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04 Dec 2007 
Introduction
I am really curious because this subject is completely new for me and, up to 8 weeks ago, I considered it to be quite boring and useless in the real world but now I have to reconsider my thoughts; it is very useful and actually, as I came across some really interesting case studies, people is making a lot of money out of e-commerce. 

 In first lesson we have been given some basic definition: 

  • Electronic Commerce: is the process of buying, selling, or exchanging products, services, or information via computer networks.

  • E-business refers to a broader definition of e-commerce and entails everything that adds value through internet.


 E-commerce can be divided in:  

  • Business to business: it involves electronic business transactions between businesses and other organizations.

  • Business to employee: it involves the exchange of information, services, or products between a company and its employee.

  • Consumer to consumer: where consumer sells direct to consumer.

  • Business to consumer: involves electronic business transactions between a business and an individual consumer.


 Classification of web site: 

  • Information web site: aim to provide information about the business and its product

  • Interactive web site : it contains all the information about product and services that an informational site does, but is more interactive.

  • Transaction web site: aim to sell product and service and typically include features of the information and interactive web sites.

  • Collaborative web site: it allows business partner to collaborate.


 
Admin · 55 views · 1 comment
04 Dec 2007 
Assessing the quality of a website
As for any business, the main purpose of e-business is to make a profit. One of the first step a company should achieve when it decide to sell a product or a service on line is to build its website in the most effective way as possible in order to turn  browsers into buyers. In order to achieve this objective a web site should satisfy the following characteristics: 

  • Accessibility

  • Navigation

  • Consistency

  • Performance

  • Appearance

  • Quality Assurance

  • Interactivity

  • Security

  • Scalability


 During the course, one of our assignment was to analyze the effectiveness of a particular corporate web site according to the above criteria and compare it with other. We came to the conclusion that the most important thing for a web site is to be clear and make the life easier for the user that is there to find a solution for a “problem” (see purchasing decision process”). The costumer should be able to find what he wants with few clicks. We also noticed that web site of better quality are the one who express their values through the web pages. For instance, Aston martin web site, with its careful choice of colours and the structure, well identify the image of elegance and professionalism that the company aim to communicate. 

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04 Dec 2007 
Purchasing decision process
Behind the visible act of making a purchase decision lies a decision process that must be investigated. The purchase decision process is the stages a buyer passes through in making choices about which products and services to buy:  

  •  

    1. problem recognition;

    2. information search;

    3. alternative evaluation;

    4. purchase decision;  

    5. post-purchase behaviour.




 Online purchasing decision is very similar to the above pattern. The biggest difference regards  information search and alternative evaluation which are somehow “enhanced” by the use of internet. The use of internet make possible to gather much more information and in much faster way. On internet you can easily evaluate different alternatives and compare them and be in the position to make a better purchasing decision.  

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04 Dec 2007 
Costumer Loyalty
Today we talked about Costumer loyalty and what it implies in business.Costumer loyalty is the degree to which a costumer will stay with a specific vendor or brand for repeat purchasing. It has two face: behavioural which push the costumer to act, and emotional which is related to costumer satisfaction. An important thing to note is that satisfied consumer are likely to be loyal but not the other way round and this is because loyalty can be created by the company even if the product or service does not satisfy the costumer requirements. In other words sometimes you are loyal because you have to ( for instance, everybody is loyal to the London tube but only because there are no other way to move around London!) Generally speaking, the introduction of e-commerce has decreased loyalty because customer ability to shop, compare, and switch to different vendors has become easier, faster and less expensive.  There are two problems facing on line business related to costumer satisfaction:

  • People are still more loyal to physical store than to on line store.

  • Quality (which together with price is the most important factor influencing costumer satisfaction) is really hard to demonstrate on internet.


 For companies, one of the solution to these problems is to invest money in advertising their brand in order to increase the level of trust of the costumers. This is the strategy carried out  by e bay, whose business rely on the trust it is able to communicate to the costumer and therefore is spending a lot of money trying to give confidence to the brand.E bay has been really a fascinating case for me. It make me think on how a simple idea (sell used staff on internet) can be transformed in an extra profitable business. On one hand I am impressed by the fact that Internet is changing the way to do business, on the other it is interesting to notice how this new technology and the use people do of it offer new challenge to the “society” ( e.g. should e bay be considered a “black market” or should e bay be taxed?)

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04 Dec 2007 
Brick and Mortar & Brick and Click
Today, studying the transformation of John Lewis from a brick and mortar company to a brick and click company, we focused on the implications  and the possible disadvantages arising from this transformation. Generally speaking, until recent years, successful  Brick and mortar companies (as John Lewis) have had very small incentives to start an on line activity. Their business was already enough profitable and there was no need to undertake new unknown project. In addition, because generally these companies are identified with a physical structure there was the danger to affect the costumer’s company perception. So why take additional risk?Especially in recent years things have changed and company simply cannot ignore that more and more people buy products on line. Refuse to adapt to the new environment would mean soon be out of business. One of the biggest issue for brick and click company is deciding how to allocate resources between different channels competing for the same costumer. Now the company has to manage the conflict arising by the competition between selling on store, on catalogue and on line. In recent years, due to this problem, the catalogue channel has decreased sharply. The issue of channel conflict will be always challenging for company having multichannel distribution systems and the managers need to analyze their marketing channel strategy and develop a strategic mix in order to manage potential channel conflict.

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