Global E-commerce And International Business: An Evaluation Opportunity

B2B, B2C, C2C, C2B, and B2G

Evaluating business opportunity in the international market is one of the most important aspects of global business. This phenomenon enables understanding and identification of various environmental factors and risk factors that play role in international business. Therefore, when evaluating business opportunities and risk more emphasis being put on emerging trends such as e-commerce. The following papers provide evaluation of international marketing opportunity for business opportunities.

Australian	Example	Description
Environmental matters Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper	Draft National Standard	Provides guidelines and environmental  risk management procedures for industrial chemicals
Human rights	Anti-discrimination rights	Protect individuals against discrimination in terms of age gender and race
Labour relations	Workplace relation in Australia	Provides ethical behaviour that is accepted in workplace especially in labor relations
Packaging	National waste policy or Australian Packaging Covenant (Covenant)	This is packaging policy that reduces impact of consumer packaging in Australia
Risk management	Risk management policy	The policy provides the basis for understanding various risks such as bank risk in a banking environment (Bossche, pp 80).

International	Example	Description
Environmental matters	Environmental management policies or standards	This policy provides management policies framework for managing various chemicals in environment as part of Antarctic Treaty
Human rights	Australian human right framework	Australia is part of international human rights treaties that aim to protect human right
Labour relations	International labour law	Australia forms part of international labour law organization that regulate labour relations in the global perspective
Packaging	The international standard for solid wood packaging	Regulates the type of packaging material for various products sold in the international market
Risk management	Risk management principles and policies	Provides guidelines when developing risk management procedures and assessments

E-commerce refers to the transaction of selling or buying of goods and services online. The term e-commerce is derived from two words electronic and commerce hence electronic commerce.

There are many different business models that exist in international business and e-commerce transaction. Firstly, Business-to-business (B2B) expresses the situation that exists when two business makes the commercial transaction between. Business to consumer (B2C) refers to a transaction between business directly to consumers. Consumer to consumer (C2C) is the transaction that is done between through interaction between consumer and consumer. Consumer to business (C2B) refers to a business model that describes a situation where consumers create value that is then consumed by business.  Business to the government (B2G) is also another internet business model that involves business and government authority pass information or transaction over a website efficiently than the offline transaction (Laudon & Guercio, 2014 pp 1).

Brick and mortar define the physical presence of business organization in the specific building while click and mortar define those businesses that have both online and physical presence. Brick and mortar business are mostly based on physical presence in certain local as compared to brick and mortar that has both online and offline operation to customers (Chaudhury & Kuilboer 2002).

1. Magento eCommerce Agency
2. Shopify
3. JB HI-FI

technologies that are used when conducting international electronic commerce

1. Virtual Reality
2. Data integration
3. Social media

Legislation	Explanation
Competition and Consumer Act 2010	Protect welfare of Australians through ensuring fair trading and promotion of competition in addition to provision for consumer protection
Federal Privacy Act.	The act sets organizations that are responsible for information policy functions, freedom of information functions, and privacy functions.
Bilateral free trade agreements	This is legislation that controls bilateral and multilateral trade agreements with regard to intellectual property and international obligations with other countries
Australia’s anti-discrimination law	Describe various aspects of discriminations when marketing and advertising. Some of these legislations are Acts such as Age Discrimination Act 2004, Disability Discrimination Act 1992, Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and Sex Discrimination Act 1984.
Australia Employment & Labour Law 2017	Provides the legal basis for employment and labour especially when business or company is hiring individuals for marketing. The Act also provides protection against discrimination and rights of individuals
Intellectual property (IP)	These are legislations that offer protections on copyright and trademark for business involved in trade
Electronic Transactions Act 1999 (Cwlth)	Provides the basis for carrying out an electronic transaction between business and consumers. This legislation also provides legal ground for digital signature and passage of information electronically.
Online security and fraud	These are legislations that offer protection against online security and fraud especially for that business involved in online transactions. It also includes data protection and online scam laws that ensure there is minimal online fraud or scam
Advertising and Marketing and the Trade Practices Act	The Act encourages competition and efficiency in business, and resulting in a greater choice for consumers through reducing anti-competitive conduct
Pricing regulations	Pricing regulations include various legislations that control predatory pricing, comparative pricing and price fixing. These regulations control any exploitative price that also ensuring fair competition and consumer protection (Gonzalez 1998, p. 64).

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an organization that ensures fair business policies and wellbeing of people in global trading. The organization played a critical role in the international trade that includes understanding common problems and their solutions, deriving social, environmental and economic change, measure the global productivity and flow of investment. The organization also sets international standards that control various global trading aspects of tax, agriculture and safety chemicals. This allows the organization to controls and regulates many different social and economic relationship aspects between different country involved in global trading (Svante & Göran 2009).

Assess international trade patterns and identify their likely important for the business

Some of the international trade patterns that have impact on A & A’s market expansion include fluctuation in the value of currency in the international market, consumers taste for A & A’s products, fluctuation of prices for coffee in the international market, increase competition in the market, and rising cost of coffee in the international market.

These international trade patterns have impact on the expansion of A & A in the Asia-Pacific market. The impacts include first, fluctuation of the coffee prices in the market leading to fall in the demand for coffee. Secondly, the fluctuation of the currency prices in the market has direct impact in the cost of importing coffee beans hence high cost. Thirdly, increasing competition in the international market has impact on the pricing of coffee products that are sold by A & A business hence directly affect profitability of the business. Changing consumer taste for products requires re-strategizing to ensure that products conform to consumer product (Khai, 2003)

The Differences between ‘Brick and Mortar’ and ‘Click and Mortar’

There are market factors that affect e-commerce diffusion in the Asia-Pacific market. These factors are government policy, international payment system, research and innovation, the legal framework, and technological infrastructure. Firstly, government policy includes both individual country policies that control the adoption and use of e-commerce in the e-commerce diffusion in the Asia-Pacific market. This policy also includes international trade agreements and treaties that allow development of e-commerce. Secondly, international payment systems and assets transfer system for capital and property also is one of the international business factors that affect trade. To ensure safer method of payment, the electronic commerce require specific method of international money transfer system.  Thirdly, research and innovation is another factor that has direct impact on diffusion electronic commerce. Research and innovation play an important for the development of e-commerce that suits the business environment and international trade. Fourthly, the legal framework also play role in regulation of international trade that protect consumers against exploitation and fraud. Finally, the technological infrastructure that allows development and deployment of e-commerce is e-commerce in diffusion in the Asia-Pacific market (Miyazaki & Fernandez 2000, pp 54-61).

The top-ranked three countries with free trade agreement with Australia are

• Singapore
• United States
• Japan

The statistics on export and imports show that the three countries are the top-ranked international market that has a free trade agreement with Australia. Firstly, Singapore is ranked the top most country that trades with Australia both for the export at 93.04 and import at 62.12 totaling to 155.16 billion of Australian dollars. Secondly, United States comes the second since the market come United States of America has exports of 20.657 while import is 43.626 totaling to 64.283 billion of Australian dollars. Japan is the third largest trade partner with Australia that also has free trade agreement with Australia. Japan export to Australia is worth 38.505 while imports are 22.534 giving total of 61.039 billion Australian dollars 

Singapore is one of the countries with many trade agreements with many different countries including Australia. This trade agreement allows importation of commodities from some countries. One such commodity is coffee product that is sold by A&A. In total Singapore has 13 different trade agreements that are signed due to the country’s open trade approach for international trade.

The United States of America through its Department of Trade Policy and Negotiations fosters agreement with other countries such as Australia. This also facilitates international partnership through world trade organization. The department promotes the consumption of products and importation of agricultural produce such as coffee that is a product of A&A business.

Japan is also another larger international market with good trading policies that promote both export and import. One department that is concerned with guidelines and policies is General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) guidelines that promote this agreement. The international policies and agreement policies allow the country to trade hence opening opportunity that can be exploited by companies such as A&A.

A country with the most promising marketing opportunity in Singapore since its approach to international trade and opportunity offers greater opportunity. Firstly, Singapore has an open market approach to an international trade agreement with countries in Asian Pacific market.   Singapore also as the largest importer and exporter of product from Australia make it promising for the coffee product. This can open marketing opportunity for A&A through its large population with a different taste for coffee products. The main focus of Singapore’s international trade policy is based on the ability of business to strive rather than the impact of business on the economy. Therefore, this is a good marketing opportunity for A&A company since it has much different product suiting different but changing consumer’s taste (Kotabe & Helsen 2004).

Global E-commerce Companies in Australia

Singapore has been experiencing economic growth and this is expressed through its growth in GDP. Some of the suggested reasons for the growth of GDP include the abundant skilled labour, more export business and saving rate for other reasons. The growth of GDP has been attributed to the contribution of each Chinese to the society enhancing the opportunity for business in Singapore.

Political factors that make Singapore be the promising country for trade includes the focus of the Chinese government in the development of electronic commerce to enhance online business. The legal framework for the international trade especially those that regulate e-commerce are still limited in Singapore. This gives the Chinese government opportunity to offer minimal restriction to business that is using this new technology through the government remains committed to ensuring that foreign investors are offered the best market opportunity in Singapore (Robert & Dixon 2004, page 74).

Singapore’s social factors play an important role in the international trade and these include demographic factors such as population size, age distribution, and population growth. Singapore is one of the countries with high population offering a ready market for products especially consumer goods such as coffee. The demographic aspects in Singapore keep on fluctuating affecting the business in the country.

Singapore has fluctuating cultural values that have a high impact on the business and international marketing opportunity. The literacy level of Singapore is 90% making the country to be one of the countries with good communication skills. Singapore is a collectivistic culture, based on Geert Hofstede’s value dimensions. This also has an impact on the negotiation skills of in the international business. The country has more than 420 million online users making the country good for internet marketing and online shopping. This makes the country to have a larger online market and the trend is most likely to increase in future as many citizens spend most of their time online (ISO/IEC Guide 2009).

The various factors have impact on the international marketing opportunity for trade in. Firstly, the economic factors such as GDP of the country widen the business opportunity since the majority of people living in the country can afford to buy products. This is based on the fact that increasing GDP means more citizens of the country are earning. Secondly, the legal framework offers an opportunity for those willing to invest in the country through reduced trade restrictions. Thirdly, social factors show that the size of population offers a ready market for products since the composition of the population offers a range of customers based on age variations. Finally, the literacy level of the population means that most can purchase a product online and this is an opportunity to market the product to online.

The trend in that makes market gap include increasing online users, increasing population size and reduced trade restrictions. Firstly, has a high number of online users making it one of the countries with higher internet marketing opportunity for international investors. Secondly, the population size of the country is another marketing gap since the country has a potential market for various products. Thirdly, reduced trade restrictions and regulation that is further enhanced by a free trade agreement between and Australia offers a good marketing opportunity for business in. These factors make a country with wider marketing gap for marketing for online users and market in general (Moss 2010).

Technologies Used When Conducting International Electronic Commerce

Trends in export of  Coffee & substitutes

Row Labels	FY2006	FY2007	FY2008	FY2009	FY2010	FY2011	FY2012	FY2013	FY2014	FY2015
071 Coffee & substitutes	2,284	1,948	1,462	2,037	1,763	3,890	3,187	1,748	1,746	1,975
Grand Total	2,284	1,948	1,462	2,037	1,763	3,890	3,187	1,748	1,746	1,975

The trend in the export of coffee from Australia to Singapore shows that there has been fluctuation in the volume of export over time with the highest being in the year 2011. Since the year 2014, there has been an increasing trend of consumption of coffee in Singapore and this is most likely to fluctuate in the near future. 

There is two emerging business opportunity in Singapore and these are seminar breakfast and funding of investors. Two emerging e-commerce opportunities are online marketing and online shopping.  Firstly, seminar breakfast is a good opportunity for A&A business since the company deals in coffee that forms part of breakfast used in seminars. Secondly, as an international investor funding in Singapore will be a great opportunity for the business as it allows the starting business in the country with ease (Verhoef et al 2009, pp 31-41).

The e-commerce opportunity in Singapore has high prospect since there are many online users that offer a ready market for A&A products. The online market as one e-commerce avenue in Singapore enable the business to market and sell the product to online users. This offers the opportunity that conforms to the objective of A&A to become a global brand. Secondly, online shopping is an emerging trend in Singapore and this is increasingly becoming an opportunity that A&A can invest in since Singapore has clear set the legal framework to support starting a venture in the country (Alqahtani et al 2013, Pp 353-370.). 

 Risk acceptability scale range from 0 to 5, 0 being no acceptable risk for investing in the country and 5 being the highest level acceptance risk. Based on this scale, the country of Singapore can be rated 1 within the scale since the country has a low-risk level.

1. The political risk is minimal since the country enjoys high political stability in the region making the country good for investment.
2. Financial stability is also good due to the funding of investors by the government to encourage investment in the country.
3. The ICT and telecommunication infrastructure though some are still under development. E-commerce infrastructure has been developed in the country with a good legal framework to protect online businesses.
4. The legal risk when selling products online is well taken care of since the inception of e-commerce concept in the country, there have been various legal provisions that protect online business and selling.
5. The legal and regulatory requirement in Singapore offers cross-border laws and regulations that enable foreign investment by offering legal framework needed for business operation.
6. Trade barriers including logistics in Singapore are under direct legal and standard framework and the country has policies and laws that guide trade logistics.
7. Cultural factors such as language also have background on literacy level mainly promoted by compulsory primary school level made by the government of Singapore. Most citizens have good command of English and Chinese language that is taught in the basic level of education.

Current global economic conditions have an impact on marketing development of Singapore. Firstly, current international trade agreements with other countries such as Australia have a profound impact on the marketing development of the country. Secondly, fluctuation in the currencies that are used in trade also has an impact on trade since the currency determines the cost of both production and products. Thirdly, emerging use of technology and e-commerce in global trade has an impact on the market development of Singapore since the country has a high opportunity for online business. Finally, changing consumer taste and preference pattern also has an impact on the types of good traded in the market (Young 2005). 

Marketing Opportunity	How it fits with A & A strategic direction
· Seminar breakfast	· Seminar breakfast is a marketing opportunity in Singapore that allows the A & A to develop new market segment as indicated in the company’s objectives.
· Online marketing and shopping	· Online marketing and shopping opportunity in Singapore facilitated by good ICT infrastructure and legal framework enables the business to increase penetration and name recognition
· Funding opportunity	·  The funding opportunity available in Singapore that is used to encourage investment sets ground that enables the A & A to develop 10% market share of the cafe retail business in the chosen Asia-Pacific country

Marketing Opportunity	Impact on Current Business Customer base
· Seminar breakfast	· Breakfast seminar being a business opportunity that is emerging in Singapore project an increasing customer base if invested in since there are many cafes offering seminar facilities in Singapore. Based data of  A & A, there will be an increase in the number of the store from the current 22 in Australia.
· Online marketing and shopping	· One of the current larger markets is an online market since it has many users of various age and gender. Singapore has the necessary structural and legal basis for e-commerce business and this is most likely to increase both customer base and business revenue. In addition, online registration will help in the determination of customer number increase.
· Funding opportunity	· Funds to start the business is always challenges and the offer by the government to fund or loan the business point to the improvement of the business.

Marketing Opportunity	Cost Details	Estimated Cost in First Year $
Seminar breakfast	Startup capital to start business in Singapore	AUD$ 250,000
Online marketing and shopping	Establishing e-commerce business and maintenance	AUD$ 100,000,
Funding opportunity	Startup, operation, and maintenance of online and offline business	AUD$  400 000

Marketing Opportunity	Benefit details	Estimated Benefit within12 Months $
Seminar breakfast	Increase in product portfolios and customer based	$66,000
Online marketing and shopping	Increase number of customers and revenue for the business	≥ 1 million customers increase
Funding opportunity	Available startup capital that facilitates starting of business in Singapore

Competitor Analysis

Competitor	Established Date and Size	Market Share (%)	Value to Customers	Strengths	Weaknesses
Singapore Coffee Association (SCA)	Established in the late 1950’s	70% market share in Singapore	Providers, international and national roasters to well-known coffee retailers	Control the majority of market share in Singapore	does not have good online shopping for online users in Singapore
Highlander Coffee Pte Ltd (Singapore)	Founded in 2004	20% market share	Ensure roasted coffee for freshness	Has realized good growth over short period of time	Offers limited online shopping opportunity for customer (Rodreck, Ngulube & Dube 2013)

The best-ranked marketing opportunity is online shopping and marketing that come at the top rank followed by seminar breakfast and lastly funding opportunity. According to the risk level, the online business opportunity is the best since it has low risk due to the legal framework and has a high market due to cross-border online users.  This is followed by seminar breakfast that though offers minimal risk serves a smaller geographical area as compared to online shopping opportunity that serves international customers. Finally, funding opportunity is the riskiest since the government may revise funding policies leading to the limited success of the business. The current emerging trend requires development of e-commerce platform for the business with the capability of reaching any geographical area and this gives the online shopping business opportunity the first priority. In addition, guidelines for online business are already developed in Singapore making it easy to start and run an online business in Singapore.

References

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