Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

A blog reflects the interests, thoughts and opinions of people. A corporate blog is a blog Indeed, this communication tool enables published by or with the support of an organization to reach that organization's goals.multiple users to post easily their diaries of their thoughts to a website or even displayed it in a chronological way. Those texts are most of the time enriched with external links and opened to be commented by the readers.

People can make use of corporate blog instead of meeting customers or suppliers abroad. If we respectively compare corporate blogs and internet advertising, corporate blog definitely is more credible and reliable as it provides more authentic information, which considerably improves the brand image of the company. The readers or customers of the company will likely feel more involved in the development of products and confidence to the products of the company.

Furthermore, readers or customers do not have to wait for the weekly one page updated or for the monthly magazine as the information is available for everyone at the same time which is time consuming. The spread of the brand image in corporate blog provides even more dimension as compare to magazines advertising.

Moreover, corporate blogs provide a fast way to join the customers' discussions, provide tips and insights or receive feedback. It can give the customers a medium to voice out their opinions, since direct feedback is encouraged through the built-in commenting function.

Therefore, businesses cannot only increase their transparency but close the gap even further by engaging in personal conversations with their readers. Indirectly, corporate blogging play a vital role as a new marketing communication tool for most of the companies to enhance their sales or even maintain the company brand image.

These are some of the successful corporate blogs:

Kodak's Ofoto.com

Ofoto Blog is used to get feedback and resolve issues with Brownie, a new beta Mac application

Bplans.com

Bplans Blog is a great extension of Bplans.com, an informative site for entrepreneurs starting a new business. It's owned by Palo Alto software.

800-CEOREAD

The CEOREAD gives great reviews on the business books sold on the main site.

But there are still some disadvantages of corporate blogging which it can be tricky to drag public comment out of a company without knowing the company thoroughly and make many organizations look like disorganization with multiple tones and opinions. Moreover, if the corporate blogs are poorly written which may lead to reveal incompetence on his part of the writer. In conclusion, there are the pros and cons when conducting the corporate blogging but if the company can cope the disadvantages, there will not be a limitations to them.

Things to Take Note to Prevent E-Auction Fraud when a Consumer Participating in an E-Auction

E-auction, also called reverse auction is an electronic “reverse” auction where suppliers use internet-based software to bid against each other online and in real time against a published specification. E-auction can be based on price alone or can use transformational bidding to an account for other criteria such as quality and delivery.

E-Procurement Scotland (ePS) provides access to electronic auction (E-Auction) functionally through the E-Sourcing Scotland System. This system is an element of the “core” ePS service and is available to any buying organization participating in the programmed.

There are many types of E-Auction fraud. For example, bid shielding, fake photos and misleading description, improper grading technique, selling reproductions, failure to pay, inflated shipping and handling cost, failure to ship merchandise, switch and return and also loss and damage claims.

The largest Internet auctioneer, eBay has introduced several measures in an effort to reduce the fraud.

1. Feedback forum

It set up a forum to allow the buyers and sellers to build up their online trading reputations. It also provides users with the ability to comment on their experiences with others. All the information and history of any sellers could be acquired through the forum.

2. Escrow Service

Is a licensed and regulated company acted as an independent third party. Buyer mails the payment to escrow services which verifies the payment and alerts the seller when everything checks out.

3. User Verification System

Higher level of verification can be qualify by asked the bidders to offering their IC number, driver’s license number and also date of birth. The voluntary programs encourage users to supply information for online verification.

4. Authentication Service

It is to determine whether an item is genuine and described appropriately. It also very difficult to perform because of their training and experience, experts can detect counterfeits based on subtle detail.

5. Nonpayment Punishment

To help protect sellers, 1^st time nonpayment results in a friendly warning. A sterner warning is issued for a 2^nd time offence, a 30 days suspension for a 3^rd offence, and indefinite suspension for a 4^th offence.

Review on Lelong.com.my

The local e-commerce website is the Lelong at www.lelong.com.my which is a pioneer auction website in Malaysia that provide online trading at a low cost. This e-commerce site had developed from Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) transactions to become Business-to-Consumer (B2C) relationships. Many people have realised the usefulness of using the auction system and are now using our site to trade and grow their business. Approximately 70% of all items posted for auction on our site are sold. So, all users get a chance of obtaining a successful transaction.

Moreover, the interface is very user-friendly and easy to use. The speed of accessing the website is depends on the internet speed that subscribed by the users. Lelong has provides many types of products, such as personal care, books, jewellery and accessories, watches, pens and clocks, clothing, electronic products and etc. It had properly classified all the items in the website which is very convenient to all the users to browse their favorable items. This site even displays the pictures of the items that need to be trade and the price as well. The website is more structured and it is in different languages that can be choosing according to the users’ preference. Furthermore, the buyer wants to get what they pay for and the seller wants to get paid, the Lelong Safetrade can manage every aspects of the settlement process and remove risk from online transaction.

The shopping carts in Lelong are well equipping with the information needed by the buyer which contains others products’ details such as payment methods or shipping method. Moreover, the buyer can search the products that they want easily and the website provides a forum where all the users can share their opinions or any queries.

Most of the Malaysian are prefer to use Lelong.com.my as local E-Commerce site to trade or market their products or services due to it is more convenient compares to physical shops, where it do not need any physical place to store all the products. Furthermore it helps the users to choose more wisely because they can compares the prices before they purchase it or even they can bargain on it.

For further information, click on the links below;

• www.lelong.com.my

• http://help.lelong.com.my/cms/

E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies

In 1997, the Malaysian Government launched the Electronic Government initiative, generally known as e-Government, to reinvent itself to lead the country into the information age. The vision of Electronic Government is a vision for government, businesses and citizenry working together for the benefit of Malaysia and all of its citizens.

The e-Government projects are Electronic Procurement (eP), Project Monitoring System (PMS), Electronic Services Delivery (eServices), Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS), Generic Office Environment (GOE), E-Syariah and Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX).

Other than these seven main projects under e-government flagships, several government agencies has also initiated online services for the public projects, aims to increase the ease and efficiency of public service to the people. Among others were Public Services Portal (myGovernment), e-Tanah, e-Consent, e-Filing, e-Local Government (e-PBT), e-Kehakiman, Custom Information System (SMK), Pensions Online Workflow Environment (POWER), and Training Information System (e-SILA).One of the most successful applications is e-filling.

However, there is slow adoption of E-Government applications due to lack of integration and insufficient engagement of key stakeholders (especially users and citizens). This is because public are not aware of the services. Besides, there is a language barrier because most of the government websites are using Bahasa Malaysia. This may be a problem since some users are more comfortable to using other language like English and Chinese. Next is the issue of privacy and security because users maybe worry about their private personal data and the tax return can see by others.

Suggest ways to encourage more citizens to use the e-government applications. Firstly, government can organize some activities to introduce the e government application and teach the citizen how to use the e government application. For example, increase awareness through TV and radio advertisements, and organizing workshops at shopping malls. Next, government should provide websites with multiple language versions. Finally, government should improve the security and privacy application of e-government to make sure the data will not hack by the hacker.

For more information, visit the link below;

www.gov.my

Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: Its potential and consumers' adoption strategies.

Nowadays, there is high potential for mobile telecommunication networks to become an important electronic payment channel in our country as mobile phone services will make life easier for everyone. Mobile payment system is a system using mobile devices to make monetary transactions such as pay bills, perform banking transactions or shop online beyond voices.

In Malaysia there are several companies that already launched mobile payment systems such as Celcom, Maxis, Digi, TMtouch, Maybank, Hong Leong Bank, Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd, and mobileExec Sdn Bhd.

Celcom (Malaysia) Berhad, Malaysia's premier mobile network with the widest coverage, and paybox, the trendsetting company for mobile payment solutions, will be launching a mobile Banking & mobile Payment solution for the Malaysian market. Mobile Banking (m-banking) and mobile Payment (m-payment) in Malaysia provide real-time banking and payment instructions that enable customers access to their current e-banking systems using a Java client on their phone. It allows customers to access their accounts at any bank, at a minimal investment by the participating banks. Besides, Celcom will expand the system to include other partners and provide extended remittance, bill payment and merchant payment services.

As for consumers shop and pay via mobile phones, Visa International collaborated with Nokia Corporation had introduce the world's first credit card payment pilot system in Malaysia recently, called "Mobile Visa Wave Payment Pilot". The backbone of the mobile payment system is Visa Wave smart card technology. The technology is equipped with sophisticated radio frequencies that eliminate the need to swipe credit cards into a reader. The service will be available on the Nokia 3230 prototype phone. Users will be able to use the phones to make payments in 2,500 outlets equipped with Visa Wave readers. Nokia's business development senior manager Risto Sipila expects such services to become more popular as, mobile phone users worldwide are likely to go up to 3 billion by 2008. It is because visa is using a specialized chip with the latest cryptography, security and smart card technologies which making the system extremely secure and forging difficult.

MobileExec currently provides premium rate SMS messaging across the all major Malaysian carriers. In the Malaysia, premium rate SMS and reverse billing services are regulated by Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC). Such services are developing fast in the Europe and recently in Malaysia. It provides customers with admission or money off vouchers which can be unique coded or designed to allow viral spread. The mobile payment gateway service covers all mobile operators on Malaysia, with support for prepaid and postpaid service billings. Those packages include the following:

• Project Planning and Management Services


• Product Catalogue Submission (to all mobile operators)


• Premium Billing System Configuration


• Systems and Load Testing


• User Acceptance Testing (UAT) will all mobile networks


• Service Launch


• Monthly Service Monitoring and Progress Report


• Settlement Reports, collections from mobile operators
  

In short, the mobile payment system is easier, more cost-effective and more convenient for consumers, merchants and service-providers to execute and receive payments. Furthermore, mobile payment is safe and secure. It allows people to make payment at anytime from anywhere with just one SMS. It also allows people to receive money from anyone at anytime. As for merchants, business can be done anywhere such as conduct billing. There will be increased business opportunities for merchants as remote mobile payment can be done easily with the lower transaction and maintenance cost.

Electronic Currency

Electronic currency also called E-micro payment which is the digital equivalent of paper currency and coins which enables secure and anonymous purchase of low-priced items. It also refers to the money or scrip which is exchanged electronically. Normally, it involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. It also a collection term for financial cryptography and technologies enabling it.

Electronic currency has been widely used throughout the world on an institutional level for more than two decades. Today, nearly all of the deposit currencies in the world’s banking systems are handled electronically though a series of computer network.

E-micro payment systems include BitPass, Firstgate’s Click and Buy, PayLoadz, Paystone, Peppercoin, Beenz, Digicash and also Flooz. Thus, I’m choosing Peppercoin to be discussed.

Peppercoin is an innovative payment platform allowing consumers to use credit or debit cards for small transantions. Peppercoin’s systems are designed to be deployed as part of the banking and payment processing infrastructure. It is a small and micro payment processing solution that is highly compatible with existing payment products.

Peppercoin system was developed by Silvio Micali and also Ron Rivest. It was first presented on 2002 at RSA Conference. Peppercoin itself is not in the business of distributing content to users. It has developed the Peppercoin Small Payment Gateway a payment system that enables digital content distributors to sell content to users profitably at very low price.

Peppercoin solves the problem of the financial cost of transactions by dramatically reducing the cost of processing low-value transactions, thereby enabling new, financially sustainable, content distribution models, including those for the college and university marketplace.

Through a patent-pending process of cryptographically secure selection of digital payments, Peppercoin processing low-value transactions, reducing the volume of transactions that must be processed by a third-party payment processor or financial institution. Peppercoin states that their approach requires far less overhead than traditional transaction, based on RSA digital signatures to process and protect customer payment.

Credit Card debts: Causes and Prevention

Here is how to tell when you are too deep in credit card debt: if 15% or more of your monthly income goes to pay your credit card bills, you have triggered one of the many warning signs that your credit card debt is out of control. There are other triggers, too: paying the monthly payments on one credit card by taking out a cash advance on another credit card.

Credit cards give you protection for your purchases, allow you to shop on line, and provide a cushion in case of emergencies. However, people who overspend by using credit card have a hard time making ends meet and trouble saving for the future. The negative consequence of using credit card is that you will spend more if you use credit cards. When you pay cash, you can "feel" the money leaving you. But, this is not true with credit cards.

Credit cards are not free money. In fact, they are really high interest loans in disguise. Here is a breakdown of some typical credit card fees:

Finance charge: This is an interest charge (can be as high as 25 percent) on the unpaid portion of your bill each month.

Annual fee: Some companies charge yearly membership fees of anywhere from $20 to $100.

Cash advance fee: Avoid cash advances—fees are steep, and interest rates are usually higher.

Late payment fee: Paying late can also result in high interest rates.

Some of credit card holders pay only the minimum payment, practically guaranteeing a lifetime of debt if they do not change their credit card habits. So what is the solution?

Develop a budget: The first step toward taking control of your spending is to do a realistic assessment of how much money you take in and how much money you spend. Start by listing your income from all sources. Then, writing down all your expenses, even those that seem insignificant, is a helpful way to track your spending patterns, identify necessary expenses, and prioritize the rest.

Keep your credit limit low: A low credit limit will help you resist the urge to splurge. If you receive a congratulatory letter informing you your credit limit has been increased, you should call the credit card issuer and decline the offer. If the issuer would not do it, close the account.

It have been said that guns don't kill people; people kill people! In a similar vein, credit cards all by themselves do not get people into trouble. Personal finance is 80% behavior. Thus, you need to cut out habits that make you spend more.

The Application of Pre-paid Cash Card for Consumers

Pre-paid cash card is an electronic cards which has monetary value loaded into it and it is rechargeable. This electronic cards had improved our daily life become more convenient and we do not need pay extra charges for it. It is easily to be used, just tap the pre-paid cash card on the entry card reader.

Touch 'n Go

Example of the pre-paid cash card in Malaysia is the Touch ‘n Go card. It is an electronic purse that can be used at all highways in Malaysia such as the PLUS, major public transports in Klang Valley such as RapidKL , selected parking sites and theme park. It uses contactless smartcard technology and looks similar to a credit card. The consumers can use it widely around the Malaysia

Apart from that, user can continue using the card as long as it is pre-loaded with electronic cash. User can reload the card at toll plazas, train stations, Automated Teller Machines, Cash Deposit Machines, Petrol kiosks and at authorised third party outlets. It is very convenient to all the users in terms of saving their time from a long queue with an efficient speed of paying and do not require any cash on hand. Below is the Touch 'N Go Electronic Payment System (EPS) flow.

Click on the image to enlarge it.

For further information about the Touch ‘n Go card, click on the image below;

Octopus

In Hong Kong, the Octopus card which had been internationally recognised, is a contactless stored value smart card that can be rechargeable that used to transfer electronic payments through online or offline systems in Hong Kong. It is widely used for all the public transport in Hong Kong, on-street parking meters, car parks, and other point-of-sale applications such as service stations and vending machines. According to the Octopus Cards Limited, operator of the Octopus card system, there are more than 16 million cards which more than twice the population of Hong Kong. The cards are used by 95 percent of the population of Hong Kong aged 16 to 65, generating over 10 million daily transactions.

There are two main types of Octopus card which are the On-Loan and Sold; and two less common types which are the Airport Express Tourist and the Mass Transit Railway Airport Staff. On-Loan cards are issued for usage in day-to-day functions, primarily for fare payment in transport systems. They are further classified into Child, Adult, Elder, and Personalised categories, with the first three based on age and different amounts of fare concession. On-Loan cards are anonymous; no personal information, bank account, or credit card details are stored on the card and no identification is required for the purchase of these cards except Personalised cards.

For further information about the Octopus card, click on the image below;

EZ-link

Another example in the Singapore is the EZ-link card which link the ez-link card to the consumer’s credit card account. In addition, there is a multi-purpose machine for the consumers to carry out all the ez-link card transactions through the General Ticketing Machine (GTM) such as top up the value or check the balance of the ez-link card. It widely used in food and beverage such as McDonald’s restaurants; convenience store such as 7 Eleven; government services such as National Library Board; private bus services such as Metro Tours Singapore; shopping, retail and leisure.

For further information about the EZ-link card, click on the image below;

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

Most computer users are aware of the dark side of the Internet. Our online world brings issues of credit card and identity theft, junk mail and seedy content right into our homes and offices. Nowadays, the Internet has become an important tool and we are exposed to the threat of online security due to the increasing use of internet.

It has been published that over 100 million cases of identity theft have taken place since year 2005. This can happen in several ways, but it is no news that the main character in this story is the laptop. It can be lost or it can be stole, and therefore, all of the private and confidential data that we store in the laptop is lost and our personal information is being exposed to others.

More and more, data management is moving to the Internet—causing even greater security challenges. Software can have many security layers, but the data protection is only as good as the website firewall—and hackers still can get in and do damage.

Trojan horse attacks pose one of the most serious threats to computer security. Trojan horse, also known as a trojan, is a piece of malware which appears to perform a certain action but in fact performs another such as transmitting a computer virus. Trojans do not replicate like a virus, but they do leave behind a program that can be contacted by another computer. From there, they can do just about anything.

Trojans are also known as RATS (remote access trojans) and they are most often hidden in games and other small software programs that unsuspecting users download then unknowingly execute on their personal computer.

Spyware programs range from annoying to the dangerous, including keyboard loggers and screen capture applications that can steal passwords and other sensitive information. The programs are sometimes bundled in with shareware or freeware programs that can be downloaded from the Internet. Often times they claim to be helpful utilities that also carry a more sinister side.

Spyware installed on computer without users’ consent. Spyware software will monitor or controls computer use once it install on the computer. It may be used to send user pop-up ads, redirect user computer to websites, monitor the Internet surfing, or record user keystrokes, which, in turn, could lead to identity theft.

Threats today have become more complicated. They tend to use multiple vectors to spread, thus increasing their chances of infection. Once on the system, these threats tend to show little to no symptoms so they can survive undetected. Therefore, we have to be aware of all this threat and be careful to protect our data when access to Internet.

Examples of phishing and way to prevent phishing

Phishing is the process of attempting information illegally and fraudulently through the internet such as the usernames, passwords and credit card details by creating a fake websites which mislead the real company’s customers to enter their details at the website. Examples like the PayPal, eBay, and online banks. These are many examples of phishing e-mail such as showing below.

Click on the image to enlarge it.

For more examples, visit the link below.

http://www.chase.com/ccp/index.jsp?pg_name=ccpmapp/privacy_security/fraud/page/fraud_examples

Below are the methods that can prevent phishing:

Eliminating phishing mail

Specialized spam filters can reduce the number of phishing e-mails that reach their addressees inboxes. These approaches rely on machine learning and natural language processing approaches to classify phishing e-mails.

Monitoring and takedown

Several companies offer banks and other organizations likely to suffer from phishing scams round-the-clock services to monitor, analyze and assist in shutting down phishing websites. Individuals can contribute by reporting phishing to both volunteer and industry groups, such as Phistank.

Helping to identify legitimate sites

Since phishing is based on impersonation, preventing it depends on some reliable way to determine a website's real identity. For example, some anti-phishing toolbars display the domain name for the visited website. The pet name extension for Firefox lets users type in their own labels for websites, so they can later recognize when they have returned to the site. If the site is suspect, then the software may either warn the user or block the site outright.Browsers alerting users to fraudulent websites

Another popular approach to fighting phishing is to maintain a list of known phishing sites and to check websites against the list. Microsoft's IE7 browser, Mozilla Firefox 2.0, and Opera all contain this type of anti-phishing measure. Firefox 2 uses Google anti-phishing software. Opera 9.1 uses live blacklists from PhishTank and GeoTrust, as well as live whitelists from GeoTrust. Some implementations of this approach send the visited URLs to a central service to be checked, which has raised concerns about privacy. According to a report by Mozilla in late 2006, Firefox 2 was found to be more effective than Internet Explorer 7 at detecting fraudulent sites in a study by an independent software testing company.

An approach introduced in mid-2006 involves switching to a special DNS service that filters out known phishing domains: this will work with any browser, and is similar in principle to using a hosts file to block web adverts.

To mitigate the problem of phishing sites impersonating a victim site by embedding its images (such as logos), several site owners have altered the images to send a message to the visitor that a site may be fraudulent. The image may be moved to a new filename and the original permanently replaced, or a server can detect that the image was not requested as part of normal browsing, and instead send a warning image.

Augmenting password logins

A method to prevent simple phishing of transaction numbers (TANs) is to associate each TAN with a "lock number". The bank's server sends the lock number as a challenge, and the user provides the corresponding TAN as the response. The server selects the key-lock pair randomly from the list to prevent acquiring two consecutive TANs. Lock numbers are not sequential, so that phishers can only guess correct lock numbers.

The application of 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia

E-Commerce application had been widely used in today century but there is limitation when using it. Thus, the third party certification is very important when the customers dealing business through the internet and they do not need to worry there is fake retailers or the unsecure open network communication. This is the programmer that run by an independent institutions that licensed by the country law which it is trustable and reliable.

One of the third party certification programme is the MSC Trustgate Sdn Bhd, which is a Malaysian company and licensed Certification Authority (CA) in Malaysia since 1999 that helps to secure the open network communications and business transactions. They are offering complete security solutions and leading trust services that are needed by individuals, enterprises, government, and e-commerce service providers using digital certificates, digital signatures, encryption and decryption such as the finest Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to assist all the companies in conducting their business over the Internet.

PKI Technologies help the organizations to enhance the security of the data and manage identification credentials from users and organization. It helps to secure by based on the exchange of digital certificates between authenticated users and trusted resources. The E-Commerce users can design their own PKI to meet the preferable security and technical requirements of their organization such as confidentiality where PKI users will use it to encrypt data that is stored or transmitted.

The third party certification programme had made the E-Commerce more widely used without any worries. All the consumers can safely purchase their preferable products or services through the internet especially for those users who always doing the buying and selling goods such as the eBay users. Thus, all the transactions can be safely made and the company can operate the business more efficiently and effectively.

For more information on the MSC Trustgate, click on the link below;

http://www.msctrustgate.com/

Example of others third party certification programme is the VeriSign which provides a security that enables key transactions, protects data, and safely delivers information across myriad protocols and devices. They had protected over 900,000 web servers worldwide, so consumers can shop safely everyday through the internet. It is a trust between the buyer and seller. Example of the products are the VeriSign Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption is one of the most effective ways to establish that trust which secure e-commerce and communications for web sites, intranets, and extranets. The VeriSign Secured™ Seal is one of the most recognized trust marks on the Internet which can protects the server.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology protects your web site and makes it easy for the web site visitors to trust the company in three essential ways which enables encryption of sensitive information during online transactions, each SSL Certificate contains unique, authenticated information about the certificate owner and verifies the identity of the certificate owner when it is issued.

Each SSL Certificate consists of a public key and a private key. The public key is used to encrypt information while the private key is used to decipher it. When a Web browser points to a secured domain, a Secure Sockets Layer handshake authenticates the server and the client. An encryption method is established with a unique session key and secure transmission. This is useful when the company has online store or accept online orders and credit cards or the website need to process sensitive data such as address, birth date, license, or ID numbers. Lastly, to comply with privacy and security requirements besides to protect privacy and to gain consumer’s trust.

For further information, visit the link below;

http://www.verisign.com/

How to Safeguard Our Personal and Financial Data

Today’s changing environment had affects the way for everyone to maintain their information. Whether the information in a data file or hard copy paper records, all organizations need to be able to capture and retrieve information, usually at a moment’s notice. However, how can we safeguard our personal and financial data?

There are few ways I suggested to protect our personal data

• Password access
  

• We can use the password system to lock our data so that it won’t be too easy to let people access into our data.
  

• Identify where the data is stored
  

• Our sensitive or confidential data are kept nicely and put in specific places within the network or computer. These network shares, hard drivers, servers, or system folders can have their specific method to keep them more secure. Whenever possible, store there data on the devices that are physically secured. We can allowed only the authorized individuals to access into there devices and monitor access to there devices whenever possible.
  

• Restrict network or shared access
  

• We don’t allow anyone access into there sensitive and personal data unless they specifically require to access. We limit it to only those who really need it can limit the risk of both accidental and malicious exposure. By this, we not only protecting the data, but also protecting out organization.
  

• Temporary data storage
  

• If we really wan to store our personal data on a memory stick, laptop or other device temporarily, remove those data from devices once finished. We must ensure that the data are totally erased but not just deleted.
  

• Use separate local or network accounts
  

• By using separate accounts, we can be assigned very specific access rights and privileges. Using separate accounts with differing access levels limits the potential for accidental or malicious data exposure.

For safeguarding the financial data

• Use a credit card with a small limit
  

• Nowadays, the dishonest sales clerk can easily use our credit card information. If we reduce the credit limit of the card, at least thieves won’t be able to rack up many bills before hitting a wall.
  

• Review monthly statements
  

• By reviewing our monthly statements, it can alert to possible fraudulent charges. Sometimes, we can find out also the legitimate charges for services that are either redundant or no longer necessary.
  

• Choose PIN wisely
  

• While we want to choose something easier for us to remember, we normally will choose the Pin likes our birth date or identity card no. By then, it was giving the chance for the thief to break our password. For more secured, we offer users to use the combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, number, and symbols.
  

• Protect computer’s security
  

• We can use as many tools as can (anti-virus software, spy ware, firewalls and password) to guard computer information from nefarious. Failing to protect computer is just as bad as leaving your door unlocked.

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