Week 6 Digital markets

Question 1:

I have only one time experience of shopping online. It was 3 years ago. After that experience. I never shop online.

I bought a cheap pants that time. The picture of that pants on the website was very nice. The price was very low. So I decided to buy that online. However,the pants that I received is quiet different from what I saw online. The size is too small. (It should not be that small according to the description on website)

So after that, I never buy things online. For me, I do not like to shop online because it is unreliable. It is also time consuming because there are too many sellers, it is hard for me to make decision about which product I should buy and from whom. In addition, some items are hardly to purchase online, for example, the clothes. For me, I prefer to try the clothes on to see whether it is comfortable to wear.
I think the rapidly increasing of online shopping trend will make online store more appealing. In my case, I tried to shop online because almost all of my friends shop online. In addition, online shopping is convenient, it also provides a cheaper price for customer. In my view, online store should focus more on customer service. For example, a seller of skin products should have expert online to analysis customers' skin and introduce an appropriated product to them.
Lack of trust may make the online store less appealing. It is exactly what happened to me. In addition, online store is less appealing for those who do not use Internet.
In my opinion, we can expect the price of goods and services will be fall due to the migration of customers online. But I think it depends on what kind of goods and services are. For example, the price of massage may not be influenced by the migration of customers online. Unless the service provider open an online store for line products such as body massage oil.( For example, if the customer buy the body massage oil online, they can get some discount for massage(or free). This may lead other massage service provider to reduce their price)
Q2:

a) The dispersion of prices (that is, the spread between the lowest and highest price for a particular product) will narrow.

There is an assumption that if search costs are lower in Internet markets and if consumers are more readily informed of prices, price dispersion on the Internet should be lower than it is in comparable conventional markets. However, many research shows that price dispersion is no lower in Internet markets as compared to conventional markets. According to Clemons, Hann,& Hitt (1998), There is a substantial price dispersion for airline ticket quoted by online travel agent. (average price differences of up to 20%)

b) The importance of brand names will decrease.

Yes, I agree with this discussion. Trust play an important role in Internet markets, as the spatial and temporal separation between buyers and sellers imposed by the medium.Customers prefer to buy from a well known Internet market such as Amazon.com, regardless the higher price. So Internet marketers should  use various method to increase their trustworthiness.

c) Price competition will make all products cheaper.
It depends on what kind of the product is. If the product is homogeneous. Products are likely to be cheaper.

d) Digital markets will become dominated by a handful of mega-sites, like Amazon.com.

I am not sure about this. But according to my experience, I prefer to buy something through mega-sites. As it is easier for me to compare the quality and price of the product. However, if I know what the brand of the product I prefer, I will go to the brand's own online shop.

e) How do you think the balance of power between buyer’s and seller’s will change?

I think power of both buyers and sellers are changed. Buyer has more choice. It is more convenient for them to compare the price and make decision. Sellers can reach more target market, for example, overseas customers. sellers can also reduce the operating cost.

f) Prices are clustered online.
I think price will not be all the same, unless the product is very popular.

g) Online prices are elastic. ( i.e. immune to change up and down with demand)

It depends on what kind of goods are. For example, if the goods are homogeneous. The online price are elastic. According to the article, in  differentiated goods market, price sensitivity of goods could be lower online than in conventional outlets. In addition, providing more information about the differentiated goods to customer will soften the price sensitivity.

h) Online prices are generally transparent (the extent to which prices for a given product or service are known by buyers in the marketplace.).
Q3

a) What types of m-commerce services does your cell phone provider offer?

I am using optus. It provide m-commerce services including online payment, online mobile shops, international call services, games and Internet and so on.

b) Which of these services do you use?

I use only online payment.

c) What types of transactions do you perform through your cell phone or other wireless device?

I do not use Internet through my cell phone. I only make transactions through mu computer.

d) What types of transactions would you like to perform, but are currently unable to?

I would like to use it to pay bills or transfer money through Netbank. Because that will be much more convenient for me. I do not need to find a computer in emergency.

e) What is your opinion of wireless advertising/mobile marketing?
According to the video, most people will search their phone first before making buying decisions. People will search Internet on mobile rather than computer in the future. With new technology like iphone and ipad. The mobile marketing is growing.

Week 5 Business model

There are 9 main business model. The most interest business model for me is community.

what is community model:
The community model is a method of developing an online presence in which several individuals or groups are encouraged to join and participate in ongoing interaction designed around a common purpose. Web communities, or virtual communities, were not only a way for like-minded people to come together online, they also were an increasingly important element of business plans.

In business-to-business (B2B) relationships, the community model provides all community members with the ability to share and check electronic invoices, communicate and exchange funds on secured networks, and resolve problems quickly and openly. It use communities utilize electronic tools such as forums, chat rooms, e-mail lists, message boards, and other interactive Internet mechanisms.

Broadly, the community model comes in two basic varieties: those centered on relationships and those centered on tasks. The former typically are informal, grassroots-oriented communities that revolve around shared interests, ideas, topics, and goals. In these communities, the development of relationships is the primary goal. To maximize member involvement, community sites must offer maximum degrees of interactivity and personalization. For example, GeoCities offers space and tools for members to set up their own Web sites and establish virtual communities within the broader GeoCities community. Task-centered communities generally are more structured and impersonal. The relationships established or augmented online are a means to a mutual end, such as enhanced profits. More specifically, Web communities are established between business partners, between businesses and their customers, between different groups of customers, within companies, and between individuals and groups devoted to particular topics.

There are two examples of how company can benefit from community models:

One example of community model is intra-business Web comunications. It facilitates communication within and across departments and divisions, enhance coordination of strategies starting from the bottom up (rather than mandating them from the top down), and provide a forum for training programs, employee grievances, conflict resolution, and socializing. Furthermore, as Sloan Management Review pointed out, intra-firm online communities are an excellent way to encourage and foster voluntary employee participation and initiative, which are crucial concerns among employers.

Web communities also allow companies to use the Web to open up new channels for customer support and outreach, advertising, sales, ordering, distribution, and communication. In the field of customer service For instance, companies may encourage their users to access the Web to receive customer support in an online forum, in which they can seek advice from a company expert and interact with other customers. In this way, customers are encouraged to become part of a coherent community tied to the company, thereby creating added value and boosting customer loyalty. This built-in source of customer feedback can be extremely valuable, allowing companies to take proactive measures to improve products and customer service. It also enables firms to further personalize their sites and build customer profiles that can be utilized for later advertising and product development. In addition, companies can take advantage of such features to monitor their customers' needs and values, and modify their products and services accordingly. Finally, such arrangements can lighten the burden on company support staff, as customers are encouraged to get and offer help to other customers.

The opportunity of community model:

According to the video what's mine is yours , there is a big shift from hyper-consumption to collaborative consumption. Collaborative Consumption describes the rapid explosion in traditional sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping redefined through technology and peer communities.In this sense, community model is a big opportunities for online business today.

In order to be successful,a community must grow organically from the genuine needs and desires of the members themselves, and will gradually take shape over time as the community grows.

Example of community:

Twitter is a very good example of community model.It is an informal community to development relationships. It use communities utilize electronic tools such as chat rooms, message boards, and other interactive Internet mechanisms to chat with friends and share information to friends.

Week 4 Web analysis

Comment from the topic:

Similar to the physical business, virtual business does need to collect as much valuable information as possible to analysis their performance, have a deeper understanding of their customer and to make some decisions to improve.For example, to find out the number of visitors can help the business owner to know whether the product or service is interesting for customers.

However,there is a problem of information overload. Data are meaningless if we do not select and analysis them. Google analytic is a good tool for business to collect data and analysis the data in order to make the data useful.
 But the problem of Google analytic is that some data are not collectible from the Google analytic, such as gender and age. In addition, some information may misunderstood by business owners.For example,interpreting bounce rate.
see http://www.webmasterworld.com/analytics/3676694.htm

1) Looking at the site useage, what does the terms visits, page views and pages/visit mean? What does the bounce rate mean and does it vary
much from day to day?

• visits means how many people visit this site 
• page view means every time a request is made for a specific page by a visitor. for example,if there are any advertisements on the page, the publishers would also be interested in the number of page views to determine their expected revenue from the ads.
• pages/visit means the average number of pages viewed by per visit.
• Bounce rate is an Internet marketing term used in web traffic analysis. it represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and leave the site rather than continue viewing other pages within the same site. 
  The bounce rate of an e-commerce site could be interpreted in correlation with the purchase conversion rate, providing the bounces are considered representative of visits where no purchase was made.
  Bounce rate fluctuate day to day, so it is better to use the long term bounce rate as your figure to help you improve the effectiveness of your website.
  (http://www.cristiangraziano.com/blog/bounce-rate-the-most-important-website-stat-youve-never-heard-of)

2) Now look at the traffic sources report. What are the three sources of traffic and where has most of the traffic come from? 
Three traffic source including search traffic,direct traffic and referral traffic.

• Direct traffic refers to the visitor who came to your site without first visiting a search engine, another site or some marketing tactic.
• Referral traffic is traffic that arriving your website from another source. For example, your referral traffic source of your blog could be a link on a blog, a retweet on Twitter.
• Search engine traffic is Internet traffic which is driven to a website by a search engine like Google. Many people rely on Internet searches to get hits on their sites.Some professionals even specialize in increasing traffic from search engines for their clients, using search engine optimization tactics which are designed to make a page easier to find by increasing its status in the eyes of the search engines which constantly crawl the Internet. (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-search-engine-traffic.htm)

3) What was the most popular web browser used to access the site?
Internet Explorer is the most popular web browser.

4) How many countries did visitors to Foliospaces come from and what were the top four countries?
Today,there are 12645 visitors from 82 countries. The top four is United kingdom (5882 visits),United states (3029visits),Australia (2278 visits) and Canada (416 visits).

5) Having clicked every possible link on my analytics, make a few comments on (a) What you can track, (b) What you can track over time and (c) What you can’t track. 
1:what we can track
we can tract how they know the website which is called traffic source as I mentioned in previous question.
we can tract the geography, language, behavior of the visitor. and many other data such as the content have been browsed.
2:what we can track over time
we can track the fluctuation of these data and identify the trend
3:what we cannot tract
we could not track the personal detail of the customer. For example, gender and age. Those are important for some type of the business to identify its target market.

6) What do the following terms mean? These are just a few, you may like to add some more and perhaps include them on the Moodle glossary.

key words: visitors use the most important words to search information.

Average Page Depth:the average number of pages on a site that visitors view during a single recession

click through rate: to measure the successful of an ad. it is defined as the number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of times the ad is shown.

click: an action

Cookie: a message given to a web browser by a web server. The browser stores the message in a text file. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the sever.

Impression:it is a display of advertisement on the website.

Hyperlink:it is a reference to data that the reader can directly folow, or that is followed automatically. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document.


Navigation:a guiding tool to another website

Session:it is a period of interaction between a visitor and a particular website. it is ended when the browser is closed, shut down or when the user is inactive on the website for a specified period of time.


URL:global address of documents or other sources form world wide web.

Visitor Session: period of interaction between visitor and a website

Comparison shopping:helping the customer to compare the price and quality before purchase.

Week 3 digital design

1. In two paragraphs explain why a customer centric Web site design is so important, yet so difficult to accomplish

Customer-centric design is design centered around what the customer wants (as opposed to what the company wants).  Customer who can find their needs on the website is more likely to purchase from you and introduce your website to their friends. Hence, it can achieve your goals.

To do this, you have to always keep in mind why the customer came to your site and make it as easy as possible for them to accomplish their goals. Customers come to your website is to solve their own needs, while too many organizations believe that a website is about opening a new marketing channel, getting donations, promote a brand, or increase company sales by 15%.  In addition, it is difficult to find out the needs of all cutomer. Hence, organizations need to focus on providing the best service to the right and profitable target market.

2. Define the term 'presence'. Write an additional paragraph that describes why firms that do business on the Web should be more concerned about presence than firms that operate in the physical world.

Presence defined as "the impression that something is present". A Web presence  is a collection of Web files on a particular subject that includes a beginning file called a home page. For example, most companies, organizations, or individuals that have Web sites have a single address that they give you. This is their home page address. From the home page, you can get to all the other pages on their site.

Web presence is the first image of the on-line business company. It will influence the customers' perception and attitude about that company. It also influence the trustworthiness of the company. For example, it will help customer to decide wether they the company have the things they wanted.  Hence, it will influence the sales of the on-line business. Firms in physical world have more chance to contact with customer. For example, using promotion and other activities to attract customer attention. If the retail shop does not have a fantastic image at the first time, they may fail to attract customer. However, if they have some changes, customer who pass by the shop may be attracted. It is unlikely to happen on web firms. Once the customer had a bad perception of your online firm, they will simply not visit your website again.

3. Write three paragraphs to briefly describe the things that Real Estate Agents can best accomplish through (1) their web sites (2) Mass media advertising (3) Personal contact


(1)their web sites

The Internet is the first place more and more homebuyers are beginning their search for a home.   Homebuyers who search the Internet are actually more likely than traditional buyers to use a real estate agent to find their home and complete the purchase.  The Internet offers both convenience and cost effectiveness that traditional media cannot. Web sites are more engaging and informative than even the best brochures. Emails make it easier and cheaper to keep in touch with existing clients. In addition, web sites helps Real Estate Agents to reach more customer around the world. It also helps them to display as many useful information as necessary. Moreover, it allows customer to have a better view of the house and contact the agent immediately to ask further question.


(2) Mass media advertising


At the same time, Real Estate Agent need to use mass media advertising such as newspaper, television and  radio to promote themselves to those people who do not use Internet. In addition, it can enhance their image on those customer who already knew the Agent online.


(3) Personal contact

Real Estate Agent can use personal contact to reach those high potential customer. It is the best way to provide more important information to the customer. Agent can ask what kind of information the customer wants to know. In addition, they can discover what are the concerns of the customer and give suggestion to reduce the concerns. It also provides better customer service while communicating with customer.  

Week 2 Navigating the Web

1) a) What are the four (4) main points Michael Rappa makes about search? Please write them on your blog page.

Michael Rappa mentioned the search eagine is essentially four things.
1: It’s a database. ( a portion of the vast amount of digital information )
2: It’s a collection mechanism for adding data into that database. 
3: It’s a search protocol that enables users to query the database. (that is what you use to query the database)
4: It’s a ranking algorithm that determines how the results are presented to the user. (that is once a user searches on a key word or phrase, a set of links are returned.  Frequently those links may number literally in the millions.)


b) Watch or read the Marissa Mayer interview. Write a paragraph or two, on four points made by Marissa Mayer, that you think were the most interesting or significant for business. There are no right or wrong answers here, I just want your opinion.

Lots of people argue that Yahoo lost its place is because it lost its emphasis on engineering and technology and focused too much on marketing. Marissa Mayer said that it is because Yahoo lost a lot of good people. Talent drives technology companeis, talent is the key ! It is also very important to hire the right person at the right time to do the right job. And reference is a good thing for predicting the future performance of the person.

Google tried to keep the teams really small which leads to a sense of empowerment, people making decisions around what’s the best feature, what do their users need, how are they going to build the best product, and it allows also for them to be really agile.

The idea of innovation comes from everywhere, both within the organization such as engineers and outside the organization such as users.

2)  a) So what are the 6 webs?

1:The near Web: The internet which is close to us.The users seat near to the screen, such as computers and other devices, using keyboard and mouse.

2:The here Web:It always with you and becomes your identity. such as your phone, mobile and wireless devices. It is communication device and very personalized.

3:The far web:such as television, print.it is more cooperate.It is far away from the users which require to use a remote control.

4:The wired Web:It is a voice driven web.such as the voice recognition in the car. we need to scripting language for the voice driven web so that you can tell it to fetch your certain information or connect you to someone, as opposed to using a keyboard or stylus to get the Web to do your bidding.

5: B2B( business to business). it is business computers talking to each other to remove friction firm business processes.

6:D to D:(device to device). embedded or meshed network.For example, building has a lots of sensors,the sensors self-organizing Internets. All the sensors in the city being brought together,so all the webs and information you can manage,control and monitor to them.

b) Could there be more?
There will be more web in the future according to Bill Joy.The innovation will continue.


c) What does it mean for business?
Technology innovation leads to more opportunities for business. It will reduce operating costs. It will help business to gather, analysis useful information more efficiently and effectively.Hence, it will increase the productivity of the business.

Week1 Introduction

Q1:Internet risks – give examples of four things that can go wrong with a transactional site?Internet created new way for buying and selling things. It largely reduced the cost of seller and buyer. It also become more convenient  for those people who do not want to interact with buyer or seller. However,there are many risks with transaction site. For example:

1:buyers may receive goods which are different with what they ordered and seen online.The quality of the goods may be not as good as what the buyer promoted.


2:Hacker may use customer confidential information. they may be use these for financial gain.


3:the buyer may not receive the goods because the transaction site is a fake one.


4:you could be get overcharged and could not get refund


Q2: E-business and e-commerce are distinct from each other. In e-commerce, information and communication technology is used for inter-business or inter-organizations transactions and business-to-customer transactions. However, in e-business, ICT is use to enhance one's business through any process that business conducts over a computer mediated network. The primary process of e-business including customer focused process, production process and internal management process. 
http://www.apdip.net/publications/iespprimers/eprimer-ecom.pdf


Q3: What is the difference between buy side and sell side eCommerce?
e-commerce transaction between organizations can be considered from two perspectives: sell-side from the perspective of the selling organization and buy-side from the perspective of the buying organization.
Buy-side e-commerce refers to transactions to procure resources needed by an organization from its suppliers. 
Sell-side e-commerce refers to transactions involved with selling products to an organization’s customers. 

Q4: Describe the different types of e-Business

E-business communication including:

1.B2B commerce which is the electronic transaction between two different firms or business units.

2.B2C commerce is business to customer electronic transaction

3.Intra B commerce - under this, the parties involved are 2 persons or departments of some business unit. 

4.C to C commerce- under C to C commerce, both the parties involved are customers. it is required for buying and selling of those goods for which there is no established markets are available.

 http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_types_of_e-business#ixzz1fYdRSmjC

Q5: Which digital technology has the highest penetration rate? Explain and source your answer.

Mobile phones has the highest penetration rate. According to survey, almost 76% of people using mobile phones instead of the other digital technology such as fixed telephone lines in 2010.

source: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/

Q6:List::Four drivers to adoption of sell-side e-commerce by business.

There are many tangible and intangible benefits of sell-side e-commerce. 

1:business can avoid losing market shares to those business which already adopted sell-side e-commerce.

2:it can reduce cost such as rent and other business operation cost.

3:increase the quality and service that offered.

4:more repeat and more responsive marketing communications.

Q7: Four barriers to adoption of sell-side e-commerce by business.

1. Technical problems: some companies are fear of technology.

2. Costs: companies need to hire skilled people which need more salary. they may also need to provide training course.

3: Security and trust Issues: companies or consumers may worry about the frauds during the online transactions, they are lacking confidence of the safety of the internet.

4,Business type: Some companies may not need e-business. such as grocery food store. 

Q8: How might a restaurant in Sturt Street Ballarat benefit from an online presence?


1: Advertising, it can increase its popularity and attract more potential customer. On the other hand, the good customer comment on its website can also attract new customer.


2: Easier for potential customer find out the restaurant address. Especially for tourists. They are more likely to choose a restaurant from Internet. For the restaurant in Ballarat, it is very important to have their online presence in order to be  known to the tourists and to be competitive.

Q9: What are some examples of Digital information?
Digital information can be internet, mobile phones, DVD's, VCD's and so on.

Q10: What is the semantic web? Are we there yet?
Berners-Lee defines the Semantic Web as “a web of data that can be processed directly and indirectly by machines.”We can use computers to search for documents, but they still have to be read and interpreted by humans before any useful information can be extrapolated. Computers can present you with information but can’t understand what the information is well enough to display the data that is most relevant in a given circumstance. The Semantic Web, on the other hand, is about having data as well as documents on the Web so that machines can process, transform, assemble, and even act on the data in useful ways. 
http://www.altova.com/semantic_web.html