ITECH3301 Electronic Commerce Systems and Technologies

Introduction

BTFC background

Ballarat Trade Fair Consultancy is located in Victoria; it has a system based on web operations. The company has assisted most of the Australian companies in trade fairs and exhibitions overseas. Its main activity is to help Australian business in marketing trade fairs, for instance, it organizes particulars of links of a display, sell visitors tickets for every trade fair and synchronize all activities with trade fair managers in countries like Europe and South-East Asia.

The company has a vast network of government, business-level contact and industry and it engages in an intensive market campaign mainly through letters, flyers and phone calls which consumes a lot of time and also it is cost ineffective, generally the current business operations are cumbersome, and there is a need to adopt e-commerce system (Mascitelli & Chung, 2015).

E- Commerce 

Electronic commerce is a concept which may be defined in many unique ways according to perspective taken. E-commerce is defined as purchase or sale of goods or services that is conducted over a computer network, or it can also be referred to as any transaction that is carried out electronically (Chiu, Wang, Fang & Huang, 2014).

E-commerce has the following perspectives

• Communication perspective- it means using electronic mode of communication payments, products, services or information.
• Business operation perspective- using electronic modes to mechanise business transaction and business schedules.
• Service perspective- using electronic modes to increase quality or automate services and reduce on cost.
• Online perspective- selling or buying products over the internet.

E-Commerce business models

According to (Veit et al.2014) there are three major categories of models that a company should familiarise with before it initiates its e-commerce business operation. The following are the classifications of the models:

B2B- business to business model

B2B model deals in providing products or services from business to another business. Although many e-commerce businesses are service providers, you may find office furniture, software companies, hosting companies and many other e-commerce business models beneath this heading.

Some of the companies that use B2B include ExxonMobil Corporation and Chevron Corporation. The businesses have a customize enterprise E-commerce platforms which work hand in hand with different business within a closed environment.  

B2c-Business to Consumer models

B2B sales are the traditional model whereby a business provides goods or services to individuals, although it is carried out online unlike in a physical store. Examples of E-business that use B2B are Newegg.com, Overstock.com, ModCloth and Wish2.3 C2C- consumer to consumer model

This model allow customers to craft, buy and sell items in order to get a small commission payable to the site. Opening this kind of model needs a careful planning.

C2B- consumer to business model

This type of E-commerce model implicates individuals who sell products or services to business, and is nearly equal a sole proprietor serving a big business organization. Example of companies that applied this model are UpWork and Google AdSense.

Network and communication infrastructure

A global information and distribution networks are infrastructures that connect several countries and continents. Internet, Intranet, and Extranets infrastructures are spread in different locations; extranet utilizes this internet to communicate to all these parties. A business organization typically have many dedicated extranets of several parties contingent on the information needs and type of the relationship. Extranet sometimes can be seen to be an extension of the company’s intranet (internal network) whereby external parties may come in the fold of the company’s private system that accesses explicit regions or information.

3.1 Intranet- this is a network that is available within an organization. The intranet is connected to an internet but in between is a firewall which helps to restrict access between intranet and internet and permits intranet access only to members of the organization.

3.2 Internet-   this is a worldwide computer network that can be accessed by anyone who knows the IP address protocol. The IP address is a distinctive number that can be used to trace the location of computers.

3.3 Extranet- this is an Intranet that partially allows access to accredited outsiders. The computer server, in this case, would be a featured behind a firewall. This firewall would help to monitor access among internet and internet enabling access to intranet only to authorized users.

4.0 Application requirements (Hardware and software requirements)

The following are the requirements for BTFC Company if it really wants to employ a successful e-commerce website (Wong, 2016)

1. Select appropriate Domain and Hosting – these are basic aspects to look at

• Domain Name- this is the name which the company would prefer

• Web Hosting- BTFC would need to service a web hosting company which would be available 24 hours a day and throughout the year.

• Choose a shopping Cart Script – this would allow transaction to take place in the entire website.

• Payments Gateway Integration- the company should provide the convenient easy and fast payment methods for their clients.  

1. Develop E-commerce website- BTFC should create an e-business website that would enable the clients explore their store, have information concerning the products, ship details and many other services.

• Developing Amazing Store Design- for the clients to buy products from the online store it would be crucial for BTFC to develop an E-commerce website that has liveliness and also immaculate design enhancement. Three important points should be adhered to when creating a design store that is Logo Designing, Design Enhancement and Branding.

1. Products listing and categorizing- the company should provide a list and categorise products appropriately on the website, this would enable customers to easily find the products they need from the store.

2. Order completion and transport channels- goods delivery to clients must be very quick and in a best conditions. This would create a lively business store to customers.

3. Include some extensions, modules add-ons

There are many categories of add-ons for instance order tracking resolutions and rantings that may be tried on shopping store. This would enable business store to develop into a gathering pulling shopping destiny.

• Site management- the site should enable script checking, link checking. Html validation, webserver log fie analysis and remote server analysis.

• Web platform choice- the operating systems hardware and software application server must be considered very well because it affects the operations of E-commerce. Whatever the choice of the company hardware scalability should be maintained so that it can upgraded or enable server additional when necessary.

Security issues and their solution

Despite the use of E-commerce having numerous advantages it is also come with security threats and vulnerability issues. The following are the security issues associated with the use of e-commerce.

1. Client threats- the customers may be exposed to threats such as active content, malicious content and server-side masquerading.
2. Communication media threats – e-commerce face threats like confidentiality, integrity and availability threats in communication channels
3. Server threats- there server might face threats in web-server, database and password hacking threats among others.

Solution for e-commerce issues

1 Set strong passwords- changes password regularly, the password should use combination of uppercase and lowercase, use special characters and should be at least 10 characters long.

• Avoid the use of public terminals- these would ensure that clients information are safe at all times, if any case the clients uses a public terminal to make purchase he should always remember to log out.
• Activate firewall- the company should prevent insecurities by building and activating firewall, this would prevent unauthorised connections.
• Protect wireless network-  review network vulnerability issues and come up with ways

E-marketing requirements

• Authentication- the e-commerce website should be able to tell clearly authorised access of data is guaranteed
• Data confidentiality- the website should have encryption/description tools that protect the confidentiality of customers.
• Data Integrity- this would ensure that data is not tempered with by any chance, it can be implemented through messaging digest or hashing.
• Non-repudiation- should not be able to restrict a purchase or sell that is implemented by the use of digital signatures.
• Plain text- readable by humans.
• Cipher text – recognize only by machine, it is used to encrypt data for security purposes.

Mode of payments system to be used

BTFC Company should use either of the following electronic modes of payments:

Credit cards – it is a small plastic card with a magnetic strip that is attached to an account number which can be read by card readers which determine whether the card can be used for transactions.   This is one of the standard mode of payments that most of e-commerce business use.  

Debit cards- it is the same as the credit card the only difference is that the amount of money used in the card is deducted directly from the owner’s bank account and therefore the account should have sufficient balance for the transactions to take place.

Smartcard- it almost the same as the credit card only that it has a microprocessor cheap which stores all the owner's information on the card can also store money that can be used for online transactions, the amount get deducted after purchases.

 E-Money - E-money transaction occurs in a situation where reimbursement is carried out over the internet, and the money is transferred from one organization to another.

Electronic fund transfer- this is the transfer of cash from a bank account to another by the use of ATM or over a computer (Turban, Outland, King, Lee, Liang & Turban, 2018).

Ethical and privacy issues in E-commerce

An organization may spend time building on things that would increase E-commerce revenue like marketing and data analysis but most people forget about rudiments ethical and privacy issues associated with it.  The following are good practices to be used in ethical and selling in e-commerce (Turban, Outland, King, Lee, Liang & Turban, 2018)

• Listing product accurately – A company should specify accurately how the product look like mostly by using pictures or videos.
• Adhering to internet selling laws- it is necessary for a business organization to comply with legal provisions.
• Selling of counterfeits products- a company should ensure that it is dealing with authentic products.
• Web Accessibility- an organization website should be flexible in such a way that it easy to access and gathers for the needs of all categories of people from the illiterate to the disable.
• Online data insecurity - data beaches occur in daily basis in E-Commerce. An organization is liable to any fraud and security issue that affects their clients in one way or another. So there is need for the organisation to provide a platform that is free of these challenges.

Consumer service issues

• Lack of quick response- customers are always delighted by a speedy response and transactions, but if a system is slow customers will be very frustrated if response is taking too long.
• Customers not having a 360-degree view of products- some customers need a full view in order to have interest in buying the products.
• Inability to speak language of the customer- most of the world population are English speakers, this help an organisation to communicate well with their clients. Despite this, a survey shows that hire percentage of population buy from the same brand only if post purchase care are from their own language.
• Difficult to maintain consistent client’s experience.
• Difficultly in managing clients prospects through the distribution process (Ascarza et al, 2018).

Measurements and Evaluation of E-commerce of the proposed system

It is important to evaluate the proposed e-commerce website to determine its credibility. To evaluate website one should view the content, attractiveness, functionality, advertisement amongst others. The proposed BTFC e-commerce website can be evaluated in the following ways: (Chiu, Wang, Fang & Huang, 2014).

• Ask clients, colleagues or friends to examine the website through the equivalent  criteria

About three evaluations will help the assessor to determine that is subjective and rank it accordingly.

• Choose a criteria to evaluate the web, create a spreadsheet on computer in scale it to one to five star
• Navigate on the website and take some minutes before finishing evaluation.
• Review and give as score for all the e-commerce website content. Try to answer the following questions

1. Does the web provide all the relevant information concerning the products?
2. Does the website look unique from other existing websites?

• Does the website explain the company’s payments and shipping options?

1. Does the website give reviews from users concerning the products?

• Review functionality of the website

1. Evaluate the rate of ease for customers to navigate on the website- the clients should able to allow clients to navigate freely from home to shopping carts and all other functionality
2. Evaluate whether the customers are attracted to use the website.

• Evaluate whether customers can performs different transactions on one click.

1. Evaluate whether the service provided by the company on web can be view through phone, mail, instant messaging and many more.

• Review authenticity of the website, to do this the one should try to answer the following questions.

1. Does the website provide a secure payments options
2. Does the web answer FAQ

• Does the company have many ratings and interactions with other companies?
• Evaluate the attractiveness of the company’s site (Li, Liu, Fan & Li, 2018).

1. Does the have an attractive image or brand?
2. Does the website look like a fun to users? An enjoyable website should have features like videos, entertainment and music.

• Does the users always like using the same facility or do they recommend friends.

Conclusion 

E-commerce has been widely considered to be buying and selling of goods or services over the internet; also any transaction that is carried out and completed through electronic means is deemed to be e-commerce. Technology now days is evolving day by day, and there is a need for an organization to adapt to these changes, specifically the emergence of E-commerce play a crucial role in our day to day activities and facilitate e-marketing which would help an organization to market their goods and services globally. The use of e-commerce would enable security enhancement in an organization such as the unauthorized modification of data, destruction or alteration. It would ensure that there is protection against authorized data disclosures. Generally, e-commerce is the best medium nowadays that businesses and consumers should use to argument goods and services.  

Recommendation

I strongly recommend BTFC Company to adopt e-commerce to facilitate its business Operations. The e-commerce would enable the company to develop an e-commerce website which would empower the company to increase its market reach, gain more marketing breaks and to improve the company’s scalability. The company would also gain more competitive advantages.

References

Ascarza, E., Neslin, S. A., Netzer, O., Anderson, Z., Fader, P. S., Gupta, S., ... & Provost, F. (2018). In Pursuit of Enhanced Customer Retention Management: Review, Key Issues, and Future Directions. Customer Needs and Solutions, 5(1-2), 65-81.

Chiu, C. M., Wang, E. T., Fang, Y. H., & Huang, H. Y. (2014). Understanding customers' repeat purchase intentions in B2C e?commerce: the roles of utilitarian value, hedonic value and perceived risk. Information Systems Journal, 24(1), 85-114.

Li, X., Liu, Y., Fan, Z., & Li, W. (2018). A Quantitative Approach in Heuristic Evaluation of E-commerce Websites. arXiv preprint arXiv:1801.04829.

Mascitelli, B., & Chung, M. (2015). TRADE PROMOTION AND EXPORT ASSISTANCE: DILEMMAS, TRENDS AND FUTURES. READINGS BOOK, 417.

Turban, E., Outland, J., King, D., Lee, J. K., Liang, T. P., & Turban, D. C. (2018). Electronic commerce payment systems. In Electronic Commerce 2018 (pp. 457-499). Springer, Cham.

Turban, E., Outland, J., King, D., Lee, J. K., Liang, T. P., & Turban, D. C. (2018). E-Commerce: Regulatory, Ethical, and Social Environments. In Electronic Commerce 2018 (pp. 573-612). Springer, Cham.

Wong, M. L. (2016). Developing a Hotel Mobile Website Performance Evaluation Model with Application to Hotels in Hong Kong (Doctoral dissertation, School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University).

Veit, D., Clemons, E., Benlian, A., Buxmann, P., Hess, T., Kundisch, D., ... & Spann, M. (2014). Business models. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 6(1), 45-53.