Blog

1. There are various types of firms in the IT market. First of all, 21 century internet shopping became the boom. They control about 15%~20% of Latvia’s electronic devices. Internet shopping has various advantages but also disadvantages. The biggest advantage of internet shopping is that customers can sit on the chair and choose the product. The next advantage is the price of product. Products from internet shopping are relatively cheaper than buying in off-line shop. On the other hand, product bought from internet shopping might not reliable. Also some internet shopping won’t support after service. Moreover, they might not have enough products to sell. Another type of firm in IT market is branch shops such as Elkor. Elkor is dominating about 60% of Latvia electronic devices. Advantage of this kind of firm is the after service. They sell reliable products and they provide a year warranty. On the other hand, the price of the product is more expensive than other firms. Finally there are ... Read more »

What is the number of firms in the market and their relative size?

The market of supermarket products in Latvia is clearly an oligopoly. There are about a dozen chains and a couple of individual stores. The most important chains are Sky, Elvi, Nelda, Iki, Maxima, Mego and Mego plus Prisma, Rimi and Supernetto, and Stockmann. However Maxima and Rimi (and Supernetto) are the major players in this field. Rimi has a Market share of a bit over 20% as has Maxima. The other 55% are split up between other retailers, the biggest being Nelda, Iki, and Elvi with around 5% each (Numbers are rounded so much because the source is from 2008). My shop will only compete in the supermarket products market of Riga. There are no statistics available about the market share in Riga, but Sky and Stockmann are also major players in Riga while they don’t even appear in the Statistics for all of Latvia. Also Sky and Stockmann will be more direct competitors to my firm since they offer more German products t ... Read more »