Company Research: MYHABIT.com | Constructive Critical Analysis From a Job Hopeful

“I AM GRADUATING SOON.”

This is a mildly terrifying thought that I have on a regular basis. I know I can handle the corporate world and have confidence in all that I have to offer it…but this is a huge life change coming up! Frequently I wonder where I am going to settle, what company would be an ideal fit for me…and soon I am in 100% panic-about-the-future mode. I am SO thankful that I am currently enrolled in a course at my university called “Careers in Communication.” Although we are only halfway through the semester, I have already learned a great deal about perfecting my résumé, networking and hunting for the perfect job.

As I hunt for this seemingly mythical, picture-perfect job, I have learned that I need to be as critical of the companies I apply for as they will potentially be of me as a candidate.
Recently, I stumbled across a job opportunity that I feel would fit my recently graduated hand like a glove. The job is in Manhattan, my old stomping ground, and is for a company I trust to provide me with free 2-day shipping and great products for great prices. The parent company of the job listing is Amazon.com, specifically a subsidiary of Amazon called MYHABIT.com. The MYHABIT.com home page has a quick little blurb “about the company” that I feel would be helpful to share here.

“MYHABIT is a private fashion sale site offering up to 60% off hand-picked selections from designer and boutique brands. Founded by Amazon.com, MYHABIT sets a new standard in convenience, offering free, instant membership; fast, free shipping on U.S. orders as well as fast $25 international shipping to 50+ countries. The site also offers shoppers a complete fashion experience including 360-video shot on models, lavish photography and editorial segments.”

As a Fashion Marketing hopeful, this company definitely seems ideal for me. The job is as an entry-level Fashion Merchandiser for their Home department. Having studied Interior Design, I feel that I am well qualified for the position. Before I get too excited about this potential “perfect job,” I need to start the critical analysis of if this company is really right for me. I will focus on researching MYHABIT/Amazon using five main elements:

1. The company’s website
2. Internet searches
3. News articles
4. Periodicals
5. Academic resources (i.e. EBSCO, etc.).

When a visitor lands on MYHABIT.com for the first time, he or she is greeted by a nice, simply laid out log-in page (see screenshot).There is a picture of a stylish couple cropped on the right-hand side of the page, a short tagline reading “Sought-after brands. Membership-only prices,” as well as two ways to sign-in/up. Appeal is gender-neutral (which is great, as the site provides designer deals for all) and the site informs that users can utilize an amazon.com account as a sign-in for MYHABIT as well. Several notable benefits of using the site are listed under a section titled “become a member instantly.” On the bottom of the page, there are links to follow MYHABIT on Facebook and Twitter, which can be very helpful and informative for users. The simple layout is appealing and the listed benefits do an excellent job of drawing potential new site members in. The posted photo is a great seasonal visual of current trends and provide a visual preview of what will be offered once inside the site. The simple white and gray color palette give the page a sophisticated appearance all around. The only elements this page has that may be detrimental are the font used in the main text as well as the “Sign In” and “Join Now” buttons. The font appears less attractive than the header and tagline fonts, and to be out of sync with the sophisticated appearance of the page as a whole. The “Sign In” and “Join Now” buttons have a similar effect. Aside from those two small details, MYHABIT appears sophisticated, clean and definitely draws site visitors in. Once signed in to MYHABIT, the appeal continues. The header of the page is classy and sophisticated with the same color palette as the sign-in page. Although the layout is clean and the photographs of sale previews are gorgeous, the font still detracts from the overall feel. The small square pictures with a gray background bordering and presenting the sales is simple, but it almost appears to simple. The layout could benefit from a slight remodel/upgrade to display the sale preview pictures in a more refined manner in line with the rest of the site. Some screenshots are provided as a reference.

The MYHABIT Login Page

The MYHABIT Home Page

Layout of MYHABIT Sale List

Moving forward from the appearance of the site, MYHABIT’s website offers visitors a large sum of information about the company, the products and services offered, policies, gift services, the MYHABIT blog called theFIX and much, much more. The “about us” section is really where the website transitions from “just another designer sale site” to really making the visitor/member feel as if the company is a friend. The use of rhetoric is excellent in maintaining brand and also explaining the ins-and-outs of the company in a concise manner. The tone is warm and inviting and provides the member an inside look at the people who make MYHABIT as great as this website portrays the company to be.

The MYHABIT website provided a large amount of information and painted a beautiful, museum worthy picture of the company. A quick web search revealed a lot more, and not necessarily in a good way. Simply searching for MYHABIT on Google provided over 52 MILLION results in .16 seconds. The first few results were standard, providing a link to the website, a link to the iTunes app store (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myhabit/id435253220?mt=8) to purchase their app (which is rated 4.5 out of 5 stars…impressive!), as well as Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook links to “follow” and “like” MYHABIT on multiple platforms. Digging further through the search results, Amazon.com, MYHABIT’s parent company, came up and provided “unbiased user reviews” of MYHABIT.com. Amazon reviews provided information that the company received an average of 3.4 out of 5 stars from 80 different reviewers. These initial results make MYHABIT appear more average and less dedicated than the company’s website led on. Further reading informed that, although the overall rating was 3.4, the reviews ranked “most helpful” and also the most recent reviews were majorly negative, 1-star reviews (http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-com-MYHABIT/product-reviews/B00881IN6G). Another search result listed just two below Amazon reviews on Google was for SiteJabber (http://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.myhabit.com). SiteJabber revealed many more dissatisfied customers with tales of the wrong product being sent three times, not informing members of shipping policy changes and damaged goods. Now, MYHABIT is a newer company that was only launched in 2011, so it is understandable that there would be glitches within the company regarding sending out products, shipping logistics and customer service, among other things. However, descending from a parent company like Amazon (a company known for excellent shipping and customer service), this information is unexpected and rather confusing. The fact that MYHABIT has a lot of competition (gilt.com, hautelook.com, etc.) makes customer satisfaction of the utmost importance to keep the company afloat. A web search did not provide more information about the company per say, but the search did offer information about customer satisfaction which speaks volumes about a company.

A search related specifically to MYHABIT in the news revealed very little. There’s a saying that “no news is good news,” and in this case, that saying is spot on. There were about 64 mentions of MYHABIT in my news search, but very few full articles about the company. The first news result is an article written on a New York Times blog back in May of 2011 announcing the launch of MYHABIT (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/amazon-enters-the-flash-sale-fray-with-myhabit/?_r=0). Next is an article published on September 18, 2013 by a PR site announcing that MYHABIT has an upcoming ad campaign featuring WHIT designer Whitney Pozgay, The Meatball Shop’s Michael Chernow, and Purse Blog’s Meaghan Mahoney Dusil (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/myhabit-debuts-this-is-myhabit-campaign-featuring-whit-designer-whitney-pozgay-the-meatball-shops-michael-chernow-and-purse-blogs-meaghan-mahoney-dusil-224214371.html). Other than those two articles, most everything else talked about E-Commerce and the push for many high fashion companies to create sites like MYHABIT, as Amazon has done.

Searching periodicals and scholarly journals (academic resources) for MYHABIT revealed very similar information to the news search. It consisted mostly of announcements that Amazon had launched such a company and mentions related to E-Commerce competition, etc. The information is repetitive and not worth mentioning in depth.

Writing this critical analysis was very helpful in aiding me to form an opinion about MYHABIT as a company. I was very enlightened, and thankfully, because before this search, MYHABIT was on a pedestal on perfection and I felt almost unworthy. Through my research, it has become clear that MYHABIT is definitely still a company I would want to work for, and the fact that they have a few problems only inspires me with ideas to help better and further the company on the path to its ultimate goals. No company is perfect and MYHABIT is no exception to that rule. The issues presented about the company are minor and fixable. They seem to have a large following and a great presence on social media and all over the internet. They appear as dedicated as the company website would lead you to believe. I am very hopeful that I will somehow become a part of MYHABIT's future!

Defining Communication from Different Perspectives

Recently in one of my special topics seminar classes (Careers in Communication), I had an assignment that required me to look up definitions related to the field of Communication as well as my industry focus. I have provided them here to help enlighten any readers to a number of different definitions related to the Communication field as well as a few related to Social Media (Marketing). If you would like more information regarding some of the experts quoted below, feel free to comment on the post and I will do my best to answer your questions or direct you somewhere that may help! Enjoy!

  Education Focus Definitions

a.       Speech Communication

                                                              i.       “The historical study of speeches. Years ago, the Communication field was known as the Speech Communication field, and at that point in time most Communication scholars studied public speaking (great speakers, great speeches, etc.).”

Dr. David Levasseur. Professor of Communication Studies, West Chester University of Pennsylvania. (Ph.D., University of Kansas in Rhetoric and Communication).

                                                            ii.      “A program that focuses on the scientific, humanistic, and critical study of human communication in a variety of formats, media, and contexts. Includes instruction in the theory and practice of interpersonal, group, organizational, professional, and intercultural communication; speaking and listening; verbal and nonverbal interaction; rhetorical theory and criticism; performance studies; argumentation and persuasion; technologically mediated communication; popular culture; and various contextual applications.”

Speech communication and rhetoric. (n.d.). National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Retrieved September 11, 2013, from http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cipcode/cipdetail.aspx?y=55&cipid=88045

                                                          iii.      “The study of the nature, processes, and effects of human symbolic interaction. While speech is the most obvious mode of communication, human symbolic interaction includes a variety of verbal and nonverbal codes.”

What is communication? . (2013). The National Communication Association . Retrieved September 11, 2013, from http://www.natcom.org/discipline/

b.      Communication Studies

                                                              i.       “The development of theories designed to explain the transmission of information among people.”

Dr. Edward Lordan, Professor of Communication Studies, West Chester University of Pennsylvania. (Ph.D., The S.I. Newhouse School of Communication at Syracuse University in Mass Communication).

                                                            ii.      As “Communication Education:”

“The study of communication in the classroom and other pedagogical contexts.”

What is communication? . (2013). The National Communication Association . Retrieved September 11, 2013, from http://www.natcom.org/discipline/

c.       Communications

                                                              i.       “The transmission of information between two people.”

Dr. David Levasseur. Professor of Communication Studies, West Chester University of Pennsylvania. (Ph.D., University of Kansas in Rhetoric and Communication).

                                                            ii.       “The discipline of communication focuses on how people use messages to generate meanings within and across various contexts, cultures, channels, and media. The discipline promotes the effective and ethical practice of human communication.”

What is communication? . (2013). The National Communication Association . Retrieved September 11, 2013, from http://www.natcom.org/discipline/

d.      Mass Communication

                                                              i.       “The practice and study of communication through the media…”

                        Thompen, P. (2007, March 7). What is communication?. DrThompsen.com Exploring communication, technology and life. Retrieved September 11, 2013, from http://drthompsen.com/?p=28 

                                                            ii.       “The transmission of information between one source and multiple receivers using mediated means. “

Dr. Edward Lordan, Professor of Communication Studies, West Chester University of Pennsylvania. (Ph.D., The S.I. Newhouse School of Communication at Syracuse University in Mass Communication).

  Industry Focus

a.       Social Media

                                                              i.      Consumer-generated media

1.      “…describes a variety of new sources of online information that are created, initiated, circulated and used by consumers intent on educating each other about products, brands, services, personalities, and issues.”

Mangold, W. G., & Faulds, D. J. (2009). Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Business Horizons, 52(4), 357-365. Retrieved September 11, 2013, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681309000329

b.      Industry History

                                                              i.      The origins of social media can be traced back to around 1997 when some of the first social networking sites were created (i.e. Sixdegrees.com, Classmates.com, etc.). The now all-but-defunct site, Friendster, is credited with spurring competition for the creation of new social media sites such as Xanga and MySpace. MySpace was one of the first sites to evolve and catapult social media, and marketing through social media, forward. The site was enhanced to introduce users to bands and artists. This brought about an opportunity for musicians to promote their group on a new forum. In 2004, MySpace lost a lot of  “mainstream press coverage” and growth significantly slowed. In 2005, a social media site in its infancy stole the show. Previously a site exculsive for college students, Facebook’s popularity increased greatly in 2005 by allowing high school students to join the site. It wouldn’t be long before Facebook became the most popular social media site in the world. The increase in popularity of social media sites created innumerable marketing opportunities of all sorts. (Boyd and Ellison, 2007).

Paraphrased from:

Boyd, D., & Ellison, N. (2007). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210-230. Retrieved September 11, 2013, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00393.x/full

c.       Similar Industries

                                                              i.      “…consulting, market research and advertising.”

The Princeton Review

http://www.princetonreview.com/Majors.aspx?cip=521401&page=1

  

  Resources

a.       The Top Five Companies in Social Media

                                                              i.      1. Facebook
                                    2. Blogger
                                    3. Twitter
                                    4. Wordpress
                                    5. LinkedIn

 From the Nielson Social Media Report, 2012.

b.      Top Publications

                                                              i.      1. Journal of Marketing

                                    2. Journal of Marketing Research
                                    
3. Journal of Consumer Research
                                    4. Journal of Retailing

                                    5. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science

Hult, G. Tomas M., William T. Neese, and R. Edward Bashaw (1997), "Faculty Perceptions of Marketing Journals," Journal of Marketing Education, 19 (1), 37-52.

c.       Important Industry Associations

                                                              i.       American Marketing Association (AMA)
                                    Promotion Marketing Association, Inc. (PMA)
                                    Direct Marketing Association (DMA).

Professional Organizations - Marketing. (n.d.). University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Retrieved September 11, 2013, from http://www1.usfsp.edu/cob/undergraduate_studies/ProfessionalOrganizations-Marketing.htm

Thoughts on "Media Career Guide: Preparing for Jobs in the 21st Century"

Recently I've been reading a text written by Sherri Hope Culver and James Seguin entitled: "Media Career Guide: Preparing for Jobs in the 21st Century" (8th Ed.). So far, I'm loving this book. As a soon-to-be college graduate, it offers an awesome perspective on what the communications job market is like and offers loads of helpful information for entering the field, interviewing, resume writing and just about anything else you could possibly want to know about communication careers. I would definitely recommend picking it up if you're at all interested in the field of communication. The ninth edition is currently available for less than $12 here.
I wrote a short reflection on the first chapter from Culver and Seguin's "Media Career Guide" and thought it would be a good piece to introduce you to the text and some of what it has to offer. (*NOTE: Although the 9th edition is published, I currently own the 8th edition and my reflection represents my interpretation on the information published in the edition I own*)

Sherri Hope Culver and James Seguin created a helpful, honest and updated text when the two collaborated to write “Media Career Guide.” With the ninth edition newly published in June of 2013, the pair of authors continue to update their work as to remain as relevant and helpful as possible. Culver and Seguins’s first chapter, “Considering a Career in Communications,” offers the reader a wide range of information regarding the current job market for communications graduates. Outlined in Chapter One of “Media Career Guide” are expectations of employers, relevant statistics regarding entry level positions as well as important factors to consider when hunting for a job post-graduation.

For a soon-to-be graduate of a Communication Studies program, Culver and Seguin’s book is definitely a reliable handbook for survival in the corporate world of communications. On page nine of “Media Career Guide,” Culver and Seguin present the realities of a job search in the communications field, outlining areas of opportunity, areas that are not exactly flourishing at the moment, average starting salaries, what employers are looking for and where job recruiters look for qualified candidates.. The authors highlight certain skills a job candidate can have that will increase chances of making it to the top of the résumé pile such as “international experience” and speaking more than one language fluently (9). Culver and Seguin also state that employers are looking for people with leadership skills, who research a company thoroughly before interviewing and critical thinking innovators (12). Well-rounded individuals are the ones who rise to the top, not just candidates with the technical skills outlined in a job advertisement (12). Culver and Seguin do make it a point to say that even an ideally qualified candidate cannot escape the importance of a good GPA (grade point average) and suggest using opportunities to take courses or internships in college to better chances (12).
For students with an interest in social media, Culver and Seguin have some good news. Due to the New media communications are constantly evolving and being created exponentially. Culver and Seguin state that, “employers have an insatiable need for graduates with technical expertise" (13). It is interesting to note, however, that companies are not solely looking for applicants with technical knowledge/expertise. According to Culver and Seguin, being technologically advanced is certainly a plus, but most companies are looking for well-rounded, flexible individuals who can grow as the company does (12).
To help individuals become more aware of where to look for job opportunities (outside of the internet), Culver and Seguin wrote a section devoted to explaining where job recruiters look for qualified candidates. The authors point out that most companies strive to find the best candidate using methods that incur the least amount of expense to the company (13). This means that word-of mouth referrals are the preferred method of hiring, but the most popular methods remain campus co-ops/internships and college fairs (13). The authors make an interesting note that many job and career fairs, while worthwhile, rarely focus on careers in the fields of media and communication (14). The authors suggest looking for job fairs hosted by professional associations such as the National Television Academy, Public Relations Association, Women in Communications and a few others to find jobs more closely related to the field in which a person has interest (14).
Chapter One of "Media Career Guide” provided an interesting perspective on the current state of jobs in the communications field. Culver and Seguin present the reader with relevant and useful information regarding the business world, what to expect and what is expected of applicants. Overall, the chapter is incredibly useful for any person considering a career in communications, but especially for those graduating and applying for entry level positions.