EasyGroup

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The correct title of this article is easyGroup. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
easyGroup
Type Privately held
Founded 1998
Headquarters Monaco, Jersey and London, United Kingdom
Key people Stelios Haji-Ioannou
Website http://www.easy.com

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.

Contents

[edit] History

easyGroup owner Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou giving a speech in Seattle, Washington State
easyGroup owner Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou giving a speech in Seattle, Washington State

The first company owned by easyGroup to use the 'easy' prefix was easyJet started in 1995.

[edit] 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.

There are 49 worldwide locations; currently 21 UK café's, 10 in Germany, 5 situated in both the USA, Spain & Greece, 2 in both Cyprus & The Netherlands and 1 in Italy.

At least in the Netherlands, the number of locations has been reduced considerably, there were ca. 6.

[edit] easyCar

In April 2000 the company set-up the car rental company easyRentacar (later renamed easyCar), with the only rental car available being 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. easyCar is now profitable and operates in over 60 countries and over 2000 locations, selling a full fleet of vehicles.

[edit] 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 [1]. In April 2006, easyGroup linked with moneysupermarket.com to provide a financial product comparison website [2]. This coincided with the withdrawal of the easyMoney credit card [3].

[edit] 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 [4], 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. [5][6]

[edit] 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.

[edit] easyBus

Main article: 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.[7]

Long-distance rival Megabus has been more successful.[citation needed]

[edit] easy4men

On 9th December 2004, the men's toiletries range easy4men was launched together with Boots. Originally conceived to challenge Gillette, the product line did not include a razor[8]. After disappointing sales the partnership with Boots is being dissolved in 2006 [9].

[edit] easyPizza

On the 17 December 2004, the company launched easyPizza, a yield management delivery-only pizza company in Milton Keynes. easyGroup lost a High Court case against EasyPizza, a London based pizza delivery chain owned by Mr Karl Kahn who successfully accused easyGroup of bullying and underhand practices.

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 began 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 [10] 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.

[edit] easyMusic

easyMusic, in conjunction 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.

[edit] easyCruise

Main article: 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 originally 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." [11]

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 [12].

The remainder of this article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page, or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since March 2007.

[edit] ShimmerBright (formerly easyMobile)

easyMobile has closed following a string of bad publicity and the withdrawal of its principal backer. [13]

As a mobile virtual network operator easyMobile uses the T-Mobile network.

Rival mobile service, Orange, is suing easyGroup as it claims the use of the orange easyMobile logo breaches its trademark and may confuse customers [14]. 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 [15].

In April 2005 it was announced the easyMobile will expand into the Netherlands by Summer 2005 in partnership with Telfort[16]. Nine months after launch the operation ceased on 1st August 2006. [17] and the easyMobile.nl website would be transformed into a telecoms price-comparison engine in partnership with Kelkoo

easyMobile chose The Link to be its sole independent retailer in March 2006, [18] adding UK electrical retailer Comet to its vendors in May 2006. [19]

On November the 10th 2006 the easyGroup terminates brand license for easyMobile. All customers are offered transfers to fresh mobile or a PAC code to join another network. https://www.easymobile.com/selfcare/emcontent/cust_services/notice.html Network is to close on the 13th of December At Midnight.

In September 2005 it was announced that the service would also launch in Germany in partnership with T-Mobile [20]. On 10th November 2006, Talkline GmbH & Co. KG, a German subsidiary of TDC Mobile International, bought 100% of easyMobile Germany. However, since the brand easyMobile remains with Easygroup, easyMobile Germany was renamed to callmobile. The MNVO callmobile is still operated by Talkline.

easyMobile is now called ShimmerBright In the UK with the new website address www.shimmerbright.com.

[edit] Other businesses

EasyCar advert
EasyCar advert
  • easyValue - An internet shopping comparison site began trading in November 2000, firstly in partnership with Kelkoo, then switching to Shopping.com following Yahoo's acquisition of Kelkoo.
  • easy.com - a free e-mail service began in November 2000. 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 – Providing mobile phone comparisons powered by Kelkoo. Fills the gap left by easyMobile
  • easyVan – Like easyCar, easyVan have teamed up with an outside company (Northgate) to provide van rental across Europe
  • easyOffice – Launching soon, the easyOffice website says they'll be offering office space in the heart of London, but no further details are available

[edit] External links

[edit] Press reports

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