eHarmony is a personals site that offers a matching algorithm for heterosexual individuals who are seeking long term relationships. The firm currently operates in an industry filled with competition that seems to either attempt to mimic eHarmony’s business or capitalize on markets left untouched by eHarmony. While eHarmony’s unique matching algorithm is proprietary and difficult to copy, it also requires significant user dedication. To ensure that eHarmony remains the leading personals platform, it must ensure that it can retain a competitive advantage over its main competitors: Match, Chemistry, and Yahoo! Personals. While expanding into multiple different new sectors to capture further overall market share may sound appealing, there are
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This is largely due to their ability to monetize their offering though a freemium model where additional features, such as initiating communication, comes with a membership, but signing up on eHarmony is free. Their research, as discussed in the case, is extensive and successful which is proven by the average of 236 eHarmony members getting married per day in 2007 (8). While their industry is populated with competitors, their business is solely focused on heterosexual individuals in the United States. While their original research may not be suitable for geographical or target market expansion, their experience in conducting such research may enable them to more readily transition into new geographical markets. Furthermore, the amount of internet users who have met their partners on the internet is relatively low at just 4%, according to Exhibit 7. This hints at a largely underserved market as well. While eHarmony has many complications, its experience and sheer size and user base provides it with unparalleled enablers which if leveraged properly can create barriers of entry and competitive advantages to ensure their market …show more content…
Many of the options seem to aim at broadening the business’s scope to previously untouched territories. While this grants access to new markets, it also steers eHarmony towards a place where it has no experience or research. As seen in Exhibit 4, there are some differences between North American and European countries, but they don’t seem to be material enough to restrict eHarmony from expanding geographically. Furthermore, eHarmony’s competition, such as Match has offered its services in 30 countries since 2005. eHarmony relies on its dedicated user base and that along with network effects gives them a competitive advantage. The core question that eHarmony’s executives must ask themselves is: Does eHarmony necessarily have introduce new service offerings in order to stay ahead of its
This is largely due to their ability to monetize their offering though a freemium model where additional features, such as initiating communication, comes with a membership, but signing up on eHarmony is free. Their research, as discussed in the case, is extensive and successful which is proven by the average of 236 eHarmony members getting married per day in 2007 (8). While their industry is populated with competitors, their business is solely focused on heterosexual individuals in the United States. While their original research may not be suitable for geographical or target market expansion, their experience in conducting such research may enable them to more readily transition into new geographical markets. Furthermore, the amount of internet users who have met their partners on the internet is relatively low at just 4%, according to Exhibit 7. This hints at a largely underserved market as well. While eHarmony has many complications, its experience and sheer size and user base provides it with unparalleled enablers which if leveraged properly can create barriers of entry and competitive advantages to ensure their market …show more content…
Many of the options seem to aim at broadening the business’s scope to previously untouched territories. While this grants access to new markets, it also steers eHarmony towards a place where it has no experience or research. As seen in Exhibit 4, there are some differences between North American and European countries, but they don’t seem to be material enough to restrict eHarmony from expanding geographically. Furthermore, eHarmony’s competition, such as Match has offered its services in 30 countries since 2005. eHarmony relies on its dedicated user base and that along with network effects gives them a competitive advantage. The core question that eHarmony’s executives must ask themselves is: Does eHarmony necessarily have introduce new service offerings in order to stay ahead of its