- Amazon
Amazon is one of the first Internet services focused on the sale of real consumer goods. This year, the company became the most expensive company in the world ahead of its competitor – Microsoft.
Accessibility of the service, customer benefits, and reasonable pricing are undoubtedly the reasons for the rapid development and brilliant success of Amazon.
For example, though Amazon does not have physical stores, here, one can often buy goods from well-known brands much cheaper than in their branded stores.
Since they can purchase the same products from different sellers, the customer chooses the best price.
Another money-saving feature of Amazon is the ability to buy either new goods, as well as used ones. Interestingly, among goods marked as “used,” there are a lot of actually new product items. These are, for instance, things that didn’t fit for some reason and were returned by the customer.
And finally, some statistics as evidence. According to a recent survey covering 16 leading American online retailers, they revealed Amazon as 13% less expensive than its competitors.
- Coursera
Coursera was founded in 2011 by Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng, the professors of Stanford University. Just in a few years, their project has become the world’s largest provider of online education courses with 36 million registered users, 3,000 courses, and $140 million in revenue (estimated by Forbes) in 2018.
The business model of Coursera is an ecosystem that unites students, universities, and employers. Universities and companies develop educational courses, Coursera sells them (or distributes them for free), educational institutions and companies receive analytics about their courses and potential students and employees.
In January 2013, Coursera introduced a system of paid certificates, confirming that a particular student completed all stages of the course: homework, tests, and passing exams. (They identified the user by the peculiarities of electronic handwriting and a photo from a webcam.) For the first year, such certificates issued on behalf of Coursera and the university – developer of the curriculum brought the company $4 million. Such success and the users’ thirst for knowledge are not least connected to the extremely low price of certificates – only $29-99.
- OnlineDivorce
Today, even such serious services like legal ones gradually move online. Among the most popular requests are online counseling, electronic filing of documents, and online divorce.
Divorce rates are still high within the US, and online divorce at least helps to minimize associated stress and difficulties, providing help with divorce forms preparation.
Onlinedivorce.com is one of the pioneers of this industry, with 19 years of experience and over 500,000 satisfied customers.
This company ensures the customer with the completed divorce paperwork kit just within two days after the brief online interview. For a reasonable price of $139, the client avoids attending the court clerk’s office and is relieved of sorting out the tedious paperwork. So, OnlineDivorce became an excellent bargain for everyone who cannot stand bureaucracy and want to save their time and money.
The provided service divorce forms are customized according to the client’s state of residency and the unique circumstances of a divorce case. They automatically take each filling rule or peculiarities of local legislation into account. Moreover, the company guarantees that the court approves documents at first try. Otherwise, it offers a refund.
- Airbnb
Airbnb is the world’s biggest accommodation reservation service.
It helps to find a rental for various terms all over the world directly from the owner or hotel. Today, Airbnb is a big business with several thousand employees and valued at several tens of billions of dollars, creating severe competition even to famous chain-branded hotels. Every year, millions of people around the world use this reservation service. Service indicators are growing and are not going to stop, since the market has not yet been developed and, as it turned out, it is incredibly large.
The success of the company is not accidental. Airbnb is an indispensable assistant for every traveler. This service allows you to find a vacation rental for every taste and budget, almost anywhere in the world. Even if we are talking about luxury apartments, the price at Airbnb in 99% of cases will be much lower than a similar offer from a hotel or tour operator. For those who prefer to travel on a budget, there is a wide selection of hostels and private rooms. Renting a room from the owner is beloved by many and a great way to not feel as a tourist but as a guest in an unfamiliar country, and to fully experience the local flavor. The room usually costs lower than an entire apartment (and even lower than a bunk in a hostel). However, the conditions can be much better than in a good mid-range hotel.
Clients choose Airbnb for their wide selection of apartments, convenient and honest service, reputation, and the ability to save a lot of money to enjoy a perfect vacation.
- Uber
The essence of this ride-hailing app is to simplify the search for a car for any person. Uber has a lot of useful properties: the lack of language barriers, because it can do everything through the mobile app; a very simple procedure for ordering a car; the low cost of a taxi from Uber, because the fee is set by the company, not the taxi driver; well-thought-out security system for drivers and passengers.
Over the ten years of its existence, Uber has gained the fame of one of the most controversial startups. Despite the constant bans and protests of taxi drivers, a taxi service manages to cope with attacks and remain among the most popular companies.
In 2009, when Uber startup was created, the joint economy was a real trend. Hundreds of developers have been creating programs, sites, and companies that could make life easier for others. If Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp had not founded Uber, then someone else would have done it. Cheapening of any service (or the crowding out of an offline analog of the service from the market) always leads to protests and difficulties. To some extent, that is the price of progress, and society always takes time to adapt to changes.
Raj Kumar is a qualified business/finance writer expert in investment, debt, credit cards, Passive income, financial updates. He advises in his blog finance clap.
