An example of an E-Commerce success and its causes

INTRODUCTION

KB Toys is the second-largest retailer of toys in the United States which consists of approximately 1,300 smaller mall-based toy stores in all 50 states in US, the American Territory of Guam, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Due to their smaller retail space, KB stores do not carry sporting goods, the company is focus on video products, which account for 25 percent of overall sales. The company was purchased in 1996 by Consolidated Stores Corporation, a leading value retailer specializing in toys and closeout merchandise. In 1998, KBkids.com is started to market KB merchandise online.

KBTOYS.COM & ITS SERVICES

KBToys.com is a "click-and-mortar" business which operates more than 1,300 KB Toys retail stores in all 50 states, the American Territory of Guam, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It's one of the few E-commerce ventures that lets customers return items to the brick-and-mortar stores. KBToys.com was officially launched in late June and is less than eight months old, but it attracts millions of visitors and is consistently rated as a top performer. The website for reference is http://www.kbtoys.com. At the website, a shop cart symbol could be found out on the top of the website which enable consumers to place their selected products into it. Besides, order information such as cancel or check an order, returns or exchange could be found on the website too. Consumers can choose to pay their bills through coupons, gift cards, mail-in rebates or paypal. Other than that, birthday club, newsletter, and wishlist can also be signed-up if consumers wish to do so.

Besides selling to individual consumers, KBToys.com is also targeted on business entities by introducing KBTOYS gift card. Gift card is redeemable in any KBTOYS stores and its website. With purchase amount of US$1000.00, a volume discount will be given.

In 1999, KBToys.com received top points from an e-commerce market research firm, the Gomez Advisors, in the categories of customer confidence, overall cost, and bargain shopping. Softletter Wall Street Journal rated the site as the 'best overall' online toy retailer. In a little more than four months online, KBkids.com increased its business more than 400 percent and twice ranked among the five biggest gainers on the NextCard eCommerce Movers index.

WHY KBTOYS.COM IS A SUCCESSFUL E-COMMERCE WEBSITE?

1. The web page is clean, full of attractive graphics, easy-to-use shopping-cart and check out functions which make consumers convenient and comfortable when using the website. The graphics that used are able to attract the eye to products.

2. The website provides an excellent search capabilities which comb through 10,000 products to help customers find what they are seeking. The search engine match the product title with age group, price, short description and a link to more details.

3. The privacy policy that provided by the website securing customers information online remains private. The website use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL 128-bit) encryption to scramble customer personal and credit card information as it travels over the Internet during the checkout process on the web site.

4. KBToys.com make it easier for customers to compare and contrast toys that sold on the website because it is not easy to compare each toys by just looking at multiple toys.

5. The website supplying variety types of products such as toys & games, video games, party supplies, electronics and movies & videos. Moreover, the toys are categorized based on age group such as from 0-12 months till 17+ years old, based on types such as action figures, arts & crafts, outdoor play, science, sport and etc which make customers convenient when selecting toys that suited to their needs.

Useful links:
1. http://www.kbtoys.com
2. http://www.linkedin.com/companies/kb-toys
3. http://www.bizrate.com/merchant/coe__mid--908.html