The Dating Services Industry provides a product that generated $320m in 2015, has historically grown at a 5-year CAGR of 5.0%, and is forecast to grow 3.9% YoY into 2020. I believe this trend is justified as a growing number of consumers begin to turn to the internet to look for love. Key Drivers for growth include the proliferation of broadband internet connections, the exponential increase the number of mobile devices, increased use of the internet, increasing GDP Per Capita (2.2% CAGR), and a slowing marriage rate indicating a high proportion of single adults. According to the case, the attractiveness of meeting others online instead of finding them in the real world has increased dramatically over the last two decades. The primary drivers …show more content…
A majority of the attractiveness stems from the abnormally low buyer and supplier power. However, this gain is offset by the current low barriers of entry and high competitive rivalry. In order to remain competitive, incumbents must (1) invest heavily in research and development, (2) secure technology via patents, (3) market heavily to monetize products, all of which will diminish bottom line results. Does eHarmony have a competitive advantage? eHarmony, founded by Neil Clark Warren in 2000, has pushed itself to the top of a very competitive industry. Currently maintaining a market share of 11.9% in the Dating Services Industry, eHarmony has grown their revenue by 2.5% YoY due to the competitive advantage that they have created. This competitive advantage stems from a tightly integrated system that encompassed the following: • 258 question personality profile • Matching …show more content…
As mentioned above, the competitive threat of rivals to incumbent eHarmony in the Dating Services industry is high and increasing; therefore resulting in a very serious threat to industry profitability. This threat is primarily due to the constant innovation in the industry that is driven by both internal and external incumbents. Internally, downward pressure is currently being placed by three key competitors, (1) InterActiveCorp, (2) eHarmony, (3) Zoosk, and (4) Others. InterActiveCorp, eHarmony’s largest competitor is a global conglomerate this creates a majority of the competition within the industry. IAC has been very successful due to their ability to monetize products and expand operations internationally, of which eHarmony is currently contemplating in the four options proposed by Waldorf. However, the key difference and competitive advantage that IAC fails to maintain is their customer selection. IAC believes that top line growth should be driven by delivering services to as many customers as possible, whereas eHarmony believes in maintain the quality rather than the quantity of their service. However, IAC quickly replicates any new product offered by eHarmony (e.g. Chemistry.com was developed to replicate eHarmony’s three step guided communication). Actions such as these bypass competitive advantages and facilitate the need for a new way to decrease this abnormally high
eHarmony, expanded its TV and radio advertising campaign to appeal to broader audience. Company advertised on national cable network and avoided spending on broadcast television. Match, eHarmony’s close competitor leveraged
Still, the company has problems from its competing Match.com, Chemistry. These competitors deliver services at a lower price compare to eHarmony. eHarmony needs to focus on problems the company for long-term success. The following analysis examines the online dating industry, eHarmony’s main problems, the strengths and weaknesses, potential opportunities, and threats.
The biggest threat to eHarmony and other paid dating sites was the free dating sites that were the newest entrants into the market. These sites did not have major restrictions to joining and did not necessarily do the match-making for the members. According to Piskorski, Halaburda & Smith, very many people subscribed to such sites as witnessed by the rise of “Plenty of Fish” in 2007 to become the most frequently visited in Canada and the U.K, and fourth in the United States(8).
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).
Increasing online daters in Europe is also a chance for eHarmony. It helps eHarmony expand its market geographically. According to competitors presenting in many of the country, investing in Europe or other countries, especially the English
Recently, eHarmony finds that there are more and more companies enter into matching market and its main competitors are copying its some features to improve their own competition. How eHarmony should address recent competitors actions. They now have four options and people in eHarmony are debating for choosing their strategies to defend their company, even broaden their current market share. At the same time, Their CEO, Greg Waldorf, must do a final decision that which option(s) the company should pursue.
Now the central problem for eHarmony has begun. eHarmony established itself as the leading matchmaking company but with competitors threatening to take market share, the company needed to find a way to preserve its reputation and remain the top matchmaking website for long term relationships.
eHarmony also has to utilize social networks as a marketing tool or provide combined service with them. For example, Facebook induces their users who try to search their dates in Facebook to reach the eHarmony’s Facebook page. On the other hand, eHarmony can induce their new or existing customers to open a Facebook account and proceed to some activities for providing more reliable information to their potential dates. By this collaboration, both businesses can be winners. eHarmony can expand its market and potential to all the Facebook users, and it can also take advantage of more reliable information from Facebook page. Facebook can also penetrate their service to over 40s which has been had resistance to any social network
I mean let’s be honest anyone can fill out their questionnaire and be dishonest. It is too simple for a person to hop on their and completely lie on the questioning portion and then go onto the site and post a fake background and picture. I am sure this has happened more than once, but what is eHarmony doing to guarantee other users that the people they are matched up with are genuine? I guess time will tell based off of trial and error. I am sure there have been many first dates that never received a second one, or the date was cut short do to one of the subscribers not feeling like they have been matched with the same person whose profile they were matched with. I think eHarmony is doing what they can at ‘weeding” out those who are faking profiles or manipulating the system for their benefit. “With the deluge of online dating sites out there it's hard to know which -- if any -- is best equipped to help you find the right person. Some bank on users liking the same quirky date suggestions, while others rely on religion or a shared love of Apple products. And then there are those supposedly based on scientific algorithms, like eHarmony, which probably sounded pretty solid until a recent study suggested they're not that scientific after all.’, Bindley, K., (2012) eHarmony Duping Customers, Researchers Say. EHarmony may claim they are based on science and algorithms,
eHarmony advanced in the online dating landscape by establishing its brand as the site for the serious relationship seeker, particularly women. The outcome was a dating site that at the time conflicted with all the standard practices and introduced a new of mechanism in the industry. eHarmony didn't permit clients to scan and search the database for potential mates. Rather, eHarmony enforced clients to finish a comprehensive survey and based on the results, provided clients an assigned measure of potential mates.
In today's world, the expectations to fall in love have perhaps become "online". This is because dating sites are no more regarded as a tricky way for getting in touch with and bonding with new people. Instead, online dating is now gaining immense popularity as information technologies and digital media have congregated. The contemporary virtual social media has increased the evolution from vital matchmaking sites to sites that make it possible for anyone to "date" in reality online without even leaving their places. Even though face-to-face dating has not disappeared completely, the social media has enhanced the process of online dating tremendously (Brown, 2011).
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
A company’s share in specific market can be influenced by a new entry of a competitor in such market. In other words, if a business requires a large number of capitals to start with, then the threat of new entry is relatively low. Additionally differentiated products or services are pivotal to keep new entrants away. This means that a company has acquired unique technology will be easy to maintain its current market share.
In today's post-modern society, dating practices are both vast and varied. People meet their romantic partners in any number of locations including at work, at the bar, and increasingly, on the Internet. Online dating has become very popular over the past decade, and according to a study done in Washington DC, over 74% of single Internet users in the US have taken part in at least one online dating-related activity. In addition, this study found that 15% of American adults (that's 30 million people) say that they know someone who has been in a long-term relationship with a partner they met online (Biever, 2006).
About competitors, Facebook responded new system and functions to the launch of Google+ (Reed, 2011). With regard to the similarity, Facebook has strived for developing new services, like Game Trick, which can compete with other rivals (Parr, 2011); in addition to buy other social networking service, especially cross-platform messaging apps for mobile, such as Instagram and WhatsApp.