E-Commerce

CoRpoRate BloGging : A New Marketing Communication Tool for Companies

2009-07-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

Corporations are increasingly looking for opportunities to make them stand out in order to maintain a competitive edge. Although traditional media serves a medium to disseminate company message to the world but it ain't not enough as it lacks the ability to directly connect with a company to its customers. Thus, here comes the CORPORATE BLOG which represents the company's values, beliefs, philosophy and direction. Corporate blog can be categorised into 2 types; internal and external.

Internal Blog

A weblog whereby all the employee can view and accessed through the corporation's Intranet. It encourages employee participation. All the employee may also free to discuss any issues as well as to build rapport with one another. Besides that, it also may encourage collective intelligence. This is crucial for an organisation as employees are able to generate their own point of view which in turn may help out the organisation for improvement. In addition, it may be a source of direct communication between various layers of an organisation.

External Blog

A weblog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. It is often used to announce new products and services to the public. From here, company can get feedback and suggestion from customers about the new product being introduced. The blog is also flexible enough to allow a conversation and sharing of idea about the company products. Next, corporate blog creates opportunites for the company to meet its prospective customers. In short, corporate blog enables company to connect with their customers, to build trust, and resulting in strengthen the relationship between customers and company.

As a conclusion, corporate blogging is crucial for a company. It can expand a business to the entire world through blogging. However, there are some drawbacks where the company has to be aware of.

Top 10 Corporate Blogs

1. Google

2. Adobe

3. Flickr

4. Facebook

5. Yahoo! Search

6. Dell

7. Digg

8. Linkedln

9. Ask

10. General Motors

How to Saveguard Our Personal and Financial Data?

2009-07-06T01:20:00.000-07:00

Some people think that financial security only relate to a well-refunded retirement plan, a good health insurance or the sufficiency of income to meet their expenses. However, the meaning of financial security brings us to further than that. Today, financial security is also means protecting your privacy and knowing that you are safeguarded against crimes that could rob your money, your good credit rating and even your identity.

As science has spawned new and exciting technologies, from online shopping to mobile payment, it has opened up new opportunities for frauds and swindles, from computer hacking to identity theft. Every year, consumers and financial institutions lose millions of dollars to credit cards and debit card theft by unauthorized users pretending to be legitimate users of the cards. It may not possible to stop this fraudulent activity entirely, but it is possible to protect your personal and financial data by taking proper safeguard.

To safeguard your personal and financial data, you SHOULD always:

Install a firewall - This is a software program that blocks unauthorized users to access your data. Majority of the new computers come up with firewalls integrated into their operating systems. Unless you are using a older computer or dial up, in such case, you may need to buy a firewall separately and install it by yourself. Click this link for more understanding on firewalls.

Install and update antispyware and antivirus programs - Protecting your data against viruses and Trojan Horses that may steal or modify your data on your own computer. Besides, many operating offer automatic updates, you should turn it on as it is available for you.

Lock your access - Use a strong password or pass-phrase to protect access your confidential data.

Limit transportation and transmission of data - Avoid transporting or transmitting your confidential data if not necessary to do so. For instance, transport your confidential data via email.

Avoid accessing financial information in public - Refrain logging to check your bank balance when you are using the wireless access that offered by the coffee shops.

Encrypt stored confidential data - Whenever is possible, encrypt stored confidential data, no matter it is stored temporarily or permanently.

In order to protect your privacy now and ever, you should aware the latest fraudulent activity exists and take accurate and consistent prevention against it. It then can lessen dramatically the opportunities of your confidential data being stolen.

E-Government in Malaysia: Its Implementation So Far and Citizen's Adoption Strategies

2009-07-06T00:55:00.000-07:00

When we first mention about e-government, I believe that most people will connect and associate it with the new online income tax return system, namely e-filling. Nonetheless, the term e-government actually encompasses a much broader scope in which the government strives to improve its internal operation, provide information and services to the public more conveniently and efficiently, enhance the accessibility and quality of interactions with the public in all different kinds of departments. Since the launching of Malaysia Super Corridor (MSC) in 1996, the implementation of e-government in Malaysia has jumped start and gathered pace as it is seen as one of the seven flagship applications of MSC to move Malaysia into the Information Age.

Briefly, the 7 pilot projects of our nation’s e-government flagship applications include:

1) Project Monitoring System – Monitor the entire lifecycle of the country’s national developmental programs.

2) Human Resources Management Information System – provide consolidated HR data such as best global HP practices for Malaysian Public Service

3) Generic Office Environment – a powerful web-based office management tool providing users the solutions to effectively and efficiently manage their office environment.

4) Electronic Procurement – enable suppliers to advertise, present pricing, process orders and deliveries and ultimately to sell goods and services to the government.

5) Electronic Services – allow public to conduct transactions with government agencies such as Road Transport Department and utilities companies such as TNB.

E.g. http://www.myeg.com.my/

6) Electronic Labour Exchange – one-stop-center for labor market information.

7) E-syariah – a case management system to improve the services of Syariah Courts.

During the early years of e-government implementation in Malaysia, as in accordance to a survey carried out by market information group TNS in 2003, citizen adoption is growing but at a slow pace. For instance, as shown in the study, about 15% of Malaysians have used online government services in 2003 as compared to 12% in 2002. Furthermore, Malaysia is ranked 25 out of 32 countries in terms of e government usage growth. Such slow growth rate can be attributed to inhibiting factors such as lack of public awareness, IT literacy, and citizen’s perceived security and privacy risks. Specifically, citizens are generally concerned about the security of e-services transactions as they are fearful that their credit card or banks account details are intercepted. In addition, privacy concern is also a major issue as citizens are worried that their specific personal information would be exploited by companies, government agencies and so forth.

Nonetheless, in the past few years, the government has been undertaking various initiatives to overcome the barriers of e-government implementation. For example, several cyber laws such as Personal Data Protection 2004 and Electronic Government Activities Act 2007 have been introduced to mitigate the security and data concern. Besides that, numerous advertisements on services such as MyEG have also been rolled out to increase the public awareness about the availability of online road tax renewal, driving license renewal and so forth.

Example of myeg online tax renewal form:

As a result, citizen’s adoption of e-government has been growing positively as according to survey done by Brown University in U.S in 2007, Malaysia was ranked 25 out of 198 countries in terms of international e-government ranking, leapfrogging from 157 in 2005! As evidence, Inland Revenue Board has announced that e-filing of income tax return has increased by 30% to 1.25 million in 2009, gradually increasing from 78,718 (2006) to 538,558 (2007) and 881,387(2008). Source: TheStar

If you’re interested to know more about income tax returns and e-filing, click here.

EleCtrOnic CurReNcy

2009-07-06T00:53:00.000-07:00

In these recent years, electronic currency has taken the place of credit cards and become the most popular means of payment on electronic commerce. The main problem causes the decrease usage of credit card is that the purchasers are required to give their personal information and credit card number to merchant or payment service provider when they purchase online. The customers have the feeling of unsecured as they are afraid of losing anonymity and privacy and this contributes to the success of electronic currency.

What is electronic currency? Electronic currency (also known as electronic money) is a money or script transferred electronically. It involves use of computer networks, the internet or digitally stored value systems. Examples of electronic currency which commonly used by public are Hong Kong's Octopus Card and Malaysia’s Touch n Go card. Hong Kong’s Octopus card, for example, can used to pay for public transport and even purchase in offline store. What the users need to do is just simply deposit the money into. After the Octopus Card Limited receives the money, it will deposit into banks, which is similar to debit-card-issuing banks which redeposit the money at central banks.

The advantage of using electronic currency is that, it is totally anonymous whereby the perpetrators are unable to obtain information about customers when the electronic money sent from a customer to a merchant. Besides, electronic currency payment which is working with password operating system is much more secured compared to other payment methods. Anyone who wants to operate it must give the passwords in prior. The password might be the biometric print of user’s finger, signature or others. Thus, if the electronic currency is unfortunately lost or stolen, the perpetrator will not be able to operate it also as he/she does not have the owner’s password. This feature, in turns, helps to enhance the confidence and security of users when using electronic money. In short, electronic money is securer and easier than other payment methods.

On the other hand, there are some drawbacks with the usage of electronic currency as well. For instance, the transfer of electronic money may raise the local issues on how to levy taxes on the users and merchants and the possible ease of money laundering. Furthermore, the usage of electronic currency may tend to a potential macroeconomic effect whereby the shortage of money supplies may occur as the demand for electronic money may exceed the real cash available.

If you are interested to know about electronic currency, feel free to surf the websites as below:
i) Future of Electronic Currency

ii) Electronic Money Development

E-tailing – A review on the post ‘Digital music sales increase 50%’

2009-07-06T00:10:00.000-07:00

E-tailing refers to the primary use of Internet as the platform for consumers to shop for goods and services and it can be classified into pure plays and bricks and clicks. Specifically, pure plays retailing involves Internet as the sole medium for transactions and other commercial activities, for examples, Dell and Amazon; whereas brick and clicks, while using Internet to facilitate businesses, still incorporate the traditional use of physical store for goods display.

One of the major examples that depict how e-tailing has transformed consumers’ purchasing method involves the sales of digital music. According to the current trend, digital music is gradually and inevitably replacing the traditional physical album as a mean for consumer to purchase song tracks. For instance, in the first half of year 2007, the sales of digital tracks surged 49% up to USD$ 417.3 million while sales of physical albums have suffered a plunge of 15%. The rise of online music stores such as iTunes and Amazon is expected to further increase the popularity of digital music and on April 3 2008, iTunes store has surpassed Wal-Mart as the largest music retailer in the US, marking an unprecedented record in history that online music has outperformed the physical music format

Apple iPod

In order to further expand the online music market, companies such as Amazon and Apple has initiatedcollaboration with music records such as EMI to sell songs that come without copyright protection (DRM-free) and such moves have enabled consumers to transfer their purchased songs to any computers and music playing devices as well as burn their own CDs freely.

Digital rights management (DRM) is an access control technology which works to ensure compliance with intellectual property in respect of digital content. For example, Fairplay is a DRM technology created by Apple Inc to digitally encrypt audio files to prevent them from being played on unauthorized computers/devices as those files are only playable using QuickTime multimedia software. If you’re interested to know more about how the technology works, here is a useful link. Currently, the collection of DRM-free songs is still relatively limited as major music labels such as Universal Music, Sony BMG, and Warner Music have not advocated to selling unprotected music. This is one of the disadvantages of online music which limit consumers’ option to only a certain playing device.

As online music continues to grow, consumers need to be constantly aware of protecting intellectual property and are widely encouraged not to share and download uncopyrighted music. Just a couple of weeks back, a woman in the US has been ordered by the court to pay a bizarre amount fine totaling USD$ 2.92 million for willfully infringe music copyrights by sharing 24 files on Kazza. To read more about the story, click here.
Here are links to some of the pioneer online music stores:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/whatson/
http://www.amazon.com/MP3-Music-Download/b?ie=UTF8&node=163856011
http://free.napster.com/

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

2009-07-05T23:13:00.000-07:00

Do you truly believe that your data is well protected? If your answer is a yes, now you should be aware that as we continue to derive countless of benefits from the Internet, the main issue that continue to concern us is online security, which once compromised could prove to be extensively disastrous and damaging. In fact, online and data security threats continue to grow in number and sophistication, therefore it is an enormous concern which bears the potential harm of collapsed computer system, lost confidential data and so forth.

One of the most common types of online fraud involves identity theft, which simply means the private information of victims such as credit card number is being intercepted illegally when it is transferred over the network due to the vulnerabilities of computer security. As a result, the thief can do whatever that they desire using the stolen number. Another category of online fraud takes place in the form of data theft which encompasses the theft, perusal and manipulation of private data. In order to illustrate the startling adverse impact of this fraud, we look at a case in U.S back in 2001. What happened was two employees working in the accounting division of Cisco Systems managed to broke into the company’s system which handled stock distributions and successfully transferred shares worth US$6.3 millions to their private portfolio.

Next, we shall discuss some of the underlying threats to online security. First, Malware, is a software designed to penetrate and damage a computer system without the owner’s informed consent. Generally, Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, rootkits, spyware and so forth. Specifically, computer viruses are small software programs which intent to interfere with computer operations and they may corrupt and damage your data or even erase everything on your hard disk! On the other hand, worms are self-replicating programs which do not required to be attached to other programs as it spread by exploiting security loopholes of operating system. For instance, Windows ExploreZip worm, is a destructive software with malicious purposes of crippling the file system by writing invalid data and destroying files on hard disk.

To know more about the devastating impact of Malware and to get information on Trojan horses, these are some helpful links:

Malware: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10257277-83.html

Trojan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_horse_(computing)

Today’s viruses spread and are created at a faster rate as they capitalize on the increased network services such as Word Wide Web and e-mail. For instance, the statistics below (Microsoft Security Intelligence Report April 2009) shows the startling total number of new unique samples of virus detected in the second half of 2008.

Hence, preventive measures are definitely needed to be in place. The following are some suggestions:

1) Firewall- Firewall is a part of computes system useful in preventing unauthorized access to networks especially private network such as company’s Intranet. All messages going into the network must first be screened by the established firewall and meet its security criteria.

2) Anti virus software is capable of detecting and eliminating known viruses, hence it is vital to install a good package with comprehensive protection and ensure that it is always updated.

3) Data encryption- Encryption involves transfoming text into some unreadable form of codes and only the intended recipient posseses the key to decode the document back into a readable format. Thus, encryption should be widely used especially when the transmission of documents entail top security data.

4) Never open an e-mail attachment from someone you don't know.

5) Avoid opening an e-mail attachment from someone you know, unless you know exactly what the attachment is. The sender may be unaware that it contains a virus.

ReView oN a pOst oN Internet Security

2009-07-05T22:45:00.000-07:00

Recently, I have come across a blog in ecommerze.blogspot.com. This blog is mainly talking about "What are the passwords commonly used by most of the Internet users?"

Based on a statistical analysis of 28,000 passwords from a US website, the result reveals that people often do the easy things. Why say so? This is because, after the research has been done,it was found that 16% of Internet users preferably took their first name as a passwords and another 14% relied on easiest keyboard combination such as 123 and 123456. Not only that, there are 5% of Internet users like to use the name of movie or name of popular star as their password. This is particular true to the young teenagers. Besides, the words such as "password", "Yes", "I love you" or even "I hate you" are commonly used by the users.

Robert Graham, researcher who did this analysis and published the conclusion advises the users that to better protect against cyber intrusion, users are encouraged to choose a password which is longer than eight characters with one capital letter and one symbol.

Passwords that show no imagination and distinctiveness are easy prey for information pirates.

For more information, please visit to the links below:

- Technology News

A discussion on E-learning offered in Malaysian universities: Pros and Cons from the students perspective

2009-07-05T07:31:00.000-07:00

This week I would like to share about e-learning or sometimes we call it distance learning. E-learning is a modern process of education whereby the learning process is supported by computer technologies. In other words, it means that, instead of attending traditional instructor-led classes, students can complete his/her courses by studying online. From the students' perspective, e-learning bring the advantages as follow:

a) Convenience and flexibility
E-learning which available 24x7 allows the students to study anytime, anywhere as long as they have access to a computer and Internet connection. Besides, they even can pause the learning session at their convenience.

b)Lower cost
E-learning can helps to reduce the cost of study as the students are not required to travel to campus everyday and this tends to save the travel cost and travel time as well. Additionally,just as what we know, almost every computer available in the today's market are equipped with free browser software. This indirectly help to reduce the setup cost of e-learners.

c) Improve interaction
Based on empirical studies, we observed that students are more actively interact with instructors or other students via e-learning. This is because of students can email to others students easily, pose comments on message boards or use videoconference to communicate with them lively.

On the other hand, there are some disadvantages as well, such as:

a)Lack of face-to-face communication with teachers
E-learnig which promotes home-study has reduced the oppurtunity of students to face-to-face communicate with their teachers. Furthemore, when they face any problems, they might not get instant reply from their teachers as well as their teachers might not available anytime. Thus, this tends the result that students sometimes may get confuse with their study.

b) Technological problem

Computer and Internet connection are two critical components for distance learning. If a student does not possess these two components, he/she is not able to experience this modern process of learning. In spite of this, if a student has an old model of computer or low Internet connection, he will face the trouble too. This is because low Internet connection or old computer will make the students unable to donwload new version of reading material or make the assessing of reading material frustrating.

CreDit CarD DebTs : CauSes and PreVentiOn

2009-07-04T11:27:00.001-07:00

Nowadays, credit card has acted as cash whereby consumers can purchase good or services by swapping the credit card through the electronic verification. It is very convenient by carrying only one credit card rather than carrying bulks of cash in the wallet for the consumers. Thus, it is common to see a person holds more than 1 credit card at the same time. It is shown that many credit card holders have incurred into debts and as a result, it leads to bankruptcy. So, let me share with you the casues and preventions of credit card debts.

Causes :

Poor money management

Consumers mostly do not have a monthly spending plan and do not keep track of where the money is going. Without the plan, they are not aware what they have spending on and they may spend on something which are not necessary.

Income less, expenses high

Many people are spending more than their income where expenses level is higher than income. This is because consumers can purchase goods without paying cash immediately. As a result, consumers tend to spend overlimit and lead to incur on debts.

Missing payment / Late payment

Consumers may think that missing payment may not be a big deal for them. Actually, there is a penalty for the missing payment in the bill which already included. The creditors may also increase interest rate to the default rate. Thus, the higher interest rate increases the debts as well which making it more expensive to carry on a balance.

Prevention :

Budget planning

Create a budget and stick on it. A clear budget that includes monthly bills, food and miscellaneous items can assist in spending wisely with only "NEED" goods and not on "WANT" goods.

Use cash instead of credit card

If consumers purchase using cash, the feeling of tangible cash is running low in their wallet whereby they can know how much cash they are having at the time. So, it might help consumers on controlling on their spending habit.

Pay on time
Make sure you settle the bills on time. This is because paying on time eliminate unnecessary default penalty or higher interest rates. If you cannot pay back the whole balance, you should pay as much as possible, or else the credit card debts will keep on grow up and up.

Mobile Payment Systems in Malaysia: Its Potentials and Consumers' Adoption Strategies

2009-07-04T07:18:00.000-07:00

No more queues or waiting! This is happening in Malaysia. By using a mobile payment system, you can make your payment to your seller without queuing up.

Mobile payment (also called as mobile web payments or WAP billing) is a collection of money from consumer via a mobile device, such as mobile phone, Smartphone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or any other devices. Without having cash on hand, cheques or credit card, a consumer can make payment transaction through a mobile device to pay for services and digital or hard goods such as music, ringtones, transportation fares, tickets and so on.

In Malaysia, there are some examples of mobile payments available for us, one of them is known as Mobile Money. It allow a registered user to make payments at anytime, anywhere using only a mobile phone coupled with 6-digits security Pin via sms. This is so easy and convenient way to settle our bills. With such application, this will definitely be a great boom to the e-commerce industry in Malaysia. Besides, some well-known companies such as Maxis, CELCOM and many more, are also coming up this concept to update their payment services. To read more about Maxis Mobile Payments, click on this link.

Most developed and developing countries have well adopted this mobile payment. Also, someone estimated that combined market for all types of mobile payments is reach $600B globally by 2013. Thus, you may foresee that everyone will pay by just using their mobile phone while shopping at everywhere at anytime somewhere in the future.

Time is money. Hence, people often want to get into the fast lane to save time or settle their payments in a speedy way. A practically example of mobile payment, in which adopted by Malaysian is using Touch 'n Go and Smart Tag to pay their highways tolls car parking fees, LRT and bus fees, and so on. Besides, Maxis has introduced an innovative service to market to save time for purchasing and paying transportation charges with a tap of the user's mobile phone, is known as Maxis FastTap. In addition, the users can use their Maybankard to pay Visa paywaves outlets such as Watson, Parkson, Jusco and many more.

In order to make mobile payment system in Malaysia a real success, following steps should be taken immediately. First, educate the consumers about mobile payment system, the usage and the functions of it. Also, cooperate with more banks and merchants to widen the ability of mobile payments. Other than that, offer more security collaborate solution for mobile payment to gain consumers' satisfaction and confidence on the system.

Prepared by Carrie Hon

Review on A Post on Legal from My Ecommerce Blog: Online Beauty Product Fraud

2009-07-03T21:53:00.000-07:00

According to The Star, at least 66 people were cheated approximately RM73,445 when they were buying skincare products via a website named "BigPussyCat". The website offered products such as facial and eye masks.

Some victims have made reports and claimed that they were lured by the advertisement because the price of the items offered was cheaper than those off-the-shelf or market price. Further, they said that they had made their payment via the Internet, but they did not received the products after waiting for few weeks.

The post reminds the people should be caution all the time when they are performing online purchases.

The features of Internet have been abused by many users. MyCERT has published a statistic that shows the fraud cases are increasing from year-to-year especially in 2008. There are various types of online fraud can be easily found such as email forgery, e-commerce, and e-banking. Normally, the scam to arrive via bulk email in buyer's email boxes. And, the case has been mentioned in above is one of the scam examples. In a famous types of scam, people will receive electronic verification congratulation because they have have been "specially selected" for a big prize. Then, they will ask people to contact them and to make a deposit into their account for getting the prizes. However, the selected people will never receive their "prizes" in the end.

How to avoid scams? There are some ways use to avoid scams. For instance, check the background of the company to ensure the existence of the company. A reputable company will be pleased to reply additional information and provide as many references from satisfied customers as people want.

People should be skeptical in order to avoid scam and be the next victim.

Related link

Prepared by Carrie Hon

Phishing : Examples and its Prevention Methods

2009-07-02T03:23:00.002-07:00

Phishing is an act of sending an e-mail to user fallaciously claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to acquire the sensitive information. The e-mail directs or links the user to visit a Web sites where they are ask to update their personal information such as password, credit card details or bank account numbers. Phishing is usually appear from well know and trustworthy Web sites like eBay and PayPal. However, it also occur through voice phone calls, text messages or other electronic communication methods.

Here, there are some examples of phishing :

The phishing attack shown below is an example of involving eBay e-mail. In this case, eBay claimed that user has to change the password to continue to logon to eBay. The user may also feel stress as there is a threat in the e-mail which noted that a their account will be suspended if they did not take action. The aim of this phishing is to get the password from the users.

Second example is a mail entitled "Verified by Visa" sends to the Visa credit card holders. It claims that the users have to verify their Visa card to ensure the security of the card. The mail looks exactly like the VISA's legitimate site which create the most dangerous phish scam. The purpose of the mail is also to get the password from the Visa credit card holders.

However, there are several methods to prevent from it. The image below shown the suspicious of the phish scam and some methods of how to identify it as phishing spam. In addition, there is alos several preventions provided.

1) Normally, legitimate business and financial institutions would hardly ask for personal information via e-mail. Thus, if you receive such e-mail, call the organisation and ask if it's legitimate or check its legitimate Web site.

2)Look up for the spelling error or bad grammar. It is a tip-off to beware.

3)Next, you may look at click able link with text suggesting you use the inserted link to verify your account. When you point to the hyperlink text, the bottom left of web page will show the real web site address to which you will go. It is important to note that the hyperlink does not point to the legitimate web site.

4)If there is threat which caused you to be uncomfortable of it, you may just type the company's genuine website manually on the address bar rather than trusting any hyperlinks in the suspected phishing message.

5)It is recommended to use Internet Explorer 7 which includes Microsoft Phishing Filter which helps protect you from the web fraud and the risks of personal data theft by warning or blocking you from reported phishing Web sites.

Related links are provided below for further information :

E-Commerce Success and its Causes

2009-06-21T00:56:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, there is a trend that most of the purchase transactions are conducted through online.Consumers are more likely to purchase in this way is simply because of the purchasing process is much more easier and faster when compared to offline purchase. For instance, without wasting time and energy to conduct survey, consumers are able to make a quick comparison among various products with only one user action (click). These competitive advantages have contributed to the success of enormous amount of companies and one of the great example is Amazon.com.

Amazon.com is an American electronic commerce company which famous in selling its books. The company was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and based in Seattle, Washington. Amazon.com ventured beyond books and now it offers various line of product such as DVDs, MP3s, electronics, computers, video games, kitchenware, etc. On January 15, 2009, Amazon.com was the UK's favourite music and video retailer, and came third in overall retail rankings in a survey published by Verdict Research.

Why is Amazon.com so successful?

Brand name - Amazon.com is trustworthy on its reputation for reliability. It is a site that is easy to navigate. It has developed loyal base customer, and attempt to cultivate them by continually lowering prices and adding features to their Web sites as written in CBS news.

One click order system - A specific example would be Amazon's pioneering of the "1-click" ordering system which ease the customer to return to place new orders without having tediously re-enter basic and payment information.

Personalize web-based model - Every single customer has a unique webpage and personalized in different methods. For instance, if the customer has made a recent purchase and again visited Amazon.com, the message might read, "Hi Alan, welcome back!" Amazon.com also sent out personalized coupons or emails to customers who had not visited the site for a period of time.

Besides that, an interview with Maryam Mohit, the V.P. of Site Development, Amazon.com which mention about the secret of Amazon.com, the challenges and also the future of Amazon.com There are numbers of minor reasons underlying behind the success of Amazon.com which are not mention above. If you guys are interested to know more, feel free to look up in ecommercetimes.

How does Google, Amazon.com and eBay make money online through E-commerce?

2009-06-21T00:10:00.000-07:00

Google, Amazon.com and eBay are undoubtedly the pioneer companies in the field of E-commerce well known for their established operations, proven track record as well as excellent reputation. Although all 3 companies are highly profitable, however, it should be noted that their techniques of generating income online are distinctive as they adopt their different revenue model.

First, talking about Google, its main revenue stream comes from advertising fees. For instance, in year 2006 alone, it has generated an extraordinary amount of US$ 10.492 million through its primary advertising offerings such as Google Adwords and Adsense. Basically, Google Adwords involves displaying advertisements beside or on top of Google search results when the keywords typed in by users match with those registered by the corresponding advertiser. Subsequently, if the user clicks in, the advertising process is then completed and is charged based on a per-click basis. Meanwhile, Google Adsense is an advertising program which allows website owners to enroll to enable ads to be displayed on their sites and ultimately to earn money when the visitors click on them. Google search box could be embedded as well. For more information, please refer to Adwords and Adsense.

Next, instead of advertising, Amazon.com is America’s largest online retailer which generates income through the online selling of various lines of products. Starting from its original concept of an online bookstore, it then diversified to a wide range of businesses such as music CDs and MP3s, computer software, electronic goods, apparel, kids’ products and so forth. It breaks away from the traditional break-and-mortar way of transacting at physical location and it is now the leading online shopping center earning revenue of US$19.166 million in 2008. On the other hand, through the amazon associates scheme, Amazon award referral fees to their registered affiliates which advertise Amazon products on their websites and enable them to earn 15% of affiliate fees/ commission when consumers eventually buy.

In contrast, eBay does not own any products and services on its own. Nonetheless, it functions as an online auction site which provides an electronic platform for worldwide buyers and sellers to transact a broad variety of goods and services. In other words, it merely facilitates the business dealing between all potential buyers and sellers. As a transaction is successfully concluded through its site, eBay will earn a certain amount of transaction fees. eBay offers several types of auction models such as :

1) auction-style listings (allow the seller to offer items for sale for a specified number of days)
2) fixed-price format (allows the seller to offer items for sale at a Buy It Now price. Buyers who agree to pay that price win the auction immediately without submitting a bid)
3) Dutch auctions (allow the seller to offer two or more identical items in the same auction).

The History & Evolution of E-commerce

2009-06-20T01:12:00.000-07:00

What is E-commerce?

Definition ·History & Evolution ·Video·Issues

The definition of E-commerce

First, Commerce is interpreted as all forms of trade and services that assist trading which deals with the exchange of goods and services from producer to the final consumer. Every era of business yields new strategies and new methods of doing business. With the advent of information technology, people able buying, selling, transferring, or exchanging products, services, and/or information via computer networks and Internet, this is known as electronic commerce (E-commerce).

E-commerce can be classified by the nature of the transactions or the interactions among participan ts such as business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-business (C2B), and so on. In B2B, all the participants are either businesses or other organizations. For instance, Niki and Dell involve B2B with their suppliers. On the other hand, the typical example of B2C is where the individual shoppers purchase their desired books at Amazon.com.

History & Evolution of E-commerce

In the late 1970s, e-commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically by using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These allow businesses to send commercial documents and information such as orders' lists or invoices electronically.

In 1980s, the invention and high level acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking were formed further meaning of e-commerce.

In addition, e-commerce is also includes enterprise resource planning system (ERP), data mining and data warehousing started since 1990s. Even though the Internet was famous in world wide in 1994, it took about five years to develop the security protocols e.g. HTTp and DSL. These allowed rapid access and a persistent connection to the Internet.

In 2000, a huge number of business companies United States and Western Europe provided their services through World Wide Web. Due to the revolution, people started to relate e-commerce with the ability of purchasing various products and services through the Internet using secure protocols and electronic payment services.

Let's watch

Issues about E-commerce

E-commerce offers pros and cons to organizations, individual customers and society. Particularly, consumers can shop any time at any place. Also, consumers have large selection to choose from suppliers, products and styles. By surfing the Internet, they able to make comparison among the products and shop for the lowest price. In the same vein, business world becomes larger and more competitive.

The increased of competition has caused the product differentiation. Many similar products were invented creatively with the same general function, but are still unique. Thus, individual shoppers will face difficulties in making products comparison. In conclusion, as there are limited information provided, the competition may be not as high and price may not be lower because it is depend on their targeted market on which design or features they provide to their targeted customers.

Prepeared by Carrie Hon.

An example of E-commerce failure and its causes

2009-06-17T22:38:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone...Today, I would like to share some information with all of you about an e-tailer, Boo.com. Boo.com was a British Internet company which founded by Swedes Kajsa Leander, Ernst Malmsten and Patrik Hendelin. Boo.com was launched on 3rd November 1999 and selling premium sports, urban street wear,brandend fashion apparel and cosmetics. It targets on those young individuals who are fashion concious. In 1990s, Boo.com had become the most heavily funded Internet start-up in Europe and the most high profile. This is due to the fact that the company had invested $135million venture capitalists' money in just 18months. However, no longer after, Boo.com went into a place of receivership and liquidated on 18May2000.

After surfing around, it can be concluded that the downfall of Boo.com is mainly attributed to the reasons below:

a) Bad Planning
The founders of Boo.com were too ambitious in their business plan. Unlike the traditional shopkeepers who preferably start their business in small scale and then expand it slowly, its Swedish founders wanted to dominate the market immediately. Hence, they had come out an extremely aggresive growth plan, which is simultaneouly launch the new chain of stores in eighteen European countries. The sizeable vision of Boo.com's founders caused the company suffered with huge costs as a result.

b) Poor Web Design and Usability
Boo.com had relied heavily on JavaScript and Flash techonology with the purpose of enabling the shoppers view the products in 3-D. But, the problem is that, in 1990s, the average user's Internet connection does not have the available bandwidth that is needed for 3-D viewing. This causes the difficulties for the shoppers when viewing the products.

Besides that, most of the shoppers were complaining that they were greeted by poor browsing whereby they had to take 5 users actions and answers 4-5 basic questions before they manage to search for the product informations. This could encourage shoppers visit to others site instead of Boo.com as the users do not need to click more than 3 times to find the information they seek. The others site are much more simple, quick and pleasureable to use.

Moreover, Boo.com is not a consumer-friendly website where it is designed for the shoppers who have 56K modems and above only. This limitations had severely impacted on the revenue earned.

c) Bad Marketing
Even though Boo.com provide the technology which enabled the shoppers to view items in 3-D, but it had ignored the key internet buying diven-lower prices. The products which sold by Boo.com were highly priced and it subsequently tends the result that the shoppers would not enticed to shop at this site anymore.

In short, the cause of failure of Boo.com is that it DID NOT FULFILL the 3 main criterias for web purchases: Ease/convenience, better price and speed of process.

If you guys are interested to know more Boo.com, kindly visit to the links below:
i)www.davechaffey.com/E-commerce-Internet-marketing-case-studies/Boo.com-case-studies

ii)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com

IntRodUctiOn FrOm ZhUO bIN

2009-06-17T08:51:00.000-07:00

Hi guys, I’m Zhuo Bin and nice to meet you. Well, I certainly did not expect to have my first ever blog post to be produced due to an assignment. Anyway, I’m looking forward to acquire some new knowledge and information through this process as my current IT competency is quite below par. Just like my fellow group mates, I’m currently pursuing a degree majoring in Accounting in UTAR and I have just entered into the final year of my studies. Things are piling up rapidly in this new semester and a more hectic life has been a perfect reflection of that.

Anyhow, after watching a motivational clip of Nick Vujicic on Youtube a couple of days back, it’s sort of like keeping things going forward and keeping me driven. The clip is truly inspirational and it’s worth sharing with all of you who are reading. This is the link for that video.

One of the most popular websites on my list will definitely be ESPN.com as I’m a great fan of sports, especially soccer, tennis and badminton. Watching the great Roger Federer finally lifting the elusive French Open title last week after coming so heartbreakingly close in the previous 3 finals was just an amazing feeling. He is the sportsman that I currently give the utmost respect to for his unprecedented achievement, elegant style of play and wonderful sportsmanship. Besides that, Facebook, Yahoo and Gmail are also the sites which I surf daily to network with friends and check mail respectively. Meanwhile, thestar.com.my and Malaysikini.com play a role in keeping me abreast with the mainstream and alternative news on various issues.

Hopefully this blogging activity will turn out to be an enriching and fulfilling learning process for all of us as we progress and capture new pivotal knowledge about E-commerce! Cheers!

IntRodUctiOn FrOm YuOk YiNg To YoU

2009-06-08T08:11:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone...I'm yuok ying, one of the blogger here. First of all, let me introduce myself. Same as hwee ling and carrie, I am a final year accounting student in UTAR. Currently, I am staying in Sungai Long which is near to the campus and it save me a lot of time from travelling back to cheras everyday. And, the most important thing is that I do need to wake up so early in the morning.

Actually i do not have much hobbies also. When I'm free, I used to hang out with my friends, watch movie and play bowling with them. Recently, I have just signed up a facebook account, as my friends are always complaining that I'm kinda of out-dated. However, it has become one of hobbies now as it enables me to keep in touch with my friends easily and conveniently. Besides, I like to surf youtube when I'm free. Through youtube, I can view some comedies, entertainment shows and the lots.

In spite of these, the website that I visited frequently is Google. The reason is that I like to use the search engine provided by Google. With its help, I able to obtain all information needed in a short period of time,and sometimes I able to find out something interesting too. I strongly believe that most of the Internet users agree with me. Am I right?

I feel enjoy and have fun with all these activities. Hope you guys can enjoy as well when viewing this blog. Hereby, we promise that we will update our blog oftenly and provide more information about e-commerce for all of you. Last but not least, please kindly leave some comments on this new-created blog. Thanks!

Learn more about e-commerce!!!

IntroDucTIon from CaRrie to You ^@^

2009-06-06T22:34:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our blog! I'm Carrie Hon, one of the contributors of this blog. I came from a developing town named as Kulai in Johor. My family and most of my relatives are staying there. It is a good place to live and you can get a lot of nice foods such as nasi lemak from Yellow Corner and ais kacang from Happy Land. These are the foods famous in my town, you should not miss that if you pass by my town. On the other hand, my family consists of mother, two younger brother and me. And, one brother is pursing his studies at Genting Inti College at Gohtong Jaya. I love my family because they always give me their love, care, and support to me. Of course, the main reason is because they are the closest kinship in this world.

Currently, I'm in my final year pursuing an Accounting course in UTAR which its campus is located at Sungai Long. I met many friends here. Also, i met my lovely housemates and friendly members of Wushu Club in this campus. They are my good friends at here. We share the moment of tears and joys throughout up and down in life.

The most frequent website that I surf are:
1) UTAR's Intranet, where is the place to check my timetable, receive student's bill and the latest news and activities of UTAR. It allows me to access our library website, which help us to search books and journals easily.
2) Google, the largest search engine, which is the useful tools for students to search information in order to complete our assignments.
3) Wikipedia, it likes a free online-encyclopedia to anyone to search information and data. This is also popular among students.
4) Hotmail, where allows me to exchange files with my group mates and committee members of clubs and societies.
5) Yahoo!, I surf its website to download games for free to entertain myself.

As Hwee Ling said, the purpose to create this blog is to share our E-Commerce's knowledge with you from what we have learned from our subject. In fact, I'm not a computer addict. Hence, I only learn computer when i need to learn it. This is maybe I do not have a strong interest on computer stuff. However, I personally agreed that having this aspect of knowledge is very essential for our future career and improve our living standard undoubtedly. So, let us learn and upgrade ourselves together by exploring E-commerce subject.

Introduction from HwEe LiNg to you

2009-06-03T19:38:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone.. This is Hwee Ling here, one of the authors of ecommerce-info4u. I am pursuing my accounting degree, currently is Year 3 Sem 1 student. I was born in Skudai, Johor Bahru but being raised up in KL. I like JB a lot and I back to Skudai every twice a month. It is kinda tiring to travel from KL to JB which takes approximately 4 hours to reach. Yet, it wont stop me from back to Skudai frequently. This is due to all my relatives and cousins are all staying in JB, and I am enjoying have fun with them.

During the leisure time, I like to read comics such as Shin Chan or Doraemon. Usually, most of my leisure time will be filling up by napping because it is one of my favourites. I also like to listen to songs and catch up the latest movies will have been shown in the cinema.

I like to surf net such as google and yahoo as I can get lots of information from there.. At the same time, I access into it mostly because to find information for my assignment. Besides that,the websites which I like to visit are facebook and friendster. From there, I can get the latest updates from my friends and keep in touch with them. Furthermore, I also browse into hotmail where I can check incoming mail and send e-mails. In addition, I use MSN or Skype to chat with my friends.

Why are we creating this blog? My fellow members and I are undertaking E-Commerce subject this semester. Thus, we would like to share with you the knowledge we have gained throughout the semester through blogging. Do visit us frequently as we will update our blog frequently as well. Last but not least, thanks for visiting and do come back to visit us again. Hope you enjoy!