Enchanting EC World

Review a local e-commerce site

2009-07-08T16:31:00.005+08:00

For those UTAR’s students from Sabah and Sarawak, they should familiar with this website http://www.airasia.com/. Most of the local customers like to fly with Air Asia plane because it provide a clear information and low price to the customers and it contribute a concept to everyone, which is “Everyone can Fly".

AirAsia.com is a milestone in Malaysian website development. Its existence drives the uptake of broadband Internet services in the country, which means people get connected to the Internet because they want to use AirAsia.com to buy flight tickets or book vacations.

On the home page, red color website and four stewardesses make more attractive and friendly to customers. Besides, it is very care about those users that from different level, different background and those use different language so it provides different language to be selected by the customers. It makes them feel more comfortable by using their own language. It always have advertise promotion appear in the web page, so the customer will know the latest promotion price or packages.

Moreover,thesearch engine for ticketing services provided by AirAsia.com is useful and specific. It has the option of “single or return” flight. It then requires customers to key in the origin and destination that customers are planning to go. Then customers keys in the date that of the departure and arrival of their flight, and choose the numbers of tickets they which to book. The search engine will then scope down to the tickets that are available from the information that customers provided. It is very convenient to customers because it provide availability of search engine to find the particular information.

In the booking categories, it also provides more information about the way of online payment. Through the shopping chat, Air Asia offers a choice of credit cards to fit the needs of your lifestyle in different countries such as Air Asia-Citibank Credit Card and Air Asia-Citibank Gold Card are offer for Malaysia guest. Besides that, the website also helps the customers calculate the total payment which include the tax or charges and transfer to the relevant currency which customers choose.

Other than booking flight ticket, it also provides other related links which allow customers to book hotel and rent car through online. Moreover, Air Asia also provides latest news about the famous places in the travel services categories. The most amazing is, this website provides the link to the medical too. There are more service listed in the website which includes boarding express, further request, check and change fare, route map, and others.

On conclusion, Air Asia’s website gives a clean interface, the step by step booking procedure and a lot of convenient services this might lead more customers to book its tickets.

E-Government in Malaysia : Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies

2009-07-08T16:10:00.003+08:00

The implementation of Electronic Government (e-government) started since the initiation of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) in 1996 by the Malaysia Government. It was launched to lead the country into the Information Age. E-government is the use of IT and e-commerce to provide access to government information and delivery of public services to citizens and business partners and enable the government to become more responsive to the needs of its citizens. For example, www.malaysia.gov.my is the myGovernment Portal which acts as the one-stop source of Malaysian government information and services for the citizens.

There are seven pilot projects of the Electronic Government Flagship Application are as follows:

1. Project Monitoring System (SPP II)

2. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)

3. Generic Office Environment (GOE)

4. Electronic Procurement (EP)

5. Electronic Services (E-Services)

6. Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)

7. E-Syariah

Besides, e-Filing is an application on filling and filing income tax returns electronically via the internet, which is an alternative to the usual manual from submission. E-government also includes Renewal of road tax online.

MyEG Services Berhad is a company that provides electronic link between the government and the public. With just a minimal fee by the service provider, it is available exclusively from Motortakaful.

Citizen’s Adoption Strategies
The challenge of implementation of e-government in Malaysia is the new technological challenge. Malaysians are concerned about the security of doing transaction over the internet and this resulted in low usage of e-government services due to several problems using E-government.

Firstly, E-government is not very user-friendly especially to the senior citizens who are not expert in technology materials which make them hard to perform the E-Government service. Besides that, there are few complaints about the responds given by the E-Government which is not very effective and is incomparable with some private institutions. Moreover, a lot of them is encountering hacking problem which their personal data was stolen.

In order to solve the problems above, firstly, the government should distribute a user guide to those senior citizens so that they can refer to the user guide when they encounter problems by using E-Government application. Secondly, the government should encourage their family members to teach the senior citizen in their family on how to use operate the system. Thirdly, the government should improve the effectiveness on the respond given to the user by making references from other source. Lastly, the government should strengthen the security so that the hackers are not able to hack into the consumers' personal data. In short, implementing good strategies must be addressed carefully. Otherwise, e-government will remain misleading.

Related link:

www.malaysia.gov.my

www.myeg.com.my

http://www.mait.com/admin/enews_images/MAIT%20Country%20Intelligence%20eNews96_37.pdf

Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

2009-07-08T12:27:00.003+08:00

Nowadays, blogging really grew from a popular teenager pastime to corporate requirement. Many of my friends have their own blogging website to record their daily life. It just likes an e-dairy that can let other people to know how are you recently. Furthermore, many companies also will use blogging to promote their companies transfer information to their customer or public. It is known as corporate blog.

A corporate blog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. It is giving established companies and to have the ability to connect with their audiences on a more personal level, build trust, collect valuable feedback and foster strengthened business relationships. More importantly, these companies are enjoying tangible returns in their blogging investment in the form of increased sales, partnership, business opportunities, press coverage and lead generation. Besides that, it can be categorized to internal blogging and external blogging.

The advantages of corporate blogging are:

(a) Build rapport with customer. Through the publish of a corporate blog, the company gives their customer channel to interact and get to know their brand and organization in a format in a that they are familiar and comfortable with.

(b) Marketing medium. Apart from just being a means of communication, blogs can also be effectively used as a marketing tool. You can advertise and give information about your products through blog. Moreover, u can also provide links to your websites to increase your internet traffic.

(c) Recruitment tool. Blogs can act as good direct recruitment tool and can save you money you spend on hiring consultants, you can use the business blogs to educate the potential employees about job opportunities asking them for references.

(d) Feedback tool. You can use the blogs to receive feedback from internal and external parties effectively. Be it about work culture, blogs give people a chance to voice their opinions, grievances, and feedback. Blogs can be pretty effective when it comes to capturing people’s general feelings about the company, its policies, work culture etc

Blogging makes a lot of sense in the business world and can act as an effective communication medium and can earn a greater revenue to your company. Moreover, senior officials can use blogging to keep in touch with employees on a regular basis. All in all, blog has become more than a way to express personal opinion and share experiences. It has become one of the most effective mediums to reach out to people who matter.

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

2009-07-08T01:36:00.039+08:00

E-learning as communication and learning activities involved ICT such as coaching from e-mail, online research, online discussion through computers via networked interactivity. E-learning’s strategies were introduced at University Technology Malaysia (UTM), University Tun Abdul Razak (UNITAR), Multimedia University (MMU) and the Open University of Malaysia (OUM).

Pros of e-learning

Efficiency

Students are able to reduce travel cost and save time to and from school.The digital library has huge amount of information and up-to-dated material.Therefore, they may have the option to select needs of learning materials that meets their level of knowledge and interest.

Effectiveness

Student’s class work can be scheduled around personal and professional work because they can use electronic assessment which they can learn from online quizzes. It shows that the multimedia improves the skill of learning, creates unlimited learning opportunities for student to gain knowledge and improve understanding.

Flexibility

Students can study wherever they have access to a computer and internet. Hence, they are flexible to join discussions in the bulletin board and discussion areas at any hours. They can visit with classmates and instructors remotely in chat rooms. This module allows them to learn at their own pace.

Other Benefits

It enables students to learn ICT, technology or computing skills. As a result, they have benefits of career-enhancement that they can obtain extra knowledge for future career. The computer-based courses build self-knowledge, self-confidence and analytical mind since they are more thoughtful online than traditional classroom.

Cons of e-learning

Technology

Slow or unreliable internet connections can be frustrating because problem of limited bandwidth. It requires new skills to adapt in content producers. It also difficult for faculty to switch e-learning environment by hand when they need to conduct laboratory experiments

Lack of face-to-face contact

Student may feel isolated or miss social interaction because there are no human teacher expression and explanation. The instructor may not always be available that causes lack of immediate feedbacks for them. They felt lonely because they could not observe non-verbal communication from others and therefore found it hard to work in online groups with others.

Personal Issues

It requires more responsibility and self-discipline for students, especially unmotivated or with poor study habits students may fall behind. Sometimes,they hard to find time for studying as lack of familiar structure and routine daily.

Other Limitations

Students have difficulties to ensure academic honesty in an online environment. It creates unlimited learning stresses for students and tutors as there are simply too many online learning materials. It becomes lack of contextual understanding because of non-standardized materials.

Wall-E Learning Laptop

Mobile Payment Systems in Malaysia: Its potentials and consumers' adoption strategies

2009-07-06T21:18:00.004+08:00

Mobile payment systems have been developed in recent years to facilitate purchases of products, services, and electronic commerce at physical points of sale. Nowadays, consumers used relatively inexpensive mobile phones as digital cameras, personal audio players, date books, games, calculators, and clocks.

Maxis FastTap is an integrated mobile payment service established under a partnership with Nokia, Visa, Maybank and Touch ‘n Go. Customers who sign up can use the Nokia 6212 classic device that the NFC (Near Field Communication) system allows users to purchase goods and services at Visa payWave merchant locations for paying toll, parking and theme park charges.

In Malaysia there are several companies that launched mobile payment systems such as Celcom, Maxis, Digi, TMtouch, Maybank, Paypal, Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd and mobileExec Sdn Bhd.

There are several strategies for consumer and its potentials:

Complexity

Complexity and problems with usability have contributed to identify the low adoption of different payment systems, including smart cards and mobile banking. The easy of using has affected consumer adoption of Internet payments and WAP financial services that make purchases and for merchants to receive payments using a mobile phone. Mobile payments are expected to increase consumer convenience by reducing the need for coins and cash in small transactions and increasing the availability of purchase possibilities.

Costs

The cost of a payment transaction has a direct effect on consumer adoption if the cost is passed to customers. The consumer’s intention to WAP(Wireless Application Protocol) shopping shows the strongest characteristic that differentiates the high and low intention groups was price consciousness. As shoppers in electronic channels are considerate to transaction costs of mobile payments should be low enough to make the total cost of the purchase competitive with world prices.

Payment system security and trust in payment systems providers

Nowadays, consumers show sensitive awareness to security and privacy issues. Hence, key requirements for secure financial transactions in electronic environment include confidentiality, data integrity, authentication and non-repudiation. Other security factors important for consumer adoption are anonymity and privacy which relates to use policies of customer's personal information and purchase records

Ownership of the Customer Relationship

Wireless carriers, financial institutions, and card associations must decide who owns the customer relationship, including the billing and collection process. It is important to determine the selected models that satisfy the customer. The parties should have a clear understanding of consumer preferences that should be a key consideration in the decision‐making process. For example, consumers are more comfortable providing financial information to their banks.

NFC Mobile Payment & Promotions

Resource Link:

http://www.telecoms.com/10397/maxis-brings-nfc-payments-to-malaysia

http://www.pcworld.com/article/162850/visa_makes_nfc_payment_commercially_available.html?tk=rss_news

http://project.hkkk.fi/helsinkimobility/papers/Mobile%20Applications_2_3.pdf

Credit Card Debt : Cause and Prevention

2009-07-05T14:08:00.004+08:00

Credit card has commonly been used in our life, not only adult but also for student. Undoubtedly, it has given a lot of conveniences to its users. However, in certain circumstances, it creates irritations. Put aside credit card fraud which is a serious crime, the credit card debt has become a severe issue and it is the major cause of bankruptcies each year.

Causes:

Missing payments or late payments
The fastest way to get into credit difficulties is by not repaying the minimum payment required, over the limit fees, high annual percentage rates, and universal default. Debts accumulate increase with interest and penalties for late payment had made the total amount due become larger. Even worse, cardholder will be forced to go bankrupt.

Poor money management
Poor money management is one of the best reasons why so many families accumulate lots of debt. Not having a monthly spending plan and not keeping track of the monthly bills makes one unaware of where the money is going. While the money is going towards purchasing useless items, he might need charging the necessary purchases on credit card.

No saving cushion
When people using credit cards, they would like to use the future money and have not extra money to save in bank. When people are spending more than their income, they will be very hard to manage their savings accounts. Besides, the important topics such as saving and investing one’s personal finances are not taught in school. People who are lack of such knowledge may easily become the next victim of credit card debt.

Prevention:

Making a budget or financial planning
The first step in setting up a budget is determining your monthly income and needed expenses. As part of these monthly expenses, figure in 5-10% of your income to set aside for emergencies, long range savings such as a retirement account and short term savings. This can help us to perceive that we will not overspending our budget that we have set before and prevent from the debts. Use the card to obtain a purchase that you can afford provided you can pay off the cost over time or spend by using a debit card.

Pay on time
Punctually make the payment to anyone include car and house payments to avoid raising your interest rate if you are late paying any creditors. Besides, you need to pay at least more than required minimum payment for emergency fund or you can set up a Direct Debit for the minimum amount as much as possible of the remaining balance to keep it low.

Early education
The best method for prevention is teaching your younger generation all about money before they even qualify for a credit card. Let they know the causes well and how to effectively manage their financial by using the credit card. Related Link:

http://www.novanthealth.org/eap/daily_issues/credit_card_debt.jsp

http://www.credit-land.com/articles/articles_page_68600_1881780_120.php

http://www.ehow.com/how_2038727_avoid-credit-card-debt.html?

The application of pre-paid cash card to consumer

2009-07-05T12:27:00.003+08:00

Nowadays, card is one important thing in our life. Let introduce what is pre-paid cash card. Prepaid cash card is using our existing money, rather than using credit card, which we borrow the money and then pay it back later. Prepaid cash card draw funds from our bank account, usually a checking account. The value in the card will reduce each time the consumer uses it and the consumer can reload the card anytime.

An example of prepaid cash card is Touch ‘n Go. The credit card size smartcard made of plastic with microchip technology embedded in it. It is an electronic purse that can be used at all highways in Malaysia, major public transport in Klang Valley, selected parking sites and Theme Park. It only speed up the payment for low value and high frequency transactions, but also convenient the users for no need to wait for attendant to give you small change or wait in queue to complete the transaction. Besides that, users can reload at toll plazas, train stations, Automated Teller Machines, Cash Deposit Machines, Petrol kiosk and at authorised third party outlets. Other than that, now Touch n G has extended its uses in e-tailing which is the selling of retail goods on the Internet. There are some outlets having privileges for customer who pay by using Touch ‘n Go.

These cards are great because unlike regular credit cards you actually have to have the money before you can make a purchase. You deposit the money on the card and then use it. Once the money is used up you can’t make any more purchases. There are no over the limit fees. There is no chance of a returned check fee. Besides that, prepaid cash cards offer a perfect way to keep track of our spending, ensuring that you won’t overspend each month. Prepaid cash card is for those consumers with poor credit, they should not give up. The consumers get many chances to repair their credit record. Eventually the credit record is wiped and the consumer ends up being able to get whatever they want.

Electronic Currency

2009-07-04T14:12:00.003+08:00

Electronic currency called as e-currency means money or scrip which is exchanged only electronically. E-currency is also known as electronic money, electronic cash, digital money, digital cash or digital currency. It is used over computer networks, the internet and digital store value systems in the form of secured payments of "cash" that is virtually untraceable to the user. The recipients of the e-currency send the money to their bank account as with depositing "real" cash. For example, Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) which used to perform financial transactions and direct deposit is used system to transfer money..

There are quite a lot of companies that provide e-currency services in the world. One of the example is Paystone, which is a company that provides micropayments and money transfer solutions. It is an online, real-time payment solution that allows user to send funds to anyone who has an email address, pay for online purchases, cash out to your bank account or ATM card and receive payments for goods and services. Another example is Click and Buy, which is a company that provides payment systems on the internet. It is currently used by Apple iTunes, Skype, msn, T-Online, Electronic Arts, Meetic, Playboy, SanDisk, Yamaha, and others.

Benefits of E-currency trading

1) E-currency trading allows you to do business and earn only few dollars of investment. Experts suggest that beginners should start with only a few dollars so that they can first learn the ropes about electronic currency. It does not demand much and it is up to the trader if he wants to increase his investment. Traders can give many opportunities to profit without spending much on investment.

2) E-currency trading has a low transaction cost. Unlike other businesses that consumes profits with exorbitant fees, it allows people to do business with minimal fees and you more profit and more money. There are few websites examples that can let people to do e-currency tradings such as MG E-currency, JT GOLD.com.

3) E-currency trading is not only profitable, but also versatile and convenient to the people involved. E-currency traders can also conduct business anytime, anywhere, whether at home, work place, parks, shopping malls or virtually anywhere as long as there is an internet connection, they can be done.

4) E-currency can also found used in entertainment sites- on “gambling tables” in internet casinos such as PAF Casino and Internet Casino. E-currency allows people to exchange of money to be conducted in the same way as in real casinos.

However, there are some disadvantages with the use of e-currency trading. The transfer of digital currencies raises local issues such as how to levy taxes or the possible ease of money laundering. There are also have macroeconomic effects such as exchange rate instabilities and shortage of money supplies, there is basically a possibility that digital cash could exceed the real cash available.

The application of 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia

2009-06-27T01:02:00.003+08:00

Third Party Certification(TPC) is one of the methods to provide confident and satisfaction to customers to surf the website. Through the implementation of TPC programme, people will ensure that their information traveled over Internet reaches the intended recipients and is safe from intruders because of the increased phishing and spoofing attacks on the internet. The most famous application of third party certification programme in Malaysia is provided by the MSC Trustgate.com Sdn.Bhd.

MCS Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd was established in 1999 as a licensed Certificate Authority ( CA ) which issues digital certificate to provide verification that the website does indeed represent its company. It is operating within the Multimedia Super Corridor. The objective of MSC Trustgate .com is to secure the open network communications from both locally and across the ASEAN region. It offers complete security solutions and leading trust services that needed by all the categories. As a CA, Trustgate’s core business is to provide digital certification services, including digital certificates, and cryptographic products, Managed PKI, Personal ID, My Trust, MyKad ID, Managed Security Services, VeriSign Certified Training and Application Development.

MyKad PKI ( MyKey )

MyKey is the MSC Trustgate.com Sdn. Bhd.'s Digital Certificate which is MyKad PKI solution that works with your physically MyKad. It is class 2 certificate and has 1024-bit key length. When a document digitally signed with MyKey is treated as a legal binding document as it is with a handwritten signature. It provide highest protection for your data and transaction online with reliance limit for fraud protection.

VeriSign is the leading Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate Authority enabling secure e-commerce, communications, and interactions for Web sites, intranets, and extranets. VeriSign gives confidence to consumers because they can conveniently and securely log-in to their accounts to use online services.

VeriSign will review the credentials and check through all the background of organization to ensure that the claim of organization before issuing any server certificate. The browser will verify its business purpose through ID automatically when browser connects to a legitimate site with VeriSign SSL Certificates. After that, information received by Web visitor is identical to encryption between browser and server and no modification is taken place.

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

2009-06-26T23:47:00.002+08:00

Due to the booming in internet and technology in computer, internet access security in personal information become more and more important. When Internet users browse any websites which contain the damaging threats, the regarding threats would attack or destroy their computers. The damaging threats such as viruses, spyware, adware and identity theft are common occurrence.

As an accountable company, the company must safeguard customer privacy as it is particularly critical for the financial service company.

Hackers are not the only or even the primary threats. Hazards lurk within the company as well, and need not stem from any criminal intent. Therefore, protecting customer data more than just adding security features to corporate computer system but it also involves an organized and standardized approach to collecting, storing and using consolidated customer data.

To protect customer privacy from possible threats from hackers, there should be proper security penetration testing, network security certification and security vulnerability assessments based on which a particular hacker safeguard certification mark and the security seal is then attached to websites making it more secure and trustworthy in the services that are catered to clients and customers. The hacker safeguard certification mark appears on a website viewable by clients and visitors who can then rely on the site with utmost belief.

The assured hacker safeguard certification that is guaranteed to a site with the security seal, detects such as SQL Injection by means of built-in intrusion detection system, does the security penetration testing, provides network security certification and protects web servers against the latest phishing schemes. The website with comprehensive security, meets the highest published website security standards. Customer can then browse safely carry out trouble free checkouts and transaction without the risk of websites security breach.

Technology is a great help to keeping private data private. But technology alone can’t win the war. So, business processes, trainings and attitudes have to lead the charge so that technology can support them in the effort to protect financial data and monitor financial activity.

Another way for company to secure customer information is outsourcing security service. But company has to be careful not to outsource privacy completely, or to rely too much on the consultant to make important decisions. Turn to outside help for direction, but always remain of its own programme.

How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

2009-06-26T23:30:00.004+08:00

Since the network plays an important role in nowadays, it also creates many problems, such as gaining access to personal data. In this fact, we need to have a safeguard to protect the personal or financial data such as:

Guard your password

It is better that do not use real personal data in our password. We also need to frequently change password or do not use the same password for all accounts. A strong password must have at least 12 characters long. For example, when payment by using the credit card. The credit card password can fulfill those requirements and entering the credit card verification code is a good way in preventing those data from being stolen during online shopping.

Deal with companies we can trust

As we know, when we purchase any items online, we need to give our detail to the seller. So, if we purchase the goods for an unsecured site, there is a high probability that our personal detail will be leaked out. Secured site is usually verified by a trusted third party, so their effort or ability in protecting the private and confidential information will be stronger.

Avoid accessing and disclose financial information in public

Resist logging on to check our bank balance when working from a coffee shop that offers wireless access. These systems are convenient, but also unknown. Casual users have no way of assessing how sturdy their firewalls are. We also cannot disclose any information to others.

Look for "locks"

How can we tell if our financial site is really secured before we log on? The

Web address should start with "https," instead of "http". Also, look for small lock icon in the lower-right corner of the browser window.

Don't open mystery attachments

Never open an attachment or cli

ck on a link sent to us by an unknown party. Attachments can contain viruses and links

can lead unsuspecting users to dummy sites where they are asked to input financial information.

Install and update firewall, antispyware and antivirus programs

Firewalls help keeping hackers from using our computer to send out our personal information without our permission. Protect ourselves against viruses and Trojan Horses that may steal or modify the data on our own computer by installing the antivirus programs. Using the antispyware programs to remove the spyware hidden in software programs may affect the performance of our computer and gives attacks to our data. For those programs to be effective, it needs to be set up properly and updated regularly.

Phishing: Example and its prevention method

2009-06-26T01:02:00.010+08:00

'Phishing' (pronounced 'fishing') is exactly for fishing information which included personal information such as credit card, bank account and social security numbers. It is a high-tech scam that used spoofed e-mail spam or pop-up messages to deceive users.The fraudsters can steal the identity and run up bills or commit crimes in your name.

Example of Phishing Email

Scammer sends out phishing emails to claims the recipients account has been suspended.They need to verify some information to return their account to normal status.When the user clicks on a link and submits their information,then scammer compromises the user account.

Bank Phishing Spam

PayPal Phishing Spam

Example of Phishing Website

This method supports the phishing email which is designed to reflect the legitimate web site and it is purporting to be. The fraudsters use multiple methods such as genuine looking images and text, disguising the URL in the address bar or totally removing the address ba

No Phishing Allowed: Prevention is better than cure.

1) Do not click on embedded link or unexpected e-mail.

If you initially don’t trust the sender of the e-mail message containing the link, don’t click the presented URL address or enter any confidential information. Instead of clicking the link, try manually typing the address in the URL bar to log directly the website’s home page.

2) Always look for "https" and padlock on website

The https:// (Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer )is used to implement a security method in website. There is an extra encryption and authentication layer standing between your protocol and the Internet provider. When loading an https:// or looked padlock on the internet browser’s status bar for doing a sensitive financial and personal transaction, you can also check the certificate of security scheme.

3) Password Protection

Although some phishes are good at knowing details and facts about the profile, but you are still the master of virtual household. Learn to use several passwords instead of just one. If a phished gains access to, for instant the blogging account and get the e-mail address. They cannot access more sensitive account with your blog account password simply because the phishes knows the wrong password to the right account if you have different passwords between blog account and e-mail account.

4) Use Specialized Domain Name System (DNS) service.

DNS service acts like a firewall when it filters phishing sites from the website you visit or have visited. It works with any type of browsers.Some security measures require outsiders to monitor and check around if the company is a target of phishes.

Resource Link:

http://www.fraudwatchinternational.com/phishing-fraud/phishing-protection/
http://www.dailybits.com/what-is-phishing-the-lessons-to-learn/
http://knowledge.epictouch.com/index.php?page=index_v2&id=151&c=25

A Example of Failure E-Commerce and its cause

2009-06-21T00:18:00.001+08:00

Toysmart.com was owned by a Disney company that began advertising, promoting and selling toys online since January, 1999. In September, Toysmart became a licensee of TRUSTe , an organization that ensures the privacy policy of online businesses and displays its seal and trademark. It indicated the privacy policy that personal information is never shared with a third party would be safe when selling to customer.

However, Toysmart faced privacy issues. Toysmart decided that displaying the TRUST of trademark but did not give fully information to consumers. It sells customer information without providing former customers notice or giving them an opportunity to block the sale or use of their personal information. Therefore, the information would not remain secure and confidential. The Federal Trade Commission (FTG) sued Toysmart to block the sale of customer database that violated consumer protection laws and the privacy rights of customers.

Toysmart was faced with a difficult choice. As an online company, Toysmart did not have the same type of material assets that are most usually associated with bankrupt businesses. There were only few tangible assets such as warehouse full of toys to be sold to the highest bidder.

Instead, Toysmart was a faced with the reality that their assets lay in the information they had obtained from their customers. Based on these factors, Toysmart was faced with complex situation. They could either choose to abide by their promise to never share their customers’ personal information with third party and maintain their millions of dollars or worth of debt, or they could advertise to sell the customer information and have the possibility of lessening their debt.

It was found that toysmart.com had violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) because it collected personal information from children under the age of 13 without requiring parent’s consent. This was in direct relation to the contests toysmart held on its website that children could enter by electronically sending their name and age. Finally, United States District Court of Massachusettes found that toysmart actions will injure customers through the United States by invading their privacy.

After Toysmart went bankrupt, under a settlement agreement with the Federal Trade Commission, the customer database was destroyed. Toysmart plays in a role that they are not only acting in an unethical manner by selling customers’ personal information without their consent, but also shows the image of the company runs without regard for deceiving customers.

A Example of Success E-Commerce and Its Cause

2009-06-20T14:47:00.005+08:00

Online shopping brings a lot of convenience to the consumers. In Malaysia, more and more people start to purchase something online such as clothes, electronic products or even pets. Therefore you should not be strange about this E-Commerce company: Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon.com, Inc was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, and launched online in 1995. It started as an online bookstore but soon diversified to "Earth's Biggest Selection" of nearly everything today. It has 35 million customers and lists million of different items in categories. Furthermore, it has established separate websites in United Kingdom, France, China and Japan.

These are the following reasons that make it success:

Business Strategies
Amazon.com stands head and shoulders above others because it pursues cost-leadership, customer differentiation and focus strategies. Since Amazon hold less inventory than the traditional stores in the market, negotiate with wholesalers and is a virtual tax-free shopping zone, therefore it provides quality products to customers at a lower cost for a more reasonable and affordable price than its competitors.

The customer reviews concentrate on positive or negative comments that are directed at the product itself. As part of their review, users must rate the product on a rating scale from one to five stars. Such rating scales will demonstrate the popularity and dependability of a product. Through the review, the Amazon.com can extensive customers profiles and know what product the customers searching always. They can recommend them once got new related topic published and other related suggestions.

The staffs are assigned authority and empowered to solve a problem as a service in any way they feel fit. Furthermore, they hire local employees in foreign countries as they did in Germany and U.K. This is helped them gathering information about the local market and introduced more channels and branches of Amazon.com in these foreign countries to provide them a familiar look to this e-commerce company.

Customer Service
Amazon.com always focuses on its customers and it provides admirable customer service serves its customers by performing as promised, such as punctual delivery. In addition, the company is always offering “structured surprises” that give customers various rewards or discounts, in an effort to improve brand loyalty. It also provides users friendly interface with convenience and ease of use and help to maintain customer royalty. It provides easy search, customize option, e-mail confirmation and always add useful information related to product. Besides that, it also provides safe, convenient and reliable payment system to customer. Unlike e-bay, Amazon sellers do not have to maintain separate payment accounts; all payments and payment security are handled by Amazon itself. Customer will be kept informed of the transaction processing system; it also provides guarantees and adopting return policy.

Google is changing the world

2009-06-20T14:26:00.002+08:00

Nowadays there are many companies dealt with EC, but no any company other than Google has much affected our life and work. As we know, Google is a useful search engine and targeted advertising tools. As a business, Google generates revenue by providing advertisers with the opportunity to deliver measurable, cost-effective online advertising that is relevant to the information displayed on any given page.

Google’s goal is to deliver technologies to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Therefore, everyone can obtain the information easily. To make simple for users to input and share data, Google is trying to reinvent the spreadsheet as a Web-based application because it is what most people use to organize. The program is designed to help people organize their own information and make it more easily accessible to others via the Web. Today, Google is researching the demand for Google Spreadsheet to work with Google Base, an online database service that allows Google users to post various types of information online. Besides that, many Web programs such as email, communication, and scheduling were provided by Google.

Enterprise search which identifies and enables specific content across the enterprise to be guided is another feature of Google. A crucial enterprise search issue is programming search engines to crawl through all the various data sources at a company and gather their contents. For instance, Oracle offers a search engine for enterprise system, such as ERP and CRM.

Kaiser Permanente is an organization which applies Google Search Appliance and it is the largest nonprofit health maintenance organization (HMO) in America. The amount of available medical knowledge has increased twice by every 7 years, so it is very important that updating the information in order to make sure HMO has provided good caregiving. The Google Search Appliance enables HMO to index more than 150000 documents across the network. Therefore, everyone can share the information around the World not only in US, doctors and nurses are also using Google search to obtain information which help them to diagnose and specify treatments, and also check for the effects by taking particular medication, they can consult clinical research studies when they face problem.

Source: Turban, E., King, D., McKay, J., Marshall, P., Lee, J., & Viehland, D. (2008). Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective 2008 (International Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Education International. www.prenhall.com/turban/

The History And Evolution of E-commerce

2009-06-19T16:18:00.005+08:00

It is not surprising that E-commerce is the outcome of fast changes in the global nature of the technology. Electronic commerce called as e-commerce(EC) consists of the buying, selling, exchanging products or services ,or information via internet or others computer networks. It's one of the wonders of the technological world.Let us briefly glide through the historic events that took place which led to the evolution of E-Commerce.

To start with, in the year 1970s, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), was standardized to allow businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. In 1992, online retail products were being provided to its customers by CompuServe. This great revolution bought the first chance ever for the people to purchase things through the computer, thus making the lifestyle of the people a lot easier and trendy. Netscape arrived in 1994 which was very user friendly and offered users the option of surfing the internet through a single browser. Also, it provided Secure Sockets Layer which was a safe online transaction technology.

So, from that day onwards, fun was away from just a click of the mouse. When the Internet became commercialized and popular worldwide around 1994, users and companies began offers their services through the World Wide Web. Then in 1995, the current biggest names in the E-Commerce industry which are eBay.com and Amazon.com were launched. It was a major factor for such an unprecedented growth of E-Commerce industry.

The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily with widespread Internet usage. Internet which integrates the computer and telecommunication technology has revolutionized the way communication is carry on daily. The internet allows information to spin around the world at an ever faster rate in large quantities for cheap. The arrival of the internet revolution is indeed a good news to small businesses, and medium enterprises (SME). It brings equal opportunity to all firms to access to the international market.

E-commerce is the way of the future. E-commerce is an emerging industry following the same development the pattern that the automobile industry experienced 100 years ago, only faster. The sites like Amazon.com was honored as the earth’s largest book store resulting in more than 1.2 billion dollars sales in just 10 weeks of holiday season shopping alone with more than 3 million shoppers hooked to that site. Even online air ticketing industry is making more than 20 billion dollars every year. Thus, E-Commerce has really emerged as a huge industry over the past few years standing up to the expectations of many. Let us continue to see the success and failure of e-commerce.

Related link:
http://www.flysyk02.netfirms.com/Ecommerce/History.htm

http://www.ecommerce-land.com/history_ecommerce.html

"S" hOmE

2009-06-13T11:57:00.001+08:00

Hello! My Name is Si Hui Ling , twenty one years old and come from Kuala Lumpur. I feel very happy because I can share my great feeling with my friends in this blog. I am just a simple girl. I do care for other people. I am thankful that I know how to appreciate things and people. My motto of life is "Do not give up no matter what happen" !

My hobbies included swimming, listening music and jogging. I also prefer watching Hong Kong Drama and Japanese Drama. I love enjoying watching fiction movies such as Harry Potter, Lords Of The Ring, Pirates Of The Caribbean and others. There are best animation movies that I would like to introduce such as Finding Nemo, The Shrek and Ratatouille. Let makes laugh in those movies, brighten up your life!

Surfacing net provides various types of information and enables us to download song or movie. One of my favourite websites is www.imeem.com because whatever kind of music you can able to find there to create own playlist without downloading song. Checking hotmail-www.msn.com is part of my “job” everyday. I always keep in touch with my friend though mail. There are some useful website such as www.google.com and www.yahoo.com. These search engines help us to find a lot of information regarding the assignment. I usually logs on www.facebook.com to find latest news of friends. That’s all my profile. Welcome my friends to give comment in this blog.

"H" hOmE

2009-06-11T23:59:00.002+08:00

She is a straight and emotional girl. She loves seeing people smile. She can always lend a listening ear to her friend.

Yup, nice to meet you. I am the girl, Ho Jiayhi. I am 21 years old in this year and come from Johor Bahru which is a nice place, near Singapore. I am currently pursuing my Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) Accounting in the University Tunku Abdul Rahman.

When I am free, I like watching blog especially my friends and others. This can update their information for me even though we seldom contact each other. It can improve our relationship. However, I am the learner of the blog. This is my first time write the blog. I am very excited.

Online is one of the favorite activities for student. When I open the computer, the first website which I will open is www.msn.com to sign in the MSN Messenger for chatting and discussing with friends and group members. I also always chat with my family by webcam. It is very convenient to me. www.facebook.com is an important website for me to get the latest news of my friends. I can find out those friends who already losing contact in the long time through the website. For doing the assignment and studies, I will visit www.google.com for searching the appropriate information. I think that it is a good search engine because it is very useful for me to search everything. Besides that, I like to watch the drama and some entertainment program. Since I come Sungai Long for studying, I started to use the www.youtube.com and www.ppstream.com to watch those. It can help me to update and release my stress. It is a very relax activity. I like to watch newspaper as I can improve my knowledge and let me know the world. As a student, I seldom buy the newspaper. So, the way of saving cost is read the newspaper by online. I always watch the news through www.sinchew.com.my.

Starting write our blog now. Hope you all often come here read our blog and gives some suggestions. See you.

"n" hOmE

2009-06-11T23:23:00.002+08:00

Hi, everyone!!

Let me introduce myself. My name is jia yuan, still have 14 days to reach 21 years old. I come from Johor Bahru. Due to studying in Utar Sungai Long, I need to leave my lovely home for 3 years. Although I can’t stay in my lovely home with my dearest family, I still have 6 lovely housemates with me. I am very enjoying living with them. Currently I am pursuing my degree in Utar, taking Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) Accounting and will be completing in uni next year and still consider whether want to continue further with my study or not.

When I am free, I love surfing net and watch Taiwan or Hongkong drama. Besides that, I also enjoy shopping with my housemates in weekend. Next, I like to listen music which help me release my stress. I also like to watch movie but recently I need to cope with assignment, test and starting doing my thesis, so i have no time to watch the movie I like.

The website I visited the most is www.facebook.com. It enables me to interact with my friends because most of my friends are using facebook. So I can get the latest news from there and I will not lost contact with them. Besides that, I also found some friends whom i lost contact with in facebook and like to play the game in facebook. www.sinchew.com.my is another website I like to visit. I can know what things happen at the outside world and will not become a person wh has a very limited outlook and experience. I also visit www.hotmail.com frequently to check my mail. Furthermore, everyday I log into www.utar.edu.my to update the news released by Utar relevant officer. www.google.com is important for a student like me because I can search information I need in google which assist me in conducting assignment.

Lastly, this is the first time I write a blog. Therefore, hope everyone will enjoy seeing the blog. Have a nice day!!

"c" hOmE

2009-06-11T18:53:00.002+08:00

Hi, I m Ching Bee Yan who 165cm tall, long hair, wear spec, dark skin. I am an easy going, easy smile, love to chat with others and active to participate activities. My borned place is Batu Pahat, Johor.I am youngest in my family which consists of 10 family members including me. I am accounting student who is pursuing third year of my degree course in UTAR.

I like to watch Taiwan, Korean, Japanese, Hong Kong drama. Hence my friends always called me as “Drama Queen” because I am able to watch drama whole day at home instead of going out having meal. Haha… I like to play badminton and exercise yoga during my weekend. Sometimes, I like to cook dishes and share my cooking experience with my housemate and friends.

After attending all class whole day, I always online at night. Of course, the first thing I log in to my laptop is sign in my MSN- http://www.msn.com/ and http://www.google.com/ which is the important communication tool for a student like me to chat and discuss assignment and homework with my friends. Then second website I always updated is my hotmail and my course- http://www.utar.edu.my/ in order to check latest news and information received from my different areas friends. Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/ is a website to help me find out the recent activities happen to friends and keep in touch with old friends. For those like to watch online drama like me, http://www.ppstream.com/ is more popular visited by people. That’s my intro and thank you to continue look at our enchanting blog for our further post.