Dabs.com Home Page
(Derived from: http://www.dabs.com/home.asp)
Pursuit of Diversification
1. Dabs.com pursue the diversification strategies not only in the products or service but also on the business model. Besides selling the IT products, dabs also offers the internet connection at dabs.net. That's a range of superb communications packages at really competitive prices, all of which can be purchased and organised completely online. There are three alternatives: broadband internet access, ADSL, and dial access. At dabsxpose.com, dabs offer the digital printing service. Customers just need to email the selected images and dabsxpose will professionally printed and delivered right to the door.
dabs also operate on the business model of C2C and B2B. The auction site of dabs.com, dabsxchange.com, is packed with listings on a wide range of IT, technology and electronics products, which is both new and second-hand. It offers the platform for the customers to do transaction between themselves. At dabsxchange, customers can take every chance to bag a bargain, or sell something customers do not need. For the business clients, they open the business account with dabs.com for their business and get the volume discount.
Well-designed security system
Security could be one of the biggest concerns when customers are shopping online. Dabs.com pay much attention to this aspect. Dabs claims that “We have over 300,000 credit card numbers on our database, and there has never been a single instance of anyone inside dabs using a customer's card in this way” (security.asp). Dabs.com has internal security systems to stop the card numbers being viewed casually. Dabs.com is always concerned with improving its security system on dabs.com website, dabs.com has become one of the first online retailers in the UK to integrate Visa's new "Verified by Visa" scheme into its online payment system. Verified by Visa is to uses unique personal passwords to help protect Visa cardholders against unauthorized use. This new scheme is a positive step that proactively helps to prevent unauthorized use online before it can even happen.
Good online and offline customer service
Dabs.com offers good customer service in the pre-purchasing, in-purchasing, and post-purchasing. In the pre-purchasing, the website of dabs.com distributing static information to customers. It takes the form of informational WebPages, such as FAOs, About Us, which anticipates and answer customer questions. On the website, customers can compare the price and specification of the products they are interested in. This could save the customers’ time and facilitate them to make purchasing decision. Dabs.com also offers excellent Email advertising. As the membership of dabs.com, I can get up-dated information about IT products via emails from dabs.com every week. Dabs.com also has good after-sale service. It has over 30 people in the customer service centre, whose sole job is to handle customers’ after-sales enquiries about administrative matters and technical support. Moreover, dabs.com provides online returning service. Items from customers’ previous orders may be returned by viewing the details of that order in the customer’s account.
Fulfilment of the customers’ orders
“Fulfilment is, in fact, a crucial component of online selling. Fulfilment encompasses all activities that enable merchants to adequately complete customer orders. These activities include taking orders on the front end, processing these orders, picking and packing, delivery, and processing customer returns.” (An introduction to the e-commerce, p. 87) For the efficient fulfilment, Dabs.com establishes its own logistics centre. In order to improve the efficiency of the fulfilment, dabs.com have invested in excess of £2.5 million in a new state-of-the-art National Logistics Centre (NLC), which features the latest in system controlled stock management and automated packing. The internal layout gives optimum stock cycling which, along with new transport bays, gives a maximum of 20,000 unit shipments a day. With regard to the delivery, dabs.com provides several delivery options to meet the different needs of the customer. These options include standard 1-3 day delivery service, and an optional range of special services which offer faster or timed delivery:
Next Working Day: delivery between 07:00 - 18:00
Next Working Day 9am: - delivery between 07:00 - 09:00
Next Working Day am: delivery between 07:00 - 12:00
Saturday Delivery: delivery between 07:00 - 18:00
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The value to the end users
Shop-in-Shops
Dabs.com was a pioneer in the concept of online Shop in Shops. The various manufacturer stores within the dabs’s website give more information, pictures, and detail than usual. Within a Shop in Shop you will find product images, in depth descriptions, and useful technical specifications. As for IT and technology products, customers are always loyalty to a particular or a few brand. Browsing through a Shop makes life even easier as dabs.com can link associated and complimentary products together. All pricing and stock information is displayed, just the same as in the main site. In a shop in shop, customer can more easily find out what they want.
4. With regards to the payment, dabs.com accepts varity of payment methods including VISA, MasterCard, Cash, Cheque, Bankers Draft, Credit Account, Express Cheque Clearance, Switch and so on. Compared with other online retailers, dabs.com can obviously accept more payment methods, which bring customers much convenience.
6. An incentive for customers to buy
dabs.com offers the “dabspoints” to thank customers for choosing to buy from dabs.com.Every product in the Dabs portfolio, large or small, has a dabspoints value set against it; indeed some products even offer bonus dabspoints. After registering, any customer with an online credit/debit card account is eligible to collect dabspoints. dabspoints can be redeemed in exchange for AIR MILES™, which in turn can buy you flights, mini-breaks and even fun days out! Moreover, customers can redeem valid dabspoints against your choice of quality products from dabs.com new dabspoints merchandise store.
Analysis of microwarehouse.co.uk
Background of microwarehouse.co.uk
Microwarehouse.co.uk is the UK Company of Micro Warehouse. Micro Warehouse is the global leader in the provision of computer solutions. Over two million customers worldwide rely upon Micro Warehouse to fulfil their business' computer networking, hardware and software needs, confident in our quality, responsiveness and dedication to service. It has over 29 years experience in IT market. Microwarehouse.co.uk is one of competitors of dabs.com.
Market and Products
The market of Microwarehouse has the market similar to dabs’s. it intend to meet the customers’ IT needs. The market of Microwarehouse covers the market of many countries, like US, UK, Canada, Holland, France, and Germany. Microwarehouse provides most IT related products, ranging from networking products, hardware to software.
Key factor for success
- Worldwide presence
Micro warehouse does operate its business not only in the UK but also in the USA. Besides these, Micro warehouse established the website for Canada, France, Germany, Holland, and Sweden. It can provide its products and service in the market of Europe and North American, which are most important market for any business.
2. Put much effort to the market of the education and public sector
Micro Warehouse have been supplying IT Products and Services to the Education and Public Sector for over 15 years and have built up a huge level of expertise in dealing with the very specific issues that affect our customers in these areas. There are nine internal account managers in the Public Sector and Education, and they support customers with both the initial ordering process and any ongoing consultancy within this group. In addition to this core team, Micro warehouse have sales representative who is able to visit the customers of education and public sector for more detailed consultations and a licensing specialist who will ensure that your buyers are always able to purchase the best value software solutions.In conjunction with our sales team we are also able to offer customers the option to purchase their IT products through our custom corporate web sites. These pages are fully secure and access is only available to those buyers who have been approved by your management team.
- Competitive price
Price could be one of key success factors in the market of IT and technology products. In this market, the quality of the same product is not different in different retailers. Price plays a important role in customer’s purchase decision-making. With the technology of internet and web, the transparency of the information has greatly improved in the electronic world. Customers can easily compare the price of the product with the same or similar specification online. In the UK, the websites, like www.pricerunner.co.uk, www.ciao.com, www.dooyoo.com, offer the comparison of price for variety of products and customers’ review on the different online retailers.
The prices offered by dabs.com and microwarehouse.co.uk is quite competitive. The price of dabs.com or microwarehouse.co.uk could not be the cheapest in the UK, but their prices are at least as good as their competitors, and much cheaper than the high street price. At the same specification, for example, the price of Compaq laptop Evo 800v at dabs.com and microwarehouse.co.uk is about £1180 inc. vat, but highstreet price of the same product is about £1380 inc. vat. It is obvious that customers are willing to purchase the products with lower prices in the website that offers similar customer service and delivery.
Price obviously is one of crucial factors in the market of IT products.
- simple but very clear website
the homepage of Microwarehouse.co.uk does not contain too much but adequate information. They put the products they intend to sell in the most obvious place. These product could always be the value for money, so customers can easily be attracted by these offer when they just log on the website of Microwarehouse.co.uk. “Ensure your customers see what you want them to”(An introduction to E-commerce, P. 70). Microwarehouse.co.uk try to avoid applying the sophisticated technology in its WebPages. This could improve the speed of the website, and website is easy for customers to navigate. Nowdays, customers have no much impatience to wait for one web page for a couple minutes. its website is easy to navigate, and be pleasing and viewable to the customers. In the online store, not all of customers can see what the merchants intend to show. Dabs.com just employs some come technology application within its WebPages, which are easy for most online customers to view without any limitation of connection bandwidth. It is equally important that websites are fast and easy to navigate.
- Strong technical service
Microwarehouse Technical Services aim to deliver value and choice through a vast combination of professional services, and to support and complement it's clients requirements. These services include inventory management service, project services, remote network monitoring, desktop and specialist maintenance, remote management services, software support, SAN services, Apple services, and European services. For the market of the IT products dealer, the technical service is very important factor that influence the customers decision, because most of the customers are not always the IT expert or know the product they bought very well. Such these technical service can guarantee the customer’s product working properly, which is the customers really looking for.
Value to the end users
1. Locating the products easily
At the website of Micorwarehouse.co.uk, the customers can use varieties of ways to search for the products they want. The customers can find out the products they are looking for by Quick Search, Power Search, Category Search, and Search by brand or manufacturers as well. In the Quick Search, the customers can phrases, lowercase text, include or exclude words, wildcards, and characters or punctuation. By using the Power Search, the customers can drill down precisely to particular products, based on a variety of criteria - such as keyword, product category, manufacturer, our part number and manufacturer part number. The more criteria customers specify, the more precise they search results will be. In the Category Search, there are 4 major product categories - Hardware, Software, Networking and Supplies are split into various levels of sub-categories, eg. Hardware has 13 categories, such as CPUs, monitors, printers, memory etc. This tool allows cumtomers to drill down and view best sellers within each category level. Alternatively, go directly to the list of most popular shortcuts, listed in the left-hand column on the home page.
When the customers find their products, they can overview the full products information, including the full products description, products specification, manufacturers information, price, stock information, and promotion information.
- Efficient delivery service
An inherent disadvantage of telemarketing is the relatively longer lead time need for delivery. (Turban, Efraim and Lee, Jae and King, David and Chung, H. Michael (2000), Electronic commerce: a managerial Perspective, Prentice-Hall, Inc., New Jersey,p.48) If customers place their order for in-stock items with the payment clearance before 4.00pm week days and it will be despatched same day via Next Day Delivery service. Orders placed after 4.00pm on a week day or at any time during the weekend will be despatched on the next working day.
For products that are out of stock at the time of ordering, Micro warehouse cannot comfirm the delivery time cannot at the time of ordering, but an indication of the expected delivery lead time is given within the Product Information. For an update on expected delivery times for particular orders, customer can email or call the internet team of Micro warehouse.
- Personalization and customization for the corporate clients.
e-commerce technologies permit persoanlization: Merchants can target their marketing messages to specific individuals by adjusting the message to a person’s name, interests, and past purchase, the technology also permits customizaton-changing the delivered product or service based on a user’s preferences or prior behaviour.( Laudon, Kenneth C. , E-commerce: business. Technology, society P. 12)
Customised Pricing
Micro warehouse offers customization service to the corporate, education, and public sector clients. These clients can negotiate your contract pricing with the Micro Warehouse Account Management team, and get full access to their custom web site. This will ensure that corporate, education, or public sector can monitor their expenditure accurately and make clear price comparisons. When they have picked a product they will see the normal price as well as their discounted price on the custom website, so that you can immediately see your saving. In addition to customised pricing,
Customised Product Masking
We are able to filter the number of products available through our site to ensure that those visible meet your standard build requirements. This will help reduce your IT expenditure by removing non-standard products from the site. For example if you have standardised on Compaq Desktop PCs then buyers will only be able to purchase these PCs on the site.
Good customer service
We pride ourselves on our commitment to customer satisfaction and our dedicated Customer Service team will make every effort to resolve your query quickly and efficiently. In the unlikely event that you have a reason to contact our Customer Services team, please make one of the following available :-
• Account number
• Order Reference numbers
• Purchase Order number
Micro warehouse.co.uk facilitate the customers purchasing process via Quick Buy Settings, which will enable customers to pick your most commonly used payment method, credit card, invoice and delivery address, so that customers can jump straight from the online shopping basket to the purchase confirmation page. This saves much time for customers to fill in the form of payment methods and shipping address.
Order Tracking
After placing an order buyers will receive an e-mail confirmation showing the exact details of the order along with our order number as well as a link to our order tracking module. Buyers are able to list all orders placed within a given time frame and by clicking on a specific order you are able to see the exact status of each of the items ordered.
(Derived from:
http://www.microwarehouse.co.uk/staticpage.asp?pagename=publicsector)
Quotation system
Should you require further authorisation before orders are placed we have built in a quotation system which allows our customers to find the products they are looking for, build a quote and then either print it out for manual approval or forward it to a colleague
Comparison and contrast between dabs.com and microwarehouse.co.uk
From customers perspective, I compare and contrast these two websites in 7 Cs:
Context: “the context of the website captures its aexthetic and functional look-and-feel.” It refers to the website’s layout and design. Design and layout of dabs.com’s website is quite complex. It is complex not only in the colour but also in the layout of graphics and functional elements. Dabs.com’s website is designed to contained the links to the useful information to customers as many as possible, which is convey the theme of dabs---- No.1 online retailer with vast range of IT products in the UK. In the contrast, the website of Microwarehouse.co.uk has different style. The layout and design of the website is not as complex as dabs.com’s, but it is very clear. Customers could firstly be attracted by the product in the eye-catching place of the website. Microwarehouse tries to ensure customers to see they intend to sell.
Content: “Content is defined as all digital subject matter on the site. This includes the form of the digital subject matter----text, video, audio, and graphics---- as well as the domains of the digital subject matter, including product, service and information offerings.” Dabs.com website really includes very rich content, such as its offers(special offers, pc offers, peripherals offers, components offers, and software offers), the information about dabs.com, IT, top deals and auction, its service(delivery, return), site guide, useful links(online financing, online printing, auction, subscription offers, download shop, dabs points, child line, PC Association, B-grade), comparison menu and so on.
Community: “community is defined as the interaction that occurs between site users. It dose not refer to site-to-user interactions.” In the aspect of community, Dabs also operates in C2C model, which is online auction at dabsxchange.com. The website users can sell things they do not need, or they can get thing they want by play bidding. This actually forms a visual community, a visual marketplace as well. Microwarehouse.co.uk does not do very well. Both of them do not offer the visual community for the customers.
Customisation: customization is defined as the site’s ability to tailor itself or to be tailored by each user. Dabs.com does not offer much customisation service. Because dabs.com website includes wide range of products and sufficient information about its products, itself, its service and so on, customer almost can find their needed products and meet their every IT need. On dabs.com website, customer can open a personal account, and add, edit or remove delivery addresses, add, edit or remove payment methods or update your sales contact details. Customers can also customise their preferences and go to the order status in their dabs.com account. On Micro warehouse.co.uk website, except using similar functions of dabs.com, customers can customise the site to suit their needs. On their accounts, customers can choose their product category, favourite shortcut categories, and preferred top selling items on the home page. Besides these, customers can also check their previous orders, orders status, and use the quotation system in their micro warehouse account.
Communication: “communication refers to the dialogue that unfolds between the site and its users.” Dabs.com employs two form of communication with its users, which are site-to-user and user-to-site. Dabs.com publishes the news, feedback, and customer survey on its website. It also set question for customers to vote on the home page. Customers also can use email to contact dabs.com about the product, service and returning as well. Microwarehouse.co.uk does not offer as much static information for the customers in the website as dabs.com does, but it also send customers email about the latest offers. The website users can communicate with microwarehouse.co.uk about the customising prices, delivery, returning, and quotation of products.
Connection: “connection is defined as the etent of the formal linkages between the site and other sites.” dabs.com provides some useful link to other websites on its home page, such as Future UK Internet Awards, PC Association, Child line. In these websites, customer can get more useful information about IT and dabs.com. Micro warehouse just establish the links to its websites in other country including Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, and Holland.
Commerce: “commerce is defined as the sale of goods, products, or services on the site.” Dabs.com and Microwarehouse.co.uk both have typical shopping basket features. Customers can check their basket at any time in the shopping process. The shopping basket includes the order details such as quantity, product specification, prices, delivery charges, and availability. It also provide the “remove or remove ”and “continue shopping” option. If customer accept the products in the shopping basket, they can check out, and then fill the payment information including payment method, shipping address, email address, and phone number for contact. After that, customers will filling the card number relevant to the payment method, and confirm the final order. At the stage of filling the payment information, Micro warehouse provides “quick buy” option, which will enable customers to pick the most commonly used payment method, credit card, invoice and delivery address, so that they can jump straight from your basket to the purchase confirmation page. This saves much time for customers to filling the payment information. In addition to this, micro warehouse also allow the customers to view their quote in the shopping basket, and manage the basket themselves according to their own preference. For instance, customers can create the new basket for shopping, and save the previous one. Micro warehouse actually add some new feature to the typical shopping basket.
Besides the 7Cs, price, delivery, item return, and security are other important values the website offers to the end users.
Price: As for a particular product, the price of dabs.com are not lowest in the IT market, but considering the vast range of products, the overall price level of dabs.com is quite competitive. It offers a good value to the end users with the combination between wide range of products and reasonable price. In the contrast, micro warehouse offers more competitive price than dabs.com does. It, for instance, sell Compaq laptop Evo N800v at the price of £ 1180, which is the lowest price that can be found online.
Delivery: dabs.com and Micro warehouse.co.uk both provide the next day delivery, subject to the payment clearance and product availability. Moreover, dabs.com have other optional delivery for the customers. Such as “Next Working Day”. “Next Working Day 9am”, “Next Working Day am”, “Saturday Delivery”.
Security: dabs.com website is in secure mode when customers are filling their payment information. This means that customer’s browser encodes what they type, and dabs.com server decodes it. This system, the 'Secure Socket Layer' works - every trading Web site uses it, and you can tell you are in secure mode when a little padlock appears on the bottom of the screen. In addition to this, dabs.com have applied “Verified by Visa" scheme into its online payment system. It is the first one to use this scheme in the UK. This scheme is designed to use the personal passwords to protect cardholders from unauthorized use.
Microwarehouse.co.uk web sites are protected under the BT Trustwise Secure Site Programme, which enables secure communication between the web site and visitors to the website. The purchase area of the website is secured using industry-standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology to allow for the encryption of potentially sensitive information such as your name, address and credit card details.
I made overall comparison between these two website by rating at excellent, good, satisfactory, unsatisfactory, and poor in the following table:
I cannot see exactly which website offers the better value to the end users: Dabs.com has huge range of products, online returning system, efficient fulfilment of order, and good security. Microwarehouse offers unbeatable prices, especially on some products, strong technical support, and ability of customizing. I would buy the IT products I need online. In fact I am online shopper. I really enjoy the online shopping experience. I can stay in my bedroom to shopping everything I want without the limitation of time and distance. The products I ordered will be delivered to my door. On the internet. Products are cheaper, range of product is wider, and the information about the products is more detailed. I can compare the price; view the others’ review on the product and online retailer on the website like dooyoo.co.uk, dealtime.co.uk, ciao.co.uk, and pricerunner.com. I have bought some IT product online including my laptop, my digital camera. Although these products are not bought on these two websites for some reasons, they are actually my first two choices to buy my IT products. They have really huge range of product with competitive price, efficient delivery, good security, and sound online returning system.
Conclusion
In summary, two website have different advantage edges. Dabs.com tries to build the image of No.1 online retailer of IT products. Dabs.com pursues to operate on several e-business model: B2C, C2C (online auction----dabsxchange.com), and B2B as well. It pursues the diversification strategy: it not only provides the IT and technology products, but also offer the internet connection service (dabs.net) and digital printing service(dabsxpose.com). Microwarehouse is a global player in the IT markets. It establishes the website and provides IT products and its service in USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Holland, and Sweden. It covers the two major markets in the world ----- North American and European markets. Additionally, Microwarehouse.co.uk also pays much attention B2B. It has over 15 years experience of doing business with the education and public sector, and add some customizing features to the corporate account.
Security, price, delivery, and returning is four main factor that online shoppers are most concerned with. Who do best on these field, who could be the winner in the market?
N. Bandyo-padhyay (2000), E-Commerce: Context, Cooncepts, Consequences, McGraw-Hill Education, Maidenhead, Berkshire
