Blah Blah Blah in eCommerce

Review on a post on Legal

2009-07-12T20:01:00.000+08:00

From The Star paper, it indicated that at least 66 people were cheated around RM73,445.10 after purchased skincare products which include facial and eye masks. These products are come under names such as “My Beauty” and “My Sherman Beauty” being advertised on “Big Pussycat’s” website. They were attracted by cheaper price compared to those off the shelf.

A victim, Chong, had purchased this product for his girlfriend but the products never arrived. Another victim realized that she has been ripped off after her friends told her to check on the advertisement. She found out that the website warns people that the skincare is not genuine.

Datuk Michael Chong, head of MCA Public Services and Complaints Department advised public to be more aware of skincare sold on the Internet. Public must have to make sure that the site is and established or a known site before making purchase.

There are few tips to prevent fraud when purchasing online, which are:

1. Know who you are doing business with. Before making any purchase, be sure that the website that you are engaged in is reputable. Check out the website's feedback and responses.

2. If you worry about entering your bank details online, perhaps you may try Paypal, Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode. They help you to shop on Internet without sharing your banking information and you may cover any fraud occurred.

3. Check with the websites. Web addresses which begin with "https" instead of "http" are protected by Secure Sockets Layer Security. It may help to encrypt the data.

For more information, please refer to

http://www.ip97.com/new_years_resolution_three_simple_ways_to_prevent_online_cdi.aspx

http://www.dna-web-design.com/dna/dna_tips/tips_to_prevent_online-fraud.html

http://www.fpaforfinancialplanning.org/ToolsResources/Articles/EightWaystoDetectandPreventIdentityTheft/

Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

2009-07-12T01:37:00.002+08:00

Corporate blog is a tool published and used by company for communication purposes with the internal and external users. Besides using traditional approaches, they able to achieve organizational goals by create blog.

(i) Internal blog: it is a web blog that enable employee access through the firm’s intranet to get information such as lieu of meetings. Due to this reason, this had increase employee participation to have discussion (e.g. email discussion) on any issues and direct communication with all layers of an organization.

(ii) External blog: it is a web blog that is publicly available among employees, suppliers and customers to share their views. Normally, company used this to publish information about new products and services, objectives and policies and others.

Advantages of corporate blogging:

It can connect with all the users who are customers, shareholders, investors, suppliers, customers all over the world. They can share the latest news, opinions or anything else easily though blogs.

Its cost less expensive compared to traditional method to make announcements such as printed memo for all employees.

It serves as an effective marketing tool by advertise products with animated pictures and do more detailed explanation on each product.

Blog can be used as recruitment tool that can save expenses from hiring consultants. Firm can advertise vacancies and inform the current employees about there is job opening and encourage them to apply if believe they posses required qualifications.

Receive feedback from internal and external users by collecting different views and thinking about the products and services. For employer, blog is able to capture employees’ feeling about company’s policies and working culture.

As a conclusion, blogging had make a lot of changes especially in the business world and it had beneficial to corporation who apply it. It has become the most effective communication tool for companies to catch up with employees and the society.

references:
http://www.enterpriseblogs.info/corporate-blogging/advantages

E- Goverment in Malaysia: Implementation and Citizen's Adoption Strategies

2009-07-10T00:42:00.006+08:00

E-government refers to the use of information and communication technology to provide and improve convenience, accessibility, and quality of government services and policies, etc. The implementation of e-government in Malaysia started since the establishment of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC).http://www.mscmalaysia.my/

Seven projects have been carrying out to identify the heart of e-government applications, and there are all listed as follow.

1. Generic Office Environment (GOE)
Use of multimedia information technology to improve the communication between workers and departments and improve the efficiency of work within the government.

2. Electronic Procurement (EP) project
To cover central contract, tender and direct purchase, the use of this project will increase transparency, saving in time and money.

3. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
To manage human resource, this system will record all information about workers including other services like leave application, loan processing, selection etc.

4. Electronic Services Directory
To engage transactions with government and we are allowed to make payment such as electricity, telephone bill and even police summons.

5. Project Monitoring System
For project monitoring running by government, and citizen are allow to provide any ideas or comments.

6. Electronic Labor Exchange
To improve the mobilization of human resource and optimize workforce utilization through systematic matching of job seekers of job vacancies.

7. Internal Revenue Department (IRD)
By using My Key digital signature, companies are able to digitally sign and pay their tax by using this system.http://www.hasil.org.my/english/eng_NO5_1.asp

E-government adoption is heavily depending on the design of the website; it has been divided into different section to indicate the quality of the e-government.

1. Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is the basis therefore most important; a higher level of the satisfaction will gradually increase the rate of e-government adoption.

2. Service Quality
Time taken to response to the citizens concern. Problem solving by government will directly impact on the service quality and satisfaction of the citizen.

3. Website Design
Personalization websites, customization of product offerings, and self-care are the three key features, these features give visitors a sense of control and participation and could potentially enhance their adoption

4. User Characteristic
User characteristics such as perceived risk, perceived control, and internet experience can have a direct impact on internet adoption. For example, perceived risk could leads to a security and privacy issues which could make users unwilling to use e-government.

A discussion on E-learning offered in Malaysian Universities: Pros and Cons from the students perspective

2009-07-08T16:02:00.001+08:00

E-learning is where technology is used to support the learning process. It involves the use the use of digital technology such as computer to provide education or leaning material. Students access the learning materials through Learning Management System (LMS). They can access it any time and anywhere as long as they have a computer and internet access. Examples of e-learning universities include Multimedia University (MMU), University Tun Abdul Razak (UNITAR), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM).

Pros:

Time flexibility- students can access the learning material at any time they want and they can study at their own pace. The learning sessions are available 24/7.

Cost savings- students need not travel to college/university, they can just study at home. This can help them to save their travelling cost and time.

Effectiveness and efficiency in communication- students can share and manage knowledge and skills among each individual. This enables active participation. Students’ interactions will become much easier than face-to-face communication.

Cons:

Technological- students need necessary hardware such as desktop or laptop and printer and they need to be familiar with those hardware.

Design of the system- poor design of the system causes users to feel frustrated and they might stop learning. The design should be easy for students to use.

Connecivity- if the bandwidth is low, downloading the content will be slow because the content requires a rich combination of multimedia components. This can affect students’ patience.

References:

http://www.utem.edu.my/elearning/about.htm

http://asiapacific-odl2.oum.edu.my/C33/F80.pdf

http://www.elearning-avenue.com/pros-and-cons-pros-and-cons-of-e-learning/

http://www.ucsi.edu.my/jasa/2/papers/08H.pdf

Credit Card Debts : Causes and Prevention

2009-07-05T12:40:00.001+08:00

The above statistic is get from Malay Mail. (read more)

Credit card services are intended to make our life easier; however it had misuse by public and causes them facing a lot of credit card debt. The following is the causes and prevention on credit card debts.

1. Lack of financial management
This is the most common mistakes done by credit card holders. Financial management can let you determine how much you can spend such as prepare a budget for bill payment. However, due to poor financial management (i.e. lack of cash) had delayed their monthly payment and been charged a high late fee at higher rates.

To ensure you won’t be missing any payment, you can set up an automatic bill pay transfer to settle your monthly bill. As a holder, you can always remind yourself for each payment due by keeping a calendar in your mobile phone.

2. Excessive spending
Most of the time, you might attracted by some items and will just take out the credit card and swipe it without considering whether is it needed. This is very dangerous if you keep buy something beyond your means because this will make you become a credit card slave.

Again, please always make a budget on what actually is your necessary expense for each month and stick to it. Always ask yourself, “is this price is within my budget? Or do I really need it?”

3. Income level had been reduced
Before this, you might be a top salesperson who is earned a high commission. However, due to recession, you are unable to gain as much income as before. If you do not trim excess expenses to match with your new income, you might in trouble to settle your monthly charges.

Therefore, you are advised to create a new budget according to your new income and cut down any unnecessary expenses to get your spending under control.

4. Rely too much on using credit card
You might think that the easy way to make payment for the expensive stuffs is just pull out a credit card and swipe the payment rather than pay cash. But if you do not have much money in your wallet, it indicates that you do not have much money to settle your debt later too.

This behavior will make you trap into debt, therefore, always think twice before purchase and be aware that cash in wallet indicate how much you are able to pay for the bills when it comes to due.

reference: http://www.3debtconsolidation.com/creditcardmistakes.html

Review on a post on e-tailing from My E-Commerce blog

2009-07-04T18:29:00.000+08:00

The article titled “OpenTable.com - Online restaurant reservations” on http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/e-Tailing is one of the examples of e-tailing.

Have you ever reserve movie tickets online? If yes, online restaurant reservation also works similar with that. OpenTable.com is the most popular website for public to make restaurant reservation online. It is joined by more than 10,000 restaurants from more than 50 countries and trusted by 100 million diners around the world.

OpenTable.com transforms pens and papers into a dynamic reservation. The reservation online costs the diner nothing and OpenTable.com will give you the same result as you placing through a phone call but it is processed with just a click. Now that a question arises, how the customers know whether their reservations will receive by the restaurant? Customers’ reservation will immediately record in restaurant’s computerized reservation book which has live internet connections into the restaurant once the reservation is made.

No doubt that making restaurant reservation through OpenTable.com is beneficial. Guess what? OpenTable.com is so attentive that it can track customers’ special occasion such as anniversary and birthday. Tired of waiting with your lovers to get a romantic dinner in a crowded restaurant? Perhaps you might try OpenTable.com

For more information, you can click the link below to view OpenTable.com's video.
http://www.opentable.com/info/video.aspx

Mobile Payment System in Malaysia: Its potential and customers' adoption strategies

2009-07-04T18:27:00.001+08:00

Mobile payment (m-payment) system is an alternative payment method. M-payment is the collection of money from a consumer via mobile dive such as mobile phone, Smartphone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or other devices. It is a new and rapidly adopting strategy for consumer make payment. It is broadly wide use in Asia and Europe especially in Filipina, because consumers can easily use a mobile phone to pay any fee instead of paying with cash, check or credit card.

In year 2001, this technology finally reached and launched in Malaysia. The success of this technology is hugely based on the number of mobile devices users. As mobile device is popular, m-payment system released to meet the tidal current. The use of m-payment not only convenient to those who live in city, on the other hand it has more impact to people live in rural places compare to city, because rural places is difficult to make any payment or shop, m-payment will fit perfectly in this situation. For an example, Citibank mobile payment allowed customers to use their mobile payment to pay bills by deducting the amount from their credit card. http://www.cbronline.com/news/citibank_malaysia_launches_mobile_bill_payment_service

As m-payment system released, a lot of companies have released shopping through mobile services such as ticket purchases, digital goods and will increase through time. We can even use m-payment to pay bills, such as water and electric bills as well. We could easily done those thing by using a single mobile device, instead of queuing and spend a lot of time. It is a potential system and it will develop successfully with no doubts. Maxis, Maybank and Nokia have teamed with Visa to offer Visa payWave on mobile payment. http://marketing-interactive.com/news/12091

In order to make use of this system widely, lot more services must be provided. So users got the opportunity to use this system more frequently, for example shop for fashion with m-payment. Benefit offer when using this system will help a lot too, like telecommunication company offer gifts to those who call or received call with mobile device by giving free sms or call time. Most importantly, this system will need to provide good security, in order to built up users confidents, simplified the processes and lower the charging cost when using the system.

The Application of Pre-paid Cash Card for Consumer

2009-06-28T23:39:00.001+08:00

Pre-paid cash card is a card that consumers load money in before they pay. It looks like credit and debit cards and can be use the same way as credit or debit card. Consumers can only spend the balance that has been preloaded onto the card.

Some provider will charge consumers for application fees but there are some free of charge if you top them up with a minimum amount of money. Consumers will have to pay annual fees of RM 9.90, but there are no interest and late charges.

An example of pre-paid cash card is Tune Prepaid Visa Card.

Pre-paid card is easy to use and can be use anywhere visa is accepted.

It is easily available to consumers because there is no credit check which means you can get a card without worrying about your credit history.

With a pre-paid cash card consumers will have no chance of spending too much as they are limited to the amount that is in their card.

Consumers can withdraw money from the pre-paid card worldwide. It is globally accepted.

The card can be use to purchase airline ticket and reload mobile phone.

Pre-paid cash card will be useful if consumers are going to oversea for holiday. It offers a better exchange rate than foreign exchange providers.

References:

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/c/prepaid-cards/guide/3/

http://www.creditcard2u.net/paypal/choosing-a-right-prepaid-visa-card-paypal-withdrawal-debit-card

Review on Internet Security from My E-Commerce blog

2009-06-27T15:51:00.000+08:00

I have read about an article titled "New Spamming Tactics" from http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/2007/08/new-spamming-tactics.html.

This article defined that spamming is the flooding of electronic mail systems with “junk e-mail”. Also known as unsolicited bulk messages sent through the electronic messaging systems. One common spam is email spam. Spammers willing to send thousand email or more to get a single response. They use tricks to get you to read their messages by using the “Subject:” line. Usually your email address will not appear in the “To:” line and you will never see the email addresses of other people they sent the messages to.

The spammers now have come out with new spamming tactics which are PDF spam, Piggyback spam and Greeting Card spam.

PDF Spam

If you have received an email message containing only a subject line and PDF file attachment, it is likely to be the PDF spam. Spammers started to use PDF spam because most of the users expect spam to be an image or text but not an attachment. Besides that, spam filters can not screen the contents of PDF attachment which will make the messages to be sent easily into your inbox instead of junk-mail.

The email recipients should not open the PDF attachment in the message that does not have text in message area. The email must be deleted immediately.

Piggyback Spam

Piggyback spam is embedded URL links that are completely unrelated to the spam being advertised. It may be asking you to click on a link of websites to view the message properly or to get further information. These links may lead to a downloadable file and if the user has download it, malware or spyware including a key logger and Trojan which will takeover the computer and add it to a botnet may be installed on user’s computer.

Users are advised not to save or download any unknown file.

Greeting Card Spam

The spammers have devised email that looked like greeting card but it contains dangerous virus. Usually, the subject line of the inbox informs recipients that they have received a greeting card from a friend, family member or love one. When the link to the website is being clicked, the user’s computer will upload the spyware. Once installed, the spyware begins operate immediately which disable the user’s antivirus software and record all emails being viewed as well as passwords that are being entered. To identify whether the greeting card contains spam or not, it usually uses a generic name instead of real name and also leads the user to download some custom software.

Users should not respond to unsolicited emails and don not click on links in the messages.

WIth the increasing awareness of user, the spammers will be continually try to outsmart the anti-spam software.REMEMBER always be suspicious of emails and you will safe from those spammers. Good luck ^^

The Threat of Online Security : How Safe is Our Data?

2009-06-26T16:41:00.001+08:00

As a user of computer and internet, I am concerning about how safe actually is our data. Even though there are a lot of online securities, but there would not be 100% protecting our data. There are several major threats to our computer :

1. Non Technical Attack

Social Engineering or Phishing

It is a practice of uses social pressures to set a trap so that the attacker can get confidential information to manipulate any transaction on behalf of the users. For example, an email sent to a user and makes he or she thought is an administrator and asking for password or credit card information to “update their account”, if failed to do so within 3 days, the current account will be suspended. In such case, users normally will access it without extra consideration and this makes the social engineering works.

2. Technical or Malicious Attack

Denial-of-service (DoS) attack

It is an attack on a website in which an attacker uses specialized software to send a flood of data packet to the target computer with the aim of overloading its resources. Due to overloading, it caused the network shut down and make users cannot access to the site.

First, the attacker uses a fake IP address in each packet and sends it to a user (victim).

Then, the user cannot differentiate which is the request is fake and legal, so he or she will tries to respond every request that he or she receives.

After that, the replies will reached to a computer that does not exist which means the attacker obtained the user’s information successfully.

Virus

A piece of software code that need to inserts itself into a host program including the operation systems, to spread from one computer to another computer. It can destroy your computer hardware, software and personal information.

In order to prevent the virus spread, you are recommended to have a good anti virus installed in your computer before connected to Internet. In addition, the anti virus program need to be updated.

Worm

Is a software program that runs independently, not like virus, it can spreads over the network without attached with host program. As a result, the attacker can take control of your computer remotely.

Due to this reason, you are advised not to simply open any attachment from your email unless you are clearly known what the content of the attachment is. Even though you want to open the attachment, you can save it into a folder on your hard drive and scan it with your anti virus software before you open it.

Trojan Horse

It is a program that appears to have a useful function but it may contains a hidden function that presents a security risk.

Users might lured by the Trojan horse that seems appeared as a gift, but it is actually brings harmfulness to your computer such as it allows the attacker to take control of your computer, steal your personal data such as credit card information and passwords, and even worst is caused your computer to stop functioning.

As a conclusion, we as a user of computer and internet, are responsible and be aware to protect our data to be kept safely besides depends on the online security.

references:

http://ia.metrostate.edu/sobis/document/mattord_social_engineering_v3.pdf

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=trojan+horse&go=&form=QBIR#focal=2ad274a860e407906280a2aefa0e18df&furl=http%3A%2F%2Fthundercloud.net%2Fsecurity%2Fhorse.gif

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=denial+of+service+attack&go=&form=QBIR#focal=a911f6fbaa7013f94a615168c36902cc&furl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.caida.org%2Fdata%2Fpassive%2FDoS_Frame_3.gif

How to Safeguard Our Personal and Financial Data?

2009-06-23T13:56:00.001+08:00

Nowadays, people are using internet to do financial dealings such as e-banking. Millions of dollars are being traded in the internet daily. Besides that, personal information needs to be given to conduct financial transaction. There are number of virus programs in the cyber world that will cause lots of damages to our computer system. They are capable of accessing all the information stored in a computer which might erase the data and damage the operating system so that we could not use the internet.

There are a few safeguards that can be taken:

Ask your financial institution about its security program. You are entitled to be assured that the company takes data security seriously even though you may not obtain a copy of the company’s policy. Security is also often discussed on a company’s web site along with its privacy policy.
Do not provide persona data to an unsolicited e-mail. Many identity thieves are acting on behalf of financial institution to send e-mails.
Install the best security program or software. Internet security software can help to fight the threats in the internet such as spyware, adware, computer viruses and hackers. It is a program that can help protect your computer from vicious software in the internet.
Use anti-virus software. Anti-virus program is to protect against some viruses that are very harmful to your computers. Anti-virus program should also be updated constantly to better protect you from the new viruses.
Anti-spyware. Adware and spyware are dangerous programs that can access your personal information stored in your computer. It should be installed and updated regularly.
Choose your pin wisely. Do not choose a pin number that can be easily figured out by the thief such as your birth date or child’s name. A combination of uppercase and lowercase letter and numbers will give you a better security.
Avoid accessing information in public. When you’re outside in a restaurant or coffee shop that offers wireless access, do not log on to check your bank balance. You will not know how firm their firewall is.
Do not open unknown sender’s attachments. You must always be careful when there is any attachment or links that are sent to you. These attachments might contain viruses and the links might bring you to other website where you’re asked to input your financial information.
Report lost or stolen cards immediately to the bank or other financial institution that issued them so that the thief will not have a chance to use it.
Check billing statement. Match your receipts with your statement each month to ensure that you’re billed correctly and do not have any suspicious transactions.

References:

http://www.fool.com/personal-finance/general/2006/09/23/safeguard-your-financial-life.aspx

http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=1491881

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs24e-FinInfo.htm#6

Phishing : Examples and its Prevention Methods

2009-06-20T15:20:00.007+08:00

Hello reader, let me explain

What is Phishing?

Phishing is a form of criminal activity using the engineering technique, in computer world means hacking information or data such as username, password, etc. Criminal will attempts to design a fake website by carried out the email address and instant messaging. Usually, those fake website looks similar to the original website. Most of the people will lack of awareness about the fake website. http://www.zone-h.org/news/id/4710

The graph above shows that, phishing is increasing from year 2002 to 2008. There have a dramatically increase from year 2007 to 2008.

Example of Phishing..

ebay

This is the first example of email phishing ebay.com

This email contain a official ebay logo on top of it. However, the link is actually not to the original ebay official website. As they make it look real and attempt to steal username and password.

This is the second example

This spam mail does not carries any name nor ebay login name, it is to uncover the password. In order to avoid this, it is recommend to open a fresh browser window instead of clicking on the link.

There are a lot of example for phishing ebay.com. Let to continue to another website which is citi bank.

How to Prevent Phishing Scam?

1) Do not reply e-mails that request for personal information.
Seeing a picture of a locked padlock in the lower right-hand corner of the BROWSER WINDOW, not the page itself.

2) Do not click on the link in suspicious e-mail.
Seeing an https:// appear in the URL instead of http://
http://security.yahoo.com/article.html?aid=2006102502

3) Use strong or different password for all accounts and change them frequently.
Do not use birthday, id no or any code that relevant to be your password.

4) Do not send any username or password through ordinary e-mail.

5) Access to business with reliable and trustful companies.
Aware with e-commerce, as sometimes we can only communicate through online.

6) Keep computer and antivirus updated to protect personal information.
Keep antivirus and computer updated will help a lot to prevent information leak especially for those who are not professional managing it.

7) Only use one credit card to shop online for easy tracking when anything happened.
When something happened, bank and holder can track and react easily, to halt transfer and disable the card.

8) Use credit card instead of debit card to shop online to prevent leak of large amount of money.

Review on Real-World Case: Google is changing everything

2009-06-18T23:57:00.001+08:00

Today, I read the article in Turban’s textbook which titled: Google is changing everything. Google had become one of the company that brings a lot of impacts to users compared to others which implementing e-Commerce (EC) capability. This may be due to its efficient IT and EC management strategy.

I found out there is a lot of benefits that took place by implementing E commerce and all of the examples can be proved by how Google innovating their activities that help public to solve their problems. First of all, Google helps Small Medium Enterprise (SME) to compete with large enterprises by providing them suitable and specific business model. It helps to organize users’ information and publish via the web so that anyone can access it easily.

In addition, EC is providing ubiquity to users because they can shop anytime from anywhere. For example, https://www.google.com/froogle/merchants/welcome. is a website which allows users to compare the price and item with other companies. This save customer times to compare from one shopping centre to another shopping center and have more choices from varieties of products, services, vendors and styles. Users can get more information from EC than the physical stores because it helps to find what your need easily, tells you more details about the products tat you choose, demos and etc.

In the article, it tells me about Enterprise Search is a tool that helps identify and enable organization to share information with authorized users. This can improve the organization performance by offering the other applicants i.e. suppliers to access the enterprise information such as reports and business events.

An example of enterprise that succeeds by using this tool in this article is Kaiser Permanente They need to make sure there is updating knowledge is available for its doctors, nurses and other caregivers. EC can be global reach and publish updated information that help users make the best decision such as do research on diagnoses and specify treatments. More over, EC can reduce pollution and traffic jam by enabling telecommunicating and facilitate work at home. Means, there is more education, health information and etc that is available for more people even though they are at home or live at rural area.

As a conclusion, invention of e Commerce capabilities had brings huge changes in the global and it makes Google had change everything in order to compete with other competitors. What had they done is proven that, they are successful and brings usefulness to the public; therefore, they are expanding their business and gaining revenue by matching global needs.

Sources : A review on Real-World Case: Google is changing everything, from the textbook Chapter1 pg.38.

Turban, E., King, D., McKay, J., Marshall, P., Lee, J., & Viehland, (2008). Electronic Commerce: A managerial Perspective 2008. (International Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Education International.

History and Revolution of E-commerce

2009-06-18T21:11:00.000+08:00

History of E-commerce was started since the invention of the very old notion of selling and buying, electricity, cables, computers, modems and importantly Internet. The usage of E-commerce became possible once the Internet can be commercially used. After that, thousands of transactions were generated at websites.

As far as back to early 1960, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) was developed. It is a set of standard that allow a company’s computer system to share business information and generate transaction with another company.

In 1979, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) came up with ASCX 12, which is stable and reliable for transferring large amounts of business documents.

Arpanet was developed in late 1960 which were connecting the four large research universities in US. Researchers developed Terminal Interface Processor (TIP) for dialing Arpanet from individual computer terminal but in 1982, Arpanet switched over to Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP).

Mosaic web-browser was made available in 1992 that it was the first ‘point-and-click browser. Mosaic web-browser allows easier access to E-commerce because that browser was adapted Netscape, a downloadable browser. Netscape 1.0 which was released in 1994 contains Secure Socket Layer (SSL) which was security protocol that encrypted messages on both sending and receiving side of online transaction. It is important to ensure the personal information such as name, address, phone and credit card numbers could be encrypted as they passed over the Internet.

Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) was another development of E-commerce in 1998. DSL allows quicker access and has persistent connection to Internet.

I now end my post by presenting you a video clip, E-commerce Evolution, to make the history more understandable.

An example of an e-commerce failure and its causes

2009-06-18T10:53:00.001+08:00

The example of an e-commerce is eToys.com. EToys.com is a retail website that sells toys through the internet. EToys was founded in 1997 and at that time it was the first online toy retailer. By 1998, eToys.com became the third largest e-commerce site in the country. EToys.com was founded by Toby Lenk. The funding is from Sequoia Capital, Highland Capital Partners and Idealab. The company went bankrupt near the end of the dotcom boom. Dot-com boom is the period marked by the founding of a group of new internet-based companies. The company that owned the eToys site filed for bankruptcy toward the end of the Internet bubble on March 7, 2001. EToys.com was then reopened by eToys Direct Inc. EToys.com changes a number of ownership and at the end it was acquired by Toys "R" Us in February 2009.

In 1999, the company was involved in a dispute with Swiss art site etoy. EToys filed a suit against Swiss art site etoy.com for trademark infringements. The domain of Swiss art site etoy.com was similar to its own domain. The suit was dropped and etoys.com in turn filed a lawsuit against eToys.com. The suit against Swiss art site etoys.com was a huge mistake. EToys had a highly successful Initial Public Offering in 1999. Shares issued at $20 rose to $76 on the first day of trading, but in February 2001, its stock went from $84 per share to 9 cents per share. EToys spent millions on advertising, marketing, and technology to compete with its competitors. All the spending incurred exceeds the company's income and investors quickly turn to other company, this leads to the failure of eToys.com. EToys.com does not have a solid infrastructure before its expansion. They had a rapid expasion and this causes them to failed. Another cause is because eToys did not deliver their product on time. Sales were low and many customers did not receive their products and this quickly spread to everyone. The customer satisfactions were low and they go to other competitors.

References:

https://share.zoho.com/preview/presentation/21397000000005003

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EToys.com

Success Factors and its Causes

2009-06-18T00:20:00.000+08:00

Nowadays, E -commerce is very common type of business in the online transaction. In this new generation, people prefer to shop online because they would like to buy whatever they want and also can search whatever they wish around the world. It is very convince to consumer to shop everything. For example, Amazon.com is a successful e-commerce and it is well known throughout the world. What is the factor tend to Amazon be a successful e commerce?

A list of top ten companies of the decade it would not be completed without Amazon.com. The company is considered one of the top in the e commerce industry and has managed to continue success.

There are the four categories tend to Amazon.com be a global acceptance and successful in e commerce. The four factors are, unique shopping experience, offering competitive prices, straightforward wed design and friendly interface, lastly Amazon has a convince payment system.

Unique shopping experience: Provide service for customers enable them to buy and to return. Sales promotion occurs in Amazon.com as well, which involve coupons, special offers and discount. Some books has provided the signature of author rather than buy books from other companies.

Competitive Price: Amazon is very differently to the other companies, because they offer the prices of a product from different companies to let buyer be able compares. Besides that, any fees for product listing and its cost will be paid by sellers until the products are sold.

Web page design and friendly interface: We can provide personal attention, to personalized web sites, give comments, purchase suggestion and personalized special offers. Just like running a self business.

Convenience payment system: For every e-commerce company, the most convenience issue of success is payment. We can pay for the shopping by credit card, otherwise it will take times for other payment method.

More information regrds to the amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Pc/product-reviews/B000FKBCX4

http://www.amazon.com/

A Little Me...

2009-06-12T11:48:00.001+08:00

Hi, I am Chow Sook Yee; people tend to call me Suki. I am from Kuala Lumpur the capital city of Malaysia; I love Kuala Lumpur very much because it is the most advance city around Malaysia. KL (Kuala Lumpur) contains a variety type of shopping areas such as Midvalley, KLCC. From the cheapest to the most expensive, from hat to shoes with all kinds of fashions.

I born into a very cute and small family, there are 6 members in my family, my parents, an elder brother and sister, and eventually a younger brother. Unfortunately, I lack of a younger sister, I really wish to have one if possible.

My biggest hobby is watching movie, I prefer funny movies the most, because it will bring happiness to whom watching it. I love other types of movies too, sometimes I went cinema to watch some newly released film as well.

I have a lovely pet, it’s cute and I like it very much, its name is Ken Ken. It always brings a lot of happiness to my family. Sometimes, it will accompany me when I am bored. It is like know what I am thinking too, that is the reason why I love it so much.

During my life studying in UTAR (University Tunku Abdul Rahman), I have learned a lot especially when I was participating in soft skill courses. As I got the opportunity to learned a lot that I can never learn from books, it does improve a lot in my life.

The top 5 websites I have visit includes Google, Hotmail, Ebay, Yahoo and Utar.edu.my. Mostly I will use search engines such as Google or Yahoo to search for my work. These websites are very useful as it allow us to find things easily and convenient. Besides that, internet surfing allow us to do a lot of things at these days, it enable us to know a lot that we wouldn’t normally find from the book.

A Short Note About SherLing

2009-06-10T11:45:00.000+08:00

Hello,a good day to you =) I am SherLing and I am the youngest in my family.

I am from Bukit Mertajam, Penang. Bukit Mertajam is a small town located at Butterworth. (My friends has just corrected me. She said that Bukit Mertajam is located at Penang.) Ever heard it? Perhaps next time you can pay me a visit and I will tour you around where to have nice foods that you may not try before and some must go places. Be prepared that we might get lost =p

My nickname is "Mushroom Head"when I was in my secondary school. this is because since I was small, my hair was short and it looked like a mushroom. This nickname kind of haunted me for more than five years which I swear that I would never cut my hair that short anymore.

In my free time, i love to surf net and try to relax myself away from those stressful studies. Staying at home all the time is boring and therefore I also enjoy hanging out with my besties. Capturing pictures is a MUST to keep the happy moments. Pictures can tell everything! Shopping is my all time favourite as I can shop whole day!

The followings are five top sites that I visit the most:
www.facebook.com This is the most popular social network so far. I upload pictures and update my friends' current life through Facebook.
www.dygod.com This is the site where I download all the movies and dramas.
www.blogger.com I blog my everyday's life and read my friends' blogs too.
http://bambeedear.blogspot.com This is one of the online boutique I will stop by.
www.seekasong.com & http://mp3.qihoo.com is where I download the latest songs.

Basically this is about SherLing and hope you enjoy reading it.
Thank you for your time and have a good day.^^

Introduction

2009-06-09T13:44:00.000+08:00

Hi.
My name is Tai Li Jie. I'm 21 years old this year. I'm from Taiping but currently staying in Subang since 13 years old. I have three siblings and i'm the youngest. My secondary school is SMK Subang Utama. Ihave studied in UTAR for 3 years and 1 more year to go.

In my free times, I will watvh TV or drama on my computer. My hobbies are swimming and play badminton. Besides that I also like travelling but don't have money.

When I go online, normally I will go to www.hotmail.com to check my mail and to forward some of it. I will also go to www.facebook.com to play restaurant city and browse through the hompage. Beside that, the website that i often visit is www.thestar.com.my. I will got here and read the news instead of reading the hardcopy of the newspaper. It is easy and fast beacuse I can read the latest news now instead of tomorrow's newspaper. I will also go to www.friendster.com to see whether there is any updated information about my friends. The other website is www.google.com which i will go there to search for information that I want to know and especially to search for information for my assignment.

---About Bu--

2009-06-09T12:49:00.000+08:00

I am Kok Joanne, was born at 29th October 1988 in Kuala Lumpur. Currently, I am pursuing my Accounting course at University Tunku Abdul Rahman, Sungai Long. This is a "good" location that provided a peaceful life, especially students. This is because, here is lack of entertainment and we need to take around 2hours by U41 Rapid KL to KL.

My classmates used to call me as "Kwok Jun Onn ( Ah Wong). Recently, i called myself as Fatso Bu. I love to laugh, most of the times my friends said my laugh is horrible! During the free time, i like to watch drama, play games and talk craps with friends. I also hanging out with my buddy once a month, normally we will meet up at Oldtown Kopitiam or any birthday parties that held at other places.

Besides that, i like to visit www.facebook.com. Here, I want to thank Li Jie and Sherling because they forced and helped me to sign up. And guess what? I am addicted to "Spot the Difference" and "Puzzle Spot". I wanted to break my friends' high score, especially Ah Phang and Li Jie. But, I failed!

The other websites that i visited are www.hotmail.com (check mail), www.sinchew.com (e-news), www.youtube.com and www.maggiemarket.com.hk.

My next plan is to watch Hannah Montanna (The Movie)!! Please~~~~~~

--Bubu--
--090609--