Unit I Case Studies
Bhrugeshbhai N. Patel
Columbia Southern University
Godiva is a well-known international chocolate company based in New York; where hundreds of stores can be found in malls worldwide (Turban & Lang, 2011). Godiva’s business model is to generate income is through “electronic commerce which is the process of buying, selling, transferring, or exchanging products, services, and/or information via computer networks, mostly the Internet and intranets” (Turban & Lang, 2011, p. 4). Its concepts are both E-business due to collaborating with business partners and buying/selling of products at partial/pure electronic commerce and virtual organization.
Godiva was looking for ways to increase its sales; which ended up being a pioneer mover in 1994 to move on the internet years before its competitors online (Turban & Lang, 2011). The major driving factors for Godiva was the Internet users tailoring to chocolate lovers, who were talking about the company and to whom the company hoped to sell its product online (Turban & Lang, 2011). The company thought by delivering games and puzzles were necessary to attract people to EC which led to a failure, because people were coming to learn about chocolate not play games and another concept was Godiva was trying to make the Web site look like a physical store; drivers of “EC is to provide efficient and effective business transactions, share information and knowledge, and use rich media in advertisement, entertainment, and social networking” (Turban & Lang, 2011, p. 25). A partnership was made with Chocolatier Magazine allowing Godiva to showcase articles and recipes from the magazine in exchange providing an online magazine subscription form for e-shoppers (Turban & Lang, 2011).
The classification by the nature of transactions Godiva used were “business-to-business - all participants in the e-commerce are either businesses or other organization” and “business-to-consumer which includes retail transactions of product or services from business to individual shoppers” (Turban & Lang, 2011, p. 8). Godiva wanted to sell online both to individuals and to businesses, it started with Chocolatier Magazine allowing Godiva.com to display articles and recipes from its magazine in exchange for online e-shopper subscription magazine (Turban & Lang, 2011). Example is showed “For corporations, incentive programs are offered, including address list of employees or customers to whom the chocolate is to be sent” (Turban & Lang, 2011, p. 10). Godiva teamed in 1994 with
