An analysis of eHarmony, including the five forces according to Porter
1.1 The threat of new entrants
The biggest threat to eHarmony and other paid dating sites was the free dating sites that were the newest entrants into the market. These sites did not have major restrictions to joining and did not necessarily do the match-making for the members. According to Piskorski, Halaburda & Smith, very many people subscribed to such sites as witnessed by the rise of “Plenty of Fish” in 2007 to become the most frequently visited in Canada and the U.K, and fourth in the United States(8).
1.2 Bargaining power of suppliers
A study by eHarmony showed that couples who met through eHarmony had happier and more successful relationships than those
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However, even non-paying members could be matched with potential partners only that the former could not send messages. This caused paying members to complain that sometimes they sent messages to non-paying members and never got any response, meaning it was a loss in investment. This made the company consider showing paying members which messages had been read and which ones had not.
2. eHarmony’s value proposition
At eHarmony, the customer gets the chance to communicate with a potential partner after having paid for the communication process. The value provided in eHarmony’s business model concerns giving the paying member guided communication with a potential partner. The company ensures that they consider the preferences of the applicants before starting on the match-making process. According to Piskorski, Halaburda & Smith, the company considers the similarities among applicants in order to start the match-making process (6).
In line with this, the company considers a person’s characteristics, interests, and values and looks for a person whose profile is similar. In fact, the company has gone against the traditional idea that opposites attract and opted for the similar traits while match-making. This assures the customer of the value of the investment they make when subscribing for the site as it offers more personalized and workable options than other sites.
3. eHarmony’s business level strategy eHarmony’s success is based on the business
The company creates value by doing a lot of the work for its clients. While the initial time investment (45 minutes) may be longer than the traditional model, it then provides the service of searching through the millions of potential matches. This not only proves to be a more accurate way to find dates, but also saves a great deal of time (where most online daters spend a 7 times as much time searching for a partner as they do interacting). And for men, who are usually fighting over a scarcity of women, they benefit from the majority percentage of women who have become the core of eHarmony’s paid customers. Thus the value proposition for the customer is: better matches (and better quality people) with a much smaller time commitment. The customers who benefit most from this are people who are serious about finding a person for a long-term relationship (rather than those who are just browsing, or hoping to have flings with as many people as possible).
Today's media has sparked a huge interest in online dating. With the new way to find your next partner,
Still, the company has problems from its competing Match.com, Chemistry. These competitors deliver services at a lower price compare to eHarmony. eHarmony needs to focus on problems the company for long-term success. The following analysis examines the online dating industry, eHarmony’s main problems, the strengths and weaknesses, potential opportunities, and threats.
In the article “How Match.com Aims to Stay Relevant” by Tara Nieuwesteeg the writers tells a story about two people who met on the website years ago and are happily married today. Lauren Whitson, 30 was in search of a relationship with a man whose relationship history was a mystery to her. She created a profile on the site in hopes of at least meeting new people. After she received a few creepy messages she thought twice about using the site to find her
The site is built upon a complicated, patented system that matches people based on the data gathered from married couples. Though, it will work properly only if you fill the profile properly and correctly. Every match that pops up is exhaustively screened and you only get the results that are most compatible with yours. This shows clearly in the number of people registered on eHarmony with the current figure being about 16 million. Around 10,000 members sign up daily. A better figure is 236, which is the number of people who get married via eHarmony every day! That adds to an impressive 43,000 couples every year! Pros: • There are around 29 key factors that make up the very detailed matching model. It goes as far as predicting relationship success and even whether the marriage will be fulfilling or not. • It has an advantage for men since there are more female members here as compared to men. • No searching involved. You are shown the members who match your profile.Cons: • Additional facilities come for a premium. • You cannot perform your own search. This may not sit well with all members. • Communication is only possible with people who are paid members on the
eHarmony also has to utilize social networks as a marketing tool or provide combined service with them. For example, Facebook induces their users who try to search their dates in Facebook to reach the eHarmony’s Facebook page. On the other hand, eHarmony can induce their new or existing customers to open a Facebook account and proceed to some activities for providing more reliable information to their potential dates. By this collaboration, both businesses can be winners. eHarmony can expand its market and potential to all the Facebook users, and it can also take advantage of more reliable information from Facebook page. Facebook can also penetrate their service to over 40s which has been had resistance to any social network
I would like to thank you for giving our consultant, Mr McGee the opportunity to come work with you. Our consultant, Mr McGee is a graduate from the University of Western Australia with a psychology degree. Mr McGee 's specific field is social psychology and has been working as one for over seven years now. He is an experienced psychologist and takes it as a profession. Our consultant can help your website “FindLove.com” in matching and finding the perfect couple and increase the reputation of your website. Our consultant 's aim is to assist by categorising each person by their attitudes, interests and similarities by adding new features which indicates these things. In this way, people are able to start interacting and socialising and getting to know those similar to them. This increases the chance of finding the perfect match by using the method of categorisation.
Eharmony is one of the many online dating services that promote their discounts this time of year. Valentine's day is one of the most popular days to sign up and subscribe to a dating website. During this week, plenty of new users register and create a profile just in the hopes of find someone compatible for them.
DatingOffers.com was created with a heightened user experience being a top priority of development that would be unmatched on a competitive scale. Furthermore, the behind the scenes aspect of the business has a billing platform that is more advanced than 95% of the sites in the same market therefore fluently processing sales at a relentless rate.
In order to achieve the above goals, several steps were carried out. First, various online dating sites were considered and narrowed down to three possible choices: eHarmony, Match.com, and Christian Mingle. Three ideas were brought forth regarding which site to analyse in order to determine which sites could potentially hold more issues and which site had sufficient content to be analyzed effectively. Next in the process, eHarmony was chosen as the site that would be the target for analysis. eHarmony is a very popular dating site and is well known due to their numerous infomercials and online advertisements and thus presents a great opportunity to examine the elements involved in a formal and well-designed user agreement. Following the choosing of a site, a copy of the user agreement from eHarmony was obtained and given an initial review. This step acted as the first run through of the agreement, which involved identifying possible legal issues in the clauses, highlighting important points form each clause, and gaining a general understanding of the agreement. The agreement consisted of two separate documents titled “Privacy Policy” and “Terms of Service”, each outlining the obligations of the company and the customer respectively. In addition, an examination of the actual purpose and requirements of the assignment was carried out. In this particular phase of the paper, the course outline was reviewed and the outline of the paper
Situation Synopsis: Competitors have developed different approaches to attract consumers in the online dating market; some of which have been copying eHarmony’s product features and using alternative strategies to attract singles.
Nowadays people are meeting the same way but with a twist. More people are using the internet as a way to put themselves out there to see what they can reel in. Dating sites are presently one of the most popular ways of meeting singles. There are many different types of dating sites, choosing the right one just depends on the person’s interest. There are formal dating sites where what the person wants is a serious relationship, marriage, or just a good time. There are also websites that tend to be a bit more intimate. These intimate websites are for people looking for like-minded adults with sexy photos, seeking affairs, discrete relationships, shared sexual fetish and sexual encounters. Usually once the person has found what dating site they want to use, they person starts off by creating a profile, after that they design their profile by inputting information about themselves, post pictures, biography, interests, likes and dislikes, and what type of partner they are seeking. The users fill out these in depth questionnaires, some ask about 300 questions and some websites also track what users do online in order to create a more accurate picture of their preferences. Also some of these dating sites are free and others the users have to pay. Some might say it makes it simpler or a bit more difficult to find their partner. These sites use a complex algorithm to help in the performance of
The industry is currently booming with new websites and apps getting in the game. Dateplay is a newcomer in market that is dominated by big giants such as Tinder, Happn, Match.com, and eHarmony. Happn targets individuals aged 25 and above, most of Tinder users re aged 27 and above, Match.com targets 30 and above, and eHarmony at 35 and above. The market is projected to continue growing as more people turn to online platforms in search of love. Tinder is one of the best performing apps in the business, with paying subscribers ranging between 100,000 and 290,000 users. Dateplay is however at an advantage as estimates show that people aged between 18 to 24 years will become the most valuable users. The market is currently underserved, and there is no dominant platform.
3)How well the platform can create values (Bonchek and Choudary, 2013). In order to create the maximum value, the company need to be able to make connection between two or more groups of participants without bias, such as sellers and buyers. Thus, companies need to pay attention to matchmaker. Matchmaker becomes increasingly important when connecting millions of people online. Database is the most important part of matchmaker, which contains rich data about all participants (Bonchek and Choudary, 2013). By analyzing data, companies are able to figure the user’s buying behavior and browsing history to facilitate connections between groups of participants. For instance, Amazon provides the best recommendations through email and on the website by analyzing buyers’ order and browsing history. The recommendation system maximizes the purchase opportunity and helps Amazon increase average order