, they don't need to organize a logistic strategy with sending and controlling. All the process is technological and not tangible (computer to computer). It means concretely that everything is about the efficiency of the hardwares and the softwares. Sources "Spreadshirt." Ed. Wikipedia. Web . Clement D. [...]

[...] An other office is located in Germany for ensuring the European orders large collection of products huge amount of datas) It is also a challenge for keeping all the datas: Spreadshirt.net count more than 200000 users and about 100000 different products. The company need to manage with hosts to ensure the smooth functioning of the website. This abundance of shops and sellers is good as much as bad because if it is a clue of the success of the website, it is also a source of extra costs. Several accounts are useless and not interesting (bad products, awful designs, etc . It means for the company, zero sells and zero revenues. Nevertheless, these accounts cost money for hosting. [...]

[...] If I-tunes or Fnac are considered such as supermarkets without souls, Emusic.com worked a lot, on the perception of the consumers about the website and its image. They were the first one to propose the music of talented and not famous artists. Concretely, it means in figures: “more than 6 million tracks from over 60,000 record labels that span every conceivable music genre including rock, jazz, comedy, hip-hop, blues, classical, country, folk, children's music, electronic, world, reggae and more”. Their values were to defend the authenticity of the music and to differentiate from the others actors of the online music market. [...]

[...] David Pakman. "Interview eMusic : vers l'abandon général des DRM Interview. Video blog post. Www.clubic.com Jan Web . Cathy Halgas Nevins. "EMUSIC DATA SHOWS THAT 72% OF SALES ARE ALBUMS." Www.emusic.com Sept Web . [...]