Showing posts with label week 3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label week 3. Show all posts

The history and evolution of E-commerce

The first extended use of electronic commerce (E-commerce) appears in the early of 1970s when the system call Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) was introduced. The function of EFT is enables the bank and the financial institute to transfer the money over the secure network among themselves or with other associate business. The employers use the EFT to pay their employees’ salary by transferring money to their bank account or debit card.

In the late of 1970s, a new model of system was developed - Electronic Data Exchange (EDI) which enables inter-company exchanges of documents, such as order forms for suppliers, invoices, customs forms, reimbursement receipts, stock inventories and etc. EDI ran on a privately maintained network exclusively dedicated to this system. In parallel, many companies used EDI to run their own private networks which were open to their business partners and acted as information exchange highway. These networks are commonly called VAN (Value - Added Networks).

In the late of 1980s, there are two new applications were widely adopted in the business which are electronic mail (e-mail) and groupware.

In the 1991, there is a significant change for E-commerce due to the United State government allows the public access to the internet. The internet is a global network, which allows the business to search for the new market, this make the internet was quickly accepted in the business transaction. Besides, the World Wide Web that emerged in the years when the internet was liberalized rendered e-commerce both more accessible and more affordable. It enabled small business to sense for the first time the benefits that can be reaped from the technology of E-commerce.

As now, more and more businesses are using the e-commerce to conduct their business such as E-bay and Amazon. In the future, I believe that most of the business transaction will be conduct by the E-commerce due to the continuous development of the technology.
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An example of an E-Commerce failure and its causes

E-commerce has been familiar with the world nowadays. There are so many successful examples of e-commerce. Such as
1) Amazon.com which is an online store electronics, apparels, computers, books and so on.

2) E-bay.com provides a market place for customer to sell and buy products.


3) Expedia which is a company serve customer with cheap airfare, hotels, car rental, vacation and cruises.



However, there are also a numbers of e-commerce failures. One of the examples of an E-Commerce failure I found out is Pets.com.

It was an online provider for pets’ accessories and supplies directly to the customer over World Wide Web. It was launched in 1998 and went into liquidation for 268days. After that the site and domain was purchased in early 1999 and started to make advertisement through variety of media such as television, radio and eventually a Pets.com magazine. The Pets.com sock puppet is well known for everybody. In 2000, the company went into public as they expand their market and IPET was their former Nasdaq stock symbol.

However, in the early of November 2000, the company said it is going to sell off its assets, including its distribution center equipment, content and the stock puppet brand icon.

Larry Barrett reported in Cnet news that Pets.com was shutting down because it was unable to find a purchaser or financial banker. Pets.com was finally closed in 9th November 2000. For an Internet company to survive in an environment for business-to-consumer it is very hard.

One of reasons that caused pets.com to close down its business is lack of a workable strategy plan. They tried to build customer base by giving more discount and free shipping to their customer. In fact, the shipping fees were very high because of the products such as cans of pets’ food and bags of dog litter which could not generate high profit for the company. The company was selling one-third of the original price to the customer which means that the company did not make any profit from the selling of merchandise. For the first two quarter in the year 1999, the company had negative gross profit margin; while the third quarter, the company net sales before operating expenses was amounted to $1.62million which a significant amount. Besides that, the company was trading below $1 for the few months before they closed down the business. Furthermore, employees who resign from the company were not replaced which also caused the company could not work effectively and efficiently.

References can be found at the websites as below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets.com

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017-248230.html

http://news.cnet.com/Pets.com-moves-part-of-litter-to-Midwest/2100-1017_3-245416.html

http://www.businessweek.com/careers/content/dec2000/ca20001213_830.htm

http://news.cnet.com/Pets.com-to-play-in-public-market/2100-1040_3-234303.html

http://news.cnet.com/Pets.com-goes-belly-up/2100-12_3-267376.html



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revenue model for google, ebay and amazon

These 3 companies are giants in the world of internet.

Google
Basically, it revenues come from advertising, which are Google Adwords and Google Adsense.

Google Adwords
This is a pay per click program which was introduced by Google. This advertisement is shown to the users when they are searching the internet through the Google Search Engine, then later on, the advertisement will be shown whether on the top or the right side of the search.
With the pay per click program, advertisers will have to pay everytime a user click on the advertisements. Advertisers will be able to set the keywords that the user will have to type in in order to show their advertisement and the maximum amount they will be willing to pay per click for that specific keyword.

Google Answers
Google Answers was one of Googles' revenue model launched by Google in April 2002. But it ha
d already "shut down". It was an Internet search and research service offered for a fee by Google. In this program, customers will ask a question and offers a price for the answer. Then researchers will answer the questions. Researchers will be paid, but during the process, Google will keeps 25% of the payment and sends the rest to the researchers.

http://organicspam.com/google_revenue_model.asp

eBay
For eBay, their revenue source is from Insertion Fees, Final Value Fees, Successful Listing Fees and Subscription Fees.

When you decided to sell an item on eBay, you will have to pay the basic fees, which consist of both Insertion fees and Final Value fees.

For Insertion fees, it is a fee charged to the seller for listing an item for sale. Insertion fees for all items would not be the same as it varies from the starting price of the item and the category the seller chooses to list in.

For Final Value fees, it is the amount of money that eBay charges the seller when the item was sold. The fees is based on the final price that was sold. There will be no Final Value Fees if the item did not sell off.

When the seller is selling a vehicle, they will require to pay eBay Insertion fee and Successful Listing fee.

For Successful Listing fee, it only appears when the seller is selling a motor vehicle at eBay Motors. It is a fee which calculated like Final Value fees, but sellers will not be charged if there were no bids on the item or the bids does not met the reserve price on the seller's reserve price listing.

If the user is an eBay store owner, then they would be likely to pay up the subscription fees. Subscription fees will be corresponding to the store level of the user. Store level could be categorize as basic, premium and anchor.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/storefees.html
http://pages.ebay.com/HELP/SELL/fees.html#insertionhttp://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/motorfees.html
http://pages.motors.ebay.com/fees/glossary.html#tsf


Amazon.com
For amazon, their revenue comes from certain sources. One of it is when the seller is able to sell their goods. When the sellers sold their goods, Amazon will be collecting sales revenue of the product and shipping fee from the buyer. Later on they will charge the commission or known as the referral fee of 6-15% of the sales price. Other than that, a per-transaction fee of $0.99 and variable closing fee will be charged. However, if the seller is subscribing a Pro Merchant Account, they will not be charged the per-transaction fee.

In the other hand, Amazon also obtain revenue through the subscription fees. Subscription fees will only be charged towards seller who subscribe for a pro merchant account. They will need to pay up the subscription fee every month. For individual account, they will not needed to pay any subscription fees.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=1161240

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Example of an E-Commerce success and its causes

Dell Corporation, a multinational technology corporation that develops, manufactures, sells, and supports personal computer and other computer-related products. Nowadays, Dell Corporation has employed more than 82700 people around the world. Besides, in year 2001, Dell Corporation has announced that it used the Internet to attract customers and sell $50 million of computers a day.


How does Internet makes Dell success? The Internet has provided Dell an opportunity to achieve a direct sales business model at a relatively low cost, this is the main key factor for Dell. Dell has improved its order entry, product configuration, technical support and reduce customers cost through Internet. Customers were given a chance to take them themselves involved into configuration process and select price as they prefer.

Dell’s supply chain runs as following illustration. After a customer makes an order, Dell processes the order within three days, after that sends the order to one of its manufacturing plants in Austin, Texas. These plants can build, test, and package the product around eight hours. Customers will receive the products within five days. This process has indicated that the inventory level is keeps at minimum level, thus cost has been reduced.

On the other hand, Dell has used Internet to build a network of suppliers and business partners. This online integration structure eliminates the need to manufacture everything, and uses the Internet to share and exchange information with suppliers and vendors to build a supply chain management that keeps inventory turnover low and minimum cost.

Dell uses its online sales, premier pages and online support to running its business successfully. These are the reasons that why nearly 80% of the online customers are prefer Dell.
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