- Category killer
Category killer is a term used in
marketing andstrategic management to describe a product, service,brand , or company that has such a distinctsustainable competitive advantage that competing firms find it almost impossible to operate profitably in that industry. The existence of a category killer will eliminate almost all market entities, whether real orvirtual . Many existing firms will leave the industry, thereby increasing the industry'sconcentration ratio .An example of a category killer business is
eBay . eBay as an online auction site has anatural monopoly , as buyers and sellers will naturally gravitate to the largest, most liquid market. As a result, their business has almost no competition and has forced similar auction sites like the ones run byYahoo! into a very small portion of the market. Jupiter Communications has estimated that eBay earned 90% of all revenues in the consumer-to-consumer auction market in the year 2000. [ cite news
last= Wolverton
first= Troy
url= http://www.news.com/Net-antique-site-lending-a-hand-to-eBay-sellers/2100-1017_3-246361.html
title= Net antique site lending a hand to eBay sellers
publisher=CNET News
date= 2000 September 28
accessdate= ]Another type of category killer, and the definition most associated with the term, is a
big box retail chain such asBest Buy orToys "R" Us which is focused on one or few categories of merchandise and offers a wide selection of merchandise in these categories at relatively low prices. The emergence of such stores has taken a toll on manydepartment store s.References
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