Compare and discuss contrast between Staples.com & Boo.com

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TABLE OF CONTENT

Executive Summary        


Executive Summary

Electronic Commerce (EC) applications were first developed in the early 1970s with innovations such as electronic fund transfer (EFT). As the Internet became more commercialized and users flocked to participate in the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, the term Electronic Commerce was coined and EC applications rapidly expanded. Starting in 1999, a large number of EC companies, especially e-tailing ones, began failing.  At the same time, many EC initiatives in click-and-mortar organizations were discontinued. Although many blame the failure on economy and recession, but even in hard times, it's still possible to flourish.

This article will analyze both a successful (Staples.com) and failure (Boo.com) stories of company involved in the electronic commerce (EC) and discuss the likely keys factors that may explain its current state. The article will also try to look into the keys factor that may have changed the fate of these companies.

The last section of this article will attempt to compare and discuss the contrasts between the two organizations in term of critical success factors.


  1. Staples.com - Success Case Study

Staples, Inc., the second largest office supply superstore company in the US, sells office products, computers, supplies, furniture, and printing and photocopying services at more than 110 stores in the US, through telephone catalog sales, and with their Staples.com website.  They offer over 8,000 office products primarily to small- and medium-sized businesses (Hoovers, 2000b).  The Staples.com website creates greater flexibility for these business customers, and values its brand and repeat business from these customers. 


B.  Business model & Strategy        

Staples.com is a B2B seller of office supplies delivery provider, who also owns a significant portion of their delivery fleet and delivers goods on demand to local distributors or business customers.  

Staples.com used an “On-Demand Delivery Services” model of eCommerce in which the physical products for sale are delivered directly to the customer without the use of a third party logistics provider, such as a common carrier.  This implies the ownership or control of a fleet of delivery vehicles by the business, which has several very important implications for the business.  

First, it may offer the ability to exercise greater control over a significant cost of conducting business.  Second, the delivery function can be used as a source of distinct competitive advantage – promising next-day delivery, for example, can be a powerful value proposition for the customer.  

Finally, the direct connection to the customer may enable stronger connections, which in turn, may enable a greater ability to understand the customer, provide improved services to the customer, or create a sense of loyalty.  This leads to “stickiness” and switching costs for some customers.

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  1. Major Reasons for Staples.com Success

  • Liquidity and Cash Flow

Staples.com being the e-commerce arms of Staples.Inc had strong backing in term of availability of fund required to build the “Portal” that would support its e-commerce effort.  Furthermore, unlike other “dot com” which spent massive amount of money on advertising campaigns, Staples.com inherited the brand name from Staples Inc.

  • Customer Relationship Management

  1. Understand Customer shopping pattern.

Data relating each customer’s shopping patterns are gathered and stored in a central database that links information from all channels of Staples, Inc., including their ...

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