The Cliptomania Web Store

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INTRODUCTION (5 Points)

Cliptomania is a limited liability corporation, sells clip-on earrings as a Web store. It started and owned in New Jersey by Santo family to sell non pierced earrings throughout the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. They started from Newwork Solutions and then a yahoo! Store and finally set up their own website. They sold a lot in December 2001 and the small house in New Jersey is not enough for them so they decide move to Indiana.

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ISSUES/PROBLEMS (20 Points)*

* Setting Up Web Store: The Santo family knew little about the internet or jewelry. They did not have any expertise in the creation of a web site, like design the site and write the HTML code to set up the pages or to integrate the various software packages. And it was too expensive to hire someone to do all of those and they night have little control over the process or the result. Furthermore, they were not sure about the transaction security via the Internet.

* Getting Items to sell and stock: the Cliptomania had problems about finding sources offering earrings. And it was hard to decide what to sell and keep fashionable because earring styles go in and out of fashion. After they decide what to buy and keep in stock, it takes time in ordering and receiving. Some of the earrings were made in China so it takes long time in shipping.

* Marketing on the web: The Cliptomania needs to do advertisement on the website to keep in the first results of searching engine, after the searching engine changed into generate revenue and profits instead of just expanding its customer base. And for some certain searching terms they need pay Google to show the sponsored link. This might eat up most of the profit on the sale. For Cliptomania the web advertisement cost too much and did not receive a good result.

* Changing Web service providers: The...