Sunday, June 21, 2009

An Example of an E-Commerce Failure and its Causes


Kibu.com, a company which shutted down in 2000 just after 46 days online. The site was targeting teenage young girls focusing on fashion, music, and boys. Despite having US$22 million in funding from high-profile investors which included Jim Clark of Netscape fame, Kibu officials admitted bad market conditions for advertising-based business models convinced management and the investors to shut down the site.
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The failure of Kibu.com was just like one of the many overfunded and under thought out initiatives in the kids and teens market. The massive amount of funding and low overhead costs might be one of the causes because most people learnt that running a dot-com was not that hard. However, poor management in a company causes crash and burn whether it's in sanitation or manufacturing or online. 46 days of operations were also not enough for getting the notice of targeted users.
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Although kids market is profitable but the failure of Kibu.com was most probably caused by the mismanagement which leaded the company to shutting down. Its timing in financial markets could not have been worse.
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The followings links show some of the information of the shut down of Kibu.com.
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Kibu.com kloses.
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Kibu.com to shut down.
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