MY E-COMMERCE WORLD

This is the universe space for us to post our e-commerce topics.

We are living in this digital world of 21th century where it is extremely hard for us not to expose our personal datas such as account numbers, credit card numbers and passwords to others. The growing number of constantly evolving security threat make our data exposed to the risk of misuse and lost. Therefore, it is important for internet user like us to take appropriated steps to safeguard our data’s.


Here are some suggestions from me to protect yours data from those threats.


  1. Keep your personal data off your computer. Many of us like to save our personal or financial data in our computer and keep the computer on for the whole day. This may exposed our data to the threat to steal by others such as hacker. It is recommended to have a external storage device such as pen drive to store our personal data and plug in to computer only when you need it. This step may help you to prevent your datas to be stolen by others.

  2. Have difference and complicated password. I believe many of us share our password for many difference sites. It is understandable, it is not going be easy to memorizing all those passwords and may get confuse on it, but definitely not only one. Beside, you may need to create a complicate password by including numbers, alphabets and also symbols. This will make unauthorized access to your account extremely hard.

  3. Clear transaction records in your browser. When we have done our online transaction, there will be some temporary file downloaded and may be unauthorized use by other. So, whenever you have done an online transaction such as online banking, remember to delete the temporary files and history record.

  4. Installed antivirus and keep it up-to-date. If your computer are attached by virus and all your data is stored inside it, that’s it, if you are lucky, u may restore part of it. It is important to have a good antivirus such as AVG, Kaspersky in yours computer and make sure they are keep up-to-date to the latest virus or Trojan horse. I believe many of us have antivirus software, but what about antispyware? It is important to have an antispyware also to prevent those cyber thieves to steal our data for unethical use.

A Revenue Model lays-out the process by which a company actually makes money by specifying how it is going to charge for the services provided. I am going to share with u all about the revenue model for three of the world wide successful website which are Google, eBay and Amazon.

Google Revenue Model

Google is adopting advertising fees revenue model which included Google AdWord, Google AdSense, Froogle.

Google AdWord is a pay per click advertising program in which the advertising fees is based on the number of times the advertising click-through. The advertisement will display in the web page when someone search for the relevant keywords about the advertisement. The advertiser will then need to pay fees every time his advertisements receive a click.

Google AdSense is an advertisement serving program which enables website owners to advertise text, image and video on their site. There are two parts in Google AdSense which are AdSense for search and Adsense for content. In Adsense for search, Google will distribute advertiser’s advertising in relevant search results. For AdSense for content, Google will display advertising in the relevant content on Google Network members’ site. Advertisers then need to pay advertising fees to Google each time a user click on the advertising.

Froogle is a Google’s service whereby a user can use this to find information about a product for sale online. Froogle did not charge any fees for listing of commission on sales like eBay. Advertising spaces are available to purchase in Froogle engine for advertisers to display his advertisement in form of AdWord advertisement.

Google is now testing on a new revenue model which called as Cost-Per-Action. This new advertising program pays site owners based on a Cost-per-click model. The site owner will get pays when a user click on the advertisement and perform an action.

Amazon Revenue Model

Generally, Amazon generates its revenue through selling products by internet which is sales revenue model and transaction fees revenue model. Amazon began its business as an online bookstore. As for now, Amazon has expended its business into retail sales of music CD, DVD, movies and other customer product.

Amazon Marketplace is a fixed price online market place that allow user to sell new or used product to each other through Amazon.com. Amazon will then charge commission and transaction fees on it.

Amazon also adopting revenue model which is Affiliates revenue model. Amazon allow website owner to create Amazon’s link in their site. The user to the website and access Amazon’s catalog directly and purchase through Amazon.

eBay Revenue Model

eBay is an online auction and shopping website which served as a intermediary for buyer and seller to gather and selling and purchasing products. User of eBay will be charged on :

Insertion fee which is charge when a seller list his product in eBay

Promotion fee which is charged when the seller put additional listing option that help to promote his product.

Final Value fee is the commission charged when a sales transaction have been successfully made between sellers and buyers.

One of the third party certification programs that is most commonly used in Malaysia is the SSL Certificates provided by VeriSign. VeriSign is well-known Certification Authority which provides trusted internet infrastructure services for digital world. One of the products provided by VerySign is the SSL Certificates, it enables the companies and consumers engage in communications and commerce without worries.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a third party certification program that secures the e-commerce, communications, and interactions for Web sites, intranets, and extranets. The Secure Sockets Layer's function is to encrypt data, such as the credit cards numbers and passwords, to ensure data confidentiality and integrity. As the issue of phishing and spoofing attacks over the Internet is being increasingly concern by the consumers, they want to ensure that they are dealing with the trusted parties when they make transactions with each other, therefore most of the companies have involved themselves with the third party certification program to meet the customers demands.

In Malaysia, Maybank is one of the company that is using this strong end-to-end Verisign SSL Certificates to secure the data in the bank. The websites that are secured by the VeriSign SSL Certificates will have the logo in it, and thus the tendency for the customers to carry on an online transaction is higher as compared to those websites that do not have the logo. The reason is the customers would have much confident to the SSL Certificates, which will secure their transactions.

For more information about VeriSign SSL Certificates, please view http://www.verisign.com/.

First of all, do you all know what phishing is? Actually, Phishing is an act by sending a fraud email to other users and scam them in order to obtain private information for illegal activities.

“Phishers” will try to hook and steal users’ information through several ways.
  • Normally, “phishers” will send email to direct users to visit a Website where require users to verify their personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, which the legitimate organization already has. In fact, the Website is fake and set up for the purpose of steal users’ personal information.

bogus website

  • In order to convince the users, usually a phishing email will address itself as well known organization to ask for personal information. Besides that, they will threaten the users by closing their account if they don't reply with personal information immediately.

example of phishing Maybank email


  • “Phishers” also attack social networking sites such as Facebook. Facebook contains privacy settings leads people to disclose their information freer and thus it exposes them to phishing attacks by sending fake notification of friend confirmation to Facebook users and would request them to click on a link to confirm that they are friends. Besides, “phishers” also might send a message to users and direct them to a site called areps.at or kirgo.at or bests.at which mimic Facebook login page to hook users login Facebook again.

fake Facebook website ( see clearer at http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/02/informationweek_5.html;jsessionid=DX33HVY1WIKNOQSNDLPCKHSCJUNN2JVN?print=true )


It is always better to prevent before you be the next victim. So, here are the prevention methods of phishing.
  • Don’t click on links within emails that ask for your personal information.
    To identify the credibility of the emails, users can directly make a call to the particular company for verification.
  • Never enter your personal information in a pop-up screen.
    Install pop-up blocking software to help prevent this type of phishing attack.

pop-up blocker setting


  • Protect your computer with spam filters, anti-virus and anti-spyware software, and a firewall, and keep them up to date.
    Look for anti-virus programs that will automatically update frequently and keep up-to-date. For an example, Kaspersky. For further information, please visit http://www.onguardonline.gov/ and     http://www.staysafeonline.org/

Kaspersky automatic update setting


  • Be alert of forged link.
    Point the link and see whether it match what appears in the email. Don’t click on the link if it is different. In addition, usually website address that required personal information from the users will begin with “https” instead of “http”. (“s” stand for secure)


Fraud website address (without http"s" for webiste that required personal information) (more on http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/661)



In conclusion, internet users should be aware and prevent the trick of phishing. Government also plays an important role in educating users to avoid being cheated by the "phishers".

The term ecommerce meant the process of execution of commercial transaction over network. . It is the process of buying and selling goods, services and information through internet.

History of E-commerce (EC)

E-commerce started develops in the early 1970s. Electronic data interchange which is known as EDI is believed to be a beginning point of development of ecommerce. EDI solve the limitation of electronic fund transfer (EFT) which is used to perform financial transaction electronically. EDI enabled the big business firms to indulge in a sort of beneficial electronic transaction. However the EDI was not widely accepted due to different EDI format which is difficult to interact with each other among companies. Until the ASC X12 Standard introduced in 1984, it become more reliable for the companies to transfer the large amount of transaction.

Next, the development of Mosaic web-browser in 1992 was an important issue in the discussion of history of e-commerce. This web browser was soon given the form of a browser which could be downloaded and was named as Netscape. Consequently the scope and possibility of electronic commercial transaction was further broadened.

Other vital development of ecommerce was adoption of DSL and Red Hat Linux. These again benefited the process of online transaction. The year 2000, saw a major merger between AOL and Time Warner which marked another essential step towards the development of E-commerce. This combination proved to be very economically beneficial.

Business to Business (B2B) is the largest E-commerce in the present time, followed by Business to Customer (B2C) and evolve into Customer to Customer (C2C) and Customer to Business (C2B). Therefore, the services provided in E-commerce have diversified and this lead the E-commerce become indispensably in our future life.


Evolution of E-commerce

1984
EDI, or electronic data interchange, was standardized through ASC X12. This guaranteed that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably.

1992
CompuServe offers online retail products to its customers. This gives people the first chance to buy things off their computer.

1994
Netscape arrived. Providing users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.

1995
Two of the biggest names in e-commerce are launched: Amazon.com and eBay.com.

1998
DSL, or Digital Subscriber Line, provides fast, always-on Internet service to subscribers across California. This prompts people to spend more time, and money, online.

1999
Retail spending over the Internet reaches $20 billion, according to Business.com.

2000
The U.S government extended the moratorium on Internet taxes until at least 2005.

The example of failure in e-commerce is the eToys.com, it launched in June 1997, by the founders Toby Lenk, Frank Han and Bill Gross, and was originally with the purpose of selling educational toys. It had a highly successful Initial Public Offering that sold at $20 at the first day of the offering, and then the share price went up to be $76 in the same day. It was the benchmark for the other toys site at that time.

However, in year 1999, during the Christmas, the demand for toys increased in vast, especially that were school holidays. The eToys.com did not manage to handle the orders that flushed into their website. They failed to deliver the products in time, and many customers complaint that they received the wrong products. Consequently, the public have lost confidence to them; therefore do not have the guts to order the toys from them anymore.

One of the causes of failure is because the company did not think about the problems that will occur during the holidays, which will affect their company. The demand for toys increased in a sudden, especially when that was during the Christmas. They did not prepare for the holiday, which needs more workers to handle the orders, produce the products, and ship the merchandise to the customers. These unprepared situations have caused late deliveries to the customers.

Furthermore, the company might have insufficient capital to invest heavily to expand the business. It might not have the cash resources to purchase the raw materials for production, to purchase the machinery for better quality and speedy production, to purchase motor vehicles for the quicker deliveries. These have caused the eToys.com did not manage to handle the orders in time.

On the other hand, the products that are selling online are displaying with pictures, which are untouchable, therefore it may be unimpressive and unpersuasive. This causes the consumers rather shop in the real world than shop online. This is the common reason of failure faced by most of the e-retailers.

Nowadays, it is very common for an organization to operate its business through internet which is e-commerce. Some of the businesses have been successfully bring out and earn a huge profit through e-commerce but some are not. In this blog, I would like to discuss about an example of e-commerce success and its causes – eBay.com.


eBay.com is the world's largest online auction service whose business model is ideally suited to the Web. The headquarters is located at San Jose, California. eBay get staterd selling over the internet in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll. Pierre Omidyar developed a software program that allowed people to list various interest and various degree items in one spot. Besides that, it also allowed people to look at sales items and bid on those items at that site. The auction process was being used as the method for establishing how merchandise is valued and eventually how it is exchanged between buyer and seller, but subsequent methods include a substantial segment of listings in the "Buy It Now" category.

There are several factors cause the successful of eBay as below:-

Good marketing strategy
The success of eBay rely on a unique formula. It derives the bulk of its revenue from fees and commissions associated with its trading services. eBay growth strategy focuses on expansion in geography and scope and on continuing innovation to enhance the variety and appeal of products on its sites. For instances, eBay has created different category of sales items which consist of colletibles, decor, appliances, computers, furnishings, equipment, vehicles, and other miscellaneous items through these years. At the same time, eBay has established localized websites in many other countries with the languages according to the countries since the year has established eBay until present.

Various kind of “childhood memories” items
Moreover, eBay allows people to always connect with some very loving and special early childhood memories. For examples, consumers can purchase their childhood toys from baseball cards to toy soldiers to Barbie dolls to doll houses, and so on at eBay. Thus, it allows people to make that connection and relive a lot of those very vivid and very fond memories that they have from an earlier period of time. Therefore, eBay attract many consumers come to bid for the items they wish to have.

Easy and convenient
Besides that, eBay acquired Voice-Over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) service provider Skype Technologies in September of 2005. Skype provides a service for free or low-cost voice calls over the internet. eBay is betting heavily that internet telephony will become an integral part of the e-commerce experience and accelerate trade on its website. Furthermore, the introduction of a “click-to-call” feature, which enables consumers to talk to merchants and advertisers directly using Skype by clicking a connection embedded in their ads. This enable the auction house to generate more revenue from its acquisition of Skype.

Build up security and trustworthiness
On the other hand, eBay Motors added extra measures of protection up to $20,000. These measures combined with the standard eBay seller feedback ratings, it gave users enough security and thus attract many buyers. Now, eBay Motors includes subcategories for boats, motorcycles, parts and accessories, and etc.

Enjoying the experience of bidding
Last but not least, the other factor is perhaps people really enjoy the experience of the shopping bazaar. They enjoy the hunt and looking around for merchandise. In addtion to consumers really enjoy the competition of the bidding process. Everybody likes to get a bargain and haggle a little bit over the price. At the same time, eBay auction format allows users to do that.

After knowing the causes of eBay success, can eBay continuing growth in the future? For me, I think if eBay continue keeping the community happy and has a loyal user base which is the company’s most valuable asset will enable eBay to continue growth in the future.

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We are UTAR student from BAC 13. Here we are trying to post nice e-commerce blog. Hope you all like it and give us comments.

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