Groupon Essays

Groupon Essays Groupon Essay Groupon Essay Critics where divided by Groupings decision to to sell because virtually vulnerable and they have no barriers to entry. As great as Group sounds they are facing a massive problem; their business model is easy to copy. Andrew Mason, the founder and CEO of Group estimates that there are over 2000 direct clones worldwide but he insists that there is only a handful there are relevant. The biggest threat to Groupings kingdom is Livingston, although significantly smaller than Group, which raised $40 million since launching in 2009. Livingston received its biggest boost when Amazon has decided to invest $175 million into the company. Despite the severe competition, Group does not seem concerned because they believe large-scale success demanded a degree of operational sophistication that few could match. Groupings unprecedented growth and success have mainly come from two factors: focus on local merchants and a self-imposed limits to a single promotion each day. This combination helped the company to deal with minimal scale and resources and thus to increase the attractiveness of its initially rather small community. The best choice Group made was to establish their business models by cities and offering eels from local merchants has increased their attractiveness for their early subscribers. Many local merchants have tight marketing budgets who are struggle to reach customers found the allure of an outsourced online promotion with no up-front expenses very compelling. This alone became the single source of success for Group. Many people first learned about Group through their family and friends. To encourage word of mouth Group offered $10 towards future purchases for each referral. : Group became very popular among young, well-educated, unmarried and relatively affluent customers. The main reason Group became appealing to consumers was that its saved them money as well as its convenience and variety. With Group offering deals locally, consumers are able to find fun and exciting activities locally without having to travel worldwide. Many consumers feel like a tourist in their own hometowns because they are able to try new thing through Group that they otherwise will never find. Merchants Behavior: The research provided in this case study shows that Group is indeed good for merchants, but in all fairness Group is not some miraculous one-size- its-all marketing tool and so no one should expect it to be so. Selected research shows that Group equips merchants with the technology and buzz to attract high caliber consumers. Consumers that, on average, spent 40% to 60% over face value of the any given voucher, and made repeat visits to the newly discovered merchant. Ninety-five percent of merchants said they would run another deal with Group -? granted the other 5% were significantly disappointed with their Group experience. Some merchant complaints included claims that Group deals cut into their margins significantly so as to leave them in losses, the overall customer experience deteriorated with the increased traffic created by the deal and that deals created confusions as to lead to a poor initial customer experience. That is the argument that Group is not good for merchants. In selected circumstances, Group is probably not the best marketing solution, but we do not believe that provides grounds to say Group is overall bad for merchants. On the contrary, the numbers show Group is an efficient and beneficial marketing tool. Quantitative Analysis: American Apparel, with the popular deal, sold many vouchers. The email address acquisition helped in increasing online revenue. Also American Apparel negotiated the contract with Group to give them much less than half of the revenue generated from the coupons. Considering all these factors and also some of the following assumptions, American Apparel landed in profits using the Group coupons. The assumptions made are: a. American Apparel said customers who purchased the $25 group-buy deal ended up spending an average of $70 (50+20) once they cashed in the deal. So, this end up in profitability. . Low return rates are key to profitability c. Ability of the promotion to pull in new customers also leads to profitability The assumed profitability of Group can be calculated as follows Number of vouchers sold = 133,000 As stated in the case, customers spent an average of $20 above the vouchers face value when cashing in the deal. Hence, the price per unit would be around $70 This gives the total revenue as = 133000* 70 = $ 9,310,000 TO avail the voucher, the customer should pick up a product Of minimum value of $50. This can be considered as fixed cost. So, the total cost can be even as = 50 Hence, profit of the American Apparel using the group Promotion can be given as 9,31 0,OHO In the case it is given that on an average customers had spent $20 more on their purchase and this is the key to the profits. So, in case, the customers had not spend that extra amount and had just availed the offer of $25 coupon, then the profits of American Apparel would be affected and hence the profit are sensitive to this assumption. Competitive Advantage: Yes, Group has a lot of competitors from well-known public companies, including all the heavy hitters. The largest of these competitors were Washington, D. C based Livingston. Though Livingston is significantly smaller than Group, it was also growing rapidly. For Example, in January 201 1 it got a big boost by promoting $20 Amazon gift cards at half off and nearly 1. 2 Million customers took the deal. Some other competitors tried to win merchants by offering lower fees or leverages to social media. The web heavyweights Google and Backbone also tried to give competition to Group by offering its own daily deals. But all the competitors efforts failed to hit Group. All the competitors have very similar approaches to Group. In some cases the user interface is indistinguishable because the Group interface has been copied over and over. Theres no brand loyalty in the business of Group. Its strictly a deal-by-deal business by definition. We expect competition to further drive the price per coupon down, and also drive down the number of coupons purchased per customer. But in case of Group, the price per coupon started to grow up which lead to slow failure of Group. From all the above arguments, though the Group has attracted any competitors, it does not have much competitive advantage for its growth. Group 2. 0: Group 2. Is a series of new initiatives offered by Group such as Group Stores, Group Now, Group VII and Group Rewards. One major difference between Group (1. 0) and Group 2. 0 is that Group 1. 0 relies on a push model a model that attracts customers by sending mass- emails regularly that highlight a few of Groupings current deals while Group 2. 0 relies on a pull model a model in which customers v isit Group through its website, APS or internet searches to find specific deals. My assessment of Group 2. 0 is that while it has its pros and cons, it will eventually become successful. Although launched well, the Group Stores initiative was not successful and shut down soon. However, the other initiatives: Group Now, Group VII and Group Rewards, show a lot potential. Group Now is a useful smartened app for customers who are looking for a particular product or service immediately. The app helps customers find current and nearby Group deals. Group VII is an initiative that rewards VII members with access to deals earlier than non; embers as well as better refund policies for a membership fee of $30 annually. This is a great way for Group to reward their regular customers and differentiate those Group users from one-time or new users. Group Rewards is a loyalty program that allows merchants to reward Group customers for repeat coupon purchases for their specific business. For example, if a customer uses Group to purchase Spinney coupons, Spinney can reward that specific customer after he or she purchases a set number of coupons (as predetermined by Spinney). This initiative will help increase customer loyalty through rewards.

Biography of Annie Jump Cannon, Classifier of Stars

Biography of Annie Jump Cannon, Classifier of Stars Annie Jump Cannon (December 11, 1863–April 13, 1941) was an American astronomer whose work in star cataloging led to the development of modern star classification systems. Along with her groundbreaking work in astronomy, Cannon was a suffragist and activist for women’s rights. Fast Facts: Annie Jump Cannon Known For: American astronomer who created the modern star classification system and broke ground for women in astronomyBorn: December 11, 1863 in Dover, DelawareDied: April 13, 1941 in Cambridge, MassachusettsSelected Honors: Honorary doctorates from University of Groningen (1921) and Oxford University (1925), Henry Draper Medal (1931), Ellen Richards Prize (1932), National Womens Hall of Fame (1994)Notable Quote: Teaching man his relatively small sphere in the creation, it also encourages him by its lessons of the unity of Nature and shows him that his power of comprehension allies him with the great intelligence over-reaching all. Early Life Annie Jump Cannon was the eldest of three daughters born to Wilson Cannon and his wife Mary (neà ¨ Jump). Wilson Cannon was a state senator in Delaware, as well as a ship builder. It was Mary who encouraged Annie’s education from the very start, teaching her the constellations and encouraging her to pursue her interests in science and math. Throughout Annie’s childhood, mother and daughter stargazed together, using old textbooks to identify and map out the stars they could see from their own attic. Sometime during her childhood or young adulthood, Annie suffered major hearing loss, possibly due to scarlet fever. Some historians believe she was hard of hearing from childhood onward, while others suggest that she was already a young adult in her post-college years when she lost her hearing. Her hearing loss reportedly made it difficult for her to socialize, so Annie immersed herself more completely in her work. She never married, had children, or had publicly known romantic attachments. Annie attended Wilmington Conference Academy (known today as Wesley College) and excelled, particularly in math. In 1880, she began studying as Wellesley College, one of the best American colleges for women, where she studied astronomy and physics. She graduated as valedictorian in 1884, then returned home to Delaware. Teacher, Assistant, Astronomer In 1894, Annie Jump Cannon suffered a major loss when her mother Mary died. With home life in Delaware becoming more difficult, Annie wrote to her former professor at Wellesley, the physicist and astronomer Sarah Frances Whiting, to ask if she had any job openings. Whiting obliged and hired her as a junior-level physics teacher- which also enabled Annie to continue her education, taking graduate-level courses in physics, spectroscopy, and astronomy. To continue pursuing her interests, Annie needed access to a better telescope, so she enrolled at Radcliffe College, which had a special arrangement with nearby Harvard to have professors give their lectures both at Harvard and Radcliffe. Annie gained access to the Harvard Observatory, and in 1896, she was hired by its director, Edward C. Pickering, as an assistant. Pickering hired several women to assist him on his major project: completing the Henry Draper Catalogue, an extensive catalogue with the goal of mapping and defining every star in the sky (up to a photographic magnitude of 9). Funded by Anna Draper, Henry Draper’s widow, the project took up significant manpower and resources. Creating a Classification System Soon into the project, a disagreement arose over how to classify the stars they were observing. One woman on the project, Antonia Maury (who was Draper’s niece) argued for a complex system, while another colleague, Williamina Fleming (who was Pickering’s chosen supervisor) wanted a simple system. It was Annie Jump Cannon who figured out a third system as a compromise. She divided stars into the spectral classes O, B, A, F, G, K, M- a system which is still taught to astronomy students today. Annie’s first catalog of stellar spectra was published in 1901, and her career accelerated from that point on. She received a master’s degree in 1907 from Wellesley College, completing her studies from years earlier. In 1911, she became the Curator of Astronomical Photographs at Harvard, and three years later, she became an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society in the U.K. Despite these honors, Annie and her female colleagues were often criticized for working, rather than being housewives, and were often underpaid for long hours and tedious work. Regardless of criticism, Annie persisted, and her career flourished. In 1921, she was among the first women to receive an honorary doctorate from a European university when the Dutch university Groningen University awarded her an honorary degree in math and astronomy. Four years later, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Oxford – making her the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate of science from the elite university. Annie also joined the suffragist movement, advocating for women’s rights and, specifically, the extension of the right to vote; the right to vote for all women was finally won in 1928, eight years after the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Annie’s work was noted for being incredibly rapid and accurate. At her peak, she could classify 3 stars per minute, and she classified around 350,000 over the course of her career. She also discovered 300 variable stars, five novas, and one spectroscopic binary star. In 1922, the International Astronomical Union officially adopted Cannons stellar classification system; it is still used, with only minor changes, to this day. In addition to her work on classifications, she served as a sort of ambassador within the astronomy field, helping forge partnerships among colleagues. She assumed a similar role for the astronomy field’s public-facing work: she wrote books presenting astronomy for public consumption, and she represented professional women at the 1933 World’s Fair. Retirement and Later Life Annie Jump Cannon was named the William C. Bond Astronomer at Harvard University in 1938. She remained in that position before retiring in 1940 at the age of 76. Despite being officially retired, however, Annie continued to work in the observatory. In 1935, she created the Annie J. Cannon Prize to honor women’s contributions to the field of astronomy. She continued to help women gain a foothold and gain respect in the scientific community, leading by example while also lifting up the work of fellow women in science. Annie’s work was continued by some of her colleagues. Most notably, the famous astronomer Cecilia Payne was one of Annie’s collaborators, and she used some of Annie’s data to support her groundbreaking work that determined that stars are composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Annie Jump Cannon died on April 13, 1941. Her death came after a long illness and hospitalization. In honor of her countless contributions to astronomy, the American Astronomical Society presents an annual award named for her- the Annie Jump Cannon Award- to female astronomers whose work has been especially distinguished. Sources Des Jardins, Julie.  The Madame Curie Complex- The Hidden History of Women in Science. New York: Feminist Press, 2010.Mack, Pamela (1990).  Straying from their orbits: Women in astronomy in America. In Kass-Simon, G.; Farnes, Patricia; Nash, Deborah.  Women of Science: Righting the Record. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.Sobel, Dava.  The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars. Penguin: 2016.