A representative sample of the many case studies I've written of big cap online businesses.
Case Study: Guild.com
At first glance, Guild.com.com is a pretty standard e-commerce business. The Madison, Wisconsin-based site is a fine arts and home dicor retailer, selling original works by about 650 artists across the country..
Case Study: West Marine
When West Marine bought its biggest competitor, BoatUS, earlier this year, it faced a logistical dilemma. West Marine already sold some 50,000 boating products on its site, and with the acquisition of BoatUS, an additional 20,000 SKUs needed to be incorporated...
Case Study: MountainZone
When MountainZone president Greg Prosl talks about the business strategy of the adventure sports site he runs, he can't resist a chuckle. "It all comes down to 'the three C's,'" he says, "content, community and commerce."
Case Study: Tradeshop.com
To understand how Ray Elsey built his online business, you have to go back to the time before the Internet, before the shopping mall, back to the era of the little corner shop...
Case Study: PoolandSpa.com
Dan Harrison has a minor obsession with search engines. Having sold pool and spa supplies online for almost 10 years through his store, Poolandspa.com, Harrison has tried most methods of driving traffic, from newsletters to all types of ad placement...
Case Study: CassetteHouse.com
In 1989, Art Munson heard about something called the Internet. "Someone told me about it but I didn't know how to do it," says Munson, who owned a recording studio in Los Angeles with a thriving side business selling blank audiocassettes...
Case Study: MyFamily
The year 2000 was a tough one for MyFamily.com. The company's far-flung strategy of marketing to families wasn't working. As the Internet bubble burst, ad revenues plunged. Layoffs began that pared its 400-person workforce to less than 200...
Case Study: MusicNet
Imagine you're an e-commerce entrepreneur about to launch your Web business. You survey the competition, only to discover a terrible truth: the product you're selling is already widely available online for free...
Case Study: BizRate
The differences between men and women extend even into how they shop online for the holidays, according to research by BizRate. "The women are planned shoppers, less impulsive, with more buying ahead of time...
Case Study: SmartBargains
Unlike most e-commerce companies, SmartBargains was funded and launched after the Internet crash. Equally unusual, the company has not just survived post crash but grown exponentially in its short life in a turbulent market...
