“Week 11”

The use of keywords for searching cannot be over emphasized especially when talking about e-commerce. In order to create a successful online business, you need to do your reasearch very well by finding out which key words that fit searches to your business.

Here, I have chosen 12 key words that describe what eBay site. I have chosen these key words because eBay site even suggest keywords to use while using search engine on eBay. Take for example you go to ebay site and type in ” baby shoe”in the search box, ebay would suggest other related searches like “baby boy shoe”, “baby girl shoe”, “baby shoes size 4”. If you now type this related searches from eBay in tools like Google Insight for Search or Google Keyword Tool, you willl be amazed with results it gives. I have used google Keyword Tool to settle for these 12 keywords below. Here is an example of screen-shot results for the search using Google Insight for Search .

screen shot of above example in the link:

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=gold%20watch%20mens&cmpt=q

 

Keywords:

Gold watch mens, flat screen televisions, womens shoe size 7, designer handbags     men office shirts, used washing machines, silver jewellery making, laptop windows  7,       nokia mobile phones, baby leather shoes, mens leather belt, bedroom furniture wardrobe.

“Week 10”

The use of search engine to assess sites its common among consumers as its a quick medium for checking information about a e-business site to another one.

I will be taking a look at  eBay as a site using google as the search engine to search for eBay’s key themes and product, and see what results comes up.

Searches:

“ebay paid for”— when typed into google, it displays different results saying about payment on the website such as how to pay on ebay, receiving payment on ebay and so on. Obviously, it generated results concerning payment, at the same time when a customer types that phrase in a search engine , he/she will be expecting results about information concerning ebay making payments back to users such as postage return, compensation and so on.

“Buy it now fee”– when typed into google search, one result that catches my attention is the report about eBay to change the Buy it now fees to flat 10% for private sellers using it. This kind of report scares customer away from the site, even if they are old news or not yet implemeted. Negative results should be constantly monitored on site.

 

“Week 9”

Cloud computing is basically rendering computing services with the combination of networks, storage, and interfaces all over the internet. The name “cloud computing” was as a result of the symbol of a cloud that is usually used to represent the internet in flow charts and diagrams.

Benefits of Cloud Computing include-

Cost of savings: Cost is one of the main purpose for moving a business application to the cloud. There may be a low cost in regards with developing and deploying an e-commerce application, but need for hardware could be very expensive, but with cloud computing, cost of hardwares like multiple server, multiple internet access, tons of cabling are issues cloud computing tackles.

Scalability: Another benefit cloud computing brings to e-commerce is the scalability nature. Business goes up and down, cloud services enable businesses adjust any seasonal hitches in business world either by adding up to services provided during busy time of the year or cutting off same service during less busy time of the year.

Problem-

Secuirty: One of the major issues that faces cloud services is the issue of data and customer information security. The storing of information and data is stored by a third party in cloud services. Although, a cloud provider willl always assure the businesses that information and customer data are safe. Truly speaking, data will be safer if it is was stored within the business.

 

 

 

“Week 6 and 7”

Porter’s 5 forces analysis is a framework for industry analysis and business strategy development, developed by Michael E. Porter of Havard Business School in 1979. They are:

The threat of substitute products and services

The threat of the entry of new competitors (barriers to entry);

The intesity of competitive rivalry

The bargaining power of customers/buyers;

The bargaining power of suppliers. 

eBay consist of different kind of sellers, selling same products at different prices. The issue of threat of substitute products and services affecting eBay will be low. As buyers have a lot of options to buy from sellers. If at all, a customer would like to substitute products and services, he/she has the option of choosing from a whole lot of other buyers still on the same platform eBay site, which is an advantage to eBay in tackling issues with threat of substitute product and services concerning buyers.

The threat of new competitors entry is quite high because of a low barrier to entry. New competitors can easily come up with their own similar website at a quite cheap cost due to readily available softwares to develop a website; this low barrier result to a massive competition in the future.

The rivalry rate of eBay  with other well known company is quite high. This high rate of rivalry is more established in the discount retail industry. eBay competes with several sectors of the industry such as general merchandise store, online retailers. Because of this high competitive rate and industry, eBay must focus on many competitive factors.

The bargaining power of buyers is low because majority of sellers set the prices of the products at a fixed minimum bid, even buyers sometime forget the fact that they are actually on an auction site. This gives eBay and the buyer less in charge on the products prices, buyers only enjoy the facilities eBay environment provides not the the bargaining power of prices.

The bargaining power of suppliers is relatively high because eBay has to maintain its fees and commissions low so as to attract new sellers and keep loyal sellers. Sellers are the supplier of the products and they have the right to choose from different auction companies or sites, and select one offering the lowest fees and commissions.

 

“Week 5”

eBay’s terms and condition for purchasing on the web site is quite reasonable, but  not as reasonable as other competitors like Amazon. Having had a look on the terms and conditions of eBay in regards to refunds and returns in the UK, I discover that there is not enough support given to customers returning or refunding goods already bought compared to Amazon.

In eBay, the seller is obliged to pay for return postage cost, unless stated by the seller that buyer pays for it, obviously that part of the terms is left on the seller to decide whether or not to pay for it; but most seller would surely choose the other option of buyer paying for it themselves. But in Amazon’s return policy, buyers just have to print return label and attach it to the package, without having to pay for the cost of return postage as long as that item being returned meets the conditions for return policy.

In regards to security, eBay use cookies (a piece of data stored by a website within a browser) to provide better services to users and help to ensure security on account as well. e.g. enable you to enter your password less frequently during a session, provide information that is targeted to your interests, promote and enforce trust and safety.etc.

A secured site for sellers and buyers to transact business starting from registration  using encrypted password for login to making payment through secured means called paypal. This means buyers and sellers can transact with peace of mind, trust and confidence in eBay, which is a good sign of relationship between the manager of an e-commerce site and users of the site.

“Week 4”

eBay is not the only on-line auction site as it has other strong and popular competitors like Amazon, Yahoo and so on.

Amazon is a very strong competitor for eBay.com. At the moment in the UK, ebay.co.uk had 103,359,000 visits (multiple visits from the same individual) in the last 30 days, while amazon.co.uk had 85,328,000 visits.  On the other hand,  ebay.co.uk had less unique number of visitors of 1,501,765 than amazon.co.uk which is 2,151,48. Also, according to recent release, Amazon increased in growth by 52.3% than eBay that ended with 23.4% growth based recent figures released this year.

Before a user can start enjoying the full benefits of eBay shopping either by “bid” or “buy it now”, users need to go to the website, register as first time users or login if already registered. Users can search by categories ranging clothing, accessories, electronics and so on. Bidding or buy it now, whichever way you are shopping, eBay provides a platform where sellers and buyers communicate effectively starting from the beginning of the transaction to end of transaction, even as far as a customer leaving a feedback about the the experience through out the transaction.

Even with the aid of technology, users can also enjoy the benefits of the site via mobile application. This will hasten business transaction and more importantly as a form of quick notification to customers in regards to their eBay account e.g. a reply about an enquiry, quick notification if one customer outbids another customer and so on..

e-Bay Website …”Week 3″

                                                         The eBay is an online shopping and auctioning website, where people carry out buying and selling of different kinds of goods all over the world. The eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in September 5 1995. It was fomerly known as ‘AuctionWeb’, starting originally from “set time” auction method and later included the “Buy it Now” standard method of shopping.

The web is the only channel to market for this business site. In November 2006, eBay got its first 3rd party deal licensing deal with Electronic Travel Auction to sell flight ticket and some other travel items. The growth was  very massive; in January 1997 the site hosted about 2 million auctions compared to the 250,000 hosted in the previous year 1996.

Later in 1998, Pierre and his co-founder  Jeff Skoll employed Meg Whitman, a graduate from Havard Business School. Meg and other colleagues with average experience of 20 years in branding introduced a vision for Ebay saying, “Ebay is a company in the business of connecting people, not selling to them products.” and this vision was the reason why eBay focused more on average sale price (ASP), which is a metric for determining transaction fees.

The eBay as of December 31, 2011 had employed about 27,700 people which included temporary staffs. Being a large on-line shopping site, eBay has reported a total revenue for the end of the first quarter ending March 31, 2012 increased by 29% to 3.3 billion dollars compared to the same period of 2011 with first quarter profit of $725-million, or US55 cents per share, compared with US$619-million, or US47 cents per share, a year earlier.

Statistics of Internet Usage in the UK ….”Week 2″

Statistics has shown that the rate at which the internet is being used has increased tremendously in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world. In the United Kingdom, different people with different reasons for using the internet. Most businesses use it to advertise their products, families and friends for social networking, ladies for shopping and the list of different users goes on. Based on UK statistics, the following shows the  rate of internet usage: In June 2011, the total number of internet users were 51,442 which is 82% of the population.

Mobile Internet Users Access to the internet via mobile devices has increased massively by an additional  6 million people than the previous statistics reported in 2010, with ages 16-24 being the major contributor to the growth, with an increase from 44% to 71% over the last 12 months, also large increases across all other age groups.                                 

Age Group: A lot of UK adult in different age group has used the internet, apart from the older generation from 75 years old and above. But, the age group of 16-24 years as been the largest user of the internet in the UK.                                                                                      Gender:   In the year 2011, 21.15 million male used the internet, while 20.84 million female used the internet. Infact, there were 1.49 million more women than men that have never used the internet before.

Usage: According to the pie chart above, searches contribute 12% of the reason for using the internet in the UK