EasyGroup
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The easyGroup, founded in 1998, is the holding company controlling the “easy” ventures; it is privately owned by Stelios Haji-Ioannou.
Many of the companies follow the "easy" format of taking away the frills in something to make it cheaper overall, plus using the yield management system of supply and demand. In the last few years the company has started to franchise the businesses to expand, and cut down costs. It is based in the Rotunda in Camden Town, London, United Kingdom although it is registered in Jersey.
History
The first company owned by easyGroup to use the 'easy' prefix was easyJet started in 1995.
easyInternetcafé
In 1999, an internet café chain, easyEverything was opened, with the first five located in London. It was later renamed easyInternetcafé and became fully automated. Though after a bitter court case with Easynet plc with was unsuccessful easyInternet has now virtually closed.easyCar
In April 2000 the company set-up the car rental company easyRentacar (later renamed easyCar) which the only rental car available from them was the Mercedes-Benz A-Class. The car rental business, which suffered from financial losses and a reputation for poor service has since closed, but easyCar continues operating as a rental broker via the internet.easyMoney
On 21 August 2001, the credit card company, easyMoney was set up with Accucard (now part of Lloyds TSB), which was expanded on 14th February 2005 with the announcement that unbundled car insurance products provided by Zurich would be sold later in the year at easyMoney insurance [link]. In April 2006, easyGroup linked with moneysupermarket.com to provide a financial product comparison website [link]. This coincided with the withdrawal of the easyMoney credit card [link].easyCinema
On 23 May 2003, the cinema company, easyCinema at the Point cinema in Milton Keynes was opened at a former UCI site, offering screenings from 20p if booked well in advance. The cinema initially struggled as major distributors were not prepared release new films to the company using the yield-management model.First run films later became available, but at fixed prices. The cinema also relented on not serving popcorn and drinks (claimed to save on cleaning costs).
Towards the end of its life, the cinema site also housed an easyInternetcafé and was a pick-up point for easyPizza. However, following a dispute over unpaid rent with the landord, Odeon [link], which resulted in eviction, the easyCinema closed in May 2006 and reopened as an Odeon cinema.
The closure of easyCinema appears to have curtailed the desired expansion into London's West End. [link][link]
easyCinema DVD Rental
The 10th March 2005 saw the commencement of easyCinema DVD Rental, first announced in November 2004. This is a partnership with Video Island, the company operating rental services for several other retail brands. However, unlike many on-line DVD rental services, there is no monthly subscription but the user purchases credits at £1.99 each (minimum purchase is 4 credits). One credit permits one DVD rental and a maximum of three DVDs can be rented at one time. For customers renting one disc per week the offering is competitive to the subscription services, which typically allow one rental at a time, charging around £7.97 to £9.99 per month.easyBus
easyBus began operating on 30 July 2004. The company currently offers a low cost express minibus service between London and Luton Airport. Journeys can be booked via the easyBus website, or customers can purchase a more expensive walk-on fare. A service from London to the former Milton Keynes easyCinema has ceased operation.In July 2006 easyBus announced a £3 million expansion to provide transfer services from UK airports including Manchester, Liverpool, Gatwick and Stansted to city centres.[link]
Long-distance rival Megabus has been more successful.
easy4men
On 9th December 2004, the men's toiletries range easy4men was launched together with Boots. Orginally conceived to challenge Gilette, the product line did not include a razor[link]. After disappointing sales the partnership with Boots is being dissolved in 2006 [link].easyPizza
On the 17 December 2004, the company lanuched easyPizza, a yield management delivery-only pizza company in Milton Keynes.Unlike most other delivery chains, easyPizza facilities store pre-made, frozen pizzas. For this reason, customers must choose their pizza from a limited array of varieties — substitutions are not allowed. Also unusually, easyPizza offers discount rates for pizzas ordered in advance and at off-peak hours, a strategy to improve the utilization rate of their ovens.
Franchises begain operating in early 2006. As of June 2006 easyPizza has 10 outlets in Milton Keynes, Fareham, Peacehaven, Worthing, Bognor Regis, Shoreham, Eastbourne, Burgess Hill, Brighton, Hove and Hastings. The branch in Fareham [link] was not taking orders due to "operational issues". All of the existing outlets, with the exception of the Milton Keynes and Fareham branches, are branches of Famous Moe's, an independent Sussex-based pizza delivery chain. easyPizza has been in the news recently because they lost an ill conceived court case when they tried to stop Karl Kahn using the name Easypizza in his business which he established 7 years before easyPizza. This resulted in suggestions that Sir Stelios is a bully after Mr Kahn went into personal debt funding his defence which he described as an 'absolute nightmare'.
easyMusic
easyMusic, in conjuction with Wippit, began operation on 22 December 2004, with copyrighted music downloads offered from 25p, although minimum transaction value is £1 and there are charges for using credit cards and SMS payment methods. A proposed copyleft section of easyMusic never materialised.easyCruise
A no frills cruise ship targeting the 18-40 age-group, rather than the traditional retired market, was launched on Friday 6 May 2005. The vessel is known as easyCruiseOne
The service orginally operated night-time departures calling between ports in St. Tropez, Cannes, Nice, Monaco, Imperia, Genoa and Portofino but is expanding to new destination and schedule changes according to season. It is possible to join the ship at any port and stay for a minimum of two, to a maximum of fourteen nights. Prices vary according to cabin type and demand. In a departure from the model employed by easyJet it is possible to book via travel agents as well as direct through the easyCruise website. Recently easyCruise has announced the winter departures, calling at Barbados, St Vincent, Martinique, The Grenadines, Grenada and St Lucia.
The easyCruiseOne cabins offer a simple bed and bathroom: most do not have windows and use of a maid service during the stay will incur an additional charge. Stelios revealed that the initial idea of requiring customers to be responsible for all room cleaning or incur a penalty charge "didn't go down too well." [link]
easyCruise, based in Liberia, is a wholly owned subsidiary of easyGroup. The service is managed by V Ships of Monaco.
The launch and early days of easyCruise have been tracked for a Sky One programme.
Expansion of easyCruise fleet was announced in 2006 [link].
easyMobile
easyMobile started on 10 March 2005 as Britain's first no-frills mobile phone company. People buy a SIM from the company's website [www.easymobile.com] and put it at the back of the mobile phone. Calls are charged at 15p per minute for calls and 5p per SMS, although there was an introductory offer until the end of June (2005) of 6p per minute and 2p per SMS. One popular feature is an 'auto-topup' facility which debits the users' credit or debit card when phone credit falls to a preset level. Many customers have found this a useful intermediate between usual pre-pay and contracts. Per-second call charging significantly lowers call costs particularly when roaming. easyMobile's competitors commonly charge for the first minute and per-second there after.Rival mobile service, Orange, is suing easyGroup as it claims the use of the orange easyMobile logo breaches its trademark and may confuse customers [link]. easyGroup challenges this assertion.
The easyMobile operation is inspired by Telmore, a Danish Mobile Virtual Network Operator, using the TDC Mobil network.
According to The Daily Telegraph, the service is struggling to be a success [link].
In April 2005 it was announced the easyMobile will expand into the Netherlands by Summer 2005 in partnership with Telfort[link]. Nine months after launch the operation is expected to cease on 1st August 2006. [link] and the easyMobile.nl website would be transformed into a telecoms price-comparison engine in partnership with Kelkoo
In September 2005 it was announced that the service would also launch in Germany in partnership with T-Mobile [link]. Despite the closure of the Dutch operation, the service in Germany continues.
easyMobile handsets became available in UK electrical retailer Comet in 2006. [link]
Other businesses
- easyValue - An internet shopping comparison site began trading in November 2000, firstly in partnership with Kelkoo, then switching to Shopping.com following Yahoo's aquisition of Kelkoo.
- easy.com - a free e-mail service began in November 2000 and this site now also acts as the easyGroup main portal
- easyJobs – an employment search engine, a partnership with Monster.com, began operation on 11 December 2004.
- easyHotel – a no frills hotel located at 14 Lexham Gardens, Kensington, London opened in Summer 2005). A franchise in Basel, Switzerland opened in September 2005 and other franchise locations have been announced. The easyHotel website also acts as a booking engine for other hotels.
- easyWatch - a Swatch-style range of watches made by Zeon. On launching easyWatch Sir Stelios claimed to be filling the void left by the highly collectable Swatch brand. easyWatches are typically orange and have a large easyWatch logo prominently displayed, which watch collectors say makes them look like a free corporate giveaway rather than a desirable or collectable product. easyWatch immediately managed to infringe a number of trademarks by giving its watches names like Portafino. Sir Stelios claimed that no-one could confuse one of his watches with a genuine Portafino and expressed surprise that a company would take legal action for use of a registered trademark.
- easyTelecom – References to a proposed fixed-line telephone provider have been delisted from the easyGroup website
External links
- [easyGroup website] - For group information, latest news and links to other easyGroup companies.
- [easyCruise] - ( the [easyCruise destinations] pages are more accessible)
Press reports
- [EasyMobile.nl flops, The Reigister, 6th July 2006]
- [Hard cheese for Stelios in EasyPizza case, The Reigister, 20th June 2006]
- [The Big Easy enters choppy waters, The Guardian, 5th May 2006]
- ['No frills' Easycinema shuts down, BBC, 30th May 2006]
- ["EasyCinema eyes West End debut", The Guardian, 25th July 2005]
- ["Stelios completes 10 years over easy". The Times (UK), 9th July 2005]
- ["What's Orange and Floats? That's easy..." easyCruise article, The Observer (UK), 8th May 2005]
- ["Here comes Stelios ... Just when you thought it was safe to go to the Riviera", The Sunday Times (UK), 8th May 2005]
- ["EasyMobile's attempt to break into the UK market flops", The Telegraph (UK), 8th May 2005]
- [No frills and little sleep in Basel's easyHotel, Swissinfo, September 6, 2005]
| UK mobile phone companies | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| T-Mobile | Vodafone | O2 | Orange | 3 | |||
| Mobile Virtual Network Operators: BT Mobile | easyMobile | Fresh Mobile | M&S Mobile Mobile World | TalkTalk | Tesco Mobile | Virgin Mobile | |||
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