week 9

Traffic Building

Search Marketing
SEM is a form of internet marketing which aims to increase a websites visibility in search engines.
Increasing visibility in a search engines gives a website more chance of being returned as the first site in the results pages. Hmv.com pays search engines to return their site at the top of the results pages (talked about in last weeks blog) these sponsored links ensure hmv.com is as visible if not more as its online competitors.

Online pr
PR is the practice of managing the flow of information between an organization and its publics. PR exposes a website to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment. These can be in the form of blogs or media alert services for example. Hmv.com have this year set up a site specifically for hmv blogging customers. http://hmv.com/blogs. HMVblogs is designed to allow communication with HMV.com customers, and to provide further leverage of the company’s “Get Closer” brand. Get Closer is hmv’s social networking site. The site allows users to import music and film files and create their own library. They will be connected to other users with similar tastes to form so-called ’spider clouds’ around the artists, genres or films that they have in common.

Online Partnerships
As Hmv.com is a leading player in its market in both high street stores and online, a partnership would be of no benefit. There would be no need for sponsorship as the hmv group is a huge company and more than capable of funding themselves. Co branding is more so for companies who create their own products. Hmv.com mainly sell products bought from suppliers and record companies for examples.

Interactive Ads
Advertising is a huge deal in e-marketing and will contribute a lot to traffic building. In the sites i have visited today i haven’t come accross an ad for hmv or any of its competitors, though in the time i have been writing this blog (with the tv on in the background) there has been an hmv ad on tv. For this tv ad to increase the traffic flowing to hmv.com the customer would have to go out of their way to access the internet and visit the site. Online advertising means the site is literally one click away when the advert appears, a lot more users would be inclined to access the site with one click than have to put in the effort of moving from the tv to the computer and searching fot the site or typing in the address.

Opt in e-mail
Opt in e-mail is when a customer is given the option to receive “bulk” e-mail, that is, e-mail that is sent to many people at the same time. Typically, this is some sort of mailing list, newsletter, or advertising. Obtaining permission before sending e-mail is critical because without it, the e-mail is Unsolicited Bulk Email, better known as spam. Hmv.com uses confirmed opt-in (COI).
A new customer is asked if they want to subscribe to the mailing list when they purchase a product a confirmation e-mail is sent to verify it was really them. Many believe the person must not be added to the mailing list unless an explicit step is taken, such as clicking a special web link or sending back a reply e-mail. This ensures that no person can subscribe someone else out of malice or error.

week 8

In this weeks blog I will be assessing search engines and where hmv.com appears for particular searches. The most popular search engine on the web is arguably google. This will be the main engine i will use.

Obviously if i search for HMV with google the results will display hmv.com at the top of the list. The highlighed link at the very top is a sponsored link, which means hmv.com pay google for this ad to appear there. Below this sponsored link begins the list of results returned from the search, hmv.com at the top again.

search results

This search is quite specific which is fine if the website address isn’t known. If however some one is searching for a product that hmv sell, say dvd’s, this changes the search results quite a bit.

If i searched for dvds for instance, which is where hmv.com generates a lot of its revenue, the first sponsored link is to one of its main competitors, zavvi.co.uk. Forgetting about the sponsored links and looking through the results, hmv.com doesnt appear in the 1st three pages. By this point i had lost interest looking for it. Most user would probably only look as far as the 2nd page at a push. In the first page alone both hmv’s main competitors, zavvi.co.uk and play.com, appear. These findings are almost exactly the same when “cds” and “games consoles” are searched for on google. Though with these last two searches hmv.com doesn’t even appear as a sponsored link.

When searching with various other engines, yahoo and ask.com, hmv appears again as a sponsored link but is not returned as a result in the 1st three pages. This prob doesnt effect hmv.com too much as they are sponsoring their links but if for some reason this was prevetned they would struggle to be recognised a head of their competitors when customers are searching for general goods which aren’t exclusive to hmv.

week 6

Supply Chains

Hmv.com uses mostly a pull approach to supply chain management. Hmv can only really improve service quality and not the quality of the product. The purchasing cycles and response times of queries and orders are almost immediate. Information is shared between hmv.com and its suppliers allowing low levels of inventory to be kept without the risk of losing a sale. By focusing on the pull approach to supply chain management hmv.com are allowing they to constantly deliver value to its customers.

 

Hmv.com uses virtual integration in its everyday running. Most supply chain management activities are controlled outside of hmv.com, who in turn keep a close relationship with its suppliers. The business is not totally reliant on linked third parties as hmv.com has numerous stores to back up its supplies. These would only need to be used in extreme circumstances.

 

HMV Canada is partners with Bell in an exclusive distribution agreement. Bell Mobility’s superior wireless products and digital content distribution capabilities are available across the country in HMV Canada retail locations. This partnership leverages HMV Canada’s role as the nation’s leading retail entertainment destination with its media focused customers. Bell Mobility itself is also partners with Solo Mobile and Virgin Mobile; these companies will also offer products and services at HMV Canada locations.

 

Hmv.com’s procurement is maintained simply by long term partnerships and repeat purchasing. The products and services that hmv.com provide are obtained from a very limited number of suppliers. Using the same supplier for a long time not only shows loyalty but gains respect from the suppliers itself and this will ensure competitive prices

 

 

week 5

Threat of substitute products

Hmv.com is as open to the threat of substitute products as much as any other business. Fortunately for hmv it has long been established as one of the major businesses of its kind in both Europe and Asia. Hmv has two major competitors which offer only substitute services but identical products; this keeps the market competitive both online and in store.

The threat of the entry of new competitors

In order for a new competitor to be able to compete in this market they would need to launch their business on a global scale, this is almost completely unfeasible due to the shear amount of money it would take. Due to the way the music industry is going the amount of music being sold as hard copies is dropping more and more. This therefore opens the door to business like i tunes which are entirely online and distribute no hard copies. However music has become a very small side of HMV.coms revenue with the majority being generated through dvd and games consoles.

The intensity of competitve rivalry

 As mentioned previously in this post, and others, hmv.com has two main competitors(play.com and zavvi.co.uk) hmv and zavvi are not so competitive when it comes to price as they are both reliant on mainly store based sales, and with their stores more than likely being close together in every major shopping town. This tends to keep the prices similar in these two business and they try to compete more through innovation and marketing. Play.com on the other hand are an entirely online based business and compete alot more through price as they have less overheads to pay.

The bargaining power of customers

Straight up bargaining with hmv.com is never going to happen. Prices are set by the company and thats what has to be paid. Being unable to bargain online is over come by the ability to shop around through a vast range of suppliers, shopping around via the internet greatly increases your chances of finding the same product for a better price. This being the case prices is likely to be forced down through increased customer knowledge and price transparency.

Bargaining power of suppliers

Suppliers of products to hmv.com are the same suppliers that supply all other similar businesses. It would be unfair for these suppliers to charge different prices to different companies for the same product. This means that the suppliers could use this as a source of power over these businesses. As the companies cannot get these specific products from anywhere else they may find this source of power pressurizes them into operating in accordance with the suppliers wishes