Online Retailer of Diamond Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Online Retailer of Diamond - Essay Example Strengths. The company's strengths or the sources of its competitive advantages include its brand strategy which is grounded on competitive pricing as well as its promise on excellent customer shopping experience. This promise of competitive pricing is grounded in the company's lean operations and supply chain efficiency, which is also included in the company's sources of competitive advantages. Blue Niles strong ties and protective agreements with a variety of suppliers is also one of its strengths, which makes its supply chain efficiency less dependent on certain huge suppliers. The company's logistics system, more specifically its information technology infrastructure is a huge source of strength that enables the company to keep its promise of superior customer shopping experience through helpful information, support and excellent customer service constantly delivered. With regard to financial management, the company long positive cash float is another competitive advantage. This enables the company to reinvest the cash for some revenue-generating activities such as marketing communications without incurring problems with liquidity when the time to pay its suppliers to come. Weaknesses. The company major weakness is its business model, of being an e-commerce company. Although a lot of people have been increasingly starting to shop diamonds over the Internet, the huge portion of the jewelry market is captured by huge brick-and-mortar companies, with several stores all over the country. Among the larger segment of the market, they have more exposure when it comes to brand recognition. Opportunities. There are plenty of opportunities available to the Blue Nile. For one, the market for jewelry locally has been growing. While online jewelry retail serves one segment of the total jewelry market, growth in this segment comes from converting customers who prefer to shop in traditional brick-and-mortar jewelers to buying online.