Distributor Ingram Micro Inc. has launched an e-commerce program designed to give VARs the tools and services they need to launch online storefronts, including connections to pricing/availability systems at vendor sites and the ability to transmit price quotes to end users electronically.
The Santa Ana, Calif.-based distributor this week gave the initiative a boost by partnering with two e-commerce companies.
The new partners are ASP development company Flashecom eCommerce Software Inc., based in Fullerton, Calif.; and Ingeniasoft Inc., an Irvine, Calif.-based developer of custom applications and e-business software.
Flashecom provides retailers and VARs with tools to launch and run online storefronts, while Ingeniasoft offers technology and services to automate business processes using Web applications, workflow software and other process-automation systems.
Justin Crotty, vice president of channel marketing at Ingram Micro North America, said the distributor, which does not sell directly to end users, is committed to giving channel companies access to affordable business-building services and support to help them become more competitive.
The two partnerships expand Ingram Micro's ability to help VARs—especially those in the SMB (small and midsize business), government and education markets—build flexible e-commerce systems tailored to their own needs, Crotty said.
Ingram Micro launched its e-commerce initiative about a year ago when the distributor certified VARStreet Inc. as its first e-commerce partner.
Ingram Micro also offers VARs certification stating that its e-commerce partners provide what Ingram Micro considers to be the right mix of technology, services and cost for its VAR and solution providers customers.
The goal, say Ingram Micro executives, is to offer VARs a comprehensive mix of e-commerce configurations, services and pricing, ranging from low-maintenance turnkey ASP setups to self-hosted solutions that integrate with VARs' existing back-office systems.
Each certified partner offers storefront pricing strategies that may include one-time setup fees, monthly subscriptions and support upgrades. As part of the certification, the distributor negotiates discounted fees for its VARs.
Only a small percentage of VARs have opened Web storefronts, even though the Internet has entrenched itself in commerce and other aspects of daily life, according to VARStreet co-founder and CEO Rad R. Sundar.
He expects that to change as more federal and state government agencies, as well as some corporations, issue mandates for IT suppliers to do business with them over the Web.
Ingram Micro executives said the distributor will continue to build its portfolio of e-commerce technology and services for VARs by enrolling more technology providers in the program.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Collaborative Project Across Three Hong Kong Universities: A Case Study in E-Commerce Education
This paper reports on the work undertaken by three tertiary institutions in Hong Kong to provide business students with the opportunity to experience a project-based teamwork game in learning e-commerce (EC). The teaching objective of this EC project is to develop the knowledge and skills of students, such as in the use of EC site-building tools, critical thinking, communication skills, teamwork, and entrepreneurship. This study examined student attitudes toward the learning in introductory e-commerce course via a project-based teamwork game in EC using a non-traditional teaching approach. The results of an evaluation indicate that the project-based teamwork approach performed to expectations. Based on the feedback from students from the three tertiary institutions, the project was found to facilitate the teaching and learning of EC and to be interesting, exciting, innovative, and more worthwhile than traditional textbook-based learning.
. INTRODUCTION
Universities are expanding their syllabuses as the thirst for knowledge grows. There is no exception for information system (IS) educators. IS educators are expanding their syllabuses and incorporating more e-commerce (EC) elements into their curricula and courses. This is prompting them to move into the areas of EC research, teaching, and learning. The teaching and learning of EC is new compared to that of traditional IS courses, and most university lecturers are still trying to figure out how best to incorporate it into existing curricula or introduce it to students.
Generally, the EC courses being offered at many universities either emphasize a technical or non-technical approach. The majority of them are offered by business schools, which view the subject as a business subject and teach it from a non-technical perspective (Durlabhji and Fusilier, 2002; King et al., 2001). King et al. (2001) examined the nature and content of EC courses, and revealed that most of the course were being offered at the graduate level and used one or more textbooks as the primary reading source. In traditional teaching and learning environments, where knowledge is conveyed through textbooks and lectures, students often feel bored and unchallenged. Meanwhile, many organizations have widely adopted EC systems, and therefore expect their employees to be skilled and to have practical experience in EC. As a result, it is necessary to develop teaching tools and environments for students that offer them practical opportunities to learn EC.
A number of non-traditional teaching approaches and tools have been designed and developed for undergraduate students (Anewalt, 2003; Dhamija et al., 1999; Ngai, 2004; Parker and Swatman, 2001). Most of them simulate an EC environment that facilitates learning or the acquisition of skills. The feedback from the students who used these tools was overwhelmingly positive. They not only gained hands-on experience in EC technologies and concepts, but also enjoyed the EC course and learned much in it. Although the idea of designing simulated environments for teaching and learning is not a novel concept, it is quite appropriate for EC courses.
This paper focuses on a project-based teamwork game in EC which formed a part of group project work carried out by undergraduates in three tertiary institutions in Hong Kong. We attempted to explore effective ways of implementing a non-traditional learning approach in the teaching and learning of EC in undergraduate courses from a business context perspective. The project involved a group of students which were required to write an e-business plan, develop an e-shop, perform on-line shopping, and finally perform an online peer evaluation of their peer's e-shop. Section II of the paper gives an overview of the collaborative project between three local Hong Kong institutions. Section III presents details of the exercise. Section IV summarizes the results of the students' attitudes towards the project-based teamwork game. Section V contains some concluding remarks.
In this study, a project-based teamwork game in EC is described that supports teaching and learning in EC through the "learning by doing" approach. This pedagogy is used in the belief that learning is most efficient and effective when it is situated in realistic settings (Schank, 1997). Three Hong Kong institutions of higher education participated and adopted this project as a part of their EC program. In order to investigate the effectiveness of this non-traditional approach to learning, the results of the evaluation will be reported and discussed in this paper.
2. BACKGROUND
The collaborative project described in this paper was carried out as part of work funded by the Teaching Development Grants (TDG) of the University Grants Committee (UGC) of Hong Kong that aims to encourage UGC-funded institutions to adopt innovative approaches to teaching, and to improve the quality of the learning environment. The establishment of the TDG is part of the UGC's efforts to develop, in collaboration with the institutions, increased awareness of the importance of the quality of teaching and learning. The project, "Electronic Commerce Platform for Teaching and Learning," was undertaken by members of the Department of Management and Marketing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU); the Department of Information and Applied Technology, The Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd); and the Division of Commerce, City University of Hong Kong (CityU). The project aims to facilitate and support teachers and students at tertiary institutions in Hong Kong in the teaching and learning of EC. This project has a three-fold purpose: i) to design and develop EC platforms for teaching and learning; ii) to enable students to have their first experience with EC models; and iii) to develop knowledge and skills such as in the use of EC site building tools, problem-solving, critical and creative thinking, communication skills, teamwork, and entrepreneurship through participation in the project. We believe that all colleagues who offer an EC curriculum will benefit from this project through inter- and intra-institution participation.
. INTRODUCTION
Universities are expanding their syllabuses as the thirst for knowledge grows. There is no exception for information system (IS) educators. IS educators are expanding their syllabuses and incorporating more e-commerce (EC) elements into their curricula and courses. This is prompting them to move into the areas of EC research, teaching, and learning. The teaching and learning of EC is new compared to that of traditional IS courses, and most university lecturers are still trying to figure out how best to incorporate it into existing curricula or introduce it to students.
Generally, the EC courses being offered at many universities either emphasize a technical or non-technical approach. The majority of them are offered by business schools, which view the subject as a business subject and teach it from a non-technical perspective (Durlabhji and Fusilier, 2002; King et al., 2001). King et al. (2001) examined the nature and content of EC courses, and revealed that most of the course were being offered at the graduate level and used one or more textbooks as the primary reading source. In traditional teaching and learning environments, where knowledge is conveyed through textbooks and lectures, students often feel bored and unchallenged. Meanwhile, many organizations have widely adopted EC systems, and therefore expect their employees to be skilled and to have practical experience in EC. As a result, it is necessary to develop teaching tools and environments for students that offer them practical opportunities to learn EC.
A number of non-traditional teaching approaches and tools have been designed and developed for undergraduate students (Anewalt, 2003; Dhamija et al., 1999; Ngai, 2004; Parker and Swatman, 2001). Most of them simulate an EC environment that facilitates learning or the acquisition of skills. The feedback from the students who used these tools was overwhelmingly positive. They not only gained hands-on experience in EC technologies and concepts, but also enjoyed the EC course and learned much in it. Although the idea of designing simulated environments for teaching and learning is not a novel concept, it is quite appropriate for EC courses.
This paper focuses on a project-based teamwork game in EC which formed a part of group project work carried out by undergraduates in three tertiary institutions in Hong Kong. We attempted to explore effective ways of implementing a non-traditional learning approach in the teaching and learning of EC in undergraduate courses from a business context perspective. The project involved a group of students which were required to write an e-business plan, develop an e-shop, perform on-line shopping, and finally perform an online peer evaluation of their peer's e-shop. Section II of the paper gives an overview of the collaborative project between three local Hong Kong institutions. Section III presents details of the exercise. Section IV summarizes the results of the students' attitudes towards the project-based teamwork game. Section V contains some concluding remarks.
In this study, a project-based teamwork game in EC is described that supports teaching and learning in EC through the "learning by doing" approach. This pedagogy is used in the belief that learning is most efficient and effective when it is situated in realistic settings (Schank, 1997). Three Hong Kong institutions of higher education participated and adopted this project as a part of their EC program. In order to investigate the effectiveness of this non-traditional approach to learning, the results of the evaluation will be reported and discussed in this paper.
2. BACKGROUND
The collaborative project described in this paper was carried out as part of work funded by the Teaching Development Grants (TDG) of the University Grants Committee (UGC) of Hong Kong that aims to encourage UGC-funded institutions to adopt innovative approaches to teaching, and to improve the quality of the learning environment. The establishment of the TDG is part of the UGC's efforts to develop, in collaboration with the institutions, increased awareness of the importance of the quality of teaching and learning. The project, "Electronic Commerce Platform for Teaching and Learning," was undertaken by members of the Department of Management and Marketing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU); the Department of Information and Applied Technology, The Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd); and the Division of Commerce, City University of Hong Kong (CityU). The project aims to facilitate and support teachers and students at tertiary institutions in Hong Kong in the teaching and learning of EC. This project has a three-fold purpose: i) to design and develop EC platforms for teaching and learning; ii) to enable students to have their first experience with EC models; and iii) to develop knowledge and skills such as in the use of EC site building tools, problem-solving, critical and creative thinking, communication skills, teamwork, and entrepreneurship through participation in the project. We believe that all colleagues who offer an EC curriculum will benefit from this project through inter- and intra-institution participation.
A Curriculum Design for E-commerce Security
The low cost and wide availability of the Internet have revolutionized electronic commerce (e-commerce) and its applications. Security, then, has become one of the most important issues that must be resolved first to ensure its success. To protect an e-commerce system from existing threats, there must be e-commerce security experts who can help ensure its reliable deployment. This paper presents a curriculum design for e-commerce security in which the Delphi method and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method were used. The AHP method determines the priorities of the e-commerce security courses, and the results of the study provide useful guidelines in the design of the e-commerce security curriculum.
The low cost and wide availability of the Internet have sparked a revolution in electronic commerce (e-commerce) and its applications. Many organizations have begun exploiting the opportunities offered by Internet-based e-commerce, and many more are expected to follow. Exemplary applications include online shopping, telebanking and Internet banking, teleteaching and distance education, online gambling, and virtual casinos, as well as Pay-TV and video-on-demand services (Oppliger, 1999). While this offers convenience for both consumers and vendors, many consumers are concerned about security and their private information when purchasing products or services over the Internet (Wang, Cao, and Kambayashi, 2002). Recently, there have been attacks on popular websites that resulted in the possible theft of credit card numbers of several thousand customers (He and Wang, 2001). Indeed, security is a major factor in e-commerce services.
Recently, courses in e-commerce have been offered in many schools and departments. These courses can be classified as technical and non-technical courses. Non-technical courses frequently focus on the changes in the business and in the industry due to e-commerce, the development of e-commerce, marketing practices, the processes in marketing research, etc. In technical courses, many academic units provide the contexts to understand the technology, and its applications such as web page design and associated programming languages, linking of databases to the website, customer data collection, catalog development, etc. (Jenkins, 2001).
However, courses in e-commerce security are not enough despite the priority on security to ensure the success of e-commerce. Many schools and academic departments on e-commerce have only one or two courses that deal with e-commerce security. When considering the importance of security in e-commerce, there is a further need to train e-commerce security experts who can help ensure its reliable deployment.
To produce e-commerce security experts, e-commerce security education should be treated more significantly, and sound curricula in e-commerce security are required. In this paper, we suggest a curriculum design for e-commerce security that would be useful in training e-commerce security experts. An e-commerce security curriculum is designed in consideration of existing e-commerce threats and current information security curricula. To analyze the designed e-commerce security curriculum, the Delphi method and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method are applied. The AHP method determines the relative importance of e-commerce security courses (Nam and Kim, 2003; Saaty, 1995). By using the AHP method, we can determine the priorities in e-commerce security courses. To produce e-commerce security experts, these priorities provide useful guidelines in the selection of e-commerce security courses.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. section 2 analyzes e-commerce threats and current e-commerce curricula. In section 3, the e-commerce security curriculum is designed. section 4 introduces the methodology. section 5 shows the results of the Delphi and AHP methods. The conclusions are then discussed in section 6.
2. RELATED WORKS
2.1 E-commerce security
Without question, security is one of the most important issues that must be resolved to ensure the success of e-commerce. Researchers have studied how to protect e-commerce systems from threats. A number of papers have dealt with threats and related security issues in e-commerce applications (Oosthuizen, 1998; Wright, 2001).
Customer privacy is becoming the most common security issue in e-commerce (Udo, 2001). No customer wants to use a business that distributes sensitive customer data, such as credit card information, without his knowledge or permission. Encryption technologies are widely used to protect customers' privacy. Encryption algorithms and digital signatures support secure applications in E-mail and electronic payment schemes. Public key infrastructure (PKI) also plays an important role in secure e-commerce transactions (Gollmann, 2000).
Hacking and distribution of viruses are also serious threats to e-commerce. They mostly attack networks or e-commerce sites to render e-services unavailable. Businesses mainly use firewalls to protect their internal networks. Firewalls have now become the main points of defense in the business security architecture. Various complementary systems, such as Intrusion Detection System (IDS), Virtual Private Network (VPN), Information Retrieval System, etc., have also been applied (Marchany and Tront, 2002).
The low cost and wide availability of the Internet have sparked a revolution in electronic commerce (e-commerce) and its applications. Many organizations have begun exploiting the opportunities offered by Internet-based e-commerce, and many more are expected to follow. Exemplary applications include online shopping, telebanking and Internet banking, teleteaching and distance education, online gambling, and virtual casinos, as well as Pay-TV and video-on-demand services (Oppliger, 1999). While this offers convenience for both consumers and vendors, many consumers are concerned about security and their private information when purchasing products or services over the Internet (Wang, Cao, and Kambayashi, 2002). Recently, there have been attacks on popular websites that resulted in the possible theft of credit card numbers of several thousand customers (He and Wang, 2001). Indeed, security is a major factor in e-commerce services.
Recently, courses in e-commerce have been offered in many schools and departments. These courses can be classified as technical and non-technical courses. Non-technical courses frequently focus on the changes in the business and in the industry due to e-commerce, the development of e-commerce, marketing practices, the processes in marketing research, etc. In technical courses, many academic units provide the contexts to understand the technology, and its applications such as web page design and associated programming languages, linking of databases to the website, customer data collection, catalog development, etc. (Jenkins, 2001).
However, courses in e-commerce security are not enough despite the priority on security to ensure the success of e-commerce. Many schools and academic departments on e-commerce have only one or two courses that deal with e-commerce security. When considering the importance of security in e-commerce, there is a further need to train e-commerce security experts who can help ensure its reliable deployment.
To produce e-commerce security experts, e-commerce security education should be treated more significantly, and sound curricula in e-commerce security are required. In this paper, we suggest a curriculum design for e-commerce security that would be useful in training e-commerce security experts. An e-commerce security curriculum is designed in consideration of existing e-commerce threats and current information security curricula. To analyze the designed e-commerce security curriculum, the Delphi method and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method are applied. The AHP method determines the relative importance of e-commerce security courses (Nam and Kim, 2003; Saaty, 1995). By using the AHP method, we can determine the priorities in e-commerce security courses. To produce e-commerce security experts, these priorities provide useful guidelines in the selection of e-commerce security courses.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. section 2 analyzes e-commerce threats and current e-commerce curricula. In section 3, the e-commerce security curriculum is designed. section 4 introduces the methodology. section 5 shows the results of the Delphi and AHP methods. The conclusions are then discussed in section 6.
2. RELATED WORKS
2.1 E-commerce security
Without question, security is one of the most important issues that must be resolved to ensure the success of e-commerce. Researchers have studied how to protect e-commerce systems from threats. A number of papers have dealt with threats and related security issues in e-commerce applications (Oosthuizen, 1998; Wright, 2001).
Customer privacy is becoming the most common security issue in e-commerce (Udo, 2001). No customer wants to use a business that distributes sensitive customer data, such as credit card information, without his knowledge or permission. Encryption technologies are widely used to protect customers' privacy. Encryption algorithms and digital signatures support secure applications in E-mail and electronic payment schemes. Public key infrastructure (PKI) also plays an important role in secure e-commerce transactions (Gollmann, 2000).
Hacking and distribution of viruses are also serious threats to e-commerce. They mostly attack networks or e-commerce sites to render e-services unavailable. Businesses mainly use firewalls to protect their internal networks. Firewalls have now become the main points of defense in the business security architecture. Various complementary systems, such as Intrusion Detection System (IDS), Virtual Private Network (VPN), Information Retrieval System, etc., have also been applied (Marchany and Tront, 2002).
Thursday, September 14, 2006
A Project Module of E-Commerce Planning
The development of a pedagogy that integrates scholastic knowledge and practical skills of e-commerce for business students is imperative. Students typically learn e-commerce planning through course projects. This note provides tips for designing and teaching an e-commerce planning project module for the e-commerce course.
Keywords: Electronic commerce, course project, business planning, clinical approach
1.INTRODUCTION
Ecommerce courses have been popular in business schools for more than seven years. E-commerce is the process of buying, selling, exchanging products, services, and information via computer networks (Turban and King 2003; Turban et al. 2004). Given the breadth of the subject, it is natural that there are a variety of approaches to teaching/learning e-commerce. Yet, they can be placed in two major categories: instructive and clinical.
In the instructive approach, students typically learn e-commerce concepts, a variety of new business models (e.g., revenue models and e-government models), and issues related to e-commerce (e.g., ethics issues and legal issues). Students get a general overview of e-commcrcc, perhaps practice e-commerce simulations, participate classroom case studies (Landon and Travers 2003; Schneider 2004), and/or learn the techniques of e-commerce implementation (Chopoorian and Wang 2004). However, in this approach it is not intended that students acquire first-hand experiences in e-commerce planning. When students learn e-commerce from lectures, they often remember little more than lists of buzzwords. On the other hand, in the clinical approach, students go out, find organizations, identify e-commerce opportunities for the organizations, determine e-commerce strategies for them, and initiate e-commerce business plans. Commonly, courses taught in the clinical approach are called project courses. The teaching philosophy of project courses is that people cannot learn without doing (Wang and Ariguzo 2004).
Given the restricted number of business elective courses in the AACSB curricula for business majors, it is ideal to have a single e-commerce course that integrates the two approaches. However, there are few textbooks that provide business students with guidelines for practical e-commerce projects. Teaching methods for e-commerce course projects are scarce in the IS education literature. This note describes design concepts for an c-commcrcc planning project module of an upper-level e-commerce course for undergraduate business majors and tips for teaching this module.
2. DESIGNING THE PROJECT MODULE
The objectives of the project module is to learn e-commerce planning, including strategy formulation, e-commerce implementation recommendations, and cost/benefit analysis, from a real case based on a local organization. Although students are expected to learn the broad foundation of e-commerce from the course, this project module is not aimed to technical Web application design, simple Web presence, or perceptive Web sites usability assessment.
Besides common difficult tasks in designing a project module, such as scheduling a feasible timetable, specifying project requirements for e-commerce projects is particularly challenging, given the variety of prospective topics of ecommerce planning. One set of requirements is unlikely to fit all categories of project themes. Based on our experiences of teaching this e-commerce project module in the past years, we have developed four sets of requirements for the four typical categories of e-commerce planning projects: catalog sales, B2B e-commerce, e-government, and virtual community. The primary themes and the general requirements for the four categories of e-commerce planning projects are summarized below.
2.1 Catalog Sales.
The project is to plan an online store for a firm to sale its products on the Internet. The project shall
1. Determine the catalog sales strategies for the firm, e.g., reach more customers and increase sales, lower transaction costs, and/or flexible work hours;
2. Develop and evaluate alternatives, e.g., build your own online store, apply for a Web host, or subscribe the eBay store or Yahoo Store;
3. Prepare cost/benefit comparison of the alternatives and recommendations;
4. Describe the steps to set up the online store, e.g., purchase domain name, purchase Web hosting, site implementation (hardware and software), security, payment options, and delivery arrangement;
5. Propose banner advertising/exchange; and
6. Prepare three-year prediction of cash flow.
2.2 B2B E-Commerce
The project is to plan a Web-based business network to improve the cooperation of the business partners. The project report must include
1. Current issues of the business network;
2. The B2B ?-commerce strategy, e.g., business alliance, lower transaction costs, improve the partner relationships, timely communication, share information, and speed cash flows;
3. The e-commerce model, e.g., the supply chain, purchasing and logistics (shown in workflow diagrams), fund transfer, and /or partner relationship management;
Keywords: Electronic commerce, course project, business planning, clinical approach
1.INTRODUCTION
Ecommerce courses have been popular in business schools for more than seven years. E-commerce is the process of buying, selling, exchanging products, services, and information via computer networks (Turban and King 2003; Turban et al. 2004). Given the breadth of the subject, it is natural that there are a variety of approaches to teaching/learning e-commerce. Yet, they can be placed in two major categories: instructive and clinical.
In the instructive approach, students typically learn e-commerce concepts, a variety of new business models (e.g., revenue models and e-government models), and issues related to e-commerce (e.g., ethics issues and legal issues). Students get a general overview of e-commcrcc, perhaps practice e-commerce simulations, participate classroom case studies (Landon and Travers 2003; Schneider 2004), and/or learn the techniques of e-commerce implementation (Chopoorian and Wang 2004). However, in this approach it is not intended that students acquire first-hand experiences in e-commerce planning. When students learn e-commerce from lectures, they often remember little more than lists of buzzwords. On the other hand, in the clinical approach, students go out, find organizations, identify e-commerce opportunities for the organizations, determine e-commerce strategies for them, and initiate e-commerce business plans. Commonly, courses taught in the clinical approach are called project courses. The teaching philosophy of project courses is that people cannot learn without doing (Wang and Ariguzo 2004).
Given the restricted number of business elective courses in the AACSB curricula for business majors, it is ideal to have a single e-commerce course that integrates the two approaches. However, there are few textbooks that provide business students with guidelines for practical e-commerce projects. Teaching methods for e-commerce course projects are scarce in the IS education literature. This note describes design concepts for an c-commcrcc planning project module of an upper-level e-commerce course for undergraduate business majors and tips for teaching this module.
2. DESIGNING THE PROJECT MODULE
The objectives of the project module is to learn e-commerce planning, including strategy formulation, e-commerce implementation recommendations, and cost/benefit analysis, from a real case based on a local organization. Although students are expected to learn the broad foundation of e-commerce from the course, this project module is not aimed to technical Web application design, simple Web presence, or perceptive Web sites usability assessment.
Besides common difficult tasks in designing a project module, such as scheduling a feasible timetable, specifying project requirements for e-commerce projects is particularly challenging, given the variety of prospective topics of ecommerce planning. One set of requirements is unlikely to fit all categories of project themes. Based on our experiences of teaching this e-commerce project module in the past years, we have developed four sets of requirements for the four typical categories of e-commerce planning projects: catalog sales, B2B e-commerce, e-government, and virtual community. The primary themes and the general requirements for the four categories of e-commerce planning projects are summarized below.
2.1 Catalog Sales.
The project is to plan an online store for a firm to sale its products on the Internet. The project shall
1. Determine the catalog sales strategies for the firm, e.g., reach more customers and increase sales, lower transaction costs, and/or flexible work hours;
2. Develop and evaluate alternatives, e.g., build your own online store, apply for a Web host, or subscribe the eBay store or Yahoo Store;
3. Prepare cost/benefit comparison of the alternatives and recommendations;
4. Describe the steps to set up the online store, e.g., purchase domain name, purchase Web hosting, site implementation (hardware and software), security, payment options, and delivery arrangement;
5. Propose banner advertising/exchange; and
6. Prepare three-year prediction of cash flow.
2.2 B2B E-Commerce
The project is to plan a Web-based business network to improve the cooperation of the business partners. The project report must include
1. Current issues of the business network;
2. The B2B ?-commerce strategy, e.g., business alliance, lower transaction costs, improve the partner relationships, timely communication, share information, and speed cash flows;
3. The e-commerce model, e.g., the supply chain, purchasing and logistics (shown in workflow diagrams), fund transfer, and /or partner relationship management;
Developing Expertise in E-Commerce: A Content Analysis of Students' Knowledge of Online Auctions
This paper presents findings from a study investigating the knowledge students acquire from and apply to an online auction assignment. As part of an E-Business and E-Commerce module students were asked to buy and sell goods in an online marketspace and report on their experience for an assignment on the module. A content analysis of a sample of the students' assignments was conducted. The main finding of the study is that, given a framework of professional knowledge and competence, there are considerable imbalances in the knowledge that students acquire from and apply to the online auction assignment. The paper concludes that learning and teaching strategies that recognize and work with such imbalances are appropriate, in order that students' professional capacities in the domain of e-commerce are developed. Recommendations for future research and practice in e-commerce education are provided.
1. INTRODUCTION
One of the tasks facing university educators is how to effectively prepare their students for professional practice. As e-commerce becomes part of everyday business practice, teaching e-commerce concepts in a classroom setting alone risks opening up a gap between that classroom setting and the professional practice which the student will enter. Graduates may leave higher education equipped only with theoretical knowledge and with none of the other skills and capacities appropriate to professional practice. This paper describes an e-commerce assignment designed to develop students' expertise in e-commerce.
For an assignment on an E-Business and E-commerce module, students were required to participate in a real-world C2C e-commerce 'marketspace' e.g. eBay. Participation in the actual marketspace requires students to go beyond the acquisition and application of theoretical knowledge; and to develop their practical and experiential knowledge not only of C2C e-commerce but also of e-commerce in general. In doing so, an online auction site acts as a learning environment for students to develop capacities that contribute to becoming a practicing e-commerce professional.
The paper is organized as follows. The design of the e-commerce assignment is outlined in section two. The research design is presented in section three; this includes a description of the theoretical framework adopted for the study, the type of sampling, and the design of the coding frame. The results of the data analysis are presented in section four and the findings are discussed in section five. The paper concludes with recommendations for research and practice in e-commerce education.
2. E-COMMERCE ASSIGNMENT
Online consumer-to-consumer (C2C) e-commerce is a fast-growing business area. C2C e-commerce usually refers to the business model that focuses on providing a platform to allow an individual to trade or barter goods and services with another individual. Online auction, a form of C2C e-commerce, is a platform where individuals can trade both new and second-hand goods at a price agreed by buyers and sellers. Some auction sites such as eBay and Yahoo also offer 'e-shop' facilities to those who would like to make a living full-time from buying and selling goods online or who would like to trade part-time as a way of earning a second income.
The reasons for asking students to participate in an online auction were two-fold. First, such an exercise enabled students to participate in both a purchasing and a selling process; and having experience of buying and selling online is important in order to have a full understanding of e-commerce concepts. second, the exercise replaces a simulated environment, which is an alternative approach to developing a learning environment for e-commerce education (Ngai, 2004, McCubbrey et al, 1994), with a real-world e-commerce environment so that students can experience at first-hand the issues associated with practicing e-commerce in a 'live' business setting. In this assignment students were asked to buy and sell in a C2C marketspace of their choice. No restriction was placed on the particular auction site that should be used; and depending on the potential market and the availability of goods students could choose to buy and sell on the same or different platforms. Students were asked to submit two reports at the end of the exercise. In the first report students were asked to discuss their experience of participating in the online auction (1750-2000 words). In the second report students were asked to describe their learning experience of participating in the online auction. The findings presented in this paper are based on an analysis of the students' submissions for the second report.
3. RESEARCH DESIGN
Our research design was based on classical content analysis (Bauer and Gaskell, 2000). Information is provided here on the theoretical framework; sampling; and the coding frame.
3.1 Theoretical Framework
As indicated previously the rationale for asking students to participate in an online auction was to provide a learning environment to help students acquire the capacity to act as a practicing e-commerce professional. Acting as an effective e-commerce professional implies a capacity not only to apply theoretical concepts, but also a capacity to develop process skills e.g. interpersonal, deliberative, and decisionmaking skills as well as a capacity to reflect on and use an accumulating store of personal knowledge and experience. Definitions of the types of knowledge used by a practicing professional are provided here. Propositional knowledge: "discipline-based theories and concepts, derived from bodies of coherent systematic knowledge (Wissenschaft); generalizations and practical principles in the applied field of professional action; and specific propositions about particular cases, decisions and actions" (Eraut, 1994: 13). Process knowledge: "acquiring information; skilled behaviour; deliberative processes, e.g., planning and decision-making; giving information; and metaprocesses for directing and controlling one's own behaviour" (Eraut, 1994: 107). Personal knowledge: "All people acquire knowledge through experiences the purposes of which have little overt connection with learning, through social interaction and trying to get things down. Such knowledge covers people and situations encountered, communications received and events and activities experienced through participation or observation. While some of this knowledge is sufficiently processed to be classified as propositional knowledge or process knowledge, much will remain at the level of simple impressions. Nevertheless, impressions gained from experience contribute to professional action in ways that are still only partially understood" (Eraut, 1994: 107). In sum: a practicing professional, in any domain, is one capable not only of applying discipline-based theories and concepts, but also of developing and applying process knowledge, and of processing and systematizing their personal experience of professional practice.
1. INTRODUCTION
One of the tasks facing university educators is how to effectively prepare their students for professional practice. As e-commerce becomes part of everyday business practice, teaching e-commerce concepts in a classroom setting alone risks opening up a gap between that classroom setting and the professional practice which the student will enter. Graduates may leave higher education equipped only with theoretical knowledge and with none of the other skills and capacities appropriate to professional practice. This paper describes an e-commerce assignment designed to develop students' expertise in e-commerce.
For an assignment on an E-Business and E-commerce module, students were required to participate in a real-world C2C e-commerce 'marketspace' e.g. eBay. Participation in the actual marketspace requires students to go beyond the acquisition and application of theoretical knowledge; and to develop their practical and experiential knowledge not only of C2C e-commerce but also of e-commerce in general. In doing so, an online auction site acts as a learning environment for students to develop capacities that contribute to becoming a practicing e-commerce professional.
The paper is organized as follows. The design of the e-commerce assignment is outlined in section two. The research design is presented in section three; this includes a description of the theoretical framework adopted for the study, the type of sampling, and the design of the coding frame. The results of the data analysis are presented in section four and the findings are discussed in section five. The paper concludes with recommendations for research and practice in e-commerce education.
2. E-COMMERCE ASSIGNMENT
Online consumer-to-consumer (C2C) e-commerce is a fast-growing business area. C2C e-commerce usually refers to the business model that focuses on providing a platform to allow an individual to trade or barter goods and services with another individual. Online auction, a form of C2C e-commerce, is a platform where individuals can trade both new and second-hand goods at a price agreed by buyers and sellers. Some auction sites such as eBay and Yahoo also offer 'e-shop' facilities to those who would like to make a living full-time from buying and selling goods online or who would like to trade part-time as a way of earning a second income.
The reasons for asking students to participate in an online auction were two-fold. First, such an exercise enabled students to participate in both a purchasing and a selling process; and having experience of buying and selling online is important in order to have a full understanding of e-commerce concepts. second, the exercise replaces a simulated environment, which is an alternative approach to developing a learning environment for e-commerce education (Ngai, 2004, McCubbrey et al, 1994), with a real-world e-commerce environment so that students can experience at first-hand the issues associated with practicing e-commerce in a 'live' business setting. In this assignment students were asked to buy and sell in a C2C marketspace of their choice. No restriction was placed on the particular auction site that should be used; and depending on the potential market and the availability of goods students could choose to buy and sell on the same or different platforms. Students were asked to submit two reports at the end of the exercise. In the first report students were asked to discuss their experience of participating in the online auction (1750-2000 words). In the second report students were asked to describe their learning experience of participating in the online auction. The findings presented in this paper are based on an analysis of the students' submissions for the second report.
3. RESEARCH DESIGN
Our research design was based on classical content analysis (Bauer and Gaskell, 2000). Information is provided here on the theoretical framework; sampling; and the coding frame.
3.1 Theoretical Framework
As indicated previously the rationale for asking students to participate in an online auction was to provide a learning environment to help students acquire the capacity to act as a practicing e-commerce professional. Acting as an effective e-commerce professional implies a capacity not only to apply theoretical concepts, but also a capacity to develop process skills e.g. interpersonal, deliberative, and decisionmaking skills as well as a capacity to reflect on and use an accumulating store of personal knowledge and experience. Definitions of the types of knowledge used by a practicing professional are provided here. Propositional knowledge: "discipline-based theories and concepts, derived from bodies of coherent systematic knowledge (Wissenschaft); generalizations and practical principles in the applied field of professional action; and specific propositions about particular cases, decisions and actions" (Eraut, 1994: 13). Process knowledge: "acquiring information; skilled behaviour; deliberative processes, e.g., planning and decision-making; giving information; and metaprocesses for directing and controlling one's own behaviour" (Eraut, 1994: 107). Personal knowledge: "All people acquire knowledge through experiences the purposes of which have little overt connection with learning, through social interaction and trying to get things down. Such knowledge covers people and situations encountered, communications received and events and activities experienced through participation or observation. While some of this knowledge is sufficiently processed to be classified as propositional knowledge or process knowledge, much will remain at the level of simple impressions. Nevertheless, impressions gained from experience contribute to professional action in ways that are still only partially understood" (Eraut, 1994: 107). In sum: a practicing professional, in any domain, is one capable not only of applying discipline-based theories and concepts, but also of developing and applying process knowledge, and of processing and systematizing their personal experience of professional practice.
Talkin' trash: One outfit's story of e-commerce
How 1-800-GOT-JUNK is using its intranet to clean up in the rubbish-removal business.
Imagine a corporate warehouse full of dilapidated office furniture, antiquated workstations and box after box of 70s era marketing collateral. Or, perhaps, your neighbor's garage - long-outgrown bikes, a rusty old barbecue grill, towering stacks of yellowed newspapers.
These images mieht scream more of "Sanford & Son" than modern-day e-business, and that's exactly what they represent to a tech-sawy company called 1-800-GOT-JUNK.
Launched as a summer business by a college student in the pre-lnternet days of 1989 Brian Scudamore had $700, a used pickup and gumption - 1-800-GOT-JUNK has used technology to evolve into North America's largest junk-removal company As of this month, 325 spiffy 1-800-GOT-JUNK trucks, from 148 franchise locations, hauled away corporate and household rubbish in 38 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces. In the U.S., the company serves 48 of the top 50 metropolitan areas by population, says Cameron Herold.who joined the operation in 2000 as COO. In fact, he says, 1-800-GOT-JUNK is the only junk-removal company in North America operating in more than three cities.
1-80GGOT-JUNK closed 2004 with $38.6 million in sales, more than double the $15.7 million in revenue it reported for 2003.The company expects to do $75 million in sales this year, Herold says, for a 95% growth."WeVe a dot-corn that turns trash into cash "he says.
Herold attributes the company's rapid development and quick growth to its early recognition that it could exploit Web technology to make its junkremoval operation more efficient. In 1997, with the goal of making life easier for its franchisees, 1-800-GOT-JUNK created an intranet, called JunkNet."We didn't want franchisees to have to worry about the administrative details that bog down business owners," Herold says.
For franchisees, as well as 1-800-GOT-JUNK employees, JunkNet serves as a contact manager, a job scheduler, a dispatch engine, a CRM tool and more."JunkNet today is our central backbone," Herold says, noting that a half-dozen in-house developers have fully customized JunkNet for the business.
Behind the scenes, the JunkNet infrastructure comprises Microsoft Internet Information Services 6.0 Web servers, SQL Server 2000 Enterprise database servers and Windows Server 2003, says Roman Azbel, vice president of IT for 1-80OGOT-JUNK. Developers use Microsoft's .Net Framework 1.1, a recent changeover from the older, and less scalable and sophisticated Active Server Pages technology, he adds.
1-800-GOT-JUNK prides itself on taking technology to the next level. Using the Task function in Microsoft Outlook, for example, Azbel and his developers have managed to encapsulate each of the company's longterm strategic goals in one online project plan, Herold says. "We looked at Outlook, and looked at our business, and asked, 'How can we get rid of paper and know what everybody is working on, and link priorities?' Now we can look three years out, assigning due dates, to project plan every single aspect of the business," he says.
The 1-800-GOT-JUNK desk jockeys aren't the only ones with cool tools, Herold notes. Drivers can access JunkNet via PDAs or cell phones to retrieve client information such as where the junk is located and payment option selected. He says this eliminates the need for a customer to deal with the junk removal team at all while it is on-site.
Azbel describes the process: From 1800gotjunk.com, a customer books a job. From the public Web site, the order moves to the JunkNet database, which determines the route based on ZIP code of removal site and schedules the pickup. Using a Wireless Application Protocol-enabled device, a driver obtains client information. When arriving on site, the 1-800-GOT-JUNK team knows exactly where to go, what to remove, and how the customer should be billed.
That sure beats the old way of getting rid of outdated gear, says one repeat corporate customer. "In the past, we had to haul it ourselves in our own vehicles. The last time we did that, it took most of a day We made three trips to the recycling center," says the customer, an IT staffer at a utility company in Detroit who asked not to be named.
"We found 1-800-GOT-JUNK to be reasonably priced, fast, courteous, clean and very easy to deal with - our company pays [within 30 days of receiving an invoice], and not all companies accept that," she says.
Pricing is based on volume and the type of junk being removed. On average, a full truckload costs $430.
With endorsements such as this one, 1-800-GOT-JUNK might just succeed in its goal to increase its corporate business from 25% of sales today to 50% by 2006. Online booking is key to accomplishing that goal because it should help attract national accounts, Herald notes.
Today, only about 10% of jobs get booked online. Herald would like to see that figure at 25% by the end of 2006, and is working with Google on search engine optimization and keywords to help make that growth happen.
Imagine a corporate warehouse full of dilapidated office furniture, antiquated workstations and box after box of 70s era marketing collateral. Or, perhaps, your neighbor's garage - long-outgrown bikes, a rusty old barbecue grill, towering stacks of yellowed newspapers.
These images mieht scream more of "Sanford & Son" than modern-day e-business, and that's exactly what they represent to a tech-sawy company called 1-800-GOT-JUNK.
Launched as a summer business by a college student in the pre-lnternet days of 1989 Brian Scudamore had $700, a used pickup and gumption - 1-800-GOT-JUNK has used technology to evolve into North America's largest junk-removal company As of this month, 325 spiffy 1-800-GOT-JUNK trucks, from 148 franchise locations, hauled away corporate and household rubbish in 38 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces. In the U.S., the company serves 48 of the top 50 metropolitan areas by population, says Cameron Herold.who joined the operation in 2000 as COO. In fact, he says, 1-800-GOT-JUNK is the only junk-removal company in North America operating in more than three cities.
1-80GGOT-JUNK closed 2004 with $38.6 million in sales, more than double the $15.7 million in revenue it reported for 2003.The company expects to do $75 million in sales this year, Herold says, for a 95% growth."WeVe a dot-corn that turns trash into cash "he says.
Herold attributes the company's rapid development and quick growth to its early recognition that it could exploit Web technology to make its junkremoval operation more efficient. In 1997, with the goal of making life easier for its franchisees, 1-800-GOT-JUNK created an intranet, called JunkNet."We didn't want franchisees to have to worry about the administrative details that bog down business owners," Herold says.
For franchisees, as well as 1-800-GOT-JUNK employees, JunkNet serves as a contact manager, a job scheduler, a dispatch engine, a CRM tool and more."JunkNet today is our central backbone," Herold says, noting that a half-dozen in-house developers have fully customized JunkNet for the business.
Behind the scenes, the JunkNet infrastructure comprises Microsoft Internet Information Services 6.0 Web servers, SQL Server 2000 Enterprise database servers and Windows Server 2003, says Roman Azbel, vice president of IT for 1-80OGOT-JUNK. Developers use Microsoft's .Net Framework 1.1, a recent changeover from the older, and less scalable and sophisticated Active Server Pages technology, he adds.
1-800-GOT-JUNK prides itself on taking technology to the next level. Using the Task function in Microsoft Outlook, for example, Azbel and his developers have managed to encapsulate each of the company's longterm strategic goals in one online project plan, Herold says. "We looked at Outlook, and looked at our business, and asked, 'How can we get rid of paper and know what everybody is working on, and link priorities?' Now we can look three years out, assigning due dates, to project plan every single aspect of the business," he says.
The 1-800-GOT-JUNK desk jockeys aren't the only ones with cool tools, Herold notes. Drivers can access JunkNet via PDAs or cell phones to retrieve client information such as where the junk is located and payment option selected. He says this eliminates the need for a customer to deal with the junk removal team at all while it is on-site.
Azbel describes the process: From 1800gotjunk.com, a customer books a job. From the public Web site, the order moves to the JunkNet database, which determines the route based on ZIP code of removal site and schedules the pickup. Using a Wireless Application Protocol-enabled device, a driver obtains client information. When arriving on site, the 1-800-GOT-JUNK team knows exactly where to go, what to remove, and how the customer should be billed.
That sure beats the old way of getting rid of outdated gear, says one repeat corporate customer. "In the past, we had to haul it ourselves in our own vehicles. The last time we did that, it took most of a day We made three trips to the recycling center," says the customer, an IT staffer at a utility company in Detroit who asked not to be named.
"We found 1-800-GOT-JUNK to be reasonably priced, fast, courteous, clean and very easy to deal with - our company pays [within 30 days of receiving an invoice], and not all companies accept that," she says.
Pricing is based on volume and the type of junk being removed. On average, a full truckload costs $430.
With endorsements such as this one, 1-800-GOT-JUNK might just succeed in its goal to increase its corporate business from 25% of sales today to 50% by 2006. Online booking is key to accomplishing that goal because it should help attract national accounts, Herald notes.
Today, only about 10% of jobs get booked online. Herald would like to see that figure at 25% by the end of 2006, and is working with Google on search engine optimization and keywords to help make that growth happen.
E-commerce represents a revolution bankers cannot ignore
The United States is in the midst of a multi-facetted revolution and banks are at the center of the upheaval. That's the warning that William Carden delivered April 28 in West Des Moines to bankers attending the Iowa Department of Banking's "Day with the Superintendent." Carden has his own marketing and strategic planning firm, and has been a professor of banking and business. He warned bankers they need to respond to the revolutions underway in technology and money.
Carden said the changes resulting from widespread use of the internet constitute the second of the two major technological revolutions to take place in the United States. The first addressed transportation. That revolution stopped in about 1970, when the United States essentially stopped pouring resources into efforts to move people and products faster and more economically. The current technological revolution is about moving information, Carden explained. It started with the invention of the printing press in 1473 and is exploding with the rapid world-wide adoption of the internet.
Carden described an information democracy that allows anyone with access to a computer the opportunity to study from the world's research libraries - a privilege that was available only to a small percentage of people 15 years ago. Bankers need to grasp the significance of the information revolution because information is currency; money is really nothing more than information, he postulated.
In a well-told history lesson, Carden explained how money evolved from commodities such as lumber and bricks to coins in the year 565 B.C. Other steps in the evolutionary process have been the adoption of paper money in the late 1400s, the abandonment of the gold standard in the United States in 1934, the introduction of the credit card in the 1950s, and the recognition of money as electronic blips today. "We have been deemphasizing the physical nature of money with each step," Carden said.
Most substantial financial transactions are electronic, Carden said. In 2002, he said there were 430 billion cash transactions, and 90 percent of those were for less than $10. "Cash is now the money of the ghetto," Carden said.
The volume of electronic transactions, Carden explained, is growing exponentially. This year, there will be $34 billion in consumer-to-consumer electronic transactions, up from only $1 billion in 1998. These are transactions that happen through e-Bay and any one of the hundreds of thousands of commerce-oriented blogs. The value of consumer-to-business electronic transactions will top half a trillion dollars this year, representing about 20 percent of payment flows, Carden said. In the business-to-business world, electronic transactions this year will value $3.8 trillion, representing almost one-third of those payment flows.
What do these trends mean for bankers? "It means electronic cards are going to be the business model of the future," Carden said. "It means your customers are interested in electronic bill pay and presentment. It means that if you are not offering internet banking, you better look at it pretty seriously. Europe is awash in smart cards and they are rapidly coming to the United States."
Carden said that success for any bank will depend on its speed, agility and willingness to experiment. He said bankers will have to learn to work with people they traditionally have not worked with. "The people building e-commerce technologies are different," he said.
Carden encouraged bankers to keep these facts in mind:
* Power has shifted to the customer.
* Geography is a secondary consideration. Anyone can enter your market from anywhere. We are in a global marketplace.
* E-commerce is a target-rich environment for radically reducing the costs of buying and selling goods and services.
* New technology means consumers expect their bank to be able to interact with them at multiple touch-points.
* You need to be "open" seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
* Speed and responsiveness are no longer a competitive advantage, but a competitive necessity.
* Banks need to be ready to customize products and services to individual customers.
* Customers like to do things by themselves; develop self-service delivery of products.
* Competitors are quick to imitate, so in order to be a leader, you have to be ready to raise the bar to the next level.
* Branding in the e-commerce world is even more important than branding in the world of traditional commerce.
Too many bankers are continuing to operate their institutions in a "1950s paradigm." Carden lamented. "My wish is that they would begin to operate in the paradigm of 2010 or 2015," he summarized.
Carden said the changes resulting from widespread use of the internet constitute the second of the two major technological revolutions to take place in the United States. The first addressed transportation. That revolution stopped in about 1970, when the United States essentially stopped pouring resources into efforts to move people and products faster and more economically. The current technological revolution is about moving information, Carden explained. It started with the invention of the printing press in 1473 and is exploding with the rapid world-wide adoption of the internet.
Carden described an information democracy that allows anyone with access to a computer the opportunity to study from the world's research libraries - a privilege that was available only to a small percentage of people 15 years ago. Bankers need to grasp the significance of the information revolution because information is currency; money is really nothing more than information, he postulated.
In a well-told history lesson, Carden explained how money evolved from commodities such as lumber and bricks to coins in the year 565 B.C. Other steps in the evolutionary process have been the adoption of paper money in the late 1400s, the abandonment of the gold standard in the United States in 1934, the introduction of the credit card in the 1950s, and the recognition of money as electronic blips today. "We have been deemphasizing the physical nature of money with each step," Carden said.
Most substantial financial transactions are electronic, Carden said. In 2002, he said there were 430 billion cash transactions, and 90 percent of those were for less than $10. "Cash is now the money of the ghetto," Carden said.
The volume of electronic transactions, Carden explained, is growing exponentially. This year, there will be $34 billion in consumer-to-consumer electronic transactions, up from only $1 billion in 1998. These are transactions that happen through e-Bay and any one of the hundreds of thousands of commerce-oriented blogs. The value of consumer-to-business electronic transactions will top half a trillion dollars this year, representing about 20 percent of payment flows, Carden said. In the business-to-business world, electronic transactions this year will value $3.8 trillion, representing almost one-third of those payment flows.
What do these trends mean for bankers? "It means electronic cards are going to be the business model of the future," Carden said. "It means your customers are interested in electronic bill pay and presentment. It means that if you are not offering internet banking, you better look at it pretty seriously. Europe is awash in smart cards and they are rapidly coming to the United States."
Carden said that success for any bank will depend on its speed, agility and willingness to experiment. He said bankers will have to learn to work with people they traditionally have not worked with. "The people building e-commerce technologies are different," he said.
Carden encouraged bankers to keep these facts in mind:
* Power has shifted to the customer.
* Geography is a secondary consideration. Anyone can enter your market from anywhere. We are in a global marketplace.
* E-commerce is a target-rich environment for radically reducing the costs of buying and selling goods and services.
* New technology means consumers expect their bank to be able to interact with them at multiple touch-points.
* You need to be "open" seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
* Speed and responsiveness are no longer a competitive advantage, but a competitive necessity.
* Banks need to be ready to customize products and services to individual customers.
* Customers like to do things by themselves; develop self-service delivery of products.
* Competitors are quick to imitate, so in order to be a leader, you have to be ready to raise the bar to the next level.
* Branding in the e-commerce world is even more important than branding in the world of traditional commerce.
Too many bankers are continuing to operate their institutions in a "1950s paradigm." Carden lamented. "My wish is that they would begin to operate in the paradigm of 2010 or 2015," he summarized.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Cyber sentinel: can e-commerce in Latin America be made safe? Argentina's Decidir.com believes its information protection and fraud screening services
ESTEBAN NOFAL HAS AN ambitious mission: He wants to make Latin America safe for e-commerce. That's no small goal. Latin America's emerging Internet industry has been saddled with the regrettable reputation for being the Wild West of the Web, in which merchants or consumers often wind up eating the cost of orders purchased with fake or stolen credit cards.
Nofal's 2-year-old company, Decidir.com, sells secure payment and identity verification services to online retailers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. Decidir's service works like this: When customers complete a transaction on a retailer's Web page, the payment is routed by the company through a secure platform. Employees use that platform to verify buyers' identities. Companies can also check credit histories and ability to pay.
"We're taking the risk out of online transactions in Latin America," Nofal, 34, says. "E-commerce wasn't going to happen in Latin America until someone figured out how to do secure payments and identity verification."
Certainly, Decidir's service is one whose time has come. Online retail sales are expected to top US$580 million in 2000, according to an October study released by Boston Consulting Group and Visa International. "[T]he industry must persuade users to adopt some kind of security system and to trust the merchant and banking system enough to share credit card information over the Internet," the report says. It goes on to highlight a Decidir prototype--a "password system of personal questions that only the owner of a particular credit card can answer"--which is still under development.
Merchants currently pay Decidir.com between US$500 and US$700 in set-up fees, and between US 30 cents and US 90 cents per transaction. Among Decidir's clients are auction sites, the region's hottest e-commerce submarket, which was expected to generate US$192 million in 2000. One virtual auction house, DeRemate.com of Buenos Aires, outsources its online payments in Argentina to Decidir, which in turn deals directly with credit card issuers. Buyers' information is encrypted to reduce the chance of fraud, says DeRemate executive Jose Luis Bosch. "Computer users in Argentina fear fraud, and there's a myth of insecurity in e-commerce that's difficult to change," he says. "This system offers them security."
Privately held Decidir, based in Buenos Aires, has 200 employees and is growing fast. Revenue is expected to increase ten fold from US$400,000 in 1999 to a projected US$4 million in 2000. While the company is still losing money it expects to post profits by the end of 2001.
When the company launched in early 1999, its first goal was to become Latin America's largest provider of credit information to small-and medium-sized companies. While North Americans take for granted the ability to quickly and easily check customers credit, such information has been costly and difficult to find in Latin America. Typically, only large firms keep credit databases. Smaller merchants have been at the mercy of the marketplace, which lacks consumer and anti-fraud protection laws. So Decidir cobbled together databases from public records, building lists that include 70 million companies and individuals in Brazil and 58 million in Mexico.
Customers pay for the service either by subscribing for US$100 a month or by paying US$30 to US$70 per credit check. All of the information is provided online, and for many small- and medium-sized businesses, signing up with Decidir is their first Internet experience. "We want to bring credit awareness to the masses," Nofal says.
So far, investors like Decidir's model. The dotcom has raised US$21 million in two rounds of venture capital financing. Backers include North American firms Citicorp Venture Capital Latin America, GE Equity and SCP Private Equity Partners.
Nofal, who has a large stake in the company was behind the first round. Two venture funds he controls, Latin Internet Ventures Ltd. and CIMA Consulting Ltd., invested US$2.9 million. A native of Argentina and former Morgan Stanley salesman, Nofal was in the midst of launching his own asset management business when he decided to invest in Decidir.com. He took over as Decidir's chief executive last May Founder Esteban Brenman is chairman.
In its second round of financing in September, Decidir raised US$15 million. A quarter of that money came from Citicorp Venture Capital Latin America. Brian Kim, a director of the fund, likes the company in part because it addresses a problem unique to Latin America. "A lot of these companies try to take a US [businessi model and apply it to the region," Kim says. "This is really a home-grown company"
SCP Private Equity Partners of Wayne, Pennsylvania, found the ecommerce site's business plan promising enough to make it the only Latin American firm in its portfolio. SCP saw several Decidir strong points. It's a business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce company While the stock values of several high-profile B2B firms have plummeted recently on the NAS DAQ, venture capitalists still prefer these companies to those that sell goods and services directly to consumers.
Nofal's 2-year-old company, Decidir.com, sells secure payment and identity verification services to online retailers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. Decidir's service works like this: When customers complete a transaction on a retailer's Web page, the payment is routed by the company through a secure platform. Employees use that platform to verify buyers' identities. Companies can also check credit histories and ability to pay.
"We're taking the risk out of online transactions in Latin America," Nofal, 34, says. "E-commerce wasn't going to happen in Latin America until someone figured out how to do secure payments and identity verification."
Certainly, Decidir's service is one whose time has come. Online retail sales are expected to top US$580 million in 2000, according to an October study released by Boston Consulting Group and Visa International. "[T]he industry must persuade users to adopt some kind of security system and to trust the merchant and banking system enough to share credit card information over the Internet," the report says. It goes on to highlight a Decidir prototype--a "password system of personal questions that only the owner of a particular credit card can answer"--which is still under development.
Merchants currently pay Decidir.com between US$500 and US$700 in set-up fees, and between US 30 cents and US 90 cents per transaction. Among Decidir's clients are auction sites, the region's hottest e-commerce submarket, which was expected to generate US$192 million in 2000. One virtual auction house, DeRemate.com of Buenos Aires, outsources its online payments in Argentina to Decidir, which in turn deals directly with credit card issuers. Buyers' information is encrypted to reduce the chance of fraud, says DeRemate executive Jose Luis Bosch. "Computer users in Argentina fear fraud, and there's a myth of insecurity in e-commerce that's difficult to change," he says. "This system offers them security."
Privately held Decidir, based in Buenos Aires, has 200 employees and is growing fast. Revenue is expected to increase ten fold from US$400,000 in 1999 to a projected US$4 million in 2000. While the company is still losing money it expects to post profits by the end of 2001.
When the company launched in early 1999, its first goal was to become Latin America's largest provider of credit information to small-and medium-sized companies. While North Americans take for granted the ability to quickly and easily check customers credit, such information has been costly and difficult to find in Latin America. Typically, only large firms keep credit databases. Smaller merchants have been at the mercy of the marketplace, which lacks consumer and anti-fraud protection laws. So Decidir cobbled together databases from public records, building lists that include 70 million companies and individuals in Brazil and 58 million in Mexico.
Customers pay for the service either by subscribing for US$100 a month or by paying US$30 to US$70 per credit check. All of the information is provided online, and for many small- and medium-sized businesses, signing up with Decidir is their first Internet experience. "We want to bring credit awareness to the masses," Nofal says.
So far, investors like Decidir's model. The dotcom has raised US$21 million in two rounds of venture capital financing. Backers include North American firms Citicorp Venture Capital Latin America, GE Equity and SCP Private Equity Partners.
Nofal, who has a large stake in the company was behind the first round. Two venture funds he controls, Latin Internet Ventures Ltd. and CIMA Consulting Ltd., invested US$2.9 million. A native of Argentina and former Morgan Stanley salesman, Nofal was in the midst of launching his own asset management business when he decided to invest in Decidir.com. He took over as Decidir's chief executive last May Founder Esteban Brenman is chairman.
In its second round of financing in September, Decidir raised US$15 million. A quarter of that money came from Citicorp Venture Capital Latin America. Brian Kim, a director of the fund, likes the company in part because it addresses a problem unique to Latin America. "A lot of these companies try to take a US [businessi model and apply it to the region," Kim says. "This is really a home-grown company"
SCP Private Equity Partners of Wayne, Pennsylvania, found the ecommerce site's business plan promising enough to make it the only Latin American firm in its portfolio. SCP saw several Decidir strong points. It's a business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce company While the stock values of several high-profile B2B firms have plummeted recently on the NAS DAQ, venture capitalists still prefer these companies to those that sell goods and services directly to consumers.
International appeal: how to make your Website sing in any language - E-Commerce
For many people, the Internet has turned shopping into an international experience. With a click of your mouse you can order shoes from Milan, Italy; cosmetics from Paris; and African art straight from the motherland. But U.S. consumers are still holding on tightly to their purse strings, which is leading online merchants to open their virtual doors to international customers. But before you put out the bienvenue mat, there are a few things you should know about attracting and serving customers overseas.
For starters, you must be able to communicate in a language that potential patrons can understand. Consider adding a link to online language translation services, for little or no charge, to help international customers feel more at home. Try using national flag icons to illustrate the languages your site supports or try http:// babel.altavista.com, which lets you translate Web pages into Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Russian.
Currency translation is another important element to add to your site. Moshood, the African American clothing retailer, has a currency translation feature embedded into the design of its Website (www.afrikanspirit.com) that translates prices into the U.S. dollar, the Euro, and the Spanish peseta. You can also link to free currency translators such as XE.com (www.xe.com), which updates every minute and gives you a list of currencies from the Algerian Dinar to the Turkish Lira.
Once customers are able to calculate the price of a product in their currency, they'll want to know the cost of shipping the item from your office or warehouse to their home. Taxes and duties (called the value-added tax, or VAT) charged on international sales are often due upon receipt of the item. Make sure that your customers are aware of additional costs. To avoid this problem, Averlyn Archer, founder of the online art store Genisisartline.com, posts a disclaimer on her order confirmation form that alerts customers from the Caribbean, England, or Germany that their country of origin may charge additional customs or duties upon receipt of products.
If you have the financial resources, you might consider developing country-specific Websites that customers can link to from your home page. Country-specific sites translate all content into the predominant language of the countries you serve, while acknowledging cultural differences and international laws. For example, it's illegal to sell Nazi memorabilia in Germany, as large auction sites such as Yahoo! and eBay discovered early last year. And in the U.S., customers are familiar with the term ZIP Code, but in the United Kingdom, customers recognize the term Postal Code, which may not be written in the same format as U.S. addresses. Remember to adjust online data collection forms accordingly.
Lastly, make sure your site is appealing, quick to load, and easy to navigate. "We [in the U.S.] are spoiled with high-speed connections, but that's not the case with international Internet users," says James F. Foley, director of the International Trade Center at Bradley University and author of The Global Entrepreneur: Taking Your Business International (Dearborn Trade Publishing, $29.95). Make sure your home page loads quickly: Shipping information, language translation, and currency calculators should be visible and easily accessible. Give customers the option to skip lengthy Flash introductions before entering your site. After all, you want them to access your goods as quickly and effortlessly as possible.
Eight Ways To Make Your Site Foreign-Friendly
1. Be aware of cultural and language differences
2. Use language translation tools
3. Supply currency translation tools
4. Provide an easy way to calculate shipping costs
5. Optimize your site for low-speed connections
6. Address international tax and tariff issues
7. Make sure your site complies with international laws
8. Develop country-specific Websites
For starters, you must be able to communicate in a language that potential patrons can understand. Consider adding a link to online language translation services, for little or no charge, to help international customers feel more at home. Try using national flag icons to illustrate the languages your site supports or try http:// babel.altavista.com, which lets you translate Web pages into Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Russian.
Currency translation is another important element to add to your site. Moshood, the African American clothing retailer, has a currency translation feature embedded into the design of its Website (www.afrikanspirit.com) that translates prices into the U.S. dollar, the Euro, and the Spanish peseta. You can also link to free currency translators such as XE.com (www.xe.com), which updates every minute and gives you a list of currencies from the Algerian Dinar to the Turkish Lira.
Once customers are able to calculate the price of a product in their currency, they'll want to know the cost of shipping the item from your office or warehouse to their home. Taxes and duties (called the value-added tax, or VAT) charged on international sales are often due upon receipt of the item. Make sure that your customers are aware of additional costs. To avoid this problem, Averlyn Archer, founder of the online art store Genisisartline.com, posts a disclaimer on her order confirmation form that alerts customers from the Caribbean, England, or Germany that their country of origin may charge additional customs or duties upon receipt of products.
If you have the financial resources, you might consider developing country-specific Websites that customers can link to from your home page. Country-specific sites translate all content into the predominant language of the countries you serve, while acknowledging cultural differences and international laws. For example, it's illegal to sell Nazi memorabilia in Germany, as large auction sites such as Yahoo! and eBay discovered early last year. And in the U.S., customers are familiar with the term ZIP Code, but in the United Kingdom, customers recognize the term Postal Code, which may not be written in the same format as U.S. addresses. Remember to adjust online data collection forms accordingly.
Lastly, make sure your site is appealing, quick to load, and easy to navigate. "We [in the U.S.] are spoiled with high-speed connections, but that's not the case with international Internet users," says James F. Foley, director of the International Trade Center at Bradley University and author of The Global Entrepreneur: Taking Your Business International (Dearborn Trade Publishing, $29.95). Make sure your home page loads quickly: Shipping information, language translation, and currency calculators should be visible and easily accessible. Give customers the option to skip lengthy Flash introductions before entering your site. After all, you want them to access your goods as quickly and effortlessly as possible.
Eight Ways To Make Your Site Foreign-Friendly
1. Be aware of cultural and language differences
2. Use language translation tools
3. Supply currency translation tools
4. Provide an easy way to calculate shipping costs
5. Optimize your site for low-speed connections
6. Address international tax and tariff issues
7. Make sure your site complies with international laws
8. Develop country-specific Websites
E-Commerce Growing Pains
Washington Post columnist Leslie Walker was online Thursday, June 30, at 1:30 p.m. ET to discuss the dream of striking it rich on eBay, the Internet's most heavily trafficked shopping site.
She spent three days last week attending eBay's annual user convention, where 11,600 people descended on the auctioneer's home town of San Jose to celebrate the 10th anniversary of eBay. Most attendees were small merchants trying to earn a living selling everything from Barbie dolls to used Hummers on eBay.
Walker talked to more than 30 high-volume eBay merchants about why they increasingly are testing other Web retail locations besides eBay. Many of these "power sellers" shared details about how their online sales operations are doing.
A transcript of today's discussion is below:
Read her Thursday column about the lifestyle and career ambitions of eBay sellers, and her weekend piece about the heated competition eBay is facing from other Web retailers.
Read Leslie's .com archive .
____________________
Leslie Walker: Hi everyone. We are getting ready to start. Please send us your thoughts, comments, hopes, frustrations and insights into eBay!
_______________________
Chicago: I have been selling children's clothes on eBay for three years and the recent fee hike really killed me. When is eBay going to learn not to bite the hand that fees?
Leslie Walker: Boy, that was a refrain I heard A LOT at the eBay convention. I knew the fee hikes galvanized many eBay sellers into looking at alternate sales outlets, but I had no idea how many.
More than half the dealers I interviewed told me they had reacted to the fee hikes by starting their own Web site, or by boosting their marketing for their own Web sites, or by trying rival sites like Overstock, Yahoo and Amazon
_______________________
Washington, D.C. : What are the most popular eBay rival auction sites right now?
Leslie Walker: None of eBay's rivals has anywhere near the number of buyers and sellers eBay has, but everyone is watching to see if the fee hikes eBay imposed will help its competitors gain traction.
Amazon.com's marketplace probably had the biggest buzz at the eBay convention, with sellers of newer and commodity merchandise (books, CDs and DVDs) flocking to list stuff there.
Amazon has a different model. Unlike eBay, where buyers and sellers have to complete transactions on their own, Amazon takes payment from buyers, shaves off a commission and forwards the money to the seller. Some high-volume dealers like the fact they don't pay up-front listing fees on Amazon, meaning less risk to them compared to eBay, where they have to pay even when stuff doesn't sell. The trade-off is Amazon's commission tends to run higher than eBay's.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Leslie: I stopped using eBay a few years ago because I really didn't like their search functionality. Has it improved at all since 2002?
Leslie Walker: Yes, it's greatly improved, with a lot more bells and whistles. You can run filters now by price, category and all kinds of variables. You can use "wild card" asterisks ** like you can on Google. Ebay CEO Meg Whitman told the convention there are actually as many searches being run on eBay as on Google in the United States, or were in recent quarter.
_______________________
San Francisco, CA: Ebay seems like a glorified garage sale. Was its conventino as goofy as eBAY?
Leslie Walker: There was some silliness at the convention, for sure, like when eBay flashed up some ridiculous items currently for sale and asked the audience to guess if each had sold and for how much. You had to laugh at the "mind reading machine" that supposedly sold for $710.
But for the most part, eBay appears to be growing up. The last two eBay user conventions I attended were much tackier than this one. Many more businesses displayed products to help eBay sellers on the exhibit floor this year. In years past, you had to navigate past distracting ferris wheels and treasure hunt extravaganzas to find substance at the convention.
_______________________
Alexandria, Va.: Why is eBay so unwilling to disclose how many gold and platinum level sellers they have?
Leslie Walker: This is a good question. I think eBay should disclose more about its seller profile than it does. It obviously knows a lot more than it's telling.
That said, it should be noted the "powerseller" program is purely voluntary. A lot more eBay sellers are eligible than actually sign up.
_______________________
Bakersfield, CA: Regarding fee hikes by eBay. It seems that many sellers pasted the fee hikes on to the consumer just like in any business. All the fee hikes did was drive sellers and bidders from the eBay site, if recent sales are an indication of what's to come on eBay, we are in trouble unless they do something! I say if you are going to raise the fees then adverstise to bring the bidders back with all the money that is being collected in fee hikes.
She spent three days last week attending eBay's annual user convention, where 11,600 people descended on the auctioneer's home town of San Jose to celebrate the 10th anniversary of eBay. Most attendees were small merchants trying to earn a living selling everything from Barbie dolls to used Hummers on eBay.
Walker talked to more than 30 high-volume eBay merchants about why they increasingly are testing other Web retail locations besides eBay. Many of these "power sellers" shared details about how their online sales operations are doing.
A transcript of today's discussion is below:
Read her Thursday column about the lifestyle and career ambitions of eBay sellers, and her weekend piece about the heated competition eBay is facing from other Web retailers.
Read Leslie's .com archive .
____________________
Leslie Walker: Hi everyone. We are getting ready to start. Please send us your thoughts, comments, hopes, frustrations and insights into eBay!
_______________________
Chicago: I have been selling children's clothes on eBay for three years and the recent fee hike really killed me. When is eBay going to learn not to bite the hand that fees?
Leslie Walker: Boy, that was a refrain I heard A LOT at the eBay convention. I knew the fee hikes galvanized many eBay sellers into looking at alternate sales outlets, but I had no idea how many.
More than half the dealers I interviewed told me they had reacted to the fee hikes by starting their own Web site, or by boosting their marketing for their own Web sites, or by trying rival sites like Overstock, Yahoo and Amazon
_______________________
Washington, D.C. : What are the most popular eBay rival auction sites right now?
Leslie Walker: None of eBay's rivals has anywhere near the number of buyers and sellers eBay has, but everyone is watching to see if the fee hikes eBay imposed will help its competitors gain traction.
Amazon.com's marketplace probably had the biggest buzz at the eBay convention, with sellers of newer and commodity merchandise (books, CDs and DVDs) flocking to list stuff there.
Amazon has a different model. Unlike eBay, where buyers and sellers have to complete transactions on their own, Amazon takes payment from buyers, shaves off a commission and forwards the money to the seller. Some high-volume dealers like the fact they don't pay up-front listing fees on Amazon, meaning less risk to them compared to eBay, where they have to pay even when stuff doesn't sell. The trade-off is Amazon's commission tends to run higher than eBay's.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Leslie: I stopped using eBay a few years ago because I really didn't like their search functionality. Has it improved at all since 2002?
Leslie Walker: Yes, it's greatly improved, with a lot more bells and whistles. You can run filters now by price, category and all kinds of variables. You can use "wild card" asterisks ** like you can on Google. Ebay CEO Meg Whitman told the convention there are actually as many searches being run on eBay as on Google in the United States, or were in recent quarter.
_______________________
San Francisco, CA: Ebay seems like a glorified garage sale. Was its conventino as goofy as eBAY?
Leslie Walker: There was some silliness at the convention, for sure, like when eBay flashed up some ridiculous items currently for sale and asked the audience to guess if each had sold and for how much. You had to laugh at the "mind reading machine" that supposedly sold for $710.
But for the most part, eBay appears to be growing up. The last two eBay user conventions I attended were much tackier than this one. Many more businesses displayed products to help eBay sellers on the exhibit floor this year. In years past, you had to navigate past distracting ferris wheels and treasure hunt extravaganzas to find substance at the convention.
_______________________
Alexandria, Va.: Why is eBay so unwilling to disclose how many gold and platinum level sellers they have?
Leslie Walker: This is a good question. I think eBay should disclose more about its seller profile than it does. It obviously knows a lot more than it's telling.
That said, it should be noted the "powerseller" program is purely voluntary. A lot more eBay sellers are eligible than actually sign up.
_______________________
Bakersfield, CA: Regarding fee hikes by eBay. It seems that many sellers pasted the fee hikes on to the consumer just like in any business. All the fee hikes did was drive sellers and bidders from the eBay site, if recent sales are an indication of what's to come on eBay, we are in trouble unless they do something! I say if you are going to raise the fees then adverstise to bring the bidders back with all the money that is being collected in fee hikes.
Monday, September 11, 2006
E-Commerce Growing Pains
Washington Post columnist Leslie Walker was online Thursday, June 30, at 1:30 p.m. ET to discuss the dream of striking it rich on eBay, the Internet's most heavily trafficked shopping site.
She spent three days last week attending eBay's annual user convention, where 11,600 people descended on the auctioneer's home town of San Jose to celebrate the 10th anniversary of eBay. Most attendees were small merchants trying to earn a living selling everything from Barbie dolls to used Hummers on eBay.
Walker talked to more than 30 high-volume eBay merchants about why they increasingly are testing other Web retail locations besides eBay. Many of these "power sellers" shared details about how their online sales operations are doing.
A transcript of today's discussion is below:
Read her Thursday column about the lifestyle and career ambitions of eBay sellers, and her weekend piece about the heated competition eBay is facing from other Web retailers.
Read Leslie's .com archive .
____________________
Leslie Walker: Hi everyone. We are getting ready to start. Please send us your thoughts, comments, hopes, frustrations and insights into eBay!
_______________________
Chicago: I have been selling children's clothes on eBay for three years and the recent fee hike really killed me. When is eBay going to learn not to bite the hand that fees?
Leslie Walker: Boy, that was a refrain I heard A LOT at the eBay convention. I knew the fee hikes galvanized many eBay sellers into looking at alternate sales outlets, but I had no idea how many.
More than half the dealers I interviewed told me they had reacted to the fee hikes by starting their own Web site, or by boosting their marketing for their own Web sites, or by trying rival sites like Overstock, Yahoo and Amazon
_______________________
Washington, D.C. : What are the most popular eBay rival auction sites right now?
Leslie Walker: None of eBay's rivals has anywhere near the number of buyers and sellers eBay has, but everyone is watching to see if the fee hikes eBay imposed will help its competitors gain traction.
Amazon.com's marketplace probably had the biggest buzz at the eBay convention, with sellers of newer and commodity merchandise (books, CDs and DVDs) flocking to list stuff there.
Amazon has a different model. Unlike eBay, where buyers and sellers have to complete transactions on their own, Amazon takes payment from buyers, shaves off a commission and forwards the money to the seller. Some high-volume dealers like the fact they don't pay up-front listing fees on Amazon, meaning less risk to them compared to eBay, where they have to pay even when stuff doesn't sell. The trade-off is Amazon's commission tends to run higher than eBay's.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Leslie: I stopped using eBay a few years ago because I really didn't like their search functionality. Has it improved at all since 2002?
Leslie Walker: Yes, it's greatly improved, with a lot more bells and whistles. You can run filters now by price, category and all kinds of variables. You can use "wild card" asterisks ** like you can on Google. Ebay CEO Meg Whitman told the convention there are actually as many searches being run on eBay as on Google in the United States, or were in recent quarter.
_______________________
San Francisco, CA: Ebay seems like a glorified garage sale. Was its conventino as goofy as eBAY?
Leslie Walker: There was some silliness at the convention, for sure, like when eBay flashed up some ridiculous items currently for sale and asked the audience to guess if each had sold and for how much. You had to laugh at the "mind reading machine" that supposedly sold for $710.
But for the most part, eBay appears to be growing up. The last two eBay user conventions I attended were much tackier than this one. Many more businesses displayed products to help eBay sellers on the exhibit floor this year. In years past, you had to navigate past distracting ferris wheels and treasure hunt extravaganzas to find substance at the convention.
_______________________
Alexandria, Va.: Why is eBay so unwilling to disclose how many gold and platinum level sellers they have?
Leslie Walker: This is a good question. I think eBay should disclose more about its seller profile than it does. It obviously knows a lot more than it's telling.
That said, it should be noted the "powerseller" program is purely voluntary. A lot more eBay sellers are eligible than actually sign up.
_______________________
Bakersfield, CA: Regarding fee hikes by eBay. It seems that many sellers pasted the fee hikes on to the consumer just like in any business. All the fee hikes did was drive sellers and bidders from the eBay site, if recent sales are an indication of what's to come on eBay, we are in trouble unless they do something! I say if you are going to raise the fees then adverstise to bring the bidders back with all the money that is being collected in fee hikes.
w
She spent three days last week attending eBay's annual user convention, where 11,600 people descended on the auctioneer's home town of San Jose to celebrate the 10th anniversary of eBay. Most attendees were small merchants trying to earn a living selling everything from Barbie dolls to used Hummers on eBay.
Walker talked to more than 30 high-volume eBay merchants about why they increasingly are testing other Web retail locations besides eBay. Many of these "power sellers" shared details about how their online sales operations are doing.
A transcript of today's discussion is below:
Read her Thursday column about the lifestyle and career ambitions of eBay sellers, and her weekend piece about the heated competition eBay is facing from other Web retailers.
Read Leslie's .com archive .
____________________
Leslie Walker: Hi everyone. We are getting ready to start. Please send us your thoughts, comments, hopes, frustrations and insights into eBay!
_______________________
Chicago: I have been selling children's clothes on eBay for three years and the recent fee hike really killed me. When is eBay going to learn not to bite the hand that fees?
Leslie Walker: Boy, that was a refrain I heard A LOT at the eBay convention. I knew the fee hikes galvanized many eBay sellers into looking at alternate sales outlets, but I had no idea how many.
More than half the dealers I interviewed told me they had reacted to the fee hikes by starting their own Web site, or by boosting their marketing for their own Web sites, or by trying rival sites like Overstock, Yahoo and Amazon
_______________________
Washington, D.C. : What are the most popular eBay rival auction sites right now?
Leslie Walker: None of eBay's rivals has anywhere near the number of buyers and sellers eBay has, but everyone is watching to see if the fee hikes eBay imposed will help its competitors gain traction.
Amazon.com's marketplace probably had the biggest buzz at the eBay convention, with sellers of newer and commodity merchandise (books, CDs and DVDs) flocking to list stuff there.
Amazon has a different model. Unlike eBay, where buyers and sellers have to complete transactions on their own, Amazon takes payment from buyers, shaves off a commission and forwards the money to the seller. Some high-volume dealers like the fact they don't pay up-front listing fees on Amazon, meaning less risk to them compared to eBay, where they have to pay even when stuff doesn't sell. The trade-off is Amazon's commission tends to run higher than eBay's.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Leslie: I stopped using eBay a few years ago because I really didn't like their search functionality. Has it improved at all since 2002?
Leslie Walker: Yes, it's greatly improved, with a lot more bells and whistles. You can run filters now by price, category and all kinds of variables. You can use "wild card" asterisks ** like you can on Google. Ebay CEO Meg Whitman told the convention there are actually as many searches being run on eBay as on Google in the United States, or were in recent quarter.
_______________________
San Francisco, CA: Ebay seems like a glorified garage sale. Was its conventino as goofy as eBAY?
Leslie Walker: There was some silliness at the convention, for sure, like when eBay flashed up some ridiculous items currently for sale and asked the audience to guess if each had sold and for how much. You had to laugh at the "mind reading machine" that supposedly sold for $710.
But for the most part, eBay appears to be growing up. The last two eBay user conventions I attended were much tackier than this one. Many more businesses displayed products to help eBay sellers on the exhibit floor this year. In years past, you had to navigate past distracting ferris wheels and treasure hunt extravaganzas to find substance at the convention.
_______________________
Alexandria, Va.: Why is eBay so unwilling to disclose how many gold and platinum level sellers they have?
Leslie Walker: This is a good question. I think eBay should disclose more about its seller profile than it does. It obviously knows a lot more than it's telling.
That said, it should be noted the "powerseller" program is purely voluntary. A lot more eBay sellers are eligible than actually sign up.
_______________________
Bakersfield, CA: Regarding fee hikes by eBay. It seems that many sellers pasted the fee hikes on to the consumer just like in any business. All the fee hikes did was drive sellers and bidders from the eBay site, if recent sales are an indication of what's to come on eBay, we are in trouble unless they do something! I say if you are going to raise the fees then adverstise to bring the bidders back with all the money that is being collected in fee hikes.
w
E-commerce evolution: the Internet and electronic data exchanges are steadily becoming valuable tools in the supply chain, but in a way that involves
You should be out of business by now. Or, at best, serving merely as a just-in-time local delivery service for lumber and building materials ordered online by former pro customers now dealing directly with manufacturers.
But it didn't turn out that way, did it? Most Internet-based commerce outlets that promised to cut costs out of a sloppy, cumbersome, and archaic LBM supply chain are now on the dot-com scrap heap, in bankruptcy court, or retooled for other industries while locally based, pro-oriented dealers thrive in remarkably steady market conditions. "We used to joke that builders and dealers were happy with faxes and cell phones," says John Crockett, president of ChanneLinx, a Greenville, S.C.-based supply chain e-commerce provider that recently emerged from bankruptcy after trying its luck in the LBM realm. "The [dealer-builder] model wasn't broken, so there was no need to fix it."
To most dealers, even those who understood the concept of an electronic highway that bypassed their station, the way things played out was no surprise. Not that the Internet or electronic data interchange (EDI) systems aren't becoming critical business tools for dealers, just not in the way it was presented at the turn of the century. "We thought the models made sense, but it wasn't something we and our builders could put together at the time," says Ellis Goebel, senior vice president of business development and investor relations for Building Materials Holding Corp. (BMHC) in San Francisco, the nation's fourth-largest dealer with more than $2 billion in 2004 revenue and 65 BMC West dealer locations in 10 states. "The technology was sitting out there, but it needed a willing buyer and seller."
As it turned out, that willingness existed one or two steps upstream as an increasing number of dealers have initiated EDI and similar systems with their suppliers. Meanwhile, more dealer Web sites offer pro customers secure online access to their private accounts (if not the ability to estimate and pay for a materials package), partner with hardline shopping services, and provide portals to relevant and detailed information about products and services to deliver 24/7 convenience if not to reap railcars of online revenue.
That emerging model is a far cry from the one predicted to render the local dealer link obsolete. "I don't see LBM dealers being threatened at all [by e-commerce]," says Sarah C. Bell, marketing director at Spruce Computer Systems, a Latham, N.Y.-based software company serving nearly 500 pro dealer customers. "They're leveraging technology to compete [in today's market]."
Linking Upstream
Before BMC West could think about linking with its customers with any sort of e-commerce connection, Goebel says, the company needed to address its own tech capabilities. "There are a few systems and other technology initiatives we're working through," he says, echoing other dealers that have recognized the same need for process development when incorporating e-commerce along the supply chain.
What became clear for many dealers as they considered their own mainframes was that connecting upstream was the first (and perhaps best) way to cut costs out of the supply channel. One-third of BMHC's invoices with its vendors are processed through EDI, for instance, and the company is working to enable an electronic payment system. EDI is now used by about half of large pro dealers and nearly 75 percent of small operations, according to a February 2004 report on the residential LBM supply chain by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies.
And unlike past e-commerce models that shut them out, it's dealers--not necessarily vendors--that are forcing the transition. "We're driving that initiative ... to get to some level of electronic transmission [with vendors] that reduces paperwork and data entry errors," says Lary O'Connor, vice president of information systems for LumberJack Building Centers, a six-location dealer based in Algonac, Mich.
LumberJack is among several LBM yards (including TW Perry, the $120 million, Gaithersburg, Md.-based operation whose information technology initiative won a 2003 PROSALES Excellence Award) that license Spruce Computer's business management software. Spruce is one of only a handful of remaining vendors after significant industry consolidation that has left the company competing primarily with Aknaf Software and Activant Solutions (the latter, formerly CCITRIAD, acquired and supports Speedware, Enterprise, and Dataline products and is now used by members of the Do it Best network), and upstream-focused systems including Progressive Solutions.
Among other features, these systems enable dealers to gather data and share it electronically corporate-wide and with suppliers. "Dealers want help integrating multiple yards and lowering support costs" says Bell. "They see technology as a way to cut costs and help them get into new market segments."
But it didn't turn out that way, did it? Most Internet-based commerce outlets that promised to cut costs out of a sloppy, cumbersome, and archaic LBM supply chain are now on the dot-com scrap heap, in bankruptcy court, or retooled for other industries while locally based, pro-oriented dealers thrive in remarkably steady market conditions. "We used to joke that builders and dealers were happy with faxes and cell phones," says John Crockett, president of ChanneLinx, a Greenville, S.C.-based supply chain e-commerce provider that recently emerged from bankruptcy after trying its luck in the LBM realm. "The [dealer-builder] model wasn't broken, so there was no need to fix it."
To most dealers, even those who understood the concept of an electronic highway that bypassed their station, the way things played out was no surprise. Not that the Internet or electronic data interchange (EDI) systems aren't becoming critical business tools for dealers, just not in the way it was presented at the turn of the century. "We thought the models made sense, but it wasn't something we and our builders could put together at the time," says Ellis Goebel, senior vice president of business development and investor relations for Building Materials Holding Corp. (BMHC) in San Francisco, the nation's fourth-largest dealer with more than $2 billion in 2004 revenue and 65 BMC West dealer locations in 10 states. "The technology was sitting out there, but it needed a willing buyer and seller."
As it turned out, that willingness existed one or two steps upstream as an increasing number of dealers have initiated EDI and similar systems with their suppliers. Meanwhile, more dealer Web sites offer pro customers secure online access to their private accounts (if not the ability to estimate and pay for a materials package), partner with hardline shopping services, and provide portals to relevant and detailed information about products and services to deliver 24/7 convenience if not to reap railcars of online revenue.
That emerging model is a far cry from the one predicted to render the local dealer link obsolete. "I don't see LBM dealers being threatened at all [by e-commerce]," says Sarah C. Bell, marketing director at Spruce Computer Systems, a Latham, N.Y.-based software company serving nearly 500 pro dealer customers. "They're leveraging technology to compete [in today's market]."
Linking Upstream
Before BMC West could think about linking with its customers with any sort of e-commerce connection, Goebel says, the company needed to address its own tech capabilities. "There are a few systems and other technology initiatives we're working through," he says, echoing other dealers that have recognized the same need for process development when incorporating e-commerce along the supply chain.
What became clear for many dealers as they considered their own mainframes was that connecting upstream was the first (and perhaps best) way to cut costs out of the supply channel. One-third of BMHC's invoices with its vendors are processed through EDI, for instance, and the company is working to enable an electronic payment system. EDI is now used by about half of large pro dealers and nearly 75 percent of small operations, according to a February 2004 report on the residential LBM supply chain by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies.
And unlike past e-commerce models that shut them out, it's dealers--not necessarily vendors--that are forcing the transition. "We're driving that initiative ... to get to some level of electronic transmission [with vendors] that reduces paperwork and data entry errors," says Lary O'Connor, vice president of information systems for LumberJack Building Centers, a six-location dealer based in Algonac, Mich.
LumberJack is among several LBM yards (including TW Perry, the $120 million, Gaithersburg, Md.-based operation whose information technology initiative won a 2003 PROSALES Excellence Award) that license Spruce Computer's business management software. Spruce is one of only a handful of remaining vendors after significant industry consolidation that has left the company competing primarily with Aknaf Software and Activant Solutions (the latter, formerly CCITRIAD, acquired and supports Speedware, Enterprise, and Dataline products and is now used by members of the Do it Best network), and upstream-focused systems including Progressive Solutions.
Among other features, these systems enable dealers to gather data and share it electronically corporate-wide and with suppliers. "Dealers want help integrating multiple yards and lowering support costs" says Bell. "They see technology as a way to cut costs and help them get into new market segments."
Is e-commerce of IT application services (ASP) alive and well?
Given the great importance of outsourcing to the Information Technology (M profession, this paper is devoted to E-Commerce of IT application services between Application Service Providers (ASPs) and customer organizations. Instead of dealing with the more general "Is E-Commerce Dead? " question, we address the question of whether "E-Commerce for IT application services is (and will be) alive and well?" Reviewing the history of the ASP industry, shedding light on the factors inhibiting and driving ASPs, and discussing prospective customer profiles and business models leads to the conclusion that, much like E-- Commerce, ASPs are alive but not very well yet.
INTRODUCTION
Against growing doubts about the "new-economy", on one hand, and the continuing development of new programs focusing on E-Commerce in colleges and universities, on the other, this special issue of JITTA addresses the question "Is E-Commerce Dead?" E-Commerce is a general term referring to Over-the-Internet commerce of products and services between two sides such as B2B, B2C, or C2C. Our paper considers a subset of E-Commerce -- B2B E-Commerce of IT application services -- which is manifested when an Application Service Provider (ASP) hosts IT applications and makes them available for rent to customer organizations over the Internet.
Given the great role outsourcing has played in the IT arena, especially the increasing role of ASPs in recent years, as well as the optimism displayed by industry experts regarding the viability of the ASP market during 1998 till mid 2000, it is worthwhile to focus the question on whether "E-Commerce for IT application services is (and will be) alive and well?"
In addressing this question, we have found the academic literature dealing with ASPs still scarce, and therefore relied mainly on our own ASP research (Heart, Pliskin, Shechtman and Reichel, 2001; Heart and Pliskin, 2001) and on industry articles posted on the Internet.
The next three sections are devoted to the ASP industry, with the first one presenting the industry's past and present and the two following sections presenting factors inhibiting and driving ASPs. To gain more insight into future prospects for ASPs, the fifth section of the paper considers potential ASP customers focusing on whether customer organization size small, medium, or large, makes a difference with respect to customer readiness to embrace the ASP concept. The sixth Section considers the vertical and the horizontal ASP business models and the circumstances under which either one, or another model, might be a winner. Finally, the concluding section compares the more general E-Commerce arena to the somewhat "younger" ASP arena, suggesting that much like E-Commerce, ASPs are alive but not very well yet.
THE ASP INDUSTRY: PAST AND PRESENT STATE
The ASP model, pioneered in 1998, is the most recent manifestation of IT outsourcing. Customer organizations of ASPs refrain from investing in server hardware and software upfront, opting instead for a rental contract with an ASP. Users in customer organization of ASPs gain access over the Internet to applications and databases residing on the ASP's servers. Many industry experts have predicted that within a few years, users will not want to install applications locally. Instead, they will access the applications they need, on demand, from online providers who will charge them by the second for the precise value of the specific features and resources they choose to use (ASPnews, 2000).
Since by doing business with ASPs, organizations hope to have IT applications up and running more effectively and to overcome scarcity and high cost of skilled IT personnel, it was widely expected that the ASP concept would be most appealing to smaller companies. Since small or medium-size enterprises (SMEs) confront limited people and budget resources, as well as constant competitive threats, IT acquisition, implementation, and maintenance present a heavy burden on their budget and operational resources. It has been hoped that ASPs might relieve these burdens, letting SMEs access advanced technologies gradually at affordable prices.
Two main business models exist in the ASP industry, horizontal and vertical ASPs. Horizontal ASPs, similar to horizontal e-- markets, cater to a wide variety of organizations. Leading representatives of this business model are Corio, USInternetworking, IBM, and Oracle, recently joined by Microsoft with its Dot Net enterprise. Vertical ASPs cater to one industry, such as hospitality, automotive, chemistry, or energy, offering applications tailored to the specific needs of the industry. Examples of this business model are Silverbyte, for hospitality and Porters, for professional services (See the reference list for web site URLs). Another type of a vertical ASP is a vendor specializing in one type of application, such as GeoNet Services specializing in electronic messaging.
A few hundreds vendors are currently labeling their businesses as ASPs. Among the most prominent are Breakaway Solutions, Corio, USinternetworking (USi), EDS, and Oracle. At Oracle the belief is that
INTRODUCTION
Against growing doubts about the "new-economy", on one hand, and the continuing development of new programs focusing on E-Commerce in colleges and universities, on the other, this special issue of JITTA addresses the question "Is E-Commerce Dead?" E-Commerce is a general term referring to Over-the-Internet commerce of products and services between two sides such as B2B, B2C, or C2C. Our paper considers a subset of E-Commerce -- B2B E-Commerce of IT application services -- which is manifested when an Application Service Provider (ASP) hosts IT applications and makes them available for rent to customer organizations over the Internet.
Given the great role outsourcing has played in the IT arena, especially the increasing role of ASPs in recent years, as well as the optimism displayed by industry experts regarding the viability of the ASP market during 1998 till mid 2000, it is worthwhile to focus the question on whether "E-Commerce for IT application services is (and will be) alive and well?"
In addressing this question, we have found the academic literature dealing with ASPs still scarce, and therefore relied mainly on our own ASP research (Heart, Pliskin, Shechtman and Reichel, 2001; Heart and Pliskin, 2001) and on industry articles posted on the Internet.
The next three sections are devoted to the ASP industry, with the first one presenting the industry's past and present and the two following sections presenting factors inhibiting and driving ASPs. To gain more insight into future prospects for ASPs, the fifth section of the paper considers potential ASP customers focusing on whether customer organization size small, medium, or large, makes a difference with respect to customer readiness to embrace the ASP concept. The sixth Section considers the vertical and the horizontal ASP business models and the circumstances under which either one, or another model, might be a winner. Finally, the concluding section compares the more general E-Commerce arena to the somewhat "younger" ASP arena, suggesting that much like E-Commerce, ASPs are alive but not very well yet.
THE ASP INDUSTRY: PAST AND PRESENT STATE
The ASP model, pioneered in 1998, is the most recent manifestation of IT outsourcing. Customer organizations of ASPs refrain from investing in server hardware and software upfront, opting instead for a rental contract with an ASP. Users in customer organization of ASPs gain access over the Internet to applications and databases residing on the ASP's servers. Many industry experts have predicted that within a few years, users will not want to install applications locally. Instead, they will access the applications they need, on demand, from online providers who will charge them by the second for the precise value of the specific features and resources they choose to use (ASPnews, 2000).
Since by doing business with ASPs, organizations hope to have IT applications up and running more effectively and to overcome scarcity and high cost of skilled IT personnel, it was widely expected that the ASP concept would be most appealing to smaller companies. Since small or medium-size enterprises (SMEs) confront limited people and budget resources, as well as constant competitive threats, IT acquisition, implementation, and maintenance present a heavy burden on their budget and operational resources. It has been hoped that ASPs might relieve these burdens, letting SMEs access advanced technologies gradually at affordable prices.
Two main business models exist in the ASP industry, horizontal and vertical ASPs. Horizontal ASPs, similar to horizontal e-- markets, cater to a wide variety of organizations. Leading representatives of this business model are Corio, USInternetworking, IBM, and Oracle, recently joined by Microsoft with its Dot Net enterprise. Vertical ASPs cater to one industry, such as hospitality, automotive, chemistry, or energy, offering applications tailored to the specific needs of the industry. Examples of this business model are Silverbyte, for hospitality and Porters, for professional services (See the reference list for web site URLs). Another type of a vertical ASP is a vendor specializing in one type of application, such as GeoNet Services specializing in electronic messaging.
A few hundreds vendors are currently labeling their businesses as ASPs. Among the most prominent are Breakaway Solutions, Corio, USinternetworking (USi), EDS, and Oracle. At Oracle the belief is that
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