In fact, we are experiencing one of the most important changes in our daily lives: the transition to an Internet-based society. Electronic business is one of the most important activities of e-commerce, the subject of this book.
Electronic Commerce: Definitions and Concepts
The Electronic Commerce Field: Growth, Content, Classification,
This blog is written by employees discussing ideas submitted to blogs.starbucks.com/blogs/Customer. It occurs frequently throughout the supply chain (i.e., the interactions between a company and its suppliers, customers, and other partners).
EC Application: Net-a- Porter: Dress for Success
Drivers and Benefits of E-Commerce
The tremendous explosion of EC can be explained by its drivers and characteristics, benefits and changes in the business environment. The benefits of EC can result in significant changes in the way business is run.
Social Computing and Commerce
The main advantage of ES is to create opportunities to start a business in unconventional ways. These changes can have a positive impact on business operations, resulting in a competitive advantage for companies using EC (e.g., see Khosrow-Pour 2013) and more effective governments and non-profit organizations.
- The Digital and Social Worlds: Economy, Enterprises, and Society
- Electronic Commerce Business Models
- The Limitations, Impacts, and the Future of E-Commerce
- Overview of This Book
It includes digital wired or wireless communications networks (e.g., the Internet, intranets, extranets, and VANs), computers, software, and other related information technologies. According to Willgren (2013), traditional farmers in Sweden created a social network called 'Min Farm (My Farm)'. The network enables communication between farmers and their customers.
Introduction to E-Commerce and E-Marketplaces
The future of EC depends on technological, organizational, and societal trends (see, e.g., Fei and Chung 2015). Piastro (2010) lists the top 10 trends shaping the future of e-commerce, and Gartner Inc. publishes a list of "Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends" each year.
EC Applications
Emerging EC Delivery Platforms
EC Support Services
EC Strategy and Implementation
Electronic Commerce Mechanisms: An Overview
This chapter also covers the traditional mechanisms of EC, such as marketplaces, merchant software, and auctions. Standard IT technologies such as RFID, EDI and extranets are also described in Online Tutorial T2.
E-Marketplaces
In general, the first and second types of services can be fully automated, so they are likely to be taken over by e-markets, information brokers and portals that offer free or low-cost services. Intermediaries that provide only (or mainly) the first two types of services may be excluded; this phenomenon is called disintermediation.
EC Application: How Blue Nile Inc. Is Changing the Jewelry Industry
- Customer Shopping Mechanisms: Webstores, Malls, and Portals
- Merchant Solutions: Electronic Catalogs, Search Engines,
- Auctions, Bartering, and Negotiating Online
- Virtual Communities and Social Networks
Other shopping centers, such as choicemall.com or etsy.com (see Chapter 4), do offer some shared services. Products from companies like Microsoft's Tellme (tmaa.com/microsoftand-247inc.html) provide access to the Internet. An example of such software is osCommerce, open source software (see oscommerce.com).
Examples of a simple product catalog can be seen at JetPens (jetpens.com) and Starbucks Store (store.starbucks.com). For an overview, see the “Social is the Next Search” blog, available at info.gigya.com/. Free online shopping carts (trials and demos) are available at volusion.com and 1freecart.com;.
Payment methods such as PayPal (paypal.com) can be used to resolve the issue.
EC Application: Craigslist: The Ultimate Online
- Emerging EC Platforms: Augmented Reality and Crowdsourcing
- The Future: Web 3.0, Web 4.0, and Web 5.0
For example, viva-pets.com attracts pet lovers with wiki entries in its attempt to catalog all pet breeds. Some of the popular social oriented services are:. Xanga.com hosts blogs, photo blogs and social media profiles. For 2016 social commerce statistics, see bazaar-voice.com/research-and-insight/social-commerce-statistics. Snapchat.com.
WhatsApp.com – According to the website, WhatsApp is a cross-platform free mobile messaging app for smartphones. Droid Translator (tiwinnovations.com) – Translates phone calls, video chats (e.g. Skype) and text conversations into 29 different languages. For more information, see Petroff 2014). For details about this mobile device app, see Truong (2013) and watch the video “Place IKEA furniture in your home with augmented reality” on youtube.com/.
3:20 min) at youtube.com/watch?v=F0-UtNg3ots, see also crowdsourcing.org and Crowdconsortium (crowdconsortium.org).
What Does the Future Hold?
E-Commerce Major Applications
Internet Marketing and B2C Electronic Retailing
Therefore, one of the challenges for e-tailers is to increase the amount of money each person spends online. The case of Amazon.com, the most recognized name of all e-tailers in the world, demonstrates the evolution of e-tailing, some of the problems that e-tailers encounter, and the solutions that a company can use to expand its business. Amazon.com is successful because of its size, innovations, personalization, order fulfillment and customer service.
B2C EC sales volume statistics, including forecasts of future sales, come from a number of sources. Reported online sales amounts vary significantly depending on how the numbers are derived, so it's often difficult to get a consistent and accurate picture of EC growth. Some differences arise from the use of different EC definitions and classifications.
Many of the success factors that apply to physical retail also apply to electronic sales.
E-Tailing Business Models
These are retailers that open web stores to supplement their regular business activities (eg, walmart.com and homedepot.com). Virtual e-tailers can be general purpose (such as Amazon.com or Rakuten.com) or specialized e-tailers (such as Dogtoys.com). In May 2010, the Japanese company acquired the US-based Buy.com (which is now known as Rakuten.com Shopping).
Examples of retailers moving from brick-and-mortar to brick-and-mortar stores include department stores, such as Macy's (macys.com) and Sears (sears. .com), as well as discount stores, such as Walmart (Walmart..com) and Target (target.com). This type of e-tailing is a form of affiliate marketing (see virtualshoppingmall.weebly.com/.affiliate-referral-sites.html). Examples of such clubs are Gilt (gilt.com) in the US (see Wieczner and Bellstrom 2010) and KupiVIP (kupivip. ru) in Russia.
You can use sites like frumus.com and socialgift.com to help coordinate group activities and choose gifts.
Online Travel and Tourism (Hospitality) Services
Travel guide publishers such as lonely-planet.com, fodors.com and tripadvisor.com provide significant amounts of travel-related information on their websites, as well as sell travel services. According to comScore Media Matrix (March 2016), TripAdvisor (tripadvisor.com) is the world's largest travel site. The site offers services similar to those provided by TripAdvisor, such as travel information, travel arrangements and in-depth search (see http://www.qunar. .com/site/en/Qunar.in.China_1.1.shtml ).
Third, online travel companies are likely to use social media tools to deliver content to travelers and potential travelers (see the discussion later in this section and Chapter 7). Airlines and other travel companies create alliances with each other (eg staralliance.com) to increase sales or reduce the cost of purchases made over the Internet. Use of these is rapidly increasing, with hundreds of apps related to comparing prices, making reservations, viewing travel reviews and finding the best travel deals available (see tomsguide.com/us/pictures-story/491-best-travel-apps .html for a list of 50 ultimate travel apps).
For example, all major airlines have Facebook pages that provide information and news about their airline and provide their customers with a community to meet other travelers and share experiences (eg, see facebook. com/American Airlines).
EC Application: WAYN: A Lifestyle and Travel Social Network
- Employment and the Online Job Market
- Online Real Estate, Insurance, and Stock Trading
- Online Banking and Personal Finance
- Banking
TripAdvisor for Business (tripadvisor.com/Owners) provides information to the tourism and hospitality industry. Another way employers and job seekers can connect through Facebook is through a company called FindEmployment (facebook.com/. findemployment), which also offers tips and suggestions for job seekers. An interesting global site for posting/finding jobs in different countries is xing.com.
You can view salary surveys for recruiting strategies. You can learn how to behave in an interview (greatvoice.com). Craigslist (craigslist.org) and Zillow (zillow.com) are examples of free Web 2.0 real estate services. Zillow offers its brand through more than a dozen websites (eg, zillow.com/homes/ . for_rent and agentfolio.com).
See hsbc.com.cn/1/2/personal- banking/e-banking/personal-internet-banking and Bank of China boc.cn/en.).
EC Application: Security for Online Bank Transactions
- On-Demand Delivery of Products, Digital Items, Entertainment,
- Online Purchasing Decision Aids
- The New Face of Retail Competition: Retailers Versus E-Tailers
- Issues in E-Tailing and Lessons Learned
- Concepts, Characteristics, and Models of B2B E-Commerce
- B2B Marketing: Sell-Side E-Marketplaces
- Selling via E-Auctions
- One-from-Many: E-Procurement at Buy-Side E-Marketplaces
- Procurement Concepts
- Reverse Auctions at Buy-Side E-Marketplaces (E-Tendering)
EC Application: Branas Isaf Competes by Using E-Tendering
- Other E-Procurement Methods
- B2B Exchanges (E-Marketplaces): Definitions and Concepts
- B2B in Web 2.0 and Social Networking
- Communities in B2B
- Collaborative Commerce
- Digital Government: An Overview
- Government 2.0 and Social Networking
- Government
- E-Learning, E-Training, and E-Books
- Learning Management Systems
- Knowledge Management, Intelligent Systems, and Robots
- E-Health
- Consumer-to-Consumer Electronic Commerce
- Commerce: C2C Applications
Visit ebay.com and identify all the activities related to its small business auctions.
Emerging EC Platforms
Mobile Commerce: Concepts, Landscape, Attributes, Drivers,
The Enabling Infrastructure: Components and Services of Mobile
Check out the Hertz Mobile site at hertz.com/rentacar/productservice/index.jsp?target age=hertzmobilesite.jsp. According to a 2013 eMarketer study, by 2017, approximately 25% of all online retail transactions in the US will occur on mobile devices (mashable.com mcommerce-sales-forecast reports). Fleet Mobility – supporting vehicles to reduce downtime and increase performance, efficiency and utilization.
Direct-to-Delivery (DSD) path accounting - added utility by performing pre-delivery activities (eg, sending information about a new shipment from shipper to receiver). As a result, many believe that the future of EC is mobile apps (see video 5:06 min titled . "The future of e-commerce is: mobile apps" at youtube.com/watch?v=kYSMP_RH67w). The iPad weighs about 1 pound (between a smartphone and a small laptop), and its screen is 7.87 inches (iPad mini, which weighs 0.73 pounds) or 11 inches or larger.
Also note that there is an increase in mobile cloud computing (see prezi.com/dpnifer-apgzh/examples-of-mobile-cloud-computing).
Mobile Financial Applications
Mobile Enterprise Solutions: From Supporting the Workforce
For example, Waste Management Inc. wm.com) offers 7″ tablets for their truckers to find optimal routes. For images of RFID applications, do a Google Images search for "RFID applications". For a comprehensive guide to RFID (eg, white papers, case studies, definition), see RFID Technology Primer at impinj.com/guide-to-rfid/. Also do a Google Images search for "enterprise mobility." For Gartner's analysis (by the numbers) of enterprise mobility and the impact on IT, see gartner.com/doc/1985016/enterprise-mobility-impact-it.
For examples, see Motorola Solutions Enterprise Mobility (motorolasolutions.com/US-EN/Enterprise+Mobility; now Zebra). Finally, Amazon.com offers their Prime member free access to a large collection of videos. JVC ("Experience apps in a new mobile way") allows you to connect an iPod to a JVC receiver and "watch it come alive with your favorite shows." The JVC function only works with compatible car receivers and applications.
For more information about Delta Connect and Wi-Fi Mobile Pass, see delta.com/content/www/en_.
Ubiquitous (Pervasive) Computing
METRO Group (AG) offers an application for high-capacity mobile phones for use in its Future Store in Rheinberg, Germany. According to their site, the Mobile Shopping Assistant (MSA) is “a software package that allows customers to independently scan items, receive up-to-date price information, and get a quick overview of the value of their goods.” It also allows items to be scanned before placing them in the shopping cart, calculating the total cost of the items.
At checkout, MSA allows a shopper to "pay in transit" by using MSA to transmit scanned data to a payment terminal. For more on METRO's Future Store Initiative and the features of the MSA, see future-store.org/internet/site/ts_fsi/node/25216/Len/index.html. What are some of the key barriers to the growth of the mobile gaming market?
EC Application: Big Data Analysis at INRIX Help People
- The Internet of Things and M-Commerce
- Wearable Computing and Smart Gadgets: Watches, Fitness Trackers,
- Implementation Issues in Mobile Commerce: From Security
- Commerce Security and Privacy Issues
- Social Commerce: Definitions and Evolution
- The Content of the Social Commerce Field
- The Benefits and Limitations of Social Commerce
- Social Shopping: Concepts, Benefits, and Models
EC Application: Polyvore: A Trendsetter in Social Shopping
- Social Advertising: From Viral Advertising to Microblogging
- Social Customer Service and CRM
EC Application: iRobot Uses Social Media
- Social Business and Social Enterprise
- Business-Oriented Public Social Networking
- Enterprise Social Networks
- Social Networks-Based Job Markets
- Social Entertainment
- Social Games and Gamification
- Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding
- Social Collaboration (Collaboration 2.0) and the Future
EC Supportive Services
Learning About Online Consumer Behavior
Personalization and Behavioral Marketing
Market Research for E-Commerce
Web Advertising
Online Advertising Methods: From E-Mail to SEO and Video Ads
Mobile Marketing and Advertising
Advertising Strategies and Promotions
The Information Security Problem
Basic E-Commerce Security Issues and Landscape
Technical Malware Attack Methods: From Viruses to Denial of Service
Nontechnical Methods: From Phishing to Spam and Fraud