Chapter two in the weekly discussion explains the models and concepts used in e-commerce business. The opening of the chapter discusses about the business model of an established and popular company of social networking site i.e. Twitter. The business model of Twitter is grounded on doing something innovative (Wang, Wang and Liu 2016). To understand Twitter’s business value, the company’s assets and the value proposition of its customers are considered. Among the assets Twitter’s user numbers, the database of tweets and its image as a powerful alternative for conventional media platform are mentioned. However, in recent times, Twitter has generated losses and in this situation, it has become even more important to evaluate the value of its assets and make revenues (Turow 2014). Overall Twitter’s business model describes the difficulties of turning innovative idea into a profit making business with a huge audience.
In the second part, the general business model for e-commerce industry has been described. It has eight key elements that are management team, competitive environment, market opportunity, competitive advantage, organizational development, revenue model, market strategy and value proposition (Vey et al., 2017). These key elements along with some others are necessary when evaluating the reasons of a company’s success or failure. Starting with the first key element, value proposition refers to how a company’s service or product realizes the consumers’ needs. The revenue model explains how a company is likely to achieve superior return on the capital invested and for online retailing business, this revenue model has some primary models such as advertising, subscription, transcription, sales and affiliate revenue models (Towhidi and Srite 2016). Market opportunity refers to the area of possible commercial value for a company and usually, the opportunity is divided into smaller market slots. However, the competitive environment refers to the competition in the market place arisen due to the presence of similar substitute products in the market and a firm achieves a position of competitive advantage when its products have superiority in the market (Thorne 2016). Evaluating a company’s market strategy is also important because it will ensure the company’s sustainability and organizational development. In addition, having a strong management team certainly ensures success and achievements for any organization (Zorzini 2017).
Raising capital in e-business is another topic to concentrate in this chapter that can be divided into seed capital, which is the initial investment to start a business. The elevator pitch i.e. to give a potential investor a brief yet impressive sales pitch within a short time; traditional sources like commercial banks, angel investors, incubators, venture capital firms and strategic partner ( Sun, Gao and Xi 2014). In addition, the crowd funding can also be a feasible option to raise funds though there are some crucial questions to consider before going for crowd funding. The next part of the chapter discusses about business-to-consumer and business-to-business models whichever is suitable for a particular enterprise. The B2C business model consists of e-retailer, content and service provider, market creator, community provider, and transaction broker (Thorne 2016). On the other hand, the B2B Business model has net marketplaces, private industrial network, wholesale and retail store versions and revenue model. The last part of the chapter, however, concentrates on industry value chain and e-commerce and that how e-commerce is rapidly changing the traditional business concept (Pantano 2014).
The account and the summary of chapter four entails the procedures and the planning which are followed after setting the e-commercial model. The constituents and the frameworks involve a number of factors, which are based on the digital and strategic framework, which has to be managed through a number of business management process systems (Muller 2015). In fact, the mediums through which the business will be reinforced within the online environment are applications, websites and mobile sites. The structure and framework of these modes are involved for its extensive presence and support for reaching to more consumers and meeting the accomplishment (McCoy et al., 2017). The organizations or business houses who have adopted the technological transformation in their mode of execution have to develop these diverse sources through appropriate allocation of resources and its optimum utility. The central vision, which is involved while incorporating the e-commerce and installation of the new infrastructure, involves an analysis of the target market and the market space, which it has intended for reaching out to the prospective client (Lopez 2015).
The segmentation and review of the target set of audience is useful for the lifestyle and the patterns of digital usage techniques. In fact the patterns of content and the demographics of the context of marketplace on which the business is dependent is utilized in the in planning the best e-commerce incidence (Ledford 2015). The investment strategies involve the web optimization strategies that have been employed due to the affiliated revenues, advertising and social networking co relation which aid in establishing a strong presence. The content and its customization through the virtual medium should decide the matters and the objectives of managing and building the site (Lichtenthaler 2017). The budget and financial analysis is important for installing and diversifying through all the mediums, which can be useful for the extensive media engagement techniques.
On the other hand, the website development strategies are one of the factors in this criteria as it helps in coordinating the plan and the design of the system which has to be correlated with the nature and type of network it supports (Kuksov, Prasad and Zia 2017). The impact of telecommunications and site design are the primary elements of the interface and the modules of focusing on the capabilities are necessary for the type of work, which are based on the perceptions, and coordination of the e-business model (Khsetri 2013). The creation of the user system based on the software application is essentially important for the components and databases, which will integrate along with the perceptions of the functionality and derivation of the applications ( Huang and Benyoucef 2013). The model should also entail the flow of data from the real time mode to the virtual environment techniques. It begins with the derivative of the in house and outsources site analysis, which involves testing, maintaining and implementing the resources.
In fact, the cost of maintaining the device, which are based on the perception and the efficient optimization of the nature and resource allocation of utilizing the course of the performance and the web, site architecture that requires the functionality and informational criterion (Kapp, Peters and Oliver 2013). This is important for further research and study into the details of e-business and the course of action, which follows, in the next schedule of the study.
The chapter five discusses about the security factor in e-commerce and systems of payment that is a major issue consistently raised by some. The chapter opens with the concepts of hacking and cyber-war; the difference between these is that hacking can be both ethical and non-ethical but cyber-war refers to hacking intended to steal or alter data to destabilize websites, networks and services (Khopkar et al., 2014).This is why cyber-war has been a matter of great concern in the recent times. The chapter also contemplates whether finding a political solution to MAD 2.0 is possible and that how harmful the cyber weapons like Snake and Flame can be (hswsolutions.com 2017).
As far as the e-commerce industry is concerned, it suffers from huge losses due to cybercrime though the amount is still not clear. The marketplace of underground economy also challenges the business firms hugely as the servers of underground economy tends to store malware and stolen information ( Fernie and Sparks 2014). The organizations, however, strives their best to ensure security of highest degree by the means of new technologies, new organizational procedures and policies. The government laws and industry standards also comes forward to help the organizations against cyber-war. There are also other factors like security cost and potential loss, value of time and that how strong security can be built up to be considered ( Hu, Shin and Tang 2016). Often it has been seen that due to cyber-war the customers and the merchants reach to a point of misunderstanding regarding many aspects of business. In this context, the chapter reveals three major points of vulnerability that causes security threat for the e-commerce environment. These are client, server and the channels of internet channels or communications pipeline (Chiu et al., 2014). About the much-discussed malware or malicious codes, it is essential to list down them as Trojan horses, exploits and exploit kits, ransomware, mal-advertising, viruses, worms, drive-by download, bots and botnets, backdoors. Among other security threats unwanted programs like adware, spyware and the like, phishing, cyber vandalism, data breach and hacking are the most common. The chapter also provides a case study on data breach in Ashley Madison to offer an insight how dangerous these threats can be to the organizations (Demirkan, Spohrer and Welser 2016)
Numerous other security threats have been listed down in the chapter such as credit card details theft, identity theft, sniffing, DoS attack, social network, mobile platform and cloud security issues to name a few. Next, the chapter also raises a fundamental discussing mental question as to security loopholes in Smartphone in the light of Nicolas Seriot’s “Spyphone” (Chen et al., 2016). Apart from discussing the threats, the chapter then discusses about technological solutions of protecting internet through cryptography; security channels through VPNs, SSL; servers and clients through anti-virus software and OS; networks through Firewalls, IDS, IPS and the like. Encryption is an important aspect in these cases as it provides security to e-commerce in about 4 to 6 dimensions and has been discussed in detail mentioning various forms of cryptography along with limits to these solutions of encryption (Cebi 2013). After that all other aspects of protection has also been discussed and in the end, a security plan for e-commerce has also been generated mentioning security policy, security organization, risk assessment, implementation plan, and carry out security audit. Other than the security concept in e-commerce, the different payment systems and their risks have also been discussed.
Along the course of the week, the diverse purpose of the scenario of e-commerce is important for the efficient cultures it has adopted or retained. Advertising and marketing are two of the major purposes that are served due to the variant nature and analysis of this involves all the account and statistics of the whole scenario (Boerman and Kruikemeier 2015). The impact of digitalization is essentially important for the consumer decisions as due to globalization the trend and methods have changed invariably. There are a number of processes, which will influence the decision of the consumer, which looks into the awareness of changing customer needs (Chen et al., 2016). The network of images and the e-marketing tools are involved for the targeted market operations and the evaluations that must necessitate according to the search engine optimization approach. The significance of website traffic along with the culture and circumstances of promotion have been involved within this course of the work (Kuksov, Prasad and Zia 2017). The feasibility and diverse utility of the advertising is one of the prominent factors, which are based on the effectiveness and the extensive reach that it allows for the integration of the web development and environment (Dial and marwaha 2017).
The features of the online and virtual environment have enhanced the nature of business and the influence of the outreach will aid in the expansion of the various norms of operating a business culture (Kapp, Peters and Oliver 2013). The number of marketing through which it can diverge can be equated are the type of online allocations through the social networks as well as the traditional ways like e-mail, websites etc. The efficiency of social engines through the perception of the direct mail marketing, the list of channels and the regulation that have been involved with the several networks and the promotional campaigns used by the organization. The chapter also deals in the correspondence of the whole phenomenon which has been accrued to the evaluation of the trendy and current requirements of the customer (Ledford 2015). The power of decision for trust and utility of the consumer is important for the participations of online advertising techniques. The effectiveness can be associated with the tool which are responsible for the categories of promotion and marketing techniques that are adopted by the profit gained through the benefit of the landing pages and the lead generation marketing approaches and the lead generation marketing for the managing and designing the tools and strategies of marketing. Social media can be used as an integrated network, which will enhance the sales, and the operations of the necessary tools involved with the optimization and engagement of the business structures and the associations of the particular concern (Huang and Benyoucef 2013).
The number of views a page receives, influence and motivate the participation of the web optimization procedure. The concept of promoted advertising and its contribution to the maximization of the revenue have been illustrated through lessons derived in this chapter. The elements and the realization of the two criterion have been observed by streamlining the efforts and nature of the e-commerce framework which is one of the main constituents of the emergent scope of monetizing and creating value through an integrated approach ( Lichtenthaler 2017).
This chapter deals with the latest trend of marketing in social media as well as local and mobile marketing. The referred chapter introduces new concepts of marketing with conversations, tablet and Smartphone impact and the nexus linking all three with the rising consumer use of mobile devices, social networks and local shopping. As for the social media marketing, it aims at making brand loyalty and engaging the social media users with the brand as much as possible through increasing online conversation. The factor of engagement refers to the intensity and level of involvement among the social media users for which Facebook is found as the most effective medium. In social, local and mobile marketing usually five steps are followed as fan acquisition, engagement, amplification, and community and brand strength in sales (Devaney and Stein 2017). Investigating why Facebook is popular, the chapter mentions its features like news feed, search and profile timeline as well as various other features like brand pages, Facebook Exchange, sidebar ads and the like have been considered as successful marketing tools in Facebook. As for Twitter, it offers real-time communication with the customers and it offers basic marketing features like tweets, retweets, message, hashtags, reply, links, moments tab and the like. However, the marketing tools in Twitter are the promoted trends, tweets, accounted and videos, enhanced profile, mobile ads, lead generation cards and the like (Wang, Wang and Liu 2016).
Another social media, Pinterest has interesting marketing features like pins, repins, share, contributors, price displays and links of display. Pinterset is popular for marketing in the sense that users can directly talk about their choice of brands using the picture that leaves a more lasting impression. Some of its marketing tools are promoted pins, brand pages, display ads, URL links directing to stores and many others. The chapter highlights several other social networking mediums such as Instagram, LinkedIn and the like where marketing can have various dimensions (hswsolutions.com 2017). However, as the chapter offers a very balanced discussion about social media and mobile marketing, it significantly highlights the drawbacks too. The main concern is that the marketers have less control on the marketing campaign due to people’s posts, embarrassing material and comments.
The aspect of marketing products to children through social media, however, is a controversial topic as the safety of children’s vulnerability while using social networking sites remains an open question. Mobile marketing is another feasible way in 21st century that has been discussed in the chapter too (Zakowski 2017). The formats of mobile marketing are in-store messages, games, banner ads, quick response, couponing and several others like this. In order to avail mobile platform for marketing some surveys on the topics like the most used apps, average hours of mobile use and the way mobile devices are used to shop need to be done. It has significant marketing implications like responsive design and consistent branding. On the other hand, location based marketing also fetches high profit for the marketers, as the consumers are most likely to respond to local advertisements (Chen et al., 2014).
This chapter entails the features and the relevant aspects of the online or virtual commercialization in respect to the selected channel of retail. Over the years the scope of online retail have raised it figures and lead to a situation which involves both the use of the mobile medium through the application and website through internet and technological gadgets (Turow 2014). The advent of the e-commerce integrated through a social medium that’s have been proved as one of the efficient allocations and purposeful requirement of the integration and retail chain systems. The number of retailing channels is useful for the informational and congruent approaches of providing the best service medium to the customers who are involved with the cooperation and integration with the infrastructure of the big data retaining methods (Wang, Wang and Liu 2016).
The inventory segments with the consumption of the consumption through online retailing involves data that have merged with the efficient tendencies of consumer durables, specialty stores, general merchandise, food and beverage which offers an extensive approach (Zakowski 2017). The efficiency and the cost of operations, which will incur the omni-channels that have allocated the venues, and the culture of the transaction and the operating cost of virtual marketing. The viability and the approaches that have been involved in the sector of the catalogue marketing and technological analysis of the services and the involvement of the operations that are assured through this phenomenon (McCoy et al., 2017).
There are a variety of the channels like virtual merchant, manufacturer-direct resource, catalog merchant and the establishment of the growth and development of the e-commerce sector. The predictive marketing scenario of the e-commerce sector have been analysed through the associations in this chapter. It entails the financial services and its integration with the culture of paying the bills and the meeting the acquisitions of this sector which has enabled the thorough accounts of the intensive inventory and marketing system. The benefit of multi-channel is necessary for the development and acquisition of the capacities of the corporate online booking solutions that are relevant for influencing and aid in leveraging the utility of e-commerce.
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