I'm fascinated by the bold move of Vodafone to pull all of its business out of The Carphone Warehouse (CPW), the UK's leading mobile phone retailer. In future, Vodafone will sell only through Phones4U, and its own growing chain of Vodafone stores. CPW said they were not concerned by the move. Investors chose to disagree, sending the company's shares down 10%.
For a long time CPW have had the upper hand in the relationship with the network providers, in the same way that the supermarket chains have do with most consumer goods brands. They even until recently managed customer service and billing for Vodafone. Also, CPW have contributed to the huge "churn" that goes on in mobile, by playing the brands off against one another and encouraging consumers to switch provider for a better deal/phone. Again, there is a parallel in grocery stores where retailers encourage price promotions that make consumers switch brands.
Time will see what happens to Vodafone's business, but hats off to them for the boldness of their move, and for refusing to be "bullied" any more by the retailer. They have made distribution strategic, and tried to take more control of how their brand is sold. There are even rumours that another leading mobile network brand, Orange, will follow the Vodafone example and pull out of CPW.
5-minute workout: who has the power and upper hand in your distribution channels? If you are a product/service brand, what could you do to take more control, such as strategic alliances and developing your own route to market?
Hi Megan,Just saying hello as a feollw WODer I'm working for a charity called Harambee Schools Kenya which started up in Cambs and I'm from Newmarket. I'm setting up a school linking and fundraising system as part of my placement, which kind of fits in with the work LCD do. Feel free to email me, it'd be great to chat about what you're doing and compare notes- .! Lindsey
Posted by: Jercio | September 18, 2012 at 12:56 AM
One thing that has not been taken into account is nawonitide vs. local data usage in respect to 2degrees. I spend 95% of my time in the big centres and therefore can get 12 GB of data for $150 in these areas. This is a lot cheaper than Telecom and Vodafone but will obviously only work for people in these areas. Hopefully as the 2degrees network grows, so will competition in rest of the country.
Posted by: Ahmad | September 18, 2012 at 12:43 AM
Evan beat me to the punch, but yes on 2degrees you can buy extra data as you need by simply sednnig a single text message. But as Evan pointed out, this only works in the 2degrees canopy areas which cover most of the main centres in NZ and are growing rapidly.$20 will buy you an extra 1GB, or $50 for 3GB, or $150 for 12GB.One of the advantages to this is that you don't need to pay for data that you're not using. So if you know that you're going to be doing a lot of tethering, you can buy extra data just by sednnig a text message.
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Posted by: Fasching | December 28, 2010 at 12:26 PM