Business Model Viability:

Easybuy.co.za has two customer segments namely;

1. Users: Service is offered free to users (consumers) in order to attract as many people as possible. The amount of people that uses the service is directly linked to the income generated from the retailers (Second customer segment). The value proposition to the users is finding the right technology that best matches their requirements and budget in a convenient and simplistic manner.

The user can be described as follows;

• South African residents that make use of technology to enhance their everyday lives (Work & Social), but lack the technical knowledge to find the right technology that best match the everyday requirements.
• South African residents with access to the internet (Mobile or Web). This does not just include the growing South African online retail segment (Annual growth of 29% in 2014 and expectations to further escalate), but all others internet users not yet making use of online retail as there is no transactions or provision of confidential information taking place.

2. Retailers: Retailers are charged an X amount for every time their product is displayed. The higher up the product is displayed the more the retailer will be charged. The exact amounts to be charged are market dependent and will be determined by means of further research. It is however estimated that anything from R5 – R20 can be charged depending on the position in which the product is displayed.

The value proposition the retailer is good quality marketing leads as the probability that a user will buy their products if generated by the search machine is substantially higher than most other marketing means.

Sustainable competitive advantage:

Customer Convenience: Currently the competitive advantage is based on offering customer convenience to not only compare prices (Example Price check), but to also find the best products that matches their other requirements (Usability). This is however only temporally as competition can replicate the concept, but not necessarily the user-experience (SCA)

User experience: The sustainable competitive advantage will lie within the system and the ability to constantly conduct R&D to ensure that the user-experience is unmatched by any other competitor (Including questionnaire design, matching abilities and front-end navigation). Resources and partnerships will be directed towards the above endeavour.