Read the case: Weebly makes creating websites easy.

(1) What value does Weebly offer to small businesses?

(2) What are the drawbacks of using Weebly to create an e-commerce presence?

(3) How are service providers like Weebly changing the nature of e-commerce?

(4) List several options that you can use to have your presence, which one is best for small business, which one is best for big organizations. Explain.

WEEBLY MAKES CREATING WEBSITES EASY

With so many big companies domi- nating the e-commerce scene, you may wonder if theres a chance for the little guy anymore. The answer is yes: there are still billions left in potential online retail sales, with additional money to be made from advertising revenues. In fact, theres an e-commerce frenzy going on that nearly rivals the dot-com era with one exception: the startups have access to cheap technology and social media that can provide inexpensive marketing and sales. Founded in 2007 by Penn State graduates David Rusenko, Chris Fanini, and Dan Veltri, Weebly provides templates that allow entrepre- neurs and small and medium-sized businesses to create their own websites with a full suite of features, including blogs, online stores, and mobile compatibility. Weeblys customers have built over 40 million sites, which together have 325 million monthly unique visitors. Users create sites using a drag-and-drop, widget-based tool that works within a web browser. Weeblys typical customers are the little guys without website coding experience, who are hoping to harness the site tools traditionally available only to bigger websites and retailers.

Weebly is just one option in an increasingly crowded marketplace for website creation services. Todays offerings are a far cry from early services like GeoCities and Angelfire, which look crude by todays standards. Weebly and its competitors, including WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix, offer a much more polished product than their predeces- sors. The company has a free option with basic fea- tures as well as premium plans starting at $8 per month and increasing to only $25 per month for its high-end Business plan. Over the course of its growth, Weebly has added Google AdSense mon- etization features, CSS/ HTML editing support, and the ability to generate a mobile version of each website automatically. Weebly is a strong player in this marketplace, boasting over 40 million regis- tered users, though it does not disclose how many are paid subscribers. By contrast, Wix has about 110 million registered users, but less than 3 million of those are paid subscribers.

Weebly has increasingly focused on improv- ing its e-commerce services, such as a mobile store and checkout capability, integrated shopping cart, and filtered product search. It also offers basic support for PayPal, Google Checkout, and Square. By revamping its e-commerce tools, Weebly hopes to better compete with Amazon, as well as similar user-friendly marketplaces such as Etsy and Shopify. Sixty percent of Weebly users identify themselves as entrepreneurs hoping to create an online presence for their business.

The inventors of the Dharma Yoga Wheel, Dov Vargas and Raquel Vamos, fit this descrip- tion. The two yoga instructors developed the wheel, which helps new yoga practitioners learn to improve the flexibility of their back, chest, shoul- ders, abdomen, and hip flexors, release tension in those areas, and perform other exercises, in 2014. After launching their site, their sales grew to over $1 million within a year. Wheels are hand-made in the United States, and start from approximately $80, with options of both environmentally-friendly plastic and wooden wheels. The Dharma Yoga Wheel store also offers yoga apparel and other equipment like handstand canes and yoga straps. The two founders credit Weebly with the ability to reach Canada, Europe, Asia, and other markets that would have been unreachable without a website.

Although Weebly doesnt disclose its revenue, the company is profitable and has been since 2009. This is an attractive quality for a startup company, many of which have his- torically sought growth first and profitability later. In 2014, Weebly received $35 million in venture capital funding that valued the company at $455 million. In 2016, the company had to go into damage-control mode when hackers stole user names, passwords, and IP addresses for 43 million accounts. While the passwords were encrypted and Weebly does not itself store any full credit card numbers, the breach created a PR crisis for Weebly. In 2017, the company got back on track. Because so many businesses still dont have an online presence, Weeblys prospects for growth are bright. Although its competitors are also growing fast, there appears to be enough room in this market for several companies. In 2013, Wix launched an initial public offering, but the response was lukewarm, with investors expressing concern over its lack of profitability. So far, thats an advantage for Weebly, but when Weebly begins an aggressive push for growth, the companys profitability may suffer.

Weebly has continued adapting its plat- form. In September 2016, it released Weebly 4, the fourth generation of its website creation platform, featuring improved support for e-com- merce functionality and e-mail marketing. For example, sites can now incorporate abandoned cart functionality, which allows stores to message customers when they leave the site without com- pleting a purchase, as well as functionality that allows stores to more easily calculate taxes and real-time shipping prices. Weebly also launched support for targeted e-mail campaigns to spe- cific groups of customers, as well as automated e-mails that are sent when customers perform particular actions, such as a thank you mail when a customer buys an item or a happy birthday message to a customer. Weebly has continued to add new features in 2017, including compatibil- ity with Android Pay and Apple Pay for mobile checkout on Weebly online stores, an important feature given that more than half of all Weebly store transactions take place on mobile devices, up from 40% in 2016. Weebly also continues to add apps to its app store, including the ability to use chatbots to interact with customers.

Weebly is just one example of a larger trend toward leaner business models that rely on outside help for many business functions. Although hard- ware has become less expensive over time, many startup firms have found that cloud computing and social marketing greatly reduce the costs of starting a company. Market intelligence, public relations, and even design services can be found online for a fraction of the cost of traditional service firms. Its never been cheaper to start an e-commerce company