The success of Expedia.com and its causes

Background and Achievement

.com is an Internet-based travel agency and a part of Expedia, Inc. which is based out of the United States of America with localized sites for 15 countries. It books airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruises, vacation packages, and various attractions and services via their official website and telephone travel agents.

Expedia.com is also known as one of the well-liked brands and innovative business that make Expedia, Inc. the leading online travel agency in the world, the third largest travel company in US, and the fourth largest travel company in the world. And they have a mission to become the biggest and most lucrative seller of travel in the world, by serving everyone, everywhere plan and purchase everything in travel.

Expedia.com uses multiple global distribution systems like the Sabre reservation system for flights and for hotels, Worldspan, and Pegasus along with their own hotel reservation system for their contracted bulk rate reservations which is shared with other Expedia, Inc. sites.

Expedia.com delivers consumers everything they need for researching, planning, and purchasing a whole trip. The company provides direct access to one of the broadest selections of travel products and services through its North American Web site, localized versions throughout Europe, and extensive partnerships in Asia.

Serving many different consumer segments from families booking a summer vacation to individuals arranging a quick weekend retreat. Expedia provides travellers with the ability to explore, arrange, and book their comprehensive travel needs. Expedia-branded Web sites feature airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rental, cruises, and many other in-destination services from a broad selection of partners.

Furthermore, in the year 2006, Expedia.com was awarded a Webby Award in the area of "Best In Travel Websites" and a Stevie Award from the American Business Association for "Most Innovative Company". Expedia also featured in the most admired Internet companies in the United States list which released by Fortune recently. Expedia ranked 3rd, after IAC and Google, and was followed by Amazon.com at 4th place.



Before proceed to the factors of Expedia.com success, let's take a break and watch an Expedia.com commercial video clip. Enjoy watching..

" Make your ideal trips to be reality! "
Findut more at http://www.expedia.com/ today!

Factors to success

Many people may wonder, why there is so many e-commerce companies that compete out there selling variety of products and services, and so many e-commerce failure cases but yet an originally start-up like Expedia.com managed to has its great achievement today, what actually are the causes behind its success? The answers are as below:

• Effective site navigation

A customer who comes to a website and quickly loses his way is highly unlikely to have a good perception of that particular company and its products or services. Expedia.com make it a way to design their webpage navigation as clear and concise as possible, and staying consistent in the presentation of it, is crucial to creating the trust necessary for the visitor to actually consider the merits of the company and its products.

Clarity: The terminology of Expedia’s navigation is clear to the visitor. They make their links simple to be aware of – most visitors know ‘Home’ means they will be taken back to the front page of a site, Flights include types of airplane fare and types of route they prefer, Hotels which basically let visitors choose the accommodation within their budget and its location, and other buttons with simple english such Cars, Vacation packages,cruises, activities and so on.

Reinforcement: Expedia make sure they help the visitor through performing any task like placing an order or searching the site – provide guides, help prompts, tutorials and instructions as needed to aid their visitor.

Expedia.com’s website stay lean and mean and simple - assume that every visitor is brand-new to the World Wide Web and doesn't have the first clue how to get around. In other words, Expedia.com is the angel of mercy, making visitors voyage through the website a pleasure instead of a pain.

Thus, it is obviously Expedia.com has fulfilled criteria of successful websites by their strong and clear navigation.That not only help to increases the perception of trustworthiness, meanwhile the belief this website can meet the consumer's needs, leads to its success in e-commerce.

• Nature of E-commerce

The characteristics and benefits of E-commerce itself playing a very important role contributing to an organisation success, in here we will discuss few factors that lead Expedia.com to success in e-commerce.

Global reach: Through E-commerce, Expedia.com managed to expand the marketplace to national and international market. With minimal capital outlay, Expedia.com easily and quickly locates the best suppliers, more customers and the most suitable business partners worldwide.

Extended hours 24/7/365: The Expedia.com is always open on the web, incur no overtime or other extra costs. By providing a transaction portal and up-to-date company information through their website, potential and existing customers can visit their website anytime to locate relevant and detailed product information and carry out reservation and business deal in seconds. Furthermore, Expedia.com also able to interact more closely with their customers and thus increase customer loyalty and ultimate lead to its success.

For more information and discussion on e-commerce success guide, you can refer to following websites:

http://www.infinities.com/e-commerce-basics.cfm

http://about.murdoch.edu.au/synergy/0401/ecommerce.html

Thanks for reading and your interest in Expedia.com, as an appreciation of your support, let Expedia Suitcase Squad from San Francisco proudly present to you- Suitcase dance ;) Enjoy the clips.

By Jian Yi (^-^)`