SEPTEMBER 2019

BBED4103

E-COMMERCE

NO. MATRIKULASI : 740924055081002

NO. KAD PENGNEALAN : 740924-05-5081
NO. TELEFON : 012-2139392
E-MEL : ajaaezes@oum.edu.my

PUSAT PEMBELAJARAN : SIK Kajang

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Table

1.0 Introduction of e-commerce................................................................................2

2.0 Explanation of the essential of e-commerce and challenges in

implementing e-commerece.................................................................................6

3.0 Analysis on the steps involved in developing an effective e-commerce............8

4.0 Summary..............................................................................................................16

5.0 References............................................................................................................17

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1.0 Introduction of e-commerce

The emergence of e-commerce is redefining the way business is conducted. It offers

organisations new ways to expand the markets in which they compete, streamlines their
corporate business processes to deliver products and services more efficiently, attracts and
retains customers in new and innovative ways, and reduces costs of operations.

E-commerce is transforming the way customers, employees, and suppliers are relating to one
another. These changes are forcing organisations to craft new strategies and adopt new
methods of implementation. Nearly one-fourth of small businesses that uses the internet
purchased a product through it in 1997. However, only 5% of small businesses overall are
selling products or taking sales leads over the internet.

Gala Group Inc. (1998).

E Commerce is one of the most important facets of the internet to have developed in this day
and age. Ecommerce, sometimes referred to as E Business, involves carrying out business
over the Internet with the use of computers that are linked to each other forming a network. E-
commerce includes the buying, selling, marketing, and servicing of goods or services through
telecommunication technologies.

E-Business, on the other hand, carries a broader definition, not just the buying and selling of
goods and services, but servicing customers, collaborating with business partners, and
conducting communications and transactions within and outside an organization.

Efrahim Turban, David King (1999)

Classifying ecommerce according to the parties involved:

Business to consumer (B2C) – Transactions happen between businesses and consumers. In

B2C ecommerce, businesses are the ones selling products or services to end-users.

Online retail typically works on a B2C model. Retailers with online stores such as Walmart,
Macy’s, and IKEA are all examples of businesses that engage in B2C ecommerce.

Business to business (B2B) – As its name states, B2B ecommerce pertains to transactions
conducted between two businesses. Any company whose customers are other businesses
operate on a B2B model.

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Examples include Xero, an online accounting software for small businesses, ADP, a payroll
processing company, and Square, a payments solution for SMBs.

Consumer to business (C2B) – Consumer to business ecommerce happens when a consumer

sells or contributes monetary value to a business. Many crowdsourcing campaigns fall under
C2B ecommerce.

Soma, a business that sells eco-friendly water filters is one example of a company that
engaged in B2C ecommerce. Back in 2012, Soma launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund
the manufacturing of their product. The project was successful, and Soma went on to raise
$147,444.

Consumer to consumer (C2C) – As you might have guessed, C2C ecommerce happens
when something is bought and sold between two consumers. C2C commonly takes place on
online marketplaces such as eBay, in which one individual sells a product or service to
another.

Government to business (G2B) – G2C transactions take place when a company pays for
government goods, services, or fees online. Examples could be a business paying for taxes
using the Internet.

Business to government (B2G) – When a government entity uses the Internet to purchases
goods or services from a business, the transaction may fall under B2G ecommerce. Let’s say a
city or town hires a web design firm to update its website. This type of deal may be
considered a form of B2G.

Consumer to government (G2C) – Consumers can also engage in B2C ecommerce. People
paying for traffic tickets or paying for their car registration renewals online may fall under
this category.

In this assignment I choose Zappos, Boo.com, BigCommerce and T.C. Elli’s fashion and
Starbucks company as my case study. We will then go through the essential of e-commerce
and challenges in implementing e-commerece. Then we will go through the steps involved to
develop an effective e-commerce. Lastly we will go through the conclusion of the assignment.

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2.0 Essential of e-commerce and challenges in implementing e-commerece

In this part of the assignment we will go through the essential of e-commerce and challenges
in implementing e-commerce.

The internet as an enabling force for improved supply chain management, offers efficiency
and cost reduction to business processes across industries and nations (Lancioni et al., 2003).
E-commerce provides manufacturers with a great opportunity to sell and distribute directly to
final customers (Gunasekaran et al., 2002).

Why E-commerce is so essential to our business:

Influences Purchase Decisions

When our customers decide to purchase anything, initially, they look up online for the same.
Our website is no less than a showroom, where our customers can research about our
products and services and see all the valid reasons why it is right for them. E-commerce
website can influence our customer’s decisions by demonstrating our business services at its
best. It makes it easy to take action and make a good purchase. A convenient and searchable
catalog makes purchasing easy with plenty of positive product reviews also encourage that
sale.

It’s More Convenient

In this era of digital marketing, customers can easily buy any goods or products without
moving away from their workplace or home from anywhere around the world through
internet. E-commerce provides convenience to buy any goods or products without causing any
trouble to their consumers.E commerce simply means we can fit easily into our customer’s
busy lives and offer them the products when they want.

Taps into Social Media

In this social world, customers are increasingly turning to Social Media platforms, such as,
Twitter and Facebook to research potential purchases. Social Media is very essential for the
business owners who want to expand their online presence. An effective Social Media
presence can raise our business profile and encourage sales and traffic. By maintaining and
establishing a good online presence, business can show their customers that their business is
dynamic, active, trying to grow and working to improve.

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Offers a Personalized Experience

There are several ways in which eCommerce can be used to develop a more personal
connection with customers. A well developed ECommerce website may include custom
business recommendations, quick customer service, order tracking options or some
personalized rewards. These features altogether offer the personalized service to our business
online.

Many studies have been conducted globally to better understand challenges and drivers to e-
commerce adoption from both B2B and B2C domains. E-commerce adoption has been
studied from both information systems and consumer behavior. In early studies regarding
ecommerce adoption in developed countries, Fram and Grady (1995) concluded that the most
concerns for online shoppers are transaction issues such as lack of credit card security,
vendors not fully identified, and a lack of payment alternatives. In addition, fear of online
transaction was identified as the most significant barriers that prevent online browsers from
becoming online buyers.

Fram and Grady (1995)

One example is Starbucks app.

Starbucks has the most regularly used loyalty rewards app among major restaurant chains. But
what keeps users coming back for more? This case study will look at the design of the app, its
features, and the bold moves that the coffee chain has made to make the app a “must have” for
consumers.

From ordering and paying ahead of time to creating your own Spotify playlist, the Starbucks
app provides a user experience that is both inviting and innovative, much like the coffee chain
itself.

That digital engagement has paid tremendous dividends for the company. At a JPMorgan
forum in March, Starbucks CFO Scott Maw said almost all of the company’s same-store sales
growth has come from customers that have digital relationships with the company and those
that are in the Starbucks Rewards program.

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Starbucks app are:

User-friendly design - The Starbucks app provides its users with a personalized experience.
From highlighting what’s “Now Playing” overhead in Starbucks stores, to personalized
beverage and food offers, the content is highly relevant to customers.

Engaging loyalty program- The rewards program gives a number of benefits for app users.
In addition to earning two stars for every dollar spent, rewards members get other benefits
like free in-store refills, special member offers/events, and the ability to pay by phone and
order ahead.

Mobile pay and ordering - The mobile ordering system acts as a digital marketing tool,
allowing customers to see new items ahead of time. Coupled with notifications from the app
or email blasts, Starbucks creates interest in new menu items long before the customer sets
foot in the store. Often, these digital tools create a sense of urgency for customers to sample
the latest offerings.

Integration with other platforms and services - Starbucks worked with Spotify to enhance
the app experience when it comes to music. The Starbucks app allows users to identify songs
being played in stores, then download and save those they like to a playlist on Spotify’s app.

Starbucks is a sucessful example of a brick and mortar restaurant that have started an online
presence so that customers nd it easier to check out products, prices, place an order online,
and more.

Challenges in implementing e commerce.

The challenges to effective implementation of e-commerce are multiple and complex. Dutta
and Segev (1999) indicate that these challenges are more organisational in nature as opposed
to being technology related. In this context, a well-structured business strategy is the
backbone of organisational effectiveness regardless of the chosen business model.

Therefore, organisations that integrate e-commerce business models with their strategic
orientation are more likely to have successful e-commerce efforts. Successful e-commerce
strategies emphasise the importance of organisational innovation and willingness to change
(Cohen and Jordan, 1999; Kickul and Gundry, 2001).

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To implement e-commerce solutions, it is necessary to have supporting information, and
organisational infrastructure and systems. In this context, organisational infrastructure needs
to be designed with sufficient flexibility to allow for adaptive change.

Gunasekaran et al (2002).

Another challenge to effective e-commerce implementation is the shortage of people with the
necessary information technology skills. Consumers’ fear of a security breach represents
another serious challenge to e-commerce implementation. Some organisations are still
hesitant to transmit confidential information over the internet because of legal and privacy
concerns. Organisations may also lack the financial resources necessary to pursue the
endeavour.

Wilson and Abel(2002).

Other concerns and challenges are technological in nature. Some organisations may lack the
resources to integrate the e-commerce systems with their internal infrastructure. In such
organisations, databases and data warehousing systems often are not integrated. Other
challenges involve requirements for faster connection times, wider access, and informational
overload. Organisational resources may be needed to overcome some of these challenges.
Therefore, the top management support of e-commerce is extremely important

Poon and Swatman(1999).

Most common challenges faced by eCommerce businesses a round the world.

According to Statista, in 2015, retail e-commerce sales amounted to $342.96 billion. By 2019
they are projected to surpass $600 billion. In the US alone, e-commerce retail will generate
$100 billion by 2019. With these kinds of figures, the poour and potential of ecommerce are
clear.

This does not mean all e-commerce companies are making money consistently though. There
are challenges standing in the way of companies, big and small alike. Developing an e-
commerce business is hard. We have to take great care over everything, from website
maintenance through to customer service. Stratista (2015)

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Among the challenges are:

Finding the right products to sell

Shopping cart platforms like Shopify have eliminated many barriers of entry. Anyone can
launch an online store within days and start selling all sorts of products.

Amazon is taking over the eCommerce world with their massive online product
catalog. Their marketplace and fulllment services have enabled sellers from all over the
world to easily reach paying customers.

All of this has made it very difficult for retailers to source unique products unless they decide
to manufacture their own.

Attracting the perfect customer

Online shoppers don’t shop the same way as they used to back in the day. They use Amazon
to search for products. They ask for recommendations on Social Media. They use their
smartphones to read product reviews while in-store and pay for purchases using all sorts of
payment methods.

Lots has changed including the way they consume content and communicate online. They get
easily distracted with technology and social media. Retailers must gure out where their
audience is and how to attract them eciently without killing their marketing budget.

Generating targeted traffic

Digital marketing channels. Retailers can no longer rely on one type of channel to drive traffic
to their online store. They must effectively leverage SEO, PPC, email, social, display ads,
retargeting, mobile, shopping engines to help drive trac to their online store. They must be
visible where their audience is paying attention.

Capturing quality leads

Online retailers are spending a signicant amount of money driving traffic to their online store.
With conversion rates ranging between 1% to 3%, they must put a lot of effort in generating
leads in order to get the most out of their marketing efforts.

The money is in the list. Building an email subscribers list is key for long term success. Not
only will help we communicate our message, but it will also allow us to prospect better using
tools such as Facebook Custom Audiences.

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Not all leads are created equally. Retailers must get the right message for the right audience
in order to convert them into leads with hopes of turning them into customers.

Nurturing the ideal prospects

Having a large email list is worthless if we’re not actively engaging with subscribers.
Nonetheless, retailers must always deliver value with their email marketing efforts. Online
retailers put a lot of focus on communicating product offering as well as promotions, but
prospects need more than that. Value and entertainment goes a long way but that requires
more work.

Converting shoppers into paying customers

Driving quality trac and nurturing leads is key if we want to close the sale. At a certain point,
we need to convert those leads in order to pay for our marketing campaigns.

Retailers must constantly optimize their efforts in converting both email leads as well as
website visitors into customers. Conversion optimization is a continuous process.

Retaining customers

Attracting new customers is more expensive than retaining the current ones we already have.
Retailers must implement tactics to help them get the most out of their customer base in
increase customer lifetime value.

Achieving profitable long-term growth

Increasing sales is one way to grow the business but in the end, what matters most is
profitability. Online retailers must always find ways to cut inventory costs, improve
marketing effciency, reduce overhead, reduce shipping costs and control order returns.

Choosing the right technology and partners

Some online retailers may face growth challenges because their techonology is limiting them
or they’ve hired the wrong partners or agencies to help them manage their projects.

Retailers wanting to achieve growth must be built on a good technology foundation. They
must choose the right shopping cart solution, inventory management software, email software,
CRM systems, analytics and so much more.

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In addition, hiring the wrong partners or agencies to help us implement projects or oversee
marketing campaigns may also limit our growth. Online retailers must choose carefully who
to work with.

Attracting and hiring the right people to make it all happen

Online retailers may have visions and aspirations but one true fact remains, they need the
right people to help them carry out their desires. Attracting the right talent is key in order to
achieve desirable online growth. Also, having the right leader plays an even bigger role.

Retailers should be out there getting their name out within the online community by attending
eCommerce conferences, speaking at events and networking. Employees want to work for
companies that care about them and their future.

Statista.com (2015)

Examples of successful e commerce company

Zappos

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Zappos is an online shoe and apparel retailer based in Las Vegas, NV. It’s currently owned by
Amazon, but it’s still worth taking a look at what makes this ecommerce site successful.

What makes Zappos successful

Zappos is famous for its customer service. One of the retailer’s core values is to “Deliver
WOW Through Service,” and it lives up to that value time and time again through its
employees.

For instance, while other businesses encourage call center agents to get off the phone as
quickly as possible, Zappos wants its employees to stay on the phone for as long as necessary.
At one point, a Zappos employee even spent 10 hours on the phone with a customer.

When asked how the company felt about this, Jeffrey Lewis, Zappos Customer Loyalty Team
supervisor said, “Zappos’s first core value is deliver wow through service, and we feel that
allowing our team members the ability to stay on the phone with a customer for as long as
they need is a crucial means of fulfilling this value.”

Tom Steinert-Threlkeld (2009)

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Examples of e commerce company failures.

Boo.com

Boo.com was a UK-based clothing and cosmetics founded in 1998 by Swedes Ernst
Malmsten, Kajsa Leander and Patrik Hedelin, who are regarded as sophisticated Internet
entrepreneurs in Europe by the investors because they had created an online bookstore named
Bokus.com, the third largest book e-retailer (in 1997), before founding boo.com.

After several highly publicized delays, Boo.com launched in the autumn of 1999 selling
branded fashion apparel over the Internet. The company spent $135 million of venture capital
in just 18 months and it was placed into receivership on 18 May 2000 and liquidated. In June
2008, CNET hailed Boo.com as one of the greatest dot-com busts in history.

Why Boo.com failed

Timing

Although there were several months of delays prior to launch and problems with the user
experience when boo.com first launched, these had been largely fixed by the time the
company entered receivership. Sales had grown rapidly around $500,000 for the fortnight
prior to the site being shut down.

The fundamental problem was that the company was following an extremely aggressive
growth plan, launching simultaneously in multiple European countries. This plan was founded
on the assumption of the ready availability of venture capital money to see the company
through the first few years of trading until sales caught up with operating expenses.

Such capital ceased to be available for all practical purposes in the second quarter of 2000
following dramatic falls in the NASDAQ presaging the "dot crash" following the Dot-com
bubble. Boo was one of numerous similar Dot-com company failures over the subsequent two
years.

One Boo.com manager acknowledges that the company's failure was that global marketing
and advertising costs too much, and that managers and technology invest too little. It spent
$135 million of its investment in 2 years.

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Boo.com problems with the user experience

The Boo.com Homepage as it appeared in May 2000.

The boo.com website was widely criticized as poorly designed for its target audience, going
against many usability conventions. The site relied heavily on JavaScript and Flash
technology to display pseudo-3D views of wares as well as Miss Boo, a sales-assistant-style
avatar. The first publicly released version of the site included many large pages; the home
page, for example, was several hundred kilobytes which meant that many users had to wait
minutes for the site to load, as broadband technologies were not widely available at the time.
The site's front page contained the warning, "this site is designed for 56K modems and
above".

The complicated design required the site to be displayed in a fixed-size window, which
limited the space available to display product information to the customer. Navigation
techniques changed as the customer moved around the site.

The site's interface was complex and included a hierarchical system that required the user to
answer four or five different questions before sometimes revealing that there are no products
in stock in a particular sub-section. The same basic questions then had to be answered again
until results are found.

Boo.com excessive expenditure on marketing

Within 18 months, $135 million was spent on marketing by Boo.com. Boo.com spent $25
million on advertising and public relations marketing before it had even opened to sell
products.

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To attract consumers, the site developed a new Internet virtual technology with which
consumers could drag their intended clothes onto a virtual 3D body model, and then view it
from whatever angles and distance they wanted. The investment in this technology cost
Boo.com over $6 million to develop and $0.5 million every month to maintain.

Burn rate

Boo.com spent £125 million in just six months. Boo.com's sales did not match expectations,
due partly to a higher-than-expected rate of product returns (a service that was offered for
free, but charged for by their logistics supplier Deutsche Post). Poor management and a lack
of communication between departments resulted in rapid growth in costs. The effectiveness of
an expensive ad campaign was limited since the website was not ready in time, resulting in
curious visitors being greeted with a holding page.

Staff and contractors are recruited in large numbers, with a lack of direction and executive
decision about how many people are required, resulting in high payroll costs.

Malmsten, Ernst (2001).

3.0 Steps involved to develop an effective e-commerce

Successful e-commerce firms have business models that are able to leverage the unique
qualities of the web, avoid legal and social entanglements that can harm the firm, and produce
profitable business results.

In marketing, a value proposition is a statement that clearly identies clear, measurable and
demonstrable benets prospects get when buying your product or service. We will discuss
several value propositions for your business.

Solve an Important Problem

The buyer’s journey starts with a small step. Users go online with a problem in mind and start
looking for solutions such as what should I wear to my best friend’s wedding? Why is my hair
so thin? Where can I find the most personal gift for my girlfriend? Our goal is to convince
them that our online store is the best solution to their problem. Start by raising the problem in

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consumers’ minds and explain how we will solve the problem with our products in our value
proposition.

According to ComScore – a marketing research company that provides marketing data and
services to many of the Internet’s largest businesses, E-commerce has had its first $1B day on
2nd December 2010. The ‘heaviest online spending day in history and the first to surpass the
billion-dollar threshold,’ declares ComScore. This goes to show how far and wide the scope
of electronic buying and selling has reached. It is revolutionized the way business models are
created and defined numerous opportunities for entrepreneurs and the like.

Below is a list of all the steps to get started and successfully build e-commerce site from the
old brick and mortar company.

In this assignment, we’ll look at each of these parts in detail, and then go through how to
transform existing physical store into an online shop while exploring various marketing
strategies that keep customers coming back again.

This approach is by laying the groundwork with pre-launch preparation, optimizing our store
and marketing our store.

The pre-launch preparation includes:

Determine primary customers.

There’s a lot of planning that goes into building a successful ecommerce website, which is
why we shouldn’t rush into building our virtual storefront without doing first doing some
strategic planning.

To do this, we need to ansour the following questions:

Who is our primary customers?

How will they find our website?

Example, according to Tahnee Elliott, founder and CEO of T.C. Elli’s fashion company
in the United States, dentifying and servicing her primary market was especially easy. She
said “Being in a college town, we have a lot of transient customers who go home during the
summers and holidays, the primary objective of launching the online store was to give these
customers a chance to buy our clothing while they oure away from school for the summer.”

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Generally speaking, primary customers are going to be the ones who’ve already been
consistently shopping at a brand’s brick-and-mortar store. This existing customer base is
a major advantage, as businesses can get a running start with an audience that’s already
interested in the brand.

Choose a domain name.

The next challenge is determining how to redirect focus to our online presence and to do this,
we need to pick a domain name where people can find us in the digital environment.

There are two ways we can go about picking our domain name:

1.Choose a catchy, SEO-friendly name that will resonate with our audience.

2.Stick with our current brand name.

Both approaches have their advantages.

An SEO-driven domain name gives us a chance to:

Rebrand our store and create an online marketplace that’s optimized for organic ranking and
traffic.

The downside of choosing a new domain name is that we won’t be able to capitalize on the
brand awareness we’ve developed with our brick-and-mortar business.

With that said, choosing the right SEO-friendly domain name can make it easier for our
company to reach a larger audience especially when combined with a site that’s been
optimized for text and voice search.

When BigCommerce designer Tommy Ekstrand helped his father come up with an online
marketplace for their brick-and-mortar paint store, they decided to go with a new domain
name that was appealing to a wider audience. He said “We ended up with an SEO-friendly
version: US Paint Supply. We’ve owned the family name website since 1998, but that site is
purely informational. The decision to go with a more SEO-friendly domain was to find
something more universal across our selling area (U.S. target audience).”

Ultimately, if our online marketplace depends on organic traffic, we might want to drop our
brick-and-mortar name in exchange for something more SEO-friendly.

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While it can be more work in the beginning stages as we create more awareness around our
digital brand, it can help our brand in the long run as our organic SEO ranking increases more
quickly.

Select initial products to place online.

Ideally, our inventory or services should be strategically chosen to appeal to a broader

audience especially when we’re just starting out. If we’ve got a wide selection of products to
choose from in our brick-and-mortar store, we should narrow our inventory down to
approximately 100 of the best-selling items for our online marketplace.

Tahnee Elliott Tahnee Elliott said “We started with offering tops, bottoms, shoes, dresses,
and rompers, of course, we added more as needed and reorganized so our list of categories
and subcategories evolved based on demand and trends.”

When choosing products to carry online, make sure to choose items which are:

Top sellers in our brick-and-mortar store.

Items we receive special requests or calls for 2 to 3 times per month.

The latter is especially important, as many customers have a hard time finding special
inventory on ecommerce sites. Another great way to optimize our online inventory is by
stocking it with products that are nationally popular. That way, we’re able to start out with an
appeal to a wider audience rather than only targeting specific segments of the market.

Learn what our competition is doing.

To ensure that we’re offering a fair and competitive price for our products, we’ll want to
look at what similar online retailers are charging. Don’t just look at the price retailers are
charging for their products, look at the total cost as well (tax + shipping charges + service
fees). When conducting market research for US Paint Supply, Tommy noticed that these
additional charges made up a significant portion of the total cost.

Tommy Ekstrand BigCommerce designer and SEO specialist said “Shipping is often a big
thing for online retailers as almost everyone was charging an arm and a leg for shipping due
to heavy products. Most of the product itself was priced moderately. On Amazon, though,
product prices oure extremely high because of their marketplace fees for someone to sell.
Many of the products we sell that also sell on Amazon are nearly 2 times the price over
there.”

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Write custom page titles and meta descriptions.

When we’re trying to get our store launched ASAP, we won’t have time to write product
descriptions for 100 or more items in our catalog. Besides, full-length descriptions aren’t
something we exactly want to rush through. Fortunately, we can quickly come up with a
collection of meta descriptions and page titles to get our online marketplace operational in the
meantime.

To do this we must first,

1.Compile all our products and product data into a CSV file.

2.Use the following format for titles and meta descriptions:{Product Name} is a {type of
product or category} used in/for {primary uses}. If our product happens to come in various
sizes and colors, or if it’s important that our buyer knows its dimensions, add those details in
the meta description. And lastly they aren’t supposed to be in-depth.

We also need to get something custom on the page that highlights what we’re selling. We can
always revisit and refine our descriptions over time, expanding them after the site is up and
running.

Take pictures of our inventory.

Using original photos rather than stock pictures can give we a much needed SEO boost. If we
have a basic camera or smartphone, we can take professional-grade product photography for
our store. All we need is a piece of white paper to use as a background.

Tommy Ekstrand commented “Original images and image descriptions helped us to rank far
above other retailers using stock photos. Having alt tags on all images is absolutely
necessary. Most of the time it’s just the product name and maybe “- Front” or “- Back” or “-
Side.” Since I sell paint, some examples are ‘C2 LUXE Gallon in Satin’ and ‘C2 LUXE Quart
in Eggshell.’”

If we’re working in an industry like fashion or design, we’ll need to schedule extra time to
taking quality product pictures—especially if our website involves models. For Tahnee, who
worked in an aesthetically-driven industry, taking pictures of inventory was one of the more
time-consuming processes.

Tahnee Elliott said “Next step was taking quality product pictures, which required investing
in quality equipment and sourcing: a camera, tripod, professional lights, professional

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background, models, learning how to edit pictures, and training an employee to help. Since
we’re a clothing boutique, we’re heavy into visual aesthetics, which needed to reflect our
branding. Of course, I thought I had a great game plan but soon found out I needed a lot
more training and equipment. Studying at night about photography, lighting, and modeling
poses became a six-month undertaking.”

Also, regardless of our industry, we may want to consider purchasing photo editing software
like Photoshop and Lightroom. Combined with a good quality camera, these tools are
essential for creating attention-grabbing, lucid images that help our website stand out.

Determine our shipping costs.

The last thing our customers want is to watch their total cost skyrocket at the end of checkout.
Consumers don’t like unexpected fees, which is something we want to be mindful of when
setting our shipping costs and other fees. Go with a flat rate on shipping, as well as offering
free or discounted shipping for customers who spend a certain amount of money.

In the case of Tommy and his father, they offered free shipping on orders over $100.

Tommy Ekstrand said “This helps our conversion rate by setting up total cost expectations
right away and removing surprise costs during checkout. It also helps with organic
advertising in SERPs (search engine results page) as a quick callout to “Free Shipping.”
Consider a meta description that says ‘Free Shipping over $100’ at the end of it.”

Research shows online shoppers are often deterred by additional costs that pop up during
checkout. This method helped boost sales by giving the customer a clear idea of how much
they’ll pay throughout the entire purchasing journey.

Here are some ways we can use shipping costs to drive sales and reduce abandoned carts
on our website:

Display shipping fees (as well as other expenses like taxes and processing fees) in a table on
our website and/or item pages where customers can see.

Offer free or discounted shipping for customers who spend above a certain amount.

Add a line into our metadata to include the following in our item description:
Free/DiscountedShipping on orders over to encourage customers to spend more.

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Choose our payment methods.

There are two things we should keep in mind when choosing our payment methods:

What’s the easiest payment method to set up and how can we accommodate a wider
audience? For Tommy, accommodating the largest amount of customers was the motivating
factor behind US Paint Supply’s accepted payment methods.

Take care of our security and tax details.

Taxes and security are two things we want to make sure we have sorted before launching our
store. Otherwise, we’ll run into issues later that could inhibit our growth and revenue. We also
want to make sure that our customers’ information is protected from data breaches. This can
be done by adding an SSL certificate to our website. Some company offers free SSL
certificates to all digital stores regardless of service plan and can easily walk we through the
process of securing our digital marketplace.

Come up with an ironclad shipping and refund policy.

Unless our brick-and-mortar store is already a nationally recognized brand, we’re going to
need to spend time building relationships with our customers. One way to build trust between
us and our shoppers is by being upfront about our shipping and refund policies.

Create a webpage highlighting our shipping and return policies, as well as any other important
information the customer should know.

Provide links to frequently asked questions (FAQs) in our emails to customers.

When asked about ways to improve customer service and work more efficiently, Tommy
mentioned the importance of linking to shipping and refund-related FAQs in his emails.

Tommy Ekstrand said “By providing links in emails, we oure able to prevent additional
contacts through our customer support channels. Typical questions oure ‘What does this
status mean’ or ‘When is my order going to ship’ or ‘I need to return this,’ so making sure
that those things are right up front in their emails they receive helps to deflect that stuff. It
saves us time and cuts service costs in the long-run.”

Also, make it easy for customers to return their products. Give shoppers a generous timeframe
to return their item like a 20-day return window. For many customers, returning online
purchases can feel like a hassle. Coming up with a refund policy that makes returns more

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efficient is an important step towards building customer loyalty and increasing conversion
rates.

When asked about her return policy at T.C. Elli’s, Tahnee had this to say “We wanted our
brick and mortar return policy to be reflected online as well. Customers would need to
complete a return request in order to receive a return shipping label from us. This way, we
could confirm the item wasn’t past the 20-day return window.”

Build organic SEO content.

Lastly, we must ask ourselves this. Have we uploaded our products, written our meta
descriptions, and put a checkout system in place? If so, our store is ready to go live.

4.0 Summary

In this assignment we have gone through the introduction, essential and challenges of e
commerce and steps in implementing e commerce. Now we will summarise the whole
assignment.

Everyday ecommerce is becoming more complex. It is easy to get lost in all the minute. But if
we keep developing a store with flexible technology for transactions, security, and analytics,
it will keep we competitive. With an efficient workforce, marketing practice, and delivery
systems, we can scale our store easily. It will keep we prepared for future challenges.

The e-commerce industry will be a leader with popularity in electronic business world in the
upcoming years. The e-commerce revolution has fundamentally changed the business of
transaction by giving new opportunities and breaking borders easily. It has strongly impacted
the traditional business system and changing the life of people by making it easier.

Convenience is one of the benefits that customer gets from the e-commerce and thus
increasing customer satisfaction. This is due to customer can place a purchase an order from
anywhere with internet connection. E-commerce business provider should give importance on
every customer by giving smooth service and many options for payment and have more
functions available online.

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Lastly, other benefits are expanded product offerings and expanded geographic reach. But e-
commerce business faces a lot of challenges in flourishing their business.

5.0 References

Malmsten, Ernst (2001). Boo Hoo: “A dot.com Story from Concept to Catastrophe” Random
House Business Books pp. 303-318.

Chavan, J. (2013). “Internet Banking- Benefits and Challenges in an Emerging Economy”.

International Journal of Research in Business Management, Vol. 1(1), pp. 19-26.

Clayton, T. et al (2002). “Electronic Commerce and Business Change”. MIT Sloan

Management Review, 54 (4), 23-29.

Tom Steinert-Threlkeld (2009) “Zappos cracks the screen (and code), builds a social
business” ZDNet Case Study 5th Edition.

Turban, David King (1999) “Electronic Commerce – a managerial perspective” Prentice

Hall; US Ed edition

Dutta and Segev (1999) “An Investigation of the Factors that Influence Electronic
Information Sharing between State and Local Agencies”. Eighth Americas Conference on
Information Systems, pp. 2454-2460.

Gunasekaran et al (2002) “The Requirements for Building an E-commerce Infrastructure”,

International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering, Vol 2, No. 2.

Tom Steinert-Threlkeld (2009) "Turning “Like” to “Buy” Social Media Emerges as a

Commerce Channel ", Booz & Company Inc.

Malmsten, Ernst (2001) “The Implications of Information Technology Infrastructure for

Business Process Redesign”. MIS Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 159-82.

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