• An example of an E-Commerce success and its causes

Dell--- An example of an E-Commerce success and its causes

Dell's success

1. In the beginning of 1990s, Dell was still 25th in the list of computer manufacturers.

2. In1992, Fortune magazine added Dell Computer Corporation to its list of the world’s 500 largest companies.

3. In 1999, dell surpassed Compaq, acquiring the largest market share in the u.s personal computer market.

4. 2003, dell got the lead back.

5. In 2006, Fortune Magazine ranked Dell as the 25th-largest company in the Fortune 500 list, 8th on its annual ‘Top 20’ list of the most admired companies in the United States.

6. In 2007, Dell ranked 34th and 8th respectively on the equivalent lists for the year.

Causes of Dell's success

Dell's Direct Business Model
Dell takes the opportunity to work with small businesses such as
1. Small Business Concern (SB)
2. Small Disadvantaged Businesses (SDB)
3. Women Owned-Small Businesses (WOSB)
4. Veteran Owned-Small business (VOSB)
5. HubZone Business Concern (HUBZone)
6. Minority Business Enterprise (MBE)
7. Woman Business Enterprise (WBE)

After the fiscal year of 2003, Dell was accredited with awarding 278,000,000 Contacts to such businesses listed above. “At Dell, we know diversity is essential to enhancing the customer experience. And because our commitment to the customer drives everything we do, diversity is key to our success.”

Build-to-Order e-business design

Dell offers superb low cost manufacturing and fast-cycle product development. In other words, dell’s focus is end-to-end operational excellence. This integration enables the cost-effective selling of build-to-order computers directly to customers, thus bypassing the resellers and their markups. As a result, dell has reengineered the $76 billion computer-distribution business.

Get it solved the first time

Dell also constantly evaluates its tech support operation. Aside from increasing the size of its staff, it has shifted its priorities to resolving problems on the first call. The company is also examining how its customer care organization can resolve order-related problems more quickly and efficiently.

Among the methods Dell is using is a new jack-of-all-trades approach that enables some customers to speak with one person who has the skills and authority to tackle any number of customer care or tech support problems in the same call.

link:

1. http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-134452.html

2. http://books.google.com.my/books

3. http://www.dell.com/

4. http://homepages.wmich.edu/~l4blackledge/Project%202.htm

5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell

Revenue Model for Google, Amazon.com and eBay

The main source of Google’s revenue is from advertising. For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported US$10.492billion in total advertising revenues and only US$112million in licensing and other revenues.

Google's revenue model includes Google AdWords, Pay per Click Advertising, Google AdSense, Froogle, GoogleAnswers and their latest advertising program which is Cost per Click model. It earns most of its revenue by allowing other website owners to advertise on their search result pages or by placing these same text ads (AdSense) on other sites based on relevance.

Many businesses that want to put their advertisement online would go to Google AdWords. Google AdWords is a pay per click advertising program of Google designed to allow the advertisers to present advertisements to people at the instant the people are looking for information related to what the advertiser has to offer. When a user searches Google's search engine, ads for relevant words are shown as "sponsored link" on the right side of the screen, and sometimes above the main search results. It is an online advertising payment model in which payment is based on qualifying click-throughs. An advertiser has to pay every time his ad receives a click.

AdSense is an ad serving program run by Google. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image and, video advertisements on their sites. Revenue is generated on a per-click or per-thousand-ads-displayed basis and the ads are administered by Google. AdSense program includes AdSense for search and AdSense for content. Google advertisers are required to pay Google a fee each time a user clicks on one of their ads displayed on Google Network members’ web sites.

Amazon.com was one of the first major companies to sell goods by Internet. Amazon generates revenue primarily by selling books, videos, electronics, and kitchen equipment on domestic and international Web sites, such as Amazon Marketplace.

Amazon Marketplace is Amazon.com’s fixed price online marketplace that allows sellers to offer their goods alongside Amazon’s offerings. Buyers can buy new and used items sold directly by a third party through Amazon.com using Amazon Marketplace. This sales strategy and program has been very profitable for Amazon.com. Amazon charges a commission rate based on the sale price, a transaction fee, and a variable closing fee. The revenue models used by Amazon.com are sales revenue model and transaction fee revenue model.

Moreover, Amazon.com also generates revenue by affiliate revenue model. Amazon was one of the first online businesses to set up an affiliate marketing program. AStore is an Amazon.com affiliate product which website owners can use to create an online store on their site. The store does not allow website owners to sell their own products directly. Website owners pick products from Amazon’s store and earn referral fees on the products purchased by their readers. The fee structure is currently the same as for the other affiliate links and ranges from 4% to 10% of the product price.

AStore

eBay’s main sources of revenue is from fees charged to list items up, picture service fees, listing upgrade fees, final value fees and reservation fees. They charge fees to list an item. For example, for listing of regular items, eBay charges a fee which serves as a starting price. EBay also obtains its revenue by charging a picture service fee. The first picture uploaded in its site is free but the subsequent pictures incur fees. Other than that, eBay obtains its revenue from listing and updating fees. It provides various services to help its users to enhance their advertising or promotion of products but for a fee of course. They also charge final value fees. It is charged when there is a closing bid. Reservation fees is only charged if the item listed is not sold.

Furthermore, eBay generate revenue by sales revenue model through its subsidiary, Half.com, offers fixed price, person-to-person selling of goods, including books, CDs, videos and games, charging a 15% commission on completed sales.Additionally, a portion of Ebay’s revenue also comes from direct advertising on the site, as well as end to end service providers whose services increase the speed of transactions. The acquisition of PayPal, whose products allow the exchange of money over the Internet, brings additional transaction based fee revenue.

eBay generated overall revenue around $6 billion from its three primary business: auctions, payments (PayPal) and communication (Skype).

An example of an E-commerce failure and its causes

An Overview of Dot.com failure

At the year of Millennium, dotcom which is one of the examples of e-commerce face a huge doom in loss.

When and why does a dot-com become a dot-bomb? Here are some reasons:

This internet company was in such a rush to go public that forgot one small detail which is a sound of business plan. Firstly, profitability couldn’t be reached due to a lot of investment capital was poorly spent on planned companies. besides, poor Human Resources management did occur as well. Due to lots of cash in their hands, this company hired too many staffs or even worse, hired unqualified staffs. eg: hiring of friends or relatives often returned no value on investments.

In addition, poor financial management did occur in Dotcom Company. eg: they may build fancy offices which cost massive amount which doesn’t make any gain to the company. Next, there are even hundreds of errors could be found in just one web page of dotcom. eg: many customers did complain about the incorrect price and even the length and weight of the online products. Therefore customer dissatisfaction occurs and this company has to pay back to customers in return of cash. besides, lack of advertising gives a poor result for this company. This may lead to the problem which is nobody even knows whether this company really exists.

Link : http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id333/pg1/index.html

Example: Kozmo.com (1998-2001)

Kozmo.com was a venture-capital-driven / short-lived online store and delivery service that promised fast, friendly and without delivery charged of anything from snacks to movies such as DVD rentals to Starbucks coffee in the United States. The founder of this company are Joseph Park and Yong Kang, they started the business in March 1998 at New York City.

Kozmo.com was well-known with the idea that you could order anything at any time and have them delivered direct to your house within one hour with free of delivery charged. Kozmo.com is one of the top 10 tech we miss which hailed by CNET.com. The model of this kozmo.com targeted only large cities, especially New York and Boston. Items were delivered by employees with van, bikes or scooters. Unfortunately, it was failed and ran out of cash and as a result had closed on April 11, 2001.

There were few causes that make Kozmo.com failed:

1. Targeted to wrong customers

In July 2000, at the height of its business, the company expanded to seven cities. It was familiar with college student, young professionals, and the urbanites. This is one of the greatest errors for Kozmo when they stopped catering to their main client based on middle class collage-students and targeted upscale clients(young professionals and urbanites). This is because they want to target more upscale clients who would order expensive products. Indeed, kozmo ditch its collage-student customers who bring many businesses (pay a premium to have thousand of items) from DVD players to cotton swabs.

2. Cost

The company went out of business when they found that it was cost too much to deliver a DVD and a pack of gum. Eventually kozmo offered free delivery and charged competitive prices to its customers(a $10 minimum charge was introduced), but that did not stop it from closing in April 2001. This is because the cost of delivery and warehousing were too high. Besides, the company had hired about 1,100 of employees and there was a "big" payment too.

As a conclusion, although Kozmo.com had a great idea to have an online business, but their business still come to failure with the reason of they did not had a proper business plan. Without a proper business plan, Kozmo was too late to learn that its primary attraction of free delivery was also it’s a cause of defeat.

How E-Commerce can reduce cycle time, improve employees’ empowerment and facilitate customer support?

Reduce Cycle Time

Cycle time reduction - shortening the time it takes for a business to complete a productive activity from its beginning to end – is extremely important for increasing productivity and competitiveness. EC can reduce cycle time by eliminating steps in business processes. The steps may be redundant or can be replaced with more efficient technology solutions. Extranet-based applications can expedite the various steps in the process of product or service development, testing, and implementation. For example, EC expands the marketplace to national and international markets. With minimal capital outlay, a company can easily and quickly locate the best suppliers, more customers, and the most suitable business partners worldwide. EC also enables efficient e-procurement that can reduce cycle time by more than 50 percent. The elimination of the steps speeds the overall process and reduces cycle time.

Improve Employees’ Empowerment
Employee’s empowerment means giving employees the authority to act and make decisions on their own. EC can improve employees’ empowerment by providing employees with greater and easier access to information provided by the employer. The employees can work at home, deal with the customer complaint and receive the feedback from the customer using the information provided by the company intranet. EC allows the decentralization of decision making and authority via empowerment and distributed systems, but simultaneously supports a centralized control.

Facilitate Customer Support
EC facilitates customer support by providing a wide range of technological solutions and communication opportunities. EC enables companies to interact more closely with customers, even if through intermediaries. This allows for personalization of communication, products, and services, which promotes better CRM and increases customer loyalty. Additionally, EC supports self-help customer service so consumers can answer their own questions. EC allows customers to interact with other customers in electronic communities and exchange ideas as well as compare experiences.

The history and evolution of E-Commerce

The History and Evolution of E-Commerce

E-Commerce applications were first developed in the early 1970s with innovations such as electronic funds transfer (EFT), whereby funds could be routed electronically from one organization to another. However, the use of these applications was limited to large corporations, financial institutions, and a few other daring businesses. Then came electronic data interchange (EDI), a technology used to electronically transfer routine documents, which expanded electronic transfers from financial transactions to other types of transaction processing. EDI enlarged the pool of participating companies from financial institutions to manufacturers, retailers, services, and many other types of businesses. More new E-Commerce applications followed, ranging from travel reservation systems to stock trading. Such systems were called interorganizational system (IOS) applications, and their strategic value to businesses has been widely recognized.

The next evolution occurred in 1992 when the Mosaic web-browser was made available. It was the first ‘point and click’ browser. The Mosaic browser was quickly adapted into a downloadable browser -Netscape, which allowed easier access to electronic commerce. The development of DSL was another key moment in the development of e-commerce. DSL allows quicker access and a persistent connection to the Internet. In December of 1998, there was another major event in the development of e-commerce when AOL - a virtual EC company achieve sales of 1.2 billion over the 10-week holiday season from online sales. The development of Red Hat Linux was also another step in electronic commerce growth. Linux gave users another choice in a platform other than Windows that was reliable and open-source. Microsoft faced with this competition needed to invest more in many things including electronic commerce.

In 1999, the emphasis of EC shifted from B2C to B2B, and in 2oo1, from B2B B2E, c-commerce, e-government, e-learning, and m-commerce. The first, and most common, is business to consumer (B2C), which involves e-businesses that providing goods and/or services to end consumers. Common examples of popular B2C e-commerce include Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, and NewEgg.com. On the other side of the e-commerce spectrum, we have business to business (B2B) e-commerce, which is the electronic transactions between multiple businesses, and does not involve common products or consumers. B2C e-commerce has been changing the way people shop and conducted business through online for well over ten years, and has become a significant staple in the way modern retail giants attract and maintain loyal consumers from all over the globe. The number of online e-tailers (electronic retailers) continues to grow each and every year, and new marketing strategies are constantly being developed by businesses to ensure that their products are ultimately being found online and purchased by the end-user. In order to effectively sell through online, e-tailers need to be able to look at what their site offers through the eyes of the average consumer and come to grips with the fact that running a store online is essentially no different than a physical brick and mortar shop.

Given the nature of tachnology and the Internet, EC will undoutedly continue to shift and change. More and more EC sucesses are emerging.

about me- Tang Bee Chin

Hello, my name is Tang Bee Chin. You can call me Bee Chin. This is my first time creating my blog. As a freshman in blogging, I would like to share something about me with you all.
What I like to do when I’m free? Actually I don’t have very special hobbies. When I’m free, I like to watch television program, especially drama series. I also like to bake cakes and breads, although most of the time, the result didn’t turn out as what I expect. But I will keep trying and never give up.

The top five websites that I visited the most are google, yahoo, utar, kbes, and sinchew.
I always visit google and Yahoo websites because I need to search information for my assignments. I also visit Yahoo website to check mail. Besides that, I also visit utar website to check latest information about my course. Maybe many people don’t know what kbes website is. Actually it is a website of konsortium bas express. I always visit this website to check for available seats. I like to read newspapers but seldom buy newspapers because after one day, the newspaper will expired. As alternative, I like to visit the newspaper website such as sinchew website instead of buying newspapers.

My top five internet activities are checking email, sending email, receiving email, searching information, and in the future, maybe blogging.

Alice Choo's first blog

Hi, everyone, my name is Li Ping, who came from a small town which is famous with field of paddy– Alor Star, Kedah.

This is my first time writing blog, so I hope all of you will like it and enjoy reading it. @.@
If can, please write down your comments for me. Thanks a lot ;-)

Well, here is a little briefing about me. Actually I’m a talkative person as what my friends said about me, therefore my hobby definitely can’t run away from chatting part (“,).

First of all, my hobby is chatting through MSN. So, anyone who feels boring or wants to find people chit-chatting or want to fully utilize their free time- here I am ^^ (alicechoo_0607@hotmail.com) Besides, I’m a good listener also. (“,)

Other hobbies are surfing internet, watching movies and listening to the music. Normally I will download movies and songs from a certain websites through the internet. Moreover, I love to view people’s profile and photos through Friendster. For your information, these are the 5 main internet activities which I did everyday. Therefore, it can categorize as my daily habits. @.@
Besides, I can use this opportunity to relax my mind and to release my tension due to studies.

Top 5 websites that I like to visit the most and why:

I always log on http://www.msn.com/ to chatting with friends and http://www.hotmail.com/ to access e-mail inbox.
I use window messenger to communicate and keep in touch with my friends whether from hometown or from UTAR friends. Sometimes, I will use msn as a middle media to discuss the assignment and tutorial question with my group members too. Besides, I will check my mails also everyday from http://www.hotmail.com/.

This http://www.friendster.com/ is a medium for me to view my friend’s profile, photos and so on. With this, I’m able to get know what they are doing recently. Sometimes, I will upload my pictures that I took also at here. Besides, in this website, I can make friends with a lot of people with different cultures, places, age and so on. This is the way to enlarge my social network.

http://www.google.com/ is a search engine that I like the most when I want to find extra information for my assignment. Any information also can find from here and this search engine help me a lot when I face difficulties in doing my assignment.

I normally will use http://www.wikipedia.org/ to find the meaning of words that I am not familiar with and get more details information with the related field.

This is the website- http://www.youtube.com/ that I use to watch movies when I was boring.

Self-introduction

Hello, I’m Chia Jsai Ling. I originally from Sandakan, where also known as Natural City in Sabah. I have a lot of hobbies such as play badminton, reading, listen to music, surf net and so on. My favorite websites that I visited during my free time are:
1. www.yahoo.com
One of the popular website in today’s searching engine. It provides many functions for network visitor such as providing a place for any firm or company to do an advertisement.
2. www.google.com
It is another searching engine for me to search for information and photos that I wanted especially when doing my assignment.
3. http://www.utar.edu.my/
A very important intranet for me to check out any updated news or announcement from the university such as result for a particular semester, timetable for my lecturer and tutorial classes, lecture notes and tutorial questions for each subject, and so on.
4. http://www.airasia.com/
As I have mention earlier in this blog, my hometown is at East of Malaysia. Therefore, I may check out what is the current price for the flight’s fare from Kuala Lumpur to Sandakan which it can help me booking or making an online payment earlier when the price is the cheapest.
5. http://www.youtube.com/
It is a funny website which share many videos for others people to launching it. Beside, individual who has already sign up for their own account can post or upload their favorite videos in this website to share with the communities.

The mainly internet activities that I will do are searching information. As we know, internet is one of the ways for us to search any information that we wish to get it easily. Second, recognize many other friends through www.facebook.com and www.friendster.com. Both of these websites provides a space for people to find their friends. At here, we can know how another people’s life recently through their uploaded photos and their blog in this website. Other activities that I will do while online are download songs, videos and other information which I like. Window Live Messenger is my favorites which provide a space for me to chat with my friends as well as to communicate with my family or relatives. Reading news is one of my online activities when I am free where we can know what was happened in the global not only today but also the date before.

Sin May !!(>.<)!!

Hi there!! I’m Chong Sin May, currently pursuing BACHELOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (HONS) ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

People always think that I’m a cool person, especially strangers. Why? I think because I am too shy and seldom smile. I know I do look fierce when I don’t smile. Maybe I just don’t bother to smile at strangers.

You just need to take the first move in order to know me, as I don’t really dare to approach strangers. But with people who know me well, I can be a very talkative, outgoing and crazy. I am comfortable with the way I am, and always try to become a better person. *ahem*


Top five websites that I visited the most and why

Chinese cari.com
Usually during my free time, I’ll read ghost stories, learn new recipes, read the latest news and so on. This website is able to provide vital information that I need, and at the same time updates me with things that happened in the world from time to time.

Facebook
Facebook is a social networking website for me to keep in touch with my people that I know. I can add new friends, send instant messages to my friends, update personal profile as well as upload photos to share with my friends. By using facebook, I’m able to know what my friends have been doing all this while, keep in touch with them and so on.

Friendster
Friendster is also a social networking website similar to facebook. In friendster, I usually read my friends’ blogs, browse their photos, send them testimonials and comments during special occasions and other activities.

Hotmail
Hotmail will update me with those who had updated their social networking websites. By this way, I can visit their links in no time. Besides that, I enjoy reading interesting forwarded e-mails sent by my friends. Moreover, it is an essential website for me and my group mates as we need to exchange ideas for assignments through e-mailing.

99770.com
This is a website for me to view all kinds of comics. People in charged of the website will find and upload the latest comics. I am able to read the latest publication of my favourite comics in just a click. This is a place for me to relax and enjoy.


Top 5 internet activities

Msn messenger
I will use msn messenger almost everyday. This is one of my ways to keep in touch with my fellow friends. Msn messenger is extremely useful for me because I’m able to chat with friends who are currently studying in other states or overseas. It would be difficult for us to contact using snail mail or phone.

blogging
I have been addicted to blogging since 6 months ago. Blog is a place for me to express my feelings and thoughts. I can say that blog is a place for me to keep my happy and gloomy memories, and to let my friends know more about pieces of me. This would be my personal blog, http://cupidisme.blogspot.com/

Play games
Sometimes when I am bored, tired and frustrated, I’ll choose to play games on the internet. This could make me feel more refresh and excited. With a fresher mind, I can continue with my workload with better perception.

Read people’s blogs
Ever since I have been addicted to blogging, I enjoy reading blogs by friends, strangers and famous bloggers. Reading friends’ blogs enable me to catch up with what my friends have been doing all these while. Sometimes, blogs are quite inspiring and excellent blogs did motivate me. Other people’s blogs provide me with perspectives from new-angles and a better mindset.

Watch movies
Through internet, I’m able to download and watch movies, animations, cartoons, dramas and so on. This is delighting feature of internet activity especially when I can watch dramas or movies that I have missed in television or cinemas.

This is a blur photo of mine. Still can see right? then okay