Blue Nile Inc Case Study

The companies that are competing in this industry are Blue Nile, Zales, Tiffany 's, Online Jewelry Stores (Diamonds.com, etc…), and Local Jewelers. The Rivalry among the competing sellers is strong because there are many competitors and they are basically offering the same product. Also, the costs buyers experience when switching brands are low.

The advent of Internet has allowed companies to offer their goods and services throughout the world. Not only has the Internet opened up the floodgates of International marketing, it has also brought with it many other challenges such as cultural, political, and geo-economics challenges. In order to be successful in these global markets, companies must be very diligent in handling these challenges.

Firstly, the forces that can confronting the Blue Nile is the impact on the competition in the industry because it have the all of the rivals that can use the advertising and the promotion to attract the customers, it also can affect the Blue Nile and the competitors will not feel very satisfied with the present for the market position result to intense the competition. However, it also can affect the impact on the profitability

Another risk specific to Blue Nile is the “Build Your Own™” feature. This may have been a big draw to Blue Nile in 2005 where they were one of the few, if not the only, companies that offered this feature. Now, the ability to design or build your own product is readily

When Blue Nile first came into the industry they spent a good amount of money on advertising but in the last years have not made enough effort pulling back. As a result, the company is not well-known around the United States as it could be. Blue Nile should consider advertising its company through the United States. Blue Nile does offer low prices diamonds but if a potential customer is not aware of the company’s existence, sales could be missed. The company has a lot of dangerous competitors such as Tiffany. Tiffany stores can rely on brand recognition; however, Blue Nile is not as well recognized and cannot benefit of Tiffany’s name advantage.

Technology is playing a vital role in the expansion of global retail. Consumers can find most of the products they buy online, through various retailers, compare prices, thus choose the best offer. Companies like Tesco must have a large online presence if they want to be successful over a long period of time. Tesco must compete with other retailers on price and/or try to provide benefits in other ways. This lead to

Blue Nile, Inc. is considered the world’s largest online retailer of diamonds. Founded in Nineteen-ninety nine, the Blue Nile offers gold, platinum, pearl and silver

“Diamonds are forever.” Or are they really? For about 80 years, the De Beers diamond company has pulled off the biggest marketing scheme ever known to mankind. Indeed, how much would you estimate your diamond engagement ring wrapped around your finger? A fair amount would be the right thing to say. However, the compressed carbon stone is worth a lot less than anyone would imagine, which is why De Beers has been such a successful company, who, thanks to a good use of marketing as well as strategy, has led the entire planet to believe that diamonds are rare, luxurious and expensive stones. They are the leader in their field, as the De Beers diamond output from their own activities is about 40% of the world’s total rough diamonds. The key to their success is that they have implemented a single channel distribution, controlling about 70% of the world’s diamonds as they pass through the CSO (Central Selling Organization, owned by De Beers), which regulates the diamond output to the market, to controls the supply and therefore the high prices. “Since the late 1800’s the South African multinational has regulated both the industrial and gemstone diamond markets, and effectively maintained an illusion of diamond scarcity” (Hollensen, 2007).

Amazon’s major objectives was to get closer to its customers in its e-commerce activities by providing more services and products in the global market. Today, Amazon has a business that is spread across geographically, but most of its newer services and products are limited to certain geographical areas. Amazon as one of the largest retailer in the world, has about 12.3% global market share with operations in 15 countries. Amazon despite the advantage in the market share, it is significantly unbalanced in the various countries. In Germany, it is at 21.4%, in Chinese it’s at 1.7% online retailing market. Therefore, in this regard, Amazon has constantly been faced with critical challenges in developing international strategies. The company is now stuck in a dilemma if they should continue its global

« Do you adapt or redesign your business model for the Internet?If you don’t want your unprofitable customers someone else will »

Over the last decade, we’ve witnessed massive international companies vanish and be replaced by new services with much better customer experiences. These services provide entirely new benefits, such as instant access, incredible product variety and lower price points, completely disrupting the industry in favor of the customer.

The population of the Internet and World Wide Web has raised fast since 1990s with the development and advancement of computer technologies. Many firms have launched their business through the Internet because of this technology innovation. This resulted in various and widely sales of products in the Internet business. Online buying grows at an amazing rate. Therefore, companies that carry out Internet based business have great opportunities to succeed. Conversely, there is a greater competition and threats are all around considering that many companies had entered the online business (cited in University of Texas at Dallas.com n.d.).

The combined effects of the Internet and globalization have made the challenges of implementing strategic plans and initiatives even more challenging and difficult. The long-standing assumptions of foreign markets being comparable to domestic ones of a given corporation have long proven false, leading to significant shifts in the strategic planning process for enterprises globally today (Hassan, 2010). In reality the Internet has made every business a global one; each has the opportunity to attract, sell and serve customers globally over e-commerce platforms that can be enabled and operational within weeks. The speed of competition is increasing due to the combine effects of globalization and the Internet. The focus has now shifted away from mass production to mass customization due to the Internet and its ability to reach foreign markets with relative ease. This shift from mass production to mass customization has also been accelerated by a global prioritization of services, as they are capable of generating greater gross margins and have business models that require greater tailoring to specific foreign market needs (Luo, Chang, Su, 2012).

What are some key success factors in diamond retailing? How do Blue Nile, Zales, and Tiffany compare on those dimensions?

China's internet business showcase is enormous, developing quick, and progressively open to merchandise from abroad. Because of the mix of abroad travel, expanded Internet utilization, presentation to remote brands and surging interest for outside items from Chinese customers, China is anticipated to end up plainly the world's biggest cross-outskirt online business advertise by 2020, as indicated by China internet Watch.