Research shows that usually 68-80% of E-commerce business fails within the initial five years of their existence. That means it is really hard to survive in the e-commerce field.
E-mall is a type of E-commerce model. According to Turner (2008, p. 47) E-mall is an online shopping center where many online stores are located. When the E-mall first came out, it attempted to emulate the concept of the physical mall.
This concept failed due to the fact that distance, which may be a barrier in the physical world, does not exist in the cyber world where other E-shops are just a click away. This added with the increased user sophistication and demand to handle a variety of seller-buyer user interfaces provided by the many different forms of E-shops have caused many of the firsts E-malls to fail.
An example in Malaysia would be Planet Asia. It was the first E-mall in our country. There were a variety of E-shops in Planet Asia, selling a wide range of products from flowers to books.
Planet Asia failed after a year of extensive marketing and investment but more likely due to other factors. Basically E-commerce in developing countries such as Malaysia faces a number of challenges.
The reasons for the failure of Planet Asia are because of the following reasons:-
Lack of telecommunications infrastructure: This includes: - poor Internet connectivity - lack of fixed telephone lines for end user dial-up access - the underdeveloped state of Internet Service Providers - lack of skills among consumers needed in order to use the internet
Distrust : Distrust of what businesses do with personal and credit card information is an E-commerce issue in any country, but in countries where there may be good justification for such distrust, it could become a serious obstacle to E-commerce growth.
Cultural barriers: Cultural barriers in some countries may also exist to deter the acceptance of e-commerce as a way of doing business. Shopping is a social activity and personal face-to-face contacts with sellers is an important part of the shopping experience.
Lack of developed legal and regulatory systems: This would inhibit the development of e-commerce in developing countries.
E-commerce will be ends up with bankruptcy when they fail to become efficient and provide value. However, according to Rovenpor,2003, the E-commerce failure rate is declining sharply. Technological limitationsare easier to solve as they require more money and more time. Non-technological limitations are more difficult to solve as they involve changing human perception and thinking. The failure of the first E-mall in Malaysia is mostly contributed by the the non-technological limitations.
Advertisingis the revenue model that drives Google’s growth as a business-services company. More than 90% of Google revenue is generated by advertising services. The principal services provide by Google include Google AdWords, Google AdSense, and Froogle(Google Product Search ).
Other than that, Google is successful in licensing its basic search technology to Yahoo!, AOL, Netscape, and many other high-profile Internet portals. This licensing activity has generated strong revenue flows for Google, matured the company’s business standing, and extended its brand to near-ubiquity.
Amazon.com is adopting sales revenue model. Amazon was one of the first major companies which derive revenue by selling goods online. Amazon.com started as an on-line bookstore, but soon diversified to product lines of DVD, music CDs, MP3 format, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, etc.
eBay is adopting subscription fees revenue and transaction fees revenue. eBay does not have inventory like Amazon.com. It only provides technology platforms and tools for e-commerce. eBay gets revenue by charging the seller on the item listed on their website and the commission charged on each completed sale transaction. PayPal (electronic payment service) was acquired by eBay in 2002 and starts earning transaction fees from PayPal.
Starting from the late 20th century, customer are ever-increasingly demanding and consequently, product sophistication and variety exploded. Add increasing business globalisation to this mix, distribution of goods and services become more and more complex and problematic. IT, especially Web-based EC technologies provides solutions to some business areas.
Reduce Cycle Time Cycle time is the amount of time taken between a customer placing an order and receiving the goods. ECfacilitates order taking and order fulfillmentin both B2B and B2C. For example in B2B, orders are generated and transmitted automatically to suppliers when inventory level falls below certain levels, and then interface with the suppliers' back-office systems such as logistics, so that orders can be delivered immediately. This thus shortens the cycle time. Perhaps the most salient illustration would be the delivery of digitized goods and services (e.g. software), where the cycle time is only seconds!
Improve Employees' Empowerment Empowerment occurs when management vests/decentralizes decision making and authorities in employees where, traditionally, such authority is a managerial prerogative. EC (usually thru corporate portal) allows greater empowerment because it provides employees with greater and easier access to company's news and information. For instance, and other large company like utilized EC to link employees with up-to-date marketing, product, strategic information, articles about competition, and industry news documents for better empowerment. (Turban, 2008)
Click here to read on a real world case study:E-Commerce Supports Field Employees at Maybelline, to see how , leader in color cosmetics products, used EC to support its field employees.
Facilitate Customer Support Putting a business on the Internet means more than just simply selling products or services online. It should mean an EC site with many of the customer service attributes one would expect from a physical store. Sometimes, beyond these expectations. EC facilitates customer support by providing a wide range of technological solutions and communication opportunities. Customer support can range from FAQ, forumsto discuss matters, contact-us/email-us links, to customer service, and order status that allows customers to check the status of their orders online.
Click hereto visit Support website, rated as an award winning support site.Click here also to visit Customer Support website.
To learn more about how to improve your EC customer service, click here to explore on Jeff Wuorio's Improve Your E-Commerce Customer Service: 8 Tips
.com is an Internet-based travel agency and a part of Expedia, Inc. which is based out of the United States of America with localized sites for 15 countries. It books airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruises, vacation packages, and various attractions and services via their official website and telephone travel agents.
Expedia.com is also known as one of the well-liked brands and innovative business that make Expedia, Inc. the leading online travel agency in the world, the third largest travel company in US, and the fourth largest travel company in the world. And they have a mission to become the biggest and most lucrative seller of travel in the world, by serving everyone, everywhere plan and purchase everything in travel.
Expedia.com uses multiple global distribution systems like the Sabre reservation system for flights and for hotels, Worldspan, and Pegasus along with their own hotel reservation system for their contracted bulk rate reservations which is shared with other Expedia, Inc. sites.
Expedia.com delivers consumers everything they need for researching, planning, and purchasing a whole trip. The company provides direct access to one of the broadest selections of travel products and services through its North American Web site, localized versions throughout Europe, and extensive partnerships in Asia.
Serving many different consumer segments from families booking a summer vacation to individuals arranging a quick weekend retreat. Expedia provides travellers with the ability to explore, arrange, and book their comprehensive travel needs. Expedia-branded Web sites feature airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rental, cruises, and many other in-destination services from a broad selection of partners.
Furthermore, in the year 2006, Expedia.com was awarded a Webby Award in the area of "Best In Travel Websites" and a Stevie Award from the American Business Association for "Most Innovative Company". Expedia also featured in the most admired Internet companies in the United States list which released by Fortunerecently. Expedia ranked 3rd, after IAC and Google, and was followed by Amazon.com at 4th place.
Before proceed to the factors of Expedia.com success, let's take a break and watch an Expedia.com commercial video clip. Enjoy watching..
Many people may wonder, why there is so many e-commerce companies that compete out there selling variety of products and services, and so many e-commerce failure cases but yet an originally start-up like Expedia.com managed to has its great achievement today, what actually are the causes behind its success? The answers are as below:
Effective site navigation
A customer who comes to a website and quickly loses his way is highly unlikely to have a good perception of that particular company and its products or services. Expedia.com make it a way to design their webpage navigation as clear and concise as possible, and staying consistent in the presentation of it, is crucial to creating the trust necessary for the visitor to actually consider the merits of the company and its products.
Clarity: The terminology of Expedia’s navigation is clear to the visitor. They make their links simple to be aware of – most visitors know ‘Home’ means they will be taken back to the front page of a site, Flights include types of airplane fare and types of route they prefer, Hotels which basically let visitors choose the accommodation within their budget and its location, and other buttons with simple english such Cars, Vacation packages,cruises, activities and so on.
Reinforcement: Expedia make sure they help the visitor through performing any task like placing an order or searching the site – provide guides, help prompts, tutorials and instructions as needed to aid their visitor.
Expedia.com’s website stay lean and mean and simple - assume that every visitor is brand-new to the World Wide Web and doesn't have the first clue how to get around. In other words, Expedia.com is the angel of mercy, making visitors voyage through the website a pleasure instead of a pain.
Thus, it is obviously Expedia.com has fulfilled criteria of successful websites by their strong and clear navigation.That not only help to increases the perception of trustworthiness, meanwhile the belief this website can meet the consumer's needs, leads to its success in e-commerce.
Nature of E-commerce
The characteristics and benefits of E-commerce itself playing a very important role contributing to an organisation success, in here we will discuss few factors that lead Expedia.com to success in e-commerce.
Global reach: Through E-commerce, Expedia.com managed to expand the marketplace to national and international market. With minimal capital outlay, Expedia.com easily and quickly locates the best suppliers, more customers and the most suitable business partners worldwide.
Extended hours 24/7/365: The Expedia.com is always open on the web, incur no overtime or other extra costs. By providing a transaction portal and up-to-date company information through their website, potential and existing customers can visit their website anytime to locate relevant and detailed product information and carry out reservation and business deal in seconds. Furthermore, Expedia.com also able to interact more closely with their customers and thus increase customer loyalty and ultimate lead to its success.
For more information and discussion on e-commerce success guide, you can refer to following websites:
Thanks for reading and your interest in Expedia.com, as an appreciation of your support, let Expedia Suitcase Squad from San Francisco proudly present to you- Suitcase dance ;) Enjoy the clips.
Physically, e-commerce has evolved about a decade ago. However, e-commerce actually exists a long time ago before the computer is created. How is this so? It happen as when the electronic technology is implement through international trade in various form such as import/export. Nevertheless, e-commerce has gone through several stages since 1970s. The history of ecommerce is about how the Information Technology has transformed the business processes.
The beginning of the e-commerce started when the EDI (Electronic Date Interchange) is implemented by mostly large organization since sixties. However, EDI only gains global acceptance during the eighties due to its high cost of implementation, slow development of EDI standards and the complexity of developing the application. Still, it does not stop the companies from adopting the EDI as it does really help the companies to carry out business transaction in a more reliable way in contrast with the traditional way.
In year 1995, two large companies has makes its own way into the electronic commerce world which are the and. This two companies has makes its first moves of conducting business through Internet that allowed its customers experience a total new concept of dealing business. Of course, the security, standardization and privacy issues are taken into account before displaying the products and services on their electronic storefronts.
Electronic commerce has since evolved from 3C’s of first generation E-commerce into nowadays 7C’s of second generation E-commerce. The 7C is stands for Contentwhere it is the place for searching relevant, reliable and useful information. Community is a gathering place for consumers that have similar interests and hobbies. It allows them to exchange information, opinion and idea. Commerce is refers to where the business transaction is taking place. Communication is a creation and maintenance of active relationships and interactions among the consumers. Connectivity refers to the ability to build online active connections among users to share their ideas or users with sites which are related to their needs and their ideas content. Collaboration is where 2 sites or more that have similar ideas or information and intend to gain a mutual agreement through association to achieve specific goals. Customization refers to tailoring the Web-site appearance, content and functionality, based on stored and continuously user-profile information.
Since the e-commerce is so successful in the cyberspace, it is believed that it will continue to grow much better to serve the world and the community. It is undoubtedly to say that e-commerce indeed had done so many thing to ease the burden of everyone.
Research shows that usually 68-80% of E-commerce business fails within the initial five years of their existence. That means it is really hard to survive in the e-commerce field.
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