UBAI3013 E-COMMERCE
Bachelor of Business Administration (HONS)Entrepreneurship

Tutorial Group 1
Lecturer: Ms. Kang Chye Mei
Tutor: Ms. Chin Wai Yin
Showing posts with label Week 3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Week 3. Show all posts

Sunday, June 21, 2009

History and evolution of e-commerce



Electronic Commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as Internet .Electronic commerce that is conducted between businesses is referred to as business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer(B2C).B2B can be open to all interested parties or limited to specific, pre-qualified participants.B2C is conducted by companies such as Amazon.com.E-commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of the business transactions.There are some common applications related to e-commerce,which is email,entreprise content management,instant messaging,newsgroup, online shopping and online tracking,online banking,online office suites,domestic and international payment system,shopping cart software,teleconferencing and electronic tickets.

The meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the last 30 years. Originally, e-commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) .These were both introduced in the late 1970s, allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically.A decade later, e-commerce strategy allowed for credit card numbers to be sent via the Internet as well as the introduction of the ATM (Automated Teller Machine) was socially accepted.The first documented e-commerce purchases were cars. As cars were purchased online in the early 1990s, the technologically savvy person recognized e-Commerce was beginning to refer to the exchange of goods and/or services over the Internet.

Although the Internet became popular worldwide around 1994, it took about five years to introduce security protocols and DSL allowing continual connection to the Internet. By the end of 2000, a lot of European and American business companies offered their services through the World Wide Web. Since then people began to associate a word "e-commerce" with the ability of purchasing various goods through the Internet using secure protocols and electronic payment services.E- Commerce has become fully evolved as now-a-days it recognized by even average persons. Most business transactions are currently being done via the internet. E-taliers are what people are talking about instead of retailers. Receipts indicating proof of purchase and orders were now being freely exchanged over a wireless network instead of the real paper itself.

More recently, due to the government’s involvement, consumers have felt much more comfortable to share their private information, financial, personal, and banking information over the internet. Now-a-day, many businesses are completely online businesses with no actual ‘brick-and-mortar’ stores.E-commerce has a great deal of advantages over “brick and mortar” stores and mail order catalogs. Consumers can easily search through a large database of products and services. They can see actual prices, build an order over several days and email it as a “wish list” hoping that someone will pay for their selected goods. Customers can compare prices with a click of the mouse and buy the selected product at best prices. E-commerce strategy has become fully evolved that it is now possible to open your own online business and not accrue any overhead such as leasing a studio, fax machines and printers, post-it notes and staplers.

It is a video found by our group about evolution of e-commerce:

Friday, June 19, 2009

Example of an e-commerce success : Yahoo!


Yahoo! Inc. is an American public corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale Carlifornia,that provides Internet services worldwide.Yahoo! was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994 and was incorporated on March 1, 1995. It operates the web portal http://www.yahoo.com/ which provides content and gives users quick access to other Yahoo!services. According to Web traffic analysis companies, the domain yahoo.com attracted at least 1.575 billion visitors annually by 2008.The global network of Yahoo! websites receives 3.4 billion page views per day on average as of October 2007. It is the second most visited website in the U.S., and in the world.

Yahoo! provides a wide array of internet services that cater to most online activities.The majority of the product offerings are available globally in more than 20 languages.For example, Yahoo! has provides internet communication services such as Yahoo!Mail and Yahoo! Messenger.Besides that, Yahoo! partners with hundreds of premier content providers in products such as Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Music,Yahoo! Music, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Games,and Yahoo! Sports.In addition, Yahoo! also has offers commerce services such as Yahoo! Shopping, and Yahoo! Travel which enables users to gather relevant information and make commercial transactions and purchases online. Yahoo! Publisher Network is an advertising tool to place advertisements.Yahoo!Next contains forums for Yahoo! users to give feedback to assist in the development of these future Yahoo! technologies.For Yahoo!Boss,it is a new service that allows developers to build search applications based on Yahoo!'s search technology. Yahoo!Search marketing has provides services such as Sponsored Search, Local Advertising, and Product/Travel/Directory Submit that let different businesses advertise their products and services on the Yahoo! network. Yahoo!Mobile is a service that includes on-the-go messaging, such as email, instant messaging, and moblogging; information, such as search and alerts; and fun and games, including ring tones, mobile games, and Yahoo! Photos for camera phones.

The first logo was used when the company was founded in 1995; it was red, and it had three icons on each side of it. The logo used on the main page yahoo.com used to be red with a black outline and shadow, but in May 2009, it was changed; it’s now purple, with a new theme design.
Yahoo! is a successful example of an e-commerce because it able to collect far more data about Web users than its competitors from its Web sites and its advertising network. Besides that, it also convenience to customer because all service provided already shows in web page. Customers only need to click the service in the web page then it automatically go to the website. If you are interested about Yahoo!, you can go to http://en.wikipedia.org./wiki/Yahoo! to search more.










Tuesday, June 16, 2009

An example of an E-commerce success and its causes

Dell is one of the successful examples that using E-commerce to support the virtual company. Dell computer was founded by Michael Dell in 1984, while he was a student at the University of Texas Austin. Dell began by selling upgrades of IBM-compatible PCs and in 1985 began to sell its own brand of PCs. Dell grew rapidly in the mid-1990s. By 1999, Dell had become the best personal computer seller in the United States.

By now, Dell became a market leader that constantly growth because of its effective E-commerce strategies. Dell using the direct marketing strategies that focuses on direct sales to customer to eliminate the unnecessary intermediaries such as wholesaler and retailers. It able to cut down the retailer costs and makes the company better understand of the customer requirement. In the same time, Dell able to offer the cheaper price to the customer because of eliminates the unnecessary cost.

Nowadays, people can buy Dell computer over the internet which covering at least 80 countries. To compete with others, Dell also conducts its business in the physical world. However, most people still prefer the online shopping through Dell website. Besides, Dell adopts the Just-In-Time system that only produces the new inventory if there is an order placed. It able to save inventory cost and avoid the inventory loses value before it can be sold. Dell also improves the relationship between all participants of supply chain to make sure that the good quality materials are provided by supplier on time and the computers ordered by the customer are delivered in a timely basic. Those are the reasons that Dell success to keep its customer from other competitors.

Factors that Dell becomes a successful company:
1. Convenience
You can buy the Dell computer in the online store anytime. Besides, you also can have a better understanding about the products through internet. Dell also provides effective and efficient delivery services. For example, products will be delivered to customers in 5-8 working days.
2. Secure shopping
You no need to worry when using credit cards to pay online. Dell use industry-standard data encryption and positive identification technology to ensure your online transactions are safe & secure.
3. Low cost provider
Dell’s strategy of selling their products with no middleman and no retail outlets can cut down the cost of middleman and sell to the end user directly at a lower price. In the other hand, it creates flexibility and market advantage because Dell is a low cost provider, their products are cheaper and in good quality. The low costs can attract customers and the quality of their products is maintained from time to time.
4. Mass customized products
Dell aims to meet exactly the different needs of its customer by offering mass customized products over the internet. Customer can customize their own computers by launching Dell’s website. Besides, salespeople had to install their own computers, so they gained hands-on experience with the equipment they'd be selling, and can better help customers make informed decisions and solve problems with the product.
5. Customer services
Dell builds a good relationship with its customer in order to provide better customer services on sales and after sales. Good communication exists with suppliers about customers’ specifications, so that they are able to deliver on time. Good communication with employees about customers’ information also can make them serve customers better.

Sources:

http://www.dell.com/windows7
www.dell.com

Sunday, June 14, 2009

An example of an E-commerce failure and its causes

There are extremely successful virtual e-commerce companies such as eBay, Google, or Yahoo! in recent years. However, there are large numbers of e-commerce companies that are not able to maintain their profit through e-commerce. Some well-known business-to-consumers (B2C) failures include eToys, Xpeditor, Chemdex.com, Boo.com and Webvan.com. Now, I would like to explain why Boo.com fails in its business.

Boo.com was established in 1998 and was founded by three Swedish entrepreneurs: Ernst Malmsten, Kajsa Leander, and Pattrik Hedelin. Boo.com intention was to sell branded fashion apparel over the internet. The website provided customers with a shopping assistant “Miss. Boo”. However, Miss. Boo failed to assist customers with the purchasing experience. Boo.com essentially failed because they did not carefully plan their business by considering the 4 P’s (Price, Product, Place, and Promotion) and the environmental factors (Social, Technological, Economic, Political, and Geography) that might impact their overall success.

Boo.com failed because they tried to do too much without careful planning. For example, Boo.com established many online shops in many countries without considering the internet capability of the low developed countries. At that time, about 20% of home users used dial-up internet which did not allow them to access Boo.com at a fast rate. Boo.com believes that their business would have succeeded if the internet revolution would have occurred faster, it was just bad timing for Boo.com


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Causes of why Boo.com Fails


· Speed

It is very slow to load pages because Boo.com relied heavily on JavaScript and flash technology. Besides, at that time many people used dial up internet.

· Poor web design and usability

It is difficult to get where visitor want to go. They had a policy of “limiting the amount of transaction they made to three per twenty minute” which will discourage customer to shop at Boo.com again.

· Usage of capital

They did not manage their capital effectively. They spend 125 million in just 6 month to market itself globally but had issues with different language, prices, and tax. Besides, the company decides to pay postage on return items from customers.


Steps to avoid failures


1. Build long-term relationship with customers

· Getting comfortable and assuming that a business relationship, because it has existed for years, will continue to exist. Long-term business relationships are a thing of the past in the electronic world, and the ability to see everyone’s wares at once makes us fickle

2. Design website with simplicity and great usability

· A successful e-commerce website must be fast, easy to use, convenient and perhaps fun.

3. Don’t focus too much on E-Commerce. Customer still needs face-to-face interactions.

· Customers still need personal attention; this is why successful e-businesses have multiple channels of communication, not just the Web. The whole concept of e-commerce is so electronic; there is a natural tendency to overlook the actual human customer at the other end of the transaction.


4. Manage capitals more effectively


5. Have an effective plans and always consider the environmental factors and the 4 P’s