An Example of an E-Commerce success and its Causes

Amazon.com, Inc. is an American electronic commerce company in Seattle, Washington. Amazon was one of the first major companies to sell goods by Internet.

The key to Amazon.com's success is a strong focus on customer experience.Amazon.com seeks to be the world's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they may want to buy online. For example, Amazon.com's All Product Search scours the Web to help customers find merchandise that is not available at Amazon.com, Amazon.com Auctions, or Amazon.com zShops, making Amazon.com the shopping destination to find anything.

By the way, Amazon.com also understands customer profiling without invading customer privacy. In other words, Amazon.com will suggest books and products that might interest the customers based on the purchasing behavior of customers -- yet the customers will never get spam or a bunch of junk mail from Amazon.com that is off topic. It is a form of permission marketing that greatly respects the customer and their privacy. Amazon.com has found exactly the right balance between customer profiling and customer privacy.

Beside that, Amazon differentiates itself by making sure that it offers the same quality products as any other company with a noticeably lower price. In order to make this happens, Amazon.com is doing great effort with wholesalers and tends to “connect to resources that give it scale rather than adding internal physical mass.” In addition, customers do not have to pay sales taxes on their purchases. In effect, Amazon has been allowed to set itself up as a virtual tax-free shopping zone.

In fact, Amazon has build up trust that it will deliver orders on time. Amazon always make improvement to increase the company's stocking and shipping capabilities and reduced the time it took to fill customers' orders. Any goods that are ordered by customer will be shipped on time and customer is able to track that shipment easily through the web.

In conclusion, Amazon has won over the masses with its straightforward web design and friendly interface, and most importantly the unique shopping experience. Therefore, Amazon is able to develop an extremely loyal customer base.

History and Evolution of E-Commerce

Electronic Commerce is very important in today business world, which commonly known as e-commerce and it consists of selling and buying of products or services over electronic systems such as the internet and other computer networks. Nowadays there are a lot of buyers prefer to shop online. Modern e-commerce typically uses the World Wide Web for the transaction system. Ecommerce became possible in 1991 when the Internet was opened to commercial use. Since that date thousands of businesses have taken up residence at web sites.

The meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the last 30 years. Originally, electronic commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These were both introduced in the late 1970s, allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce. From the 1990s onwards, electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.

Amazon and Ebay were among the first Internet or E-Commerce companies that allow electronic transactions. Thanks to their founders, we now have a successful ecommerce sector and enjoy the buying and selling advantages of the Internet. Currently there are 5 largest and most famous worldwide Internet retailers: Amazon, Dell, Staples, Office Depot and Hewlett Packard. According to statistics, the most popular categories of products sold in the World Wide Web are music, books, computers, office supplies and other consumer electronics.

Below are the clip video on E-Commerce Evolution

An Example of an E-Commerce Failure and its Causes

Although the E-Commerce had been known of its successfulness after being implemented it but still there are some failures of it. The Pets.com was a key example of companies which plummeted in the Dot.com crash. Pets.com attempted to sell pet accessories and supplies directly to the customer over the web.

Pets.com was started by Greg McLemore in November 1998. It was then purchased in early 1999 by a venture capitalist firm. Amazon.com backed Pets.com raised $82.5 million in an IPO funds in February 2000. However, Pets.com was gone into liquidation in November 6, 2000.

However, lack of experience in management and poorly constituted business plan led to the downfall of Pets.com. Company had raised more than $100 million in supporting only for the advertisement. Besides that, the CEO and the managing body had little or no experience in running the company. This consistent deficiency of experience led to the lack of a sufficient business proposal. Moreover, the company was loosing money on every shipment it made.

Furthermore, the idea of Pets.com was inadequate. The company was choosing a business that is not profitable. Via internet, the customers just can view the picture of the pets but cannot touch the pets by themselves. This makes the customers loss confident to trust on the quality of the pets and also the pets’ health condition. However if customers really want to order for the pets, they also have to wait for several days before the pets delivered to them. Purchasing online offered no real benefit whether it is regards to price or convenience.

That is very important to identify the demand and needs of the consumers as well as understand the market and the needs of the consumers. Before begin the business, Pets.com never survey for the market demand of the pets. The inability to define clearly and to understand the market demand and the needs of the customer and their buying habits also causes the failure of e-commerce.

Although Pets.com shows the failure of e-commerce, but there are also some transactions showing the success of e-commerce such as amazon.com, eBay.com, and Dell. Thus, lots of strategic planning has to be done before implementing e-commerce.
There are few more others website that facing E-Commerce failures. View the link below.

http://www.cnet.com/4520-11136_1-6278387-1.html?tag=feat.2

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

E-Commerce is basically an electronic system that enables all the suppliers, manufacturers or even the consumers to sell or purchase the products or services through a convenient ways. Besides that, they also can communicate through this web site.

Cycle time is the time where a process needed to complete from beginning until the end of it. This system can help to reduce the cycle time by creating a fast and direct system without wasting any valuable time. Example like the customers can get immediate responses from the dealers or the supplier once the customers request to purchase the items on the system. From the system, it will immediately get to the suppliers without wasting time and money to go to the shop and they can make the payment online through credit cards. After the company receives the orders and payment, they will prepares the items accordingly and send it to the customers. Thus, the e-commerce can reduce the cycle time of this process.


When conducting the E-Commerce, the company will need the employees to check on the system and process any transactions that requested by the customers. This allows the company to give more power and responsibility to the employees and thus, they have more flexibility in conducting their works. Nowadays, by having this system, the employees even can work at their own house and can provide a quick response or feedback to the customers through the internet.

Moreover, the E-Commerce allows the owner of the system to facilitate the customer support by provides a special place for the users to place their comments, complaints or question on any of their doubt on the system through online. Example like most of the E-Commerce website, there are the “Products Frequently Ask Questions (FAQ)”. The systems also can provide the contact information of the company. All of these can enhance the customer support.

Self Introduction - Khar Wai

My name is Lee Khar Wai. I was born in 1987 in Hospital Universiti ,Selangor.

My favorite pastime is listening to the music, watching movies and reading books. I like to watch movies and my favorite movie is The Lord of the Rings. Reading is another hobby of mine. Novels are my favorites, but sometimes, literature can be even better. I also like to read comic such as Detective Conan.

Next, let’s me talk about the websites that I visited the most. Firstly, I like to visit http://www.sinchew.com.my/. This is the website of E-Newspapers of Sin Chew Daily. This website is updated everyday so that readers are aware of the current issue and acquire a better knowledge of what is happening in the world. I like to visit this site because reading the newspaper is like traveling around the world. Second website that I like to visit the most is http://zhidao.baidu.com/?t=50. In this website, there are interactive discussions. We can ask any questions and get the answer from the net friend that knows the answer. We can also post some own opinion for the question or issue that asked by another. It has brought me into contract with many great minds and also improved my knowledge. Besides that, I like to visit some web blog to read on the article that posted by the blogger. Usually, I will visit http://www.wretch.cc/blog/chaisan. The blogger is a female that like to travel around. She has been traveled to Nepal and the Himalayas, so she is sharing with us the detailed articles and some of the wonderful photo. Another website that I visited the most is the www.utar.edu.my where I can get the examination timetable, results, reading the announcements, and so on. Lastly, I like to visit http://www.youtube.com/ because this website consist many clip videos or movies and I can watch the it without paying a sen.(^.^)

Usually, I will chat online with my friend through the Windows Live Messenger. Some of my friends live far away from the city and we cannot see each other frequently. Therefore, I always chat with them through this messenger, so that we can know the current situation of each other.

Besides, I will search for information that are needed when I doing my assignment or for other academic purposes. We can just search the information easily by entering the key word in the search engine instead of searching through library because sometime the information that we need is not always available or difficult to search for in the library.

Next, I can search for some of my favorite music online and listening to it. Some of the website is providing music or song so that we can listen to it. So, I can buy that song or CD if I really like it after I listen to it.

Furthermore, I always read e-newspaper or books online. Being open-minded, I’m ready to absorb new things, but I always have strict attitude towards academic findings.

Finally, I will watch movies through internet because there are many free movies available on net.

Self Introduction - Seok Fun

Ooi Seok Fun is my name. I am taking accounting course at UTAR Sungai Long. Even though this year is my last year, but I still wish to graduate as soon as possible. Actually I do not like to study, but it is my responsibility to finish study this course. When I am free, I will prefer watching dramas than reading.

www.hotmail.com

I surf this website to check on the mails or replying any important email as well as using the accounts to chat online with friends through the Windows Live Messenger.

www.friendster.com

I would like to visit frequently to upload the photos; sometimes I will view my friends’ photo to know their life conditions.

www.yahoo.com

Since I joining a committee, I always visit the Yahoo group, as the committee members will post the announcement at there as well as discussions about something. Besides that, I also will check on the emails at this website.

www.google.com

I will surf this website always during the assignments period to find all the relevant information.

www.utar.edu.my

It is mostly viewed during exam period to check our result and time table besides to check on the announcements and getting extra information through the intranet.

Once I access to internet, I will first sign in to my msn messenger. It is a best messenger that let us to communicate with friends. Moreover, we also can discuss and online chatting at here. Sometimes, I will play online game. Since we are accounting students, so we are trying to minimize our daily cost. So I will access to the internet to read newspaper. Internet is very useful for us. So we should wisely use it.

Self Introduction - Wai Kee

Hello… My name is Seen Wai Kee. My friends used to call me HuiQi when I was in primary school. I come from a small town call Mantin which stated at Nine State, people so call it Negeri Sembilan. I was born at 30 January 1987, which is now 21 years old.

I used to be a tarcian for 1 year to complete the foundation course in order to head to UTAR accounting course. During the 1 year in TAR College, I get a lot of experience such as loafing with housemates at night especially the period during final exam. This is such a bad attitude but I quite enjoy this type of study life style which I can’t get in UTAR Sg Long. Now, I am taking accounting course in UTAR, one more year to graduate.

When I was first in UTAR, I joined Army society and people usually known as Askar wataniah. I was recruited last year (2007) in Kuala Kubu Baru. The training took me one month. During the one month training, I get to learn lot things such as how to manage some weapon such as M16, compass marching, survival and so on. Besides, I get to know a gang of friends from different places but most of them come from Pulau Pinang.

I used to spend on surfing the nets. And usually I will login to www.hotmail.com to check my latest mails. Besides I will also used to surf to www.friendster.com when I was free to look at the latest photos updated by friends. When I was free or when I feel stress, I will login to www.viwawa.com to play games there. The others websites which I used to login is groups.yahoo.com to check the latest news from society and www.google.com to find information needed for assignment.

Self Introduction - Wai Ling

Hi, everyone. Let me introduce myself. My name is Sik Wai Ling and currently studying Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) Accounting in UTAR. I am 21^st years old this year and staying in Sentul. I like to travel during my holiday or free time and learn something new from each place that I had visited such as the interesting places in that place as well as the people’s culture. Besides that, I like to listen to the music while surfing the net and reading the magazines.

The Top 5 websites that I often visit are;

www.yahoo.com :

Surfing this website is to check all the emails as well as the IFDB Committee group’s updates. Because I am one the committee, thus I need to keep myself update on what is happening from time to time.

www.friendster.com

Friendster website can allow me to stay connected with all my friends especially those primary and secondary school friends. Besides that, I also can read my friends blog through this website.

www.utar.edu.my

From the UTAR website, I can check on the timetable, examination results, announcements, information on borrowed books, and so on.

www.dvrplayer.com.my

Surfing this net, I can listen to all the Malaysia radio through online without paying any money.

www.ebuddy.com

This is the web and mobile messenger that allow me to chat online with my friends without any downloads or installation of any software.

Besides surfing the above website, I always chat online with my friends through the ebuddy website or MSN messengers. Even to discuss the current issues and the assignments questions with my group members. Most of the time, my activities are searching the information for my assignments and during my free time, I will listen to the radio and streaming.