This deterrence is called switching costs, which are the negative effect consumers incur when changing products or services.
FORBES: Take A Lesson from Apple: A Strategy to Keep Customers in Your Ecosystem
Switching costs come in many forms and companies create them to retain customers.
FORBES: Take A Lesson from Apple: A Strategy to Keep Customers in Your Ecosystem
It turns out, though, that the issue isn't switching costs--it's learned behavior.
He calls Apple a rare example of a consumer-focused business with high switching costs because customers are attached to its music, photo and other applications.
WSJ: Upside: Why Tech Stocks Look Better��Even for the Risk Averse
For one, there is no legacy of DOS-based MP3 players (an amusing image that) to create the switching costs that hurt Macs in the early years.
ENGADGET: Switched On: The "i" behind iPod -- innovation, integration, or inertia?
In addition to the problem of switching costs, another problem for someone who wants to join a credit union is that they might not be eligible for membership.
It is reasonable to believe that the switching costs of an existing iPhone user are extremely high and that it is unlikely for one to switch unless there is an overwhelming advantage to do so.
Though the answer to this question can vary from one region of the country to another, the most plausible answer is lack of competition on the supply side and high switching costs on the demand side.
FORBES: Why Companies Treat New Customers Better than Old Customers?
Make iCloud work seamlessly and easily so we store all of our important stuff (media, photos, videos) in iCloud and make switching costs very high. (iCloud now has 250M users.) Keep adding features to iMessage and promote iWorks to work with Microsoft Office so no one has a reason to switch to a Microsoft Surface.
Their conclusion is that the switching and transmission costs for IP-based telephone networks are much lower than for switched circuit telephone networks.
CNN: IP telephony is the "in" thing these days, but should it be?
And inertia sets in due to both the costs of acquiring new information and the costs of switching.
Another 40% of revenue will help industries to lower their costs by switching to cleaner forms of energy, if they face competition from untaxed foreign competitors.
ECONOMIST: The prime minister stakes her future on a divisive scheme
Factoring in the long life of the bulbs, the hotel made the upfront costs of switching to LEDs work, said Harry Hobbs, the hotel's director of engineering.
But note that lock-in is inefficient (that is, it is a kind of market failure) only if the inferior product survives despite the fact that the benefits of switching would exceed the costs.
In the operating-system business, expanding the market the first rationale for less-than-monopoly prices might be wise because the high costs of switching from Windows and Windows-based applications to any putative competing suite of products tends to lock new users in.
Because of the profligacy of its predecessor, the government of President Fernando de la Rua felt obliged, on taking office last December, to tighten fiscal policy, even though the budget deficit was relatively modest (and was due partly to the transition costs of switching to a private pension system).
The problem with this view is that frictions the costs to customers of switching, say, or the barriers to entry for competitors can allow exploitative firms to escape punishment.
It would also reduce interest costs on their alternative--switching to a fixed-rate mortgage--provided they can still go that route.
He signed up and said that switching from his private insurance cut his insurance costs by more than half.
WSJ: Not Just Health Insurance Is at Stake in Supreme Court Ruling
So big institutions are keen to cut costs, by, for example, switching to electronic trading, and avoiding any duplication of their trading operations.
Especially with the costs associated with restructuring an entire business infrastructure when switching from one company to another.
FORBES: Microsoft Still Can't Find Its Future. Is It Too Late for the Company?
For the rest, he says, the benefits of switching from America's generally accepted accounting principles are minimal and will not justify the costs.
Within just a few years, companies began switching from hardware to cloud services because they were attracted to benefits like a reduction in capital costs as well as an easing in IT staffing issues.
He changed materials, switching in 1996 from conventional to organic cotton despite the fact that it initially tripled his supply costs because it was less harmful to the environment.
WSJ: Patagonia's Founder is America's Most Unlikely Business Guru
By switching to Perseco, the buyer for McDonald's paper goods worldwide, Chipotle has cut its napkin and packaging costs by 20% .
And given the spikes of energy costs in the United States, I think the American auto industry is facing the reality that consumers are switching to more fuel-efficient cars.
应用推荐