3. Website helped organizing a guest list, design and buy
invitations, set up a gift registry.
Every year $70billion is spent on marriages.
Approximately 48% of engaged couples plan to use internet
to help plan their weddings.
Weddingchannel.com is unique.
Guests can go online and shop
4. WeddingChannel.com offers comprehensive wedding planning
content, interactive tools, and a central location for couples to
manage their gift registries. The patented registry system brings
together registries from the nation’s leading retailers, including
Tiffany & Co., Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Crate & Barrel, and
Pottery Barn, allowing guests to search one easy site to find a
wedding gift. WeddingChannel.com is based in Los Angeles and is
a part of The Knot Inc. life stage media network.
Launched on July 15, 1997, WeddingChannel.com is the #1
wedding and gift registry website with more than 1.5 million
unique visitors per month.
5.
6. Budget Weddings
DIY Weddings
Vintage Weddings
Retro Weddings
Sports Weddings
Fall Weddings
Winter Weddings
Green Weddings
Outdoor Weddings
Vineyard Weddings
Second Weddings
Gay Weddings
Destination Weddings
Caribbean Weddings
Beach Weddings
Luxury Weddings
Chinese Weddings
Gothic Weddings
Japanese Weddings
Indian Weddings
Jewish Weddings
Muslim Weddings
Hindu Weddings
Interfaith Weddings
7. Wedding Vendor Directory:
14,000+ wedding-related businesses are searchable by city and vendor type,
making it simple for couples to find all the resources they need to plan a
perfect wedding.
Beautiful Gown Gallery:
Large database of bridal fashions with 3,500+ images of designer dresses and
accessories for the entire bridal party.
Inspiring Ideas & Images:
Searchable slideshows of blooming bouquets, decadent cakes, royal
receptions, classic hairstyles, and dazzling jewels for the big day. Plus, picture-
perfect advice from celebrity wedding photographer Robert Evans.
8. Celebrity Wedding Insiders:
Panel of experts, including Peggy Post from The Emily Post Institute,
celebrity event planner Yifat Oren, and celebrity wedding photographer
Robert Evans, providing advice on a variety of topics ranging from etiquette
and flowers to relationships and photography.
Planning Tools:
Free logistical tools for mastering planning to-dos, such as a budget
calculator, personal wedding website builder, planning checklist, and guest
list manager.
Honeymoons & Guest Accommodations:
Photos and information on 1,000+ romantic resorts in top honeymoon
locales, including the Caribbean, Hawaii, Mexico, the South Pacific, and
Europe. Plus, couples can easily reserve a block of guest hotel rooms online.
9. Elegant Favors & Accessories:
1,000+ stylish and affordable wedding accessories available for purchase
online, from monogrammed cake toppers and personalized cameras to
bridesmaid gifts and guest books. Plus, unforgettable Favors including
customized matchbooks and edible treats, like bride-and-groom cookies
and candles.
Connected Community:
Message boards for conversing with thousands of brides to double-check
etiquette, exchange wedding ideas, and share wedding planning advice
and experiences -- 24 hours a day.
10. WeddingChannel.com Charity Donation Program
Weddings that give back are becoming more and more popular among brides
and grooms across the country. Launched in September 2004, the
WeddingChannel.com Charity Donation Program allows brides and grooms
the perfect opportunity to raise money for their favourite charity with every
registry gift they receive. There are two different ways couples can take part of
the Charity Donation Program:
1. Gift Registry: Register at one of the partner retailers of
WeddingChannel.com and select your favourite charity. Every time a wedding
guest buys something off your registry via WeddingChannel.com,
WeddingChannel.com will donate a percentage to the selected charity.
2. Charity Registry: Register for a charity so wedding guests can directly
donate to it as a wedding gift to you. You can set aside as few or as many
donations on your registry as you'd like. Plus, you can specify a certain dollar
amount for each donation or let guests to choose the amount of their gifts.
11. Snapshot of Charities Involved:
American Red Cross
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation
National Minority AIDS Council
Habitat for Humanity International
Oxfam America
Boys and Girls Clubs of America
March of Dimes
Save the Children
Friends of the Earth
Humane Society of the United States
Natural Resources Defence Council
Rainforest Alliance
Sierra Club Foundation
I Have a Dream Foundation
National Centre for Family Literacy
Reading Is Fundamental
Amnesty International
Disability Rights Advocates
Human Rights Watch
NAACP
12. Guests can go online and shop at the well known stores associated
with the wedding channel.com
In the traditional retail arrangement, the price of goods bears scant
relation to the cost of production, even including the profit to the
manufacturer. Commissions and sales staff needed to be paid, as
well as other forms of overhead, thus driving up the price of
goods. In the world of channel conflict, these costs are largely
eliminated, meaning cheaper goods bought online directly from
the manufacturer. The only new added cost is that of transport.
Furthermore, people can now buy things because they truly want
or need them, rather than being manipulated by a salesman caring
only about commission.
13. Rather than being a "disintermediation" function, channel conflict
might merely empower a new set of intermediaries, though of a
very different stamp. If e-commerce is to become the norm, then
firms, such as UPS or Federal Express, now become the new
"commission earners" in the new economy. Furthermore, firms
such as PayPal, Internet security firms and network engineers
now have a new purpose within the economy. The big difference
here is while the old retail network was based around
commission, the newer intermediaries are general service
providers. In other words, Internet engineers would always be
needed even if there were no such thing as e-commerce. Only
now, such jobs are an integral part of the new economy.
14. Manufacturers are now being forced to abandon long-term and
formerly profitable relationships with salesmen and other
distributors. Buying paper from a salesman used to earn that
salesman a commission. There is no commission when the client
buys from the firm's new, user-friendly website. From the point of
view of economics, the older retail system of distribution no longer
makes financial sense.
15. As we enter what can arguably be called the second generation of Web
sites, retailers are finding out that consumers want to feel just as good
about their Net purchases as they do about products purchased within the
four walls of a store. The problem is that what may have driven them to
make purchases on the Internet in the past is starting to change. On-line
opportunities are changing and there are some who feel the sites that
thrive will be ones that use technology not just to sell product, but to
support relationships with retail customers by creating virtual
neighbourhoods where loyal audiences return again and again.
16. While convenience may have started out as being the primary
driver of Internet shopping, industry experts, such as Cliff
Sharples, believe it's going to take more than ease of shopping to
lure consumers to make purchases on the information highway.
Sharples, president of Garden Escape, Austin, Texas, a virtual
store for gardening enthusiasts, says value-added services,
including customer-satisfaction programs, unique product
selection and quality information will be the key forces driving
future purchasing decisions on the Net.
17. Bargain discount: Virtual retailers purposely sell goods at or below
cost in order to generate high traffic as a source of revenue.
Bounty broker: Users request specific items or search for particular
persons, then wait for someone to offer help. Providers collect
certain fees for successful searches.
Brand building: Companies use the Internet to provide the most
updated information about their brands.
Bundling: Companies offer both online and offline products or
services in a bundle in order to create higher value for users.
Buyer cooperative :Providers create a platform for individual
buyers to transact as a group in order to create higher bargaining
power.
18. Catalog aggregator: Providers collect product information from a
large number of vendors such that users can browse large amounts of
product-related information.
Category building: Companies use the Internet to educate visitors
about certain product types in order to build primary demand for
their products.
Collaborative design: Several companies use the Internet to
coordinate the product development process on a real time basis.
Community-building :Providers offer free online product assistance
or customer support groups in order to improve user loyalty.
Content sponsorship :Providers create portals for users to access
valuable content, links, and services. High traffic then becomes a
source of revenue.
19. Dealer support: Providers use the Internet to steer customers toward
their affiliated partners.
Dutch auction: Providers offer channels for buyers and sellers to
transact. Sellers set higher initial prices and let them fall at regular time
intervals.
E-contest: Providers run regular contests and sweepstakes to draw
customers to increase their use of certain products.
E-coupon: Providers offer online coupons from a variety of online and
offline products to generate high traffic.
20. Reverse auction :Also known as “Name-your-price”; potential
buyers offer a final bid for a specified good or
service, and providers look for sellers to fulfil the transaction.
Shopping agent: Providers assist consumers to find specific products
and their best prices online.
Subscription Providers :offer high-quality content to members in
exchange for certain subscription fees.
Virtual mall: Providers host multiple online merchants on a single
site.
Voluntary contributor: Users access certain Web content and pay
the provider on a voluntary basis.
21. A virtual community is a group whose members are connected
by means of information technologies, typically the Internet
The term "virtual community" is attributed to the book of the
same title by Howard Rheingold in 1993. The book discussed a
range of computer-mediated communication and social groups.
The technologies included Usenet, MUDs (Multi-User Dungeon),
IRC (Internet Relay Chat), chat rooms and electronic mailing
lists. He pointed out potential benefit of such a group one can
belong to via communication technologies for personal
psychological well-being as well as for the society at large. (The
proliferation of the World Wide Web started after the book was
published)
22. Today, "virtual community" is loosely used and interpreted to
indicate a variety of social groups connected in some ways by
the Internet. It does not necessarily mean that there is a strong
bond among the members. An email distribution list on Star
Trek may have close to one hundred members, and the
communication which takes place there could be either one-way
(the list owner making announcements) or merely informational
(questions and answers are posted, but members stay relatively
strangers and uninterested to each other). The membership
turnover rate could be high. This is in line with the liberal use of
the term community.
23. Friendster
Pictari
GameFAQs
LiveJournal
Living With Style
M11 Music
Meetup (an online service designed to facilitate real-world meetings of people
involved in various virtual communities);
Orkut
Religious Education
Tribe.net
The WELL
Wikipedia
