Cliptomania Web Store Essay

It is the American Dream: own your own business, and make loads of money. Well, that’s the dream part, then reality sets in: business licenses, put-up money, taxes, etc. In the case study of the Cliptomania Web Store, in 1999, John and Candy Santo discovered a marketing niche that they could tap into; selling clip-on earrings, over the internet, throughout the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand (Brown, DeHayes, Hoffer, Martin, & Perkins, 2012). This type of marketing is called Business to Commerce or (B2C) e-commerce, which is way of purchasing, or selling goods and services over the internet. As with any new business venture, it started out of the home with a low-level of overhead.

In 1999, John and Christy Santo started an online web store, Cliptomania.com, out of their home, using $10,000 of their savings as start-up capital. At the
They will have a loyalty base of customers who appreciate dealing with a company that treats them well, and can obtain new business from word-of-mouth recommendations. A weakness is the ever-changing technology and the economy. As long as the Santo’s stay current with new developments in web retailing, and adjust to a downturn in the economy, they will stay afloat. An opportunity for the web store is to ever improve on the relevance rankings on the web search engines. Trying techniques, such as having other companies advertise on their site, and maybe advertise on social media blogs and sites, can help boost exposure of the web store. A threat can be competition from others selling on other sites such as EBay, that sell their personal items or store items, and Etsy which sells homemade items; keeping an eye on the competition and looking at the trends of how customers are purchasing can help them stay in business for the