2. Benefits of E-commerce
Global Marketplace
The global marketplace is where people from all around the world can buy
things from your E-commerce site, once people start to buy products from
your site from all around the world that’s when you begin to build a global
marketplace.
P2
3. Benefits of E-commerce
24/7 Trading
The benefits of 24/7 is that you can purchase items from anywhere at any time
meaning you can order something to your home address and have it delivered
there in a few days with no closing time so if you are nocturnal you can lead a
somewhat normal life, well close to one anyway.
P2
4. Benefits of E-commerce
Low Start -up & Running Costs
The fact that it is based off of the internet means you don’t have to ire much
staff to keep it running you can hire 4 or 5 or maybe a few more to run the
website and then hire a couple of drivers unless you are going to use a third
party courier company in order to deliver all of your packages and then just
pay for the server.
P2
5. Benefits of E-commerce
Search Facilities
The fact that you can search to see whether the item you want is in stock or not is a
great convenience tool and will make people more happy because you have saved
them some time by allowing them to have sifted through some of the guff and
gotten straight to it therefore allowing them to make a purchase quicker and
heightening the chances of them telling others about you.
P2
6. Benefits of E-commerce
Fluid Pricing
Fluid pricing is the ability to modify the prices based off of supply and
demand meaning if demand is high you can either raise the prices and
when demand is low you can lower the prices meaning if you wait a
while you can always get that nice garden decoration that you always
wanted for a good price as long as demand goes low enough.
P2
7. Consumer trust
• consumer trust is a hard thing to build in conventional shops so imagine
how harder it is to build it in a shop that you never actually visit a shop
meaning no human interaction whatsoever just browsing and purchase no
people to explain something you are unsure about, there are no cashier’s
meaning the whole place feels very robotic and without a soul that on top
of the fact you hear stories about websites like this conning people into
buying things they wouldn’t normally buy or having them steal your bank
details and what not.
• And then once you have gained a level of consumer trust its hard to keep
as its lost easier then it is gained say if you’re delivery goes wrong or they
ship you the wrong item, these can impact consumer trust in a big way.
8. Lack of human contact
• The lack of human contact is a god send for people like me, but for people
in the older generations it probably feels like an empty way to buy things
without a personality and leaving it quite soulless, some people prefer to
have people around to ask to explain a product to them and some people
want to go to a till before they leave because its what they are used to and
people prefer to do something that they understand rather then venture
into something new, it was hard enough trying to get my mum to trust
Amazon.
• Personally I prefer the lack of contact, it makes the whole thing quicker
and removes many barriers that would otherwise the process down but
on a whole i can also see why people would not like this.
9. Product description problems
• If there is a product description problem that’s the fault of the staff who
research and run the website from the HQ so to speak.
• It is up to them to keep the information up to date and correct because if
the customer can find what the product is before you can they are
probably going to think that you are not running a business as good as you
could be
10. The Technology
Browsers
Browsers allow the user to view different pages of the site and to see
special offers and allow them to purchase things via the internet.
Web Authoring Software
This is the type of software used to create websites like e-commerce ones
and it can be modified in special software that allow people to create
websites in a slideshow like fashion or to create them in an HTML format.
P1
11. The Technology
Database systems
The database system is where they keep track of there products and how they
remember who you are e.g. Your email and your personal home address to
save you from having to type it in each time you order something but when it
comes to keeping stock its as simple as just checking what where and how
many there is.
IP addresses
Each computer has a unique IP address and that is to make sure that the
information goes to the right place instead ending up somewhere it shouldn’t.
P1
12. The Technology
Domain Names
The domain name is the virtual address(es) of your website by typing
these into your search engine or your address bar it will take you to the
desired website e.g. Amazon.com
Multiple Domain Registration
you may have more than one that all take you to the same place just in
case somebody makes a mistake while typing e.g. Amazoon will
probably take you amazon.com
P1
13. The Technology
Ports & Protocols
Ports & protocols act as a form of security and defence from malicious software
like viruses, key loggers and spyware if t wasn’t for all the ports and protocols
then the website would become infected and littered with these and once you log
onto the website so would computer become infected after having downloaded
some cookies from the site, protocols are a way communicating, lets say if two
people are in a debate and they do not agree on something most of the time it
becomes impossible to see that persons side of the argument and that is what a
protocol is, if two computers don’t sing the same tune they don’t communicate.
Browser & Platform Compatibility
To reach the most possible users the website has to be compatible with the
most browsers and browser types possible because by not doing that they
are losing out on a considerable amount of people.
P1
14. Promotion
Paying to be prominent in search engine results
Companies can pay search engines like Google to appear in the top of the search
rankings meaning that people will see there website quicker.
By doing this they can ensure that more people discover there website at a faster
rate because people will not have to search through pages and pages of results to
find them.
It acts as a form of advertisement (promotion)
Advantages- people will find your website quicker and easier.
Disadvantage- it goes to the highest bidder meaning if someone bids higher
then you, then you are going below them in the search ranking…simple.
M1
15. Promotion
Newsgroups & Forums
A newsgroup/Forum is a place on the internet where people come to have a
moan and a whine but also to speak about certain services and how they could
be improved and to often get into conversations.
Although if the newsgroup/forum is an official one instead of a third party one
there is a slight chance that the comments read on the website are going to
biased and censored where as most unofficial ones like IGN tend to be
biased because they are paid to give good reviews.
The advantages of this- is that you can get the opinions of other people
before you yourself go to buy a product.
The disadvantages is that- a lot of the websites that are newsgroups and or
forums are mostly biased in order to get a true opinion you must find people
who have promised to avoid the greed of the corporate machine.
M1
16. Promotion
Banners & Pop-ups
Now everybody hates pop-ups so I would suggest staying away from those but a
banner people don’t mind as long as it doesn’t get intrusive of what they are
trying to look at, at least I don’t anyway but what I'm saying here is that people
hate nothing more than something that just slows them down when it comes to
doing what they set out to do.
The disadvantage of these is that people just don’t trust them as for many years
story’s have gotten around over viruses getting on and destroying entire
systems from the inside out.
Most of these banners cause popups to happen from completely unrelated
websites to the banner that was clicked and then those continue to give you
viruses.
Advantages- it acts as a form of advertisement for the people who look around
even if they don’t click it, so regardless of clicks you are still making a name for
your product.
M1
17. Promotion
Spam
Spam is just a great way to get people to ignore you because we all know that
nobody ever achieved anything by forcing themselves in peoples face...well apart
from getting a punch in the face but anyway spam does nothing but help increase
the distrust of whoever is receiving it towards the sender, “yes” they might have
signed up to a newsletter but that does not mean spam them everyday with special
offers maybe do it once a week in a condensed little bundle and them people wont
mind it.
The disadvantages of spam- are that it causes a huge amount of distrust
between the person sending the email and the person trying to increase
there brand awareness.
The advantages- it allows you to get word out about your product at a much
faster rate despite it causing slight irritation to the people receiving it.
M1
18. Promotion
Ensuring An Effective User Interface
Ensuring an effective user interface is not hard, as long as it is easy to use and
easy to understand and to interpret the users will have no qualms in telling
other people about you whereas if your User Interface is hard to use and hard
to understand people will not feel very satisfied after having used your service.
The advantages of having a good user interface- from having a good UI that is
quick responsive and easy to use people are more likely to recommend your
website to other people.
The disadvantage- if it is a bad UI word will spread and people will avoid you
like a new plague has just struck.
M1
19. Promotion
Establishing Customer loyalty in a virtual environment
Establishing customer loyalty is a hard thing to do you can force is by having
things like gift cards that can only be spent at that certain website but to end up
building up that kind of customer/provider relationship you will have to have built
up a certain amount of consumer trust to the point where they don’t want to
shop anywhere else because they think that they don’t do as good of a job at
providing a service as you do
The advantages- customer loyalty is better than having more customers by a
slight margin because it means they will advertise you via word of mouth and
that you are more capable of milking for every penny they have.
Disadvantage- annoy them or have something go wrong then they will lose all
faith in you and probably never return.
M1
20. Promotion
Site Names
Your site name cant be similar then a site that is already out there because if it is
people will think you are just ripping off that website but if you make it different
enough to the point that people remember it then you have completed the first step
also remember to make the site name simple because if you have a really long
winded website name, the chances of them making a mistake while typing it
increases.
Advantage- having an unoriginal and small site name increases the percentage
that people will remember it and when needed can recommend it correctly.
Disadvantage- having a long winded and original name will just come across as
another generic name and will likely get you ignored.
M1
21. Promotion
Direct Marketing
You can do things like marketing through other websites like YouTube or
through search engines like Google either way its a way of popping up on
everyone's radar or maybe even advertise yourself on a website like
facebook because we all know that every mum on the planet is on that and
you want them to buy as much stuff as you can get them to for there family
and that because the more they buy the more advertisements you can afford
to put up on search engines and websites.
Advantages- you can tailor your advertisements to a specific audience
meaning you don’t have to spend more and then fall on deaf ears.
Disadvantage- get it wrong and then you have just wasted time and money on
tailoring an advertisement to the wrong audience.
M1
22. Security
Hacking
Hacking is the act of a group of people dedicated to breaking through the
websites security in the hope of either stealing some items or stealing
somebody's personal details and using them to possibly commit identity fraud
or to hold said person to blackmail or ransom.
Hacking Prevention
To prevent things like hacking the website will have an algorithm or something
dedicated o constantly changing the position of where a persons details are
stored or whether it just acts as a wall that blocks anything that doesn’t quite fit
into it, of course it will have to constantly have parts we-written as hackers find
ways to get around it or have parts just shifted around in order to keep one up on
the hackers.
P3, M2
23. Security
Viruses
These malicious software sent through the internet to the websites in question
have to get through the security of the websites to actually do any damage but if
they were to get through they would cause catastrophic damage to people that
would end up receiving them in things like cookies and emails that contain
phishing scams or they could change the website all together.
Virus Prevention
You an prevent virus’s getting through by having multiple firewalls you can
slowly widdle down what virus’s that get through and then allow the protocol
to deal with the final ones.
P3, M2
24. Security
ID Theft
ID Theft is the act of somebody somehow getting hold of your personal
information and then using for there own gain at the cost of your bank account
balance.
ID Theft Protection
To protect from such things websites should get there users to change
there website regularly and have multiple email addresses set up to one
account (one as the main one and one as the backup) along with several
security questions.
P3, M2
25. Security
Strong Passwords
The reason strong passwords are encouraged is because there are people out
there who have written and created programs for the sole purpose of trying to
guess your password from an infinite amount of possibilities and sometimes
just to try and brute force hack into it the longer more complicated the
password the harder it will be to get into.
P3
26. Evaluate Existing E-commerce
Business Summary
For example I am going to use steam the digital distribution
platform for gamers
They sell games at crazy discounts regardless of
loyalty and how much you have bought
beforehand.
Look at those for
discounts. But look at
how well the page is
displayed, I can say that
from personal
experience this website
is easy to us and easy to
navigate, making the
customer be satisfied by
the service.
Discuss: What business sells, Why they would have moved into e-commerce, Structure of website, Layout of
products, Website security, Ease of use, Delivery options
D1
27. Evaluate Existing E-commerce
Strengths
Its strengths are that the service is easy to use and very rarely fails meaning the
customer is always left satisfied with the service delivered and is never left
receiving something that is considered to be less than optimal which is more
than can be said for company’s that provide the same kind of service.
Weaknesses
You can only use the games bought from there if you are signed in and have an
internet connection unless you set it to offline mode beforehand which does make
those new to it rather frustrated or those who have no online connection for a few
days.
Strengths- think about the benefits for this company when moving into e-commerce. Strengths of current site.
Weaknesses- think about problems that may have had to overcome. Weaknesses of current site.
D1
