EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. The online personals industry took its first breath in 1992. In the beginning, the industry experienced very slow growth. Nonetheless, by 2005, due to positive changes in public perception, the industry was booming. By the end of 2007, the industry had grown to a $900 million market. Observers expect the market size to double by 2012. The industry serves its customers by enhancing the ‘self-actualization’ stage of an individual’s (Maslow’s) ‘Hierarchy of Needs.’ It seeks to provide that one-of-kind-product in a way that not only distinguishes the product but the customer itself. The industry’s low customer loyalty rate, high customer bargaining power, diverse range of substitutes, low barriers to entry and …show more content…
Customers “supply” a website with the necessary profile information that helps an online personals website built the necessary “inventory” of singles which attracts more customers. The structure of this industry indicates that companies are in a position to manipulate their suppliers; hence, they are arguably the supplier themselves. Rivalry: Competition in the online personals industry seems to be quite intense. Rivals can easily replicate a competing firm’s technology and claim that their service is superior to its competition’s. Low customer loyalty makes competition even more serious as companies have to spend a lot of money marketing their service to convey two messages: 1) their service is better; and 2) their website is the place to find one’s soul mate. The lack of focus in sending one clear message simply adds on to how much these companies have to spend on their advertising/marketing strategies. Barriers to Entry: A major reason why competition is so intense is that entering into this industry is relatively easy. Individuals simply need to understand the basics of creating a website and be able to gain access to enough networks of singles to claim itself as a player within the industry. Looking at the statics of ‘Niche sites’ segment of the competition in this industry illustrates this point: “(There) were at least 850 different
By repeatedly motivating the reader to take “advantage of the myriad possibilities brought to [consumers] by the world wide web,” Hassler emphasizes the augmented number of options developed by dating sites but fails to mention the depths of these benefits (Hassler). More specifically, these opportunities especially appeal to those with busy schedules or those in careers, such as teaching, where they do not meet many available potential partners. Because of the convenience of dating apps, they can arrange dates to fit their schedule and with people they have already familiarized
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).
Online dating has altered the process used for obtaining a romantic partner as well as has altered the process of compatibility matching. Online dating has created a new platform for meeting potential partners. Romantic relationships contribute to emotional well-being and individuals crave the intimate connections that are formed through their romantic partnerships; it is a fundamental part of human motivation. These dating sites have created a medium for potential partners to meet by alleviating the daunting task of conventional dating by solving the problems such as lack of access to potential partners, confronting potential partners regarding their romantic availability, and gathering the courage to approach strangers face to face (Finkel, Eastwick, Karney, Reis, & Sprecher, 2012).
Online dating allows singles, couples, or groups to meet each other online with the hopes of forming a social, romantic, or sexual relationship. Those that sign up with an online dating service typically provide information for other members to view in the form of a personal profile. This personal profile is the main deciding factor as to whether or not an online dater chooses to communication with another member of the online dating service. Online dating, a relatively new form of social matchmaking, has both positive and negative aspects to it. Just as any sort of social interaction can have pros and cons. In this topic, I am going to give reasons how on how online dating can be avantage and disvantages to us and what impact it has on
Online dating is perhaps the fastest growing industry in this day and age. In 2016, over 50 million people in the United States had signed up for online dating sites, which bring in an annual revenue of around 2 billion. As the reach of the internet increases, so does the ability of businesses to find exactly what customers are looking for. Websites such Match.com, Eharmony, and Zoosk boast couples that met on their site and have been together for years, as well as their abilities to find “the one” just by answering a few questions. With numerous success stories and an international market, love seems guaranteed. However, only 20% of all relationships started online stay committed and successful.
Choices & options that accompany online dating: These topics are covered in the third and fourth chapters of Modern Romance, and mostly discusses the benefits of Online Dating, without forgetting to note a dangerous problem that stems from it. Ansari starts with the benefits, which include narrowing down potential dating partners based on interests, geographic location, race, religion, and any other characteristic people would like to pick by hand. But a large theme in this
Today's media has sparked a huge interest in online dating. With the new way to find your next partner,
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 this paper, I have discussed how online dating is becoming popular and how the individuals are usually deceived by it. I have also discussed how the new television show Catfish is turning out to be a great example of how social media has changed online dating. All in all, I have covered the negative outcomes of online dating.
* 7 million people gone on dates with people they had met through online personals site, with 40% entering some type of long term relationship.
The nature of competition in this industry is developing the website and attract more users, make it appealing as it can so people wants to constantly come back to check the website out. Competitors are already reacting to PlentyofFish.com, because it doesn’t require a huge amount of capital to start a site like this from major corporations to free lance designers anyone could create and run a dating site. Also unrelated sites such as craigslist
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
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
Over the years and even decades the tradition of dating has changed drastically. We now have online dating which is one of technologies new advances. Although people may prefer to `the new aged tools of dating, there is differences and similarities between old fashion dating and online dating.
The extent of the growth of online dating sites over the years can be seen in the case of Match.com. The service attracted 60,000 members during its first year in operation; by 2005, it had acquired more than 15 million active users, as well as “about one million paying subscribers from more than 246 countries” (“History of Online Dating” n. p.).