E-commerce Business: How to Build, Launch, and Grow a Profitable Online Store

E-commerce (also known as electronic commerce) Business is the process of buying and selling of products or services, making money transfers, and transferring data over an electronic medium (Internet). This network allows people to do business without the constraint of distance and time. There are various types of online business options that you can

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Introduction to e-business and e-commerce

Organizations have now been applying technologies based on the Internet, World Wide Web and wireless communications to transform their businesses for over 15 years since the cre­ation of the first web site (http://info.cern.ch) by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 1991. Deploying these technologies has offered many opportunities for innovative e-businesses to be created based on

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The impact of the electronic communications on traditional businesses

During the same period managers at established businesses have had to determine how to apply new electronic communications technologies to transform their organisations. As we will see later in this chapter, existing businesses have evolved their approaches to e-business through a series of stages. Innovation in e-business is relentless, with the continuous intro­duction of

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Real-world E-Business: HP.com

Ted Speroni, Director, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Asia), HP.com Overview and main concepts covered Ted Speroni heads the European operations of HPcom, as well as the tech giant’s regional preferred online partner programme. This practitioner interview highlights some of the challenges and opportunities for a traditional organization in managing e-commerce. It also introduces

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E-commerce defined

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is often thought simply to refer to buying and selling using the Internet; people immediately think of consumer retail purchases from companies such as Amazon. But e-commerce involves much more than electronically mediated finan­cial transactions between organizations and customers. E-commerce should be considered as all electronically mediated transactions between an organization

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E-business defined

Given that Figure 1.2 depicts different types of e-commerce, what then is e-business? Let’s start from the definition by IBM (www.ibm.com/e-business), which was one of the first suppliers to use the term in 1997 to promote its services: e-business (e’biz’nis) – the transformation of key business processes through the use of Internet technologies. Today,

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A short history of Facebook

1. Context This case is about a social network, Facebook. According to its owners, Facebook is a social utility that helps people com­municate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people’s real-world social connections. Anyone

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Business or consumer models of e-commerce transactions

It is now commonplace to describe e-commerce transactions between an organization and its stakeholders according to whether they are primarily with consumers (business-to- consumer – B2C) or other businesses (business-to-business – B2B). Figure 1.8 gives examples of different companies operating in the business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) spheres. Often companies such as BP or

E-business opportunities

E-business has introduced new opportunities for small and large organizations to compete in the global marketplace. Many commentators have noted that one of the biggest changes introduced by electronic communications is how approaches to transmitting and transforming information can be used for competitive advantage. A significant commentary on the disruptive, transformational nature of electronic

Business adoption of digital technologies for e-commerce and e-business

As managers, we need to assess the impact of e-commerce and e-business on our market­place and organizations. What are the drivers of changed consumer and business behaviour? How should we respond? How much do we need to invest? What are our priorities and how quickly do we need to act? Answering these questions is

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E-business risks and barriers to business adoption

Opportunities have to be balanced against the risks of introducing e-business services which vary from strategic risks to practical risks. One of the main strategic risks is making the wrong decision about e-business investments. In every business sector, some companies have taken advantage of e-business and gained a competitive advantage. But others have invested

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Management responses to e-commerce and e-business

A primary aim of this book is to consider the management issues when businesses look to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by e-commerce and e-business. How should an e-business strategy be developed? To what extent can we use existing business and IS strat­egy models? What are the main changes that need to be

EBay – the world’s largest e-business

This case summarizes the strategic approach used by eBay to take advantage of increased consumer adoption of the Internet. It summarizes its objectives, strategy and proposition and some of the risks that need management. 1. Context It’s hard to believe that one of the most celebrated dot­coms has now celebrated its tenth birthday. Pierre

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The e-commerce environment

All organizations operate within an environment that influences the way in which they con­duct business. Strategy development should be strongly influenced by considering the environment the business operates in, as illustrated in Figure 2.1. To inform e-commerce strategy, the most significant influences are those of the immediate marketplace of the micro-environment that is shaped

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Location of trading in online the marketplace

While traditional marketplaces have a physical location, an Internet-based market has no physical presence – it is a virtual marketplace. Rayport and Sviokla (1996) used this distinc­tion to coin a new term: electronic marketplace. This has implications for the way in which the relationships between the different actors in the marketplace occur. The new

Business models for e-commerce

A review of the different online business models made available through e-commerce is of relevance to existing companies, but in particular, start-up companies and online intermedi­aries. Venkatram (2000) points out that existing businesses need to use the Internet to build on current business models, while at the same time experimenting with new business models.

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Focus on auction business models

With the success of eBay (www.ebay.com), auctions have been highlighted as one of the new business models for the Internet. But how do auctions work, what infrastructure is required and what is the potential for B2B auctions? In this section we will address some of these issues. Auctions involve determination of the basis for

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Focus on Internet start-up companies

To conclude the chapter, we review how to evaluate the potential of new Internet start-ups. Many ‘dot-coms’ were launched in response to the opportunities of new business and rev­enue models opened up by the Internet in the mid-to-late 1990s. We also consider what lessons can be learnt from the dot-com failures. But Table 1.1

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Lastminute.com – an international dot-com survivor

This case illustrates the fortunes of lastminute.com, a start-up which used the Internet to introduce an innovative service. The case describes the service and its growth. Success factors in achieving growth and threats to growth throughout the history of the company are described. lastminute.com was a European innovation, since at launch, no equivalent site

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Zopa launches a new lending model

This case shows how it is still possible to develop radical new online business models. It shows how an online business can be launched without large-scale expendi­ture on advertising and how it needs to be well targeted at its intended audience. 1. Context It might be thought that innovation in business models was left

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