The

 

The Evaluation and Audit is an important starting point that will lay the foundation for the globalized site. At its core is the comprehensive inventory of all platforms, applications, databases, code, scripts, and third-party tools that will be conducted in order to assess their readiness.

 

The goal of the second phase is to internationalize the site and create a technologically, linguistically and culturally neutral platform from which to launch global e-Commerce initiatives, and incorporate local content and functionality. It covers as well as foreign language searching, sorting and parsing technology requirements.

 

Once the scope of the effort is determined, the service provider works with its teams of internationalization engineers, Web designers and localization experts to effect the necessary changes.

 

After a testing is loaded, a good OOBE (out of browser experience) is much more than just fast response time from servers. Once you hang your URL out on the Web, you've welcomed in users from around the world, each with varying degrees of English language proficiency. Does it matter how fast a page is served up, if that page is in English and the Web user's native language is French? Or perhaps, the page is promptly served up in the French language, but contains numerous errors in translation, cosmetic display, font usage, and cultural appropriateness. These common situations are guaranteed to detract from the browser experience. 19

 

Although e-commerce has turned retailing on its head, it must integrate e-business with its existing business and customer base. The bricks-and-clicks approach is the most effective and economic. This combines offline resources, such as store brands, channels with and online e-commerce presence. The other option – a pure dot-com company – is now rare. Consumers are looking for brands that they know and trust. They also like the fact that a business has a physical presence, a place where they can go if something goes wrong.  Pure dot-coms found that they had to spend a lot of money on marketing just to maintain awareness.

 

One good example is that more and more online brokerage firms adopt a 'bricks-and-clicks' strategy.[21]  Customers may not feel secure when making big transactions on the Internet, and they prefer to get "face-to-face" assistance from representatives. Therefore, these online brokerage firms should establish branch offices and target outlets to allow investors to have workstations where they can trade and get investing information online.

 

Another example is about American automaker business.[22] It stresses that Internet was never intended to completely replace traditional American commerce. The auto industry is about as traditional as commerce can be. Consumers use the Internet to figure out what to buy, but when it comes time to make the deal, a test drive, tire-kicking and price haggling still rule. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, automakers' efforts to establish strong supply chains and delivery mechanisms via business-to-business initiatives appear to be holding their own. Some auto companies, like FordDirect. and Ford Motor Company, allows a consumer to "build" a vehicle by selecting colors, options, etc., and then search by zip code for the desired vehicle at local dealerships. By adding to the convenience of shopping online, automakers offer features such as calculators that allow consumers to determine what they can afford and what their payments might be. Information on financing options is also available.

 

Next, let’s look at the standards to determine the degree of the integration between the virtual and physical operation (bricks-and-clicks). The following 4 business dimensions should be evaluated:[23]

1.      Brand

·        The choice to integrate brands or keep them separate is largely a choice between trust and flexibility. Extending a company’s current brand to the Internet gives instant credibility to a web site.

 

2.       Management

·        There are two choice for the management: Integrate or separate. An integrated team can better align strategic objectives, find and exploit synergies, and share knowledge. Separate teams can focus more sharply, innovative more freely. Because each approach has its advantages, companies may choose to adopt one according to their own business model.

 

3.      Operation

·        Decisions about integrating operations should be based on the strength of a company’s existing distribution and information systems and their transferability to the Internet. Integration can provide significant cost savings, a more compelling and informative site, and a competitive advantage over pure dot-com competitors.

 

4.      Equity

·        Of all the integration decisions, this one is the most important. Integration allows the parent to capture the entire value of its Internet business. Separation can help attract and retain talented managers and provide access to outside capital.

 

 

The Internet offers many opportunities for a better understanding of customer’s behavior and for developing a closer relationship with them. Customer relationship management (CRM) and personalization systems allow for the collection and application of comprehensive information to create a more customized environment for the consumer.  While the potential for such systems is substantial, they are complex and difficult to implement, and if not professionally managed, can lead to the abuse of consumer privacy.

 

CRM is based on the concept that every interaction with the customer or partner is part of a larger relationship management process. The quality of that relationship must be maintained in order to best achieve enterprise goals. [24]

 

Right now CRM is the hottest topic of e-commerce environment. It focuses on the retention of customer by collecting all data from every interaction that every customer makes with a company from all access points whether they are phone, mail, web or field. The company can then use this data for specific business purposes, and at the same time, Marketing, Service, Support or Sales are concentrating on a customer-centric approach rather than a product-centric. 

 

A successful CRM implementation include 6 critical phases as below:[25]

1.      Researching problems and identifying objectives

2.      Establishing and communication customer-centric strategy

3.      Planning and making preparations

4.      Redesigning work processes and consolidating corporate resources

5.      Choosing the right software and CRM solution

6.      Finalizing and continuously improving

 

A CRM strategy is about both software and service. CRM software can enable effective Customer Relationship Management, and make an enterprise has the right leadership strategy and culture. The major vendors of CRM include SAP, Siebel, PeopleSoft, and Oracle.[26] The CRM software market is expected to continue expanding dramatically. Meanwhile, The exploding demands for web-enabled CRM applications are creating a myriad of opportunities for service companies to add value.

One important aspect of CRM is personalization. Personalization is critical to helping suppliers use CRM technologies to find more customers, keep them, and give them better service than before. It is all about providing information that reflects what you know about a certain customer--and what you know is changing all the time. Basic personalization starts with simply using his or her name on a Web page. But the name game is no longer enough. When customers contact you, you gain their appreciation by having the answers they want.  

The goals of personalization are simple: Learn and understand what the customer really wants, then ensure that the customer gets the same "look and feel" and message across any channel. The businesses that are most successful with their CRM strategies are those that learn to create solutions for their customers instead of finding customers for their products.[27] By gathering and processing simple dynamic data from the web, companies can use personalization to suggest promotions or offers. For example, if a company knows that the consumer prefers contact via the web or e-mail, it can use that consumer’s preferred channel to sell its products.

 

The traditional value chain describes the flow of information starting with the supplier and ending with the customer. It does not describe the true relationships between a company engaging in e-commerce, its customers and its suppliers. Companies would want to share information with their customers and suppliers in varying stages of the value chain.

 

As the Internet allows the creation of electronic networks that link buyers and sellers in the value chain with greater ease and efficiency, roles in the value chain also change. Now, the customer is at the center of the value chain and the information system and CRM system link the customer to all the phases of processes. Value Chain management is an important aspect because if implemented successfully, it entails establishing the client’s requirements in order to provide the best possible solution and achieve value for money.

 

The special advantage of the Internet is the ability to link one activity with others and make real-time data crated in one activity widely available, both within the company an with outside suppliers, channels, and customers.[28] The value chain can be used to explain the influence of the Internet on companies. It is the set of activities through which a product or service is created and delivered to customers.

 

The key to reconfiguring business models for the knowledge economy lies in understanding the new currencies of value.  There are three currencies of value as follows:[29]

 

1.      Goods, Services, and Revenue (GSR). Exchanges for services or goods, including all transactions involving contracts and invoices, return receipt of orders, requests for proposals, confirmations, or payment. Knowledge products or services that generate revenue or are expected as part of service (such as reports or package inserts) are part of the flow of goods, services, and revenue.

 

2.      Knowledge. Exchanges of strategic information, planning knowledge, process knowledge, technical knowhow, collaborative design, policy development, etc., which flow around and support the core product and service value chain.

 

3.      Intangible benefits. Exchanges of value and benefits that go beyond the actual service and that are not accounted for in traditional financial measures, such as a sense of community, customer loyalty, image enhancement, or co-branding opportunities.

 

These value exchanges lie at the heart of a value network. Further, every exchange of value is supported by some mechanism or medium that enables the transaction to take place.

 

Regardless of whether business-to-customer or business-to-business e-business is considered, both require a value chain focus. Both business-to-customer and business-to-business e-commerce strategies require integrating processes and application systems with several suppliers and many customers.

 

There are a few benefits of integrating the value chain. It allows you to extend your services further down the value chain to better manage the process or further up the value chain to own the customers total experience. What does this mean to business? Integrating processes and applications which are part of the value chain, can lead to increases in revenue, higher customer satisfaction, new opportunities to offer packaged products/services, fewer defects, and many more benefits. It allows your business to remove non-value added steps in the process and reduce waste and/or cycle time in the process which equates into bottom line dollar savings for your business.[30]

 

 

E-commerce has been a big success already, but challenges still lie ahead.  Among these challenges, Legal issue is being highlighted.

First of all, copyright and patent are the main e-commerce-related issues over which companies would seek legal advice. These issues are mainly happened when Internet network is used. The duty of a network administrator to prevent notified abuses of copyrights has already extended to blocking propagation of newsgroup articles, using technical means to reduce the incidence of such abuse.  Originally, a patent prohibits others from using the invention in the U.S. But the spread of e-commerce patents has raised questions about if the limits should be imposed. For example, Amazon may adopt some methods to protect its patent, and one of the method is to drive sales by placing information about related products into context in a Web page, based on customers' surfing behavior, similarly to the way it already refers book buyers to additional titles purchased by other shoppers.[31]

Secondly, legal issue includes the determination of the jurisdiction of an e-commerce transaction. This is a complicated and evolving issue. A company should consider that selling products through its web site will increase the number of states and countries that will be able to successfully assert jurisdiction over its activities. If the e-commerce businessperson in the U.S. does not carefully craft the terms-of-use statement, they might land in a foreign court, defending themselves in a jurisdiction that might not have the due process and equal protection concerns that U.S. courts observe.  [32]

 

Thirdly, legal issue in electronic transactions has to do with contract negotiation. This is particularly important in dynamic B2B market places. Whether for an e-tailer, a B2B enterprise or a provider of on-line services, the contracts consummated on-line must be enforceable. Without this assurance, e-commerce simply isn't viable. In the future, it may be increasingly common to ensure the enforceability of online contracts through the use of digital signature technology. It is an encryption technology that verifies the integrity of the document and authenticity of the sender.[33]

 

Fourthly, when collecting information from purchasers or other users of a company’s web site, it is important to consider whether any privacy laws and regulations are applicable to the collection and use of such data. This will depend on the country of the individual who supplies the data. The failure to consider these issues may result in difficulties conducting business with individuals, especially in Europe. Many European countries have a much more comprehensive and protective approach to privacy issues than the United States has.[34]

 

Finally, the growth of Internet commerce requires that a company carefully review its trademark strategy to determine whether it needs to seek additional trademark registrations by virtue of doing business on the World Wide Web. This is because the Patent and Trademark Office may categorize the appropriate goods and services classifications for a trademark differently, depending on whether the applicable product or service is made available over the Internet. For example, Roland Vogl, a trademark lawyer agrees that AOL has an immediate interest in protecting its brand. "AOL must protect the payers of their fees," he told the E-Commerce Times. "If there is another ISP that establishes itself as tough on spammers, AOL could lose customers.[35]

 

 

A very important activity of the e-commerce initiative is its marketing and promotion.  Opening up an e-commerce web site is rather like setting up shop at a place at which nobody knows. It is not enough just to register with search engines. Instead, it is necessary to have an aggressive marketing campaign to make the target market aware of what the company has to offer. Based on the articles in E-commerce Times, I summarize 2 important e-commerce Marketing strategies as follows:

 

1.      Online Advertising

Targeting the right people at the right time is a key strategy in increasing sales and opening markets.
Investing money in advertising campaigns and banners can successfully build a business if targeted correctly. The best Internet marketing strategy involves targeting markets where potential buyers surf the net.

 

For example, Google and one of its partners - Amazon. have tied the knot in a deal designed to expand Google's advertising presence and give Amazon. users greater access to products not listed on the e-tailer's site. For Google advertisers, it means access to a large amount of new traffic in the form of users who browse the Amazon site.[36]

 

2.      Website Promotion

 

A successful marketing strategy aims at targeting potential clients and customers who are offline as well as online. Website promotion can take many forms. An interesting email proposal or newsletters are also ways of achieving top results and rankings. However, consumers may be tired of receiving lots of email every day. In this situation, email promotion is not helpful for consumers to make decision. Successful marketers have to refine their e-mail blasts to a point at which recipients are not only willing, but also happy, to receive their missives.

According to Regan’s article: “Building a Better E-Mail Blast” in E-Commerce Times, savvy online marketers say a few basic ingredients can create e-mail campaigns that succeed every time as follows:[37]

The first is permission, which can be obtained indirectly by purchasing e-mail marketing lists that consumers at some point agreed to be part of. However, it is far better to obtain permission directly. The second vital ingredient is relevance: Spam is, by definition, a message that someone does not want to receive, regardless of who sent it. Another key is to think of e-mail marketing campaigns not as blasts or even batches, but as one-on-one communications between a brand and each individual consumer. Analysts recommend that a company always begin by evaluating whether its message is important enough to warrant taking some of a consumer's valuable time.

Some typical promotion includes free shipping or discount.

 

·        Free shipping

 

Amazon. is one of the prominent e-companies to offer free shipping. It announced it will make its free shipping offer, which applies to most orders of more than $25, permanent after an experiment that lasted well over a year.[38]

 

 

·        Discount

 

In last month, AOL, together with largest retailers, including 1-800-Flowers., Banana Republic, Blue Nile, Discovery Store, Electronic Arts, Godiva, Hewlett-Packard, JC Penney, Neiman Marcus, RedEnvelope and ShopNBC, launched a one-day discount sale. It resulted in at least a tenfold traffic spike for most of the 32 sites involved. There were some web site promotions on that day. Whenever a customer jumped from AOL to a retailer's site, welcome messages popped up, informing the shopper of special sale items and the amount of time left until certain offers expired. [39]

 

 

 

Having said the top ten issue of e-commerce strategy, I will make a conclusion of this paper. With the emergence of e-commerce, consumers get lots of advantages as follows:

 

·        Convenience and Ease of Use. Consumers can purchase the product they want at any time and from any location, by using an Internet connection.

·        Variety and Larger Selections. Consumers can compare and contrast more products more quickly.

·        Without Sales Pressure. Customers who dislike salesmen can avoid the experience altogether. Internet shopping makes it easy to go offline to think about a purchase.

·        Quickly gain of detail information. Customers can get detail information about the product itself and the vendor.

·        Easy comparison of price. Customers can compare the price of the same product with several vendors easily.  Consumers are able to research a product and its competitors more thoroughly before purchase and compare many prices from different retailers.

·        Personalization. Companies can target every customer individually.

 

However, nothing is perfect. When we go back to look at these issues like privacy, security, fraud and legal violations, we can see that there are still some disadvantages remaining as below: