EasyInternetcafé is a chain of Internet cafés and a unit of Stelios Haji-Ioannou

Stelios Haji-Ioannou

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou , born 14 February 1967) is a British entrepreneur of Greek Cypriot origin, currently a resident of Monaco. He is the scion of a wealthy, shipowning family, but is best known for setting up easyJet, a highly successful and profitable low-cost airline, with start-up funds...

's EasyGroup

EasyGroup

EasyGroup , founded in 1998, is a conglomerate & the holding company controlling the "easy" ventures; it is privately owned by Stelios Haji-Ioannou....

.

It is Europe's largest chain of Internet café

Internet cafe

An Internet café or cybercafé is a place which provides internet access to the public, usually for a fee. These businesses usually provide snacks and drinks, hence the café in the name...

s and is the holder of the record for the world’s largest Internet café (as certified by Guinness World Records) with 800 terminals near New York's Times Square

Times Square

Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...

, opened by Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina is an American business executive and a former Republican candidate for the United States Senate representing California. Fiorina served as chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005 and previously was an executive at AT&T and its equipment and technology spinoff,...

, CEO of Hewlett Packard (HP) in November 2000 . The 75 outlets in the easyInternetcafé chain are managed by 28 franchises.

EasyEverything

The business was launched in 1999 with the name EasyEverything. The company built yield management

Yield management

Revenue management is the process of understanding, anticipating and influencing consumer behavior in order to maximize yield or profits from a fixed, perishable resource...

 into its business system and adapted this to a penetration pricing strategy to build location, brand and product awareness. In several European countries it was able to build upon some degree of brand awareness created by the marketing activities of its sister company, the airline EasyJet.

EasyEverything was different from most Internet cafés in that it offered dynamically priced services on the High Street. The principle was as the occupancy, the number of customers, in a café (or group of cafés) increases, so does the rate per hour they pay for services. Viewed conversely, as the occupancy increases, the number of minutes of a service that customers get for their £, $ or € decreases. The business was aggressive and disruptive with its pricing strategy, offering high-speed Internet access at a price per hour of up to 80% less than competing Internet cafés. An EasyEverything customer could ‘roam’ nationally, i.e. use their pre-paid credit for services at different Internet cafés in the same country.

EasyEverything partnered with Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 to provide games and personal productivity software as metered services http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zdpcm/is_200106/ai_ziff1771 and with the network provider Deltathree

Deltathree

Deltathree Inc. is an American company engaged in the business of voice over IP telephony services.Users can either use the free softdialer product and make calls through their PC, or sign up for the broadband phone service and receive an Analog Telephony Adapter or the linksys PAP2 device...

 for an Internet telephony service http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=72861&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=184648&highlight=.

In September 2000, EasyEverything was named ‘E-company of the Year’ at Future Publishing’s Internet awards ceremony. The award was voted for by members of the public. In the same year it received an award from Retail Week magazine for ‘Retail Launch of the Year’ and from Network Telecoms magazine for the ‘Most Innovative Use of Network Products and Services.’ In November 2000 it won the award for 'International Property Strategy and Development, Design, Innovation and Concept' at the MAPIC

Mapic

MAPIC is one of the leading Real Estate oriented trade shows which relates directly to Commercial Real Estate. It takes place in Cannes, at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès each November.-External links:****...

awards in Cannes, France, one of the most prestigious awards ceremonies in the international retail real estate sector. In February 2001 EasyEverything launched its own media sales house, easyEverything media sales (ee-ms), in a joint venture with the WPP advertising and marketing services group. http://www.mad.co.uk/Main/News/Disciplines/Creative/Articles/6ac96510a7474f8e9506f4868ae2f289/Easy-launches-sales-house.html
In June 2001 EasyEverything received the ‘Investment in France 2001’ award at the French ambassador's residence in London.

EasyInternetcafé

The company perceived initial success in London with very large Internet cafés. In its subsequent rapid pan-European (and New York) expansion it overestimated demand for similar Internet cafés with hundreds of PCs open 24 hours a day at locations other than the most popular capital city epicenters for tourists and travelers. In response the business later had to rationalize its portfolio of outlets, make staff redundant (vending machines replacing staff as the method of dispensing service credit to customers), sublet retail space and overhaul head office and in-country operations. The business was reorganized on a franchising model focusing on more compact and locally managed sites operating with higher rates of occupancy. The company's first franchisee was the Greek retailer Germanos http://www.germanos.gr/en/index.asp. The company was rebranded EasyInternetcafé. The company's operations were devolved entirely to its franchisees by 2009. easyGroup retains the easyInternetcafe brand name http://www.easy.com/brands/index.html.

External links