E trip: Facing competitors and buidling a competitive advantage?

As Florent said, My question was lost in the second page of the forum so I start a new topic.

To build a competitive advantage in the European Market and try to differentiate from European competitors, which marketing solutions seems to you the most efficient for e trip company?

- Customized portals: The Objective of this kind of offer: try to gain customer’s loyalty by enabling him to customize the contents like My yahoo!. With that kind of portals, each customer can, in that way, receive personalize advertisements and offers.

- Purchasing card (form of company credit card that allows goods and services to be procured without utilizing a traditional purchasing process), they are provided by major credit card companies and can reduce dramatically purchasing costs

- Electronic catalogue: can be the central reference for many customers. A catalogue where you can find pricing information, new promotions, lowest price promotions (of course, the catalogue need to be updated with the best promotions)

In my opinion, the best would be "customized portals". It would make the website more original, and customized according to customers needs and preferences. I Think it's a good way to build up customer loyalty. Besides, it's also a good startegy to create a buzz among online shoppers

I think we should add some new ideas:
- as Chloé said, BUZZ AMONG ONLINE SHOPPERS
- e-trip can also create a part of their website reserved to customers: CUSTOMER COMMUNITY
they can share their experience of flights, they can discuss together about the facilities. Sharing experience from customers who have already test the different promotions

Most of the proposed strategies are more suitable for retaining existing customers (e.g., customer loyalty). For a new e-business, it has to acquire a sufficient amount of customers first.

How about periodical contests to gain new costumers. The winner gets a flight, etc.
Another concept might be, that costumers help costumers - so etrip can open a forum. For example, someone wants to fly to XY and another costumer knows a good offer from an airline.

I think that in order to create a real buzz over a new website or a new service, it should offer something that is really different and better than what's currently offered in the market. Otherwise, it's just another website you can order flights through. No one will make a buzz going over that.

First and foremost, the company should emphasize the fact that it doesn't get its money from the traveling agencies or airline companies. I think this should make Etrip known for its honesty and transparency, which could give it a real boost in the user community. People don't like to feel exploited...

I believe this is Etrip's competitive advantage, however the real challange is to make it known, so it can attract as many customers as possible. The problem with the "buzz strategy", however, at least the way I see it, is that it is often hard to predict and control.

But I think most of the users of those search engines don't care if the page gets money from travelling agencies or not, as long as they offer the cheapest fare. So in my opinion, I don't see a competitve advantage there.

Maybe they could make a facebook application where you can book your flights from your facebook account? Facebook reaches many users so it could be a buzz (Sry... just an idea)

First of all, when you know the search engine makes its money from the agencies and companies it reffers you to, you can't be sure you're getting the cheapest price. You're only getting what the search engine was paid to show you. Etrip, on the other hand, doesn't limit itself to a certain number of agencies or airlines, but searches all over the internet for the cheapest price.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that Etrip puts the customer first, not the agencies/airines. I think users would appreciate it.

As it is written in the case:

"The way these search engines operated was a contributing factor. They teamed up with a few online travel agencies that paid the search engine’s revenues whenever a user clicked on the travel agency link. Therefore, these search engines were biased by preferring to show these affiliate travel agencies in their flight search outcome."

Adding on to what Naomi said, I think if the used transparency as their competitive advantage they would be able to attract new consumers. For example, there is an airline in China that flies Shanghai to Beijng ( sorry i forgot the name of their company) that is transparent. It tells you when ticket prices are going to be high and when the tickets are going to be low. This way it allows people to buy at a lower cost if they were not able to pay the huge amount before hand. The tickets are priced higher at the beginning of ticket sales, however if there are still open seats a couple days before the departure, they decrease the amount of the ticket, this allows them to fill out the seats of the aircraft. Back to my point, transparency is what give confidence to their consumers and what attracts new consumers.

I think the only way to face competitors and build up competitve advantage is by simply doing what they promise and offer the cheapest price at all times. I know it sounds almost too simple to mention, but if the CEO is so convinced that that is what they are good in, they just have to prove it. So reliability is the key word. I am thinking for example of supermarkets like ALDI, LIDL (yes...I am German), they promise you the lowest prices and if you can find the same product anywhere else cheaper, they will refund you the full amount. Like this, you are on the sure side to always get the cheapest offer when shopping.
If etrip really manages to always offer the cheapest price, the word will spread, especially among price conscious students.

"Most of the proposed strategies are more suitable for retaining existing customers (e.g., customer loyalty). For a new e-business, it has to acquire a sufficient amount of customers first."



I don't think that create an electronic catalogue is a way to retain customers. i think it's a way to attract new customers in order to highlight the best promotions that the website can offer (the cheapest ones) in the first webpage of the website.

Moreover, as Naomi said, put the emphasis on customers and therefore create a customers' community is also a way to attract new customers (I mean they know that there will find some comments about their future trip, positive or negative comments but they will find several points of view)

However , I admit that the purchasing card (only there to reduce costs) and the customized portals can be seen as tools to retain customers.

Close to Martin's idea: so as to expand their customer base, E-trip
could have a "tutoring" system: you get a 50% discount on your next
purchase if you introduce the website to a friend (and have him
register or book a flight).

However, I agree the bottom line is that E-trip constantly offer the
best prices and/or services customers are ready to pay for (airline
quality comparison, hotels&car hire bookings...). This is essential
to ensure customer "loyalty". Also, I like the idea of the purchasing
card: people generally stick to a system that gives them regular
discounts.

kathia Morano wrote:

Moreover, as Naomi said, put the emphasis on customers and therefore create a customers' community is also a way to attract new customers (I mean they know that there will find some comments about their future trip, positive or negative comments but they will find several points of view)
.

Creating a true customers community needs a huge database and a lot of time (moderation, administration, etc) and structures (adapted architecture, greater hosting). And it not even sure I will work. For instance, TGV (French high speed train) tried to create a community around travels but it was not a success (https://www.tgv-rezo.com/) : 12 000 members on almost a year and not a lot of life on the website.

I'm not sure this solution is relevant for this case. And I'm glad this issue has been risen. Indeed, I'm pretty sure that "Web 2.0" can offer a lot of opportunities, but it's not the holy grail. As I've experienced, it's not cheap, it's not easy and requires lots of skills.

I'll be glad to discuss about this point of view with everybody who wants to I think it's very important to be aware of the offerings - and the hazards - of new technologies.

Alexandra_Engel wrote:I think the only way to face competitors and build up competitve advantage is by simply doing what they promise and offer the cheapest price at all times. I know it sounds almost too simple to mention, but if the CEO is so convinced that that is what they are good in, they just have to prove it.

I strongly agree. The competitive advantage will come from being able to consistently offer lower fares using their unique search method. That is their competitive advantage.

Using a customized portals to personalize the experience for consumers is a great way to add value to their product offering.

Etrip has just to look for efficiency.

If they are efficient and always provide the lowest fares, people will soon realize it and will come back. Some customers will systematically compare their fares with other search engine but if they are sure of their efficiency they won't have any problems with that.

In the beginning no need to gather a customer database, they will come back of their own. Using "Web 2.0" service to bring back more customers could be nevertheless useful afterwards.

kathia Morano wrote:"Most of the proposed strategies are more suitable for retaining existing customers (e.g., customer loyalty). For a new e-business, it has to acquire a sufficient amount of customers first."



I don't think that create an electronic catalogue is a way to retain customers. i think it's a way to attract new customers in order to highlight the best promotions that the website can offer (the cheapest ones) in the first webpage of the website.

Moreover, as Naomi said, put the emphasis on customers and therefore create a customers' community is also a way to attract new customers (I mean they know that there will find some comments about their future trip, positive or negative comments but they will find several points of view)

However , I admit that the purchasing card (only there to reduce costs) and the customized portals can be seen as tools to retain customers.

I agree with you Kathia. Actually, i think the 3 of your propositions aimed at attract new customers rather than retaining existing ones....

Etrip has to look for trust.

In the long run we all know it is pretty hard and maybe impossible to maintain the lowest prices on all the destination as many competitors enter the market and sipmly because actual competitors would respond aggressively to your offer.

Etrip does not necessarily has to be the cheapest on all the fares but on a few strategical destination showing high traffic and competition.

The idea would be to work on perceived value (perceived efficiency, perceived fairness) to establish a close, and long term relationship with the customer.

i think that these three marketing solutions are a good way to increase customer's loyalty, if the customer is satisfied with etrip services he will use again this website and might push other people to use it