Independent Study--E Business: Why Paypal?

The charts above are showing that Paypal's active users is growing fast and mobile payment volume is rapid growth on Paypal mobile payment.
Why so many people use Paypal to pay for online shopping? PayPal is subsidiary of eBay Inc which provide payment online and receive payment service. With PayPal account, there's a lot of benefits like 1. Paypal can pay for the shopping items in hundreds of countries, 2. when we use credit card or bank account for online purchasing, we only need to give the information at the first time, after again we don't need to disclose again, 3. accept Paypal without revealing customers financial information, 4. easy to make transfer money to anywere, 5. it is easier than writing and mailing checks,each transaction show up immediately online to the account, 6. it is fast, safe and fees depend on the amount of sales has been made. Now there is 230 million accounts worldwide using Paypal.
In the future, Paypal is going to help small business get paid whether doing business online, offline or on mobile, and allows to invoice directly from the mobile app. For example, according to VB article, Paypal is going to test in-store payment capability at Home Depot which will allow customer to use the Paypal account to shop in stores. Moreover, to help merchants make more sales and grow business in secure and convenience way. Therefore, through this partnership, Paypal will increase more mobile payments earning in the future.

Independent study--E business

Electronic data interchange called EDI which uses standard format to share information through computer to computer. Most of the information are business document and form. Moreover, companies using EDI for their trading partners. From this, businesses gain the ability to track status and measure performance throughout the entire process. For example, the following are the benefits of using EDI instead of traditional paper on PO (purchase order).
1. The process takes seconds or minutes instead of days
2. The PO goes from the buyer’s computer through a network to the vendor’s computer with no human intervention at all. Eliminate data entry error.
3. The buyer receives rapid confirmation of PO receipt.
Cost saving on using EDI include: human handling costs, supplies and storage costs.
Reduction of inventory costs through shortening order processing and delivery cycles, and generally lowering inventory levels. As goods can be delivered more quickly.
If a company can receive an electronic invoice in a timely manner, the buyer can take advantage of discount terms, effectively paying less for the product. The seller, in turn, can receive payments sooner, improving its cash position and allowing it to pay less for its supplies by taking advantage of discount terms.
Therefore, using EDI brings many benefits to the companies. Especially on purchasing products from distributors. The immediately discounts will show on electronic mail and the buyers can report the best prices to customers. This may create more business for the companies and gain more profits.

Independent study--E business successful cases

Let's take a look at some of the top e-businesses in the field today: eBay, Yahoo, Dell and Amazon. eBay revenues doubling in the past one year. It has transformed sales into highly evolved e-marketplaces. The buyers and sellers are allowed to post their comments online. The transactions are secure, easy,trustworthy and reliable. For bidding, certain high quality goods can be sold at prices fixed by the seller. Also eBay offers professional services for all kinds of business needs. For instance, global reach makes its easy for a buyer in Taiwan to bid and buy a product from a seller in London while the regional sites in North America are able to offer hard-to-ship merchandise. Person-to-person trading has established the company on a secure B2B and B2C platform. Other companies like Yahoo! has been quick to catch on and incorporate auctions into its site. Priceline.com, a site that offers airline tickets on discount has begun experimenting quite successfully with this business model.
Amazon care their customers, tracks their tastes and uses this information to create a unique customer experience. This e-tailer relationships such as customer service, successful online advertising and special discounted offers made Amazon and books provide the most brilliant technology use today.
Dell. Com has a very successful business strategy which is allow customers to have their own custom design computers. This direct contact with consumers gived Dell a competitive advantage. About 15 percent of total revenue is consumer business and the rest is B2B. Moreover, Dell has no central warehouse facility but instead ships to customers directly from its manufacturing plants. Based on customer location, a shipment may originate from a Dell plant in Ireland, China, Brazil, Malaysia, Texas or Tennessee.
The "operating system" of the net and a site for evolving search engines, free news and information services, online ads, banner ads, sports and news, video and audio, clubs and auction stores has become the most popular directory in the web. Online advertising was the main revenue for Yahoo!, but they didn't really check on what kind of ads worked online. Immediate success stopped them from e business.
So, what we have seen is that a combination of strategies, smart thinking, brilliant business plans, innovation, and promotion ideas are an integral part of any e-success. In the near future, people will use more online services. As a result, competition in cyberspace may become even intense in the future and therefore the right business plan is what will eventually ensure long-term success.

Independent study--E business CRM system

E commerce and e-business have increasingly become a necessary component of business strategy . It is associated of buying and selling through the Internet. The best example is the computer company I worked for. This company is a small size company which has 12 employees in America, 12 employees in China and Taiwan. America base is focus on purchasing and shipping products. In china and Taiwan are more focus on sales. Sales team will find customers or the customers are from everywhere who visit the web and order computer products by phone or email. In America, the purchasing team will search and purchase the products from online or local distributors and get the best prices to sell to the customers. There is no inventory for this company. During the whole process, it all depends on the CRM system which is called "customers relationship management"--it is the communication notes between sales team and purchase team that show when the customers ready to purchase and make payments. Therefore, the company will start to process the orders and ship to customers. The advantage of CRM is the company collect sales and customers important information in order to predict the industry trend, economic environment and market strategy. In CRM system, we collect customers frequent ordered items and most wanted items and integrated to the database. Finally, through these collect information, we can analyze and statistic to increase sales. This online business really reduce rent, labor and other expenses. The benefits are low risk and high profit.

Independent study--E business

In chapter 5, we learned how the companies used Internet to do marketing strategy and 4P to achieve products sale and service goals. Some companies used product-oriented strategy such as The Home Depot and Staples are using theme categories to sort their products. To satisfy customer's needs the web had to provide different shopping path. For example, flower online business must have flexible arrangement for different occasions (birthday, mother's day or anniversary). Next was customer-oriented strategy, most important was to find common trait customers group. This strategy can be used on B2B and B2C. The web could combine these two strategy together to provide customers more choices. Market segmentation can be operated and devidied by geographically, demographically and psychographically. For example, Juicy Couture's web is focused on young group with fashion images customers. Also, used bright colors and visual supports to deliver the message that we are friends. On the other hand, Talbots is more focused on conservative way for older and profession customers. When the companies want to use web to find specific customers there are some ways such as according to customers behavioral, occasion, usage-based market segmentation. Browser who is the visitor just look around and can be potential customer. Buyer who is ready to purchase, so it must provide fast and easy way for transaction. Shopper who has the action to shop, so it must provide more information of the product. Online advertising which include banner ad, text ad, pop-up ad and so on to attract potential customers.

Independent study--E business

In chapter four, we learned six web revenue models. 1. Web catalog: many companies use web catalog to sale products and provide services. The customers through Internet or phone to order products. For example, Apple, Dell, HP and Sun Microsystems. Also, books, music, movie or luxury items are using the web catalog revenue model. Such as Best Buy uses marketing channel both real stores and virtual Internet store to provide more products and gain more customers. 2. Digital content revenue model: law business uses this model to provide petent information or tax regulation and so on. Also, some academic research, business management and tech magazine are using this digital model too. 3. Advertising-supported revenue model: there are three stregegy include advertising pay lower fee to attract general customers visit, advertising pay higher fee to attract small and specific customers to visit the web and advertising pay higher fee to focus on specific web page for interest customers for advertisement. For instance, Yahoo, Bing, Google and AOL. 4. Advertising-subscription mixed revenue model: most of newspaper and magazine publishers are using this model because the visitors can read and sometimes will subscribe insider service. 5. Fee-for-transaction revenue model: when a service has been completed, then charge percentage transaction fee. For example, travel business such as Microsoft through Expedia provide travel business. Auto distributors use internet services and satify customers needs to reduce cost. 6. Fee-for-service: such as gaming, entertainment and financial services. Some companies will adjust their revenue model depend on The relationship between customers and business environment.
When the companies have Internet sale and real store, they always worried about Internet sale will become more popular. This is called channel conflict and cannibalization. Therefore, some companies use channel cooperation which is to integrate store, catalogue and web sale to increase business transactions.
When two or more companies doing an activity together for a period of time, it is called strategic alliance. For example, amazon has cooperation with target to sale discount products. A successful Internet business must build attractive presence. There are some goals which include: attract visitors, make web more interesting, visitors easy to get online , create presence and can keep good reputation, trust relationship and visitors high return rate.
In order to keep the customers, e business companies must know the concept of customer-centric. Also, attract more customers by using many-to- one communication model to get potential customers.

Independent study--E business

E commerce needs three-tier or n-tier architecture to integrate database and payment software. On the web the most common operation system includes UNIX's SunOS, FreeBSD and Linux. Most of the web server is used for connection check and remote server administration.
Today eBay is very popular for its online shopping business. That is because eBay has the web server which can manage millions deals online. EBay used distributed architecture which is more reliable, stable and reasonable. Choose suitable web server also can affect e commerce's profit. These webs combine static and dynamic HTML pages. Dynamic page is the orders which build from eBay oracle database. This system can easily found within 30 days transactions. Therefore, web server operations is very important for online business. Once the system shut down will cause business loss.

Independent study--E business

In chapter 2, it talked about the history of Internet and web include technology and research plan which were the foundation of e commerce. Also, we learned about protocol and web structure. For example, TCP/IP used on Internet for delivering information's protocol such as Linux, Macintosh, windows and unix. IP address is the computer's ID on Internet. For instance, www.amazon.com. The development of text markup language started in 1986's SGML. In 1991's HTML which through markup tag to define web's content and structure. Moreover, display by pictures, format styles and other web elements. In 1998's XML which describes the meaning of words, and provides common language to show the product's service and business process in order to share database and reduce the cost. In 2000's XHTML which is the new version and extension of HTML.
Intranet is private and use as same protocol as Internet. When the firms, suppliers, or partners need to integrate, they need to use intranet to connect together and become an extranet. There are three types of extranet: public network, private network and virtual private network. VPN provides the most secure and low cost benefit.
Internet suppliers provide different type of choices: dial connection is the most economic way but low speed to connect to the Internet. Broadband,wireless or mobile 3G have high speed connection to Internet. Since smart phones are widely use by many people, this also increase many new e business for low cost and bring high profit.

Independent study--E business

Between 2000 to 2003, dot- com bubbled. In 2008, all around the world had been through economic recession, however e commerce had Less affected like Amazon.com, eBay, and Yahoo are still providing many new products and services. The first wave of e commerce had happened in America and most of the contents were in English. However, the second wave has focused on international vision which will provide more languages services in business processes. Followed by computers have been used universally just like using celler phones, E commerce has grown and continue grown in the second wave. E business is purchasing things from www. E commerce includes more activities such as by using company internal business process to integrate purchase, sale, and other activities. Business process includes many activities--checking products, packing, shipping, paper work, and delivery to customers. For instance, IBM has transformed business process by using Internet technology which include www, wireless and Internet. There are five types of E commerce: 1. B2C in the first wave, most of the consumers used dial connection to Internet for business activities, in the second wave , use wireless which is faster and more efficiency. 2. B2B such as Intel uses e commerce to sell products to other distributors. About 98% orders are through Internet., 3. other organizations, government or companies transaction activities, 4. C2C and 5. B2G. In e commerce EDI is important cause this data interchange has formatted forms to send all the paper works through electronic devices. Such as GE, Sears and WalMart have used EDI.
E commerce strength includes increase sales, reduce cost and benefit on bring some potential customers, flexible for customers 24 hours for shopping. For example, Intuit's TurboTax provide online purchase for customers , Cisco has used 99% online purchase and sale. E commerce weakness includes fresh products like vegetables or fruits are hard to sale online, luxury jewelry can't provide services for distance customers.
In the second wave , Online advertising such as job searching web increasing in recent years. For example, Google has focused on customers interests products or services for specific advertising. Also, Apple iTunes music, movie and other products have published through Internet. M-commerce the mobile is becoming trendy.