Summertime! The term in itself implies a sense of relaxation and laid back times – at least for the consumer. For businesses however, summer is the peak of operations. People have more time to buy and tend to do so – the thing is that summer also makes them move away from their usual dwellings – spend more time on the beach, go on vacation etc. The point is that if your consumers are going away to relax, you need to travel with them – making your business mobile so...
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Apple Inc. has continuously been a success in the market place because it understands the pulse of the modern day, tech savvy consumer – it’s all about individuality and that’s incidentally also a principle at the heart of small business. Small businesses succeed because they are unique and personal, something bigger corporations will never be able to offer irrespective of how much they invest towards it – because it’s less about money and more about understanding...
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Who doesn’t love a bargain? Turns out more people than Groupon thought. Born out of the recession and once a soaring startup, Groupon rejected Google’s offer of $6 million in favour of an IPO. Price conscious consumers wanted deals and Groupon’s large email list was attractive to struggling businesses and the daily deals market grew quickly. In 2011 Groupon had a share price of US$20, but daily deals are a complex beast and Groupon oversold on benefits. Deals were expensive...
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Web 2.0, smartphones and social media created highly connected, mobile consumers who have the power to choose how and when they are spoken to. Consumers enter into brand conversations on their terms, controlling what messages they consume and on what platform they consume them on. Consumers expect brands to communicate the way they do and increasingly consumers are turning to social media when they experience a problem or need answers. Social media platforms gave consumers the power to be heard...
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Consumer behaviors have changed. We live in a society now where ownership is being questioned. Consumers opting for convenience and access over ownership have driven the rapid growth of businesses who operate using recurring revenue based business models. Not all revenue is created equal. A dollar is a dollar, but a predictable dollar is better. While traditional financial models are built around one off payments, recurring revenue business models which bring in smaller recurring transactions...
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