communities.
a. What is meant by an online community and how is it important for
e-commerce?
"Online community A virtual meeting place for people on the Internet. Designed to facilitate interaction and collaboration among people who share common interests and needs. Online communities can be open to all or by membership only and may or may not offer moderator tools.
Reference:
Definition (2008). Last accessed March 5, 2009 from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/WBI/0,,contentMDK:20169611~isCURL:Y~menuPK:654498~pagePK:209023~piPK:207535~theSitePK:213799,00.html#o
An online community provide a place for people with common interest to meet and interact with each other. For e-commerce online community provide an easier way to do a targeted marketing. For example, an e-commerce website that sells games will look to advertise its products in a gaming community such as gaming forums (for example gamefaqs.com). That way they can always be sure that they are reaching the most potential customer.
http://ebay.com.au:
i. Is there a common thread and a local community sense in action?
At the first look, all three sites have the same look and feel, except for the URL address there is no difference at all between the three. However on closer look there is a subtle difference, ebay.co.uk uses pounds as a currency, while ebay.com.au uses Australian $ and ebay.com uses American $. Also with the product that they sell. So in conclusion i think there is a local community sense in each of them.
ii. What electronic payment systems are used? Are they globally
acceptable?
All three eBay website recommends PayPal as the best payment method, and we have to agree that for an auction site like eBay PayPal is probably the best payment method both for the buyer and the seller. First of all i have to mention that PayPal is globally acceptable, anyone can have a PayPal account easily and unlike payment with credit cards (which is also acceptable in eBay) PayPal does not require the seller to have a merchant account (which is quite pricey) in a certain bank, which means lower cost and lower item prices which benefits everyone.
iii. What are the benefits of an online auction sale to a buyer, a
seller and E-bay owners?
For buyer the benefits is open market, they can search the item they want easily and find the best price for that item while sitting at home drinking coffee (or tea if coffee is not your thing).
For the seller online auction sale opens up a new market where potential buyer comes from all over the world.
For eBay owners online auction sale means profit, eBay charges some percentage of the sale price to the seller, so every sale means income for the eBay owners.
c. Find three others examples of an online business using an online
community approach.
http://shoppingsquare.com.au/
http://shoppingsquare.com.au/
http://uk.playstation.com/psn/store/
2. Visit the famous online store front at http://www.amazon.com
a. Why has it been a successful site? How does the purchase of a book
work?
Amazon.com was a successful site because it has a really good business plan, they pride themselves as a place where people can find any book. They specialize themselves in that area so that they have a loyal customer base. Although now they have expand themselves to selling other stuff their mainstay is still about books.
They also made it very easy to buy a book. First you need to be a member, and then you select the book you want, after getting the details of the book, you can select from buying a new, used or collectible book (all with different prices of course). And then, like with any online sales, you choose the type of payment, enter payment detail, etc, etc. And finally you will get a thank you message and your book will be send in a week or so.
b. Is there any secure transactions not involving money?
Yes, the first time when you register to amazon.com is a secure transaction that does not involve any money being transfer.
c. What is the range of items that you can buy?
Amazon.com currently sells any kind of items, not just book. They sell movies, games, electronics, sports stuff, etc.
i. List the steps involved and comment.
The steps involved is the same as buying books from them, which i think is very normal and many commercial websites used nowadays.
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