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A relationship-building model for the Web retail marketplace Electronic commerce has existed in the business-to-business marketplace since the 1970s, in forms such as electronic data interchange (EDI) and electronic funds transfer (EFT). With the emergence of the Internet, and the World Wide Web in particular, electronic commerce entered a new era which opened the door for an electronic business-to-consumer marketplace. Although the retail side of electronic commerce is still in its infancy, the Web medium offers great potential for building the customer-base, promoting sales, and improving after-sales service. Examines the concept of relationship marketing, which has caused a paradigm shift in business-to-business marketing during recent years. Extends the concepts of network marketing to the Web retail marketplace, and develops a market process model for Web retailing that outlines the stages of the relationship building process.
Keywords: Relationship marketing, E-commerce, Consumer marketing, Database marketing, Interaction, Retail
trade
Managing business-to-business relationships throughout the e-commerce
procurement life cycle E-commerce technologies provide effective and efficient ways in which corporate buyers can gather information rapidly about available P/S (products and services), evaluate and negotiate with suppliers, implement order fulfillment over communications links, and access post-sales services. From the supplier side, marketing, sales, and service information is also readily gathered from customers. Building and maintaining customer relationships is the key to success in e-commerce and, unless service is maintained, customer loss may result, more than offsetting any cost efficiencies due to introducing e-commerce technology. Since the core of e-commerce is information and communications, support for managing customer relationships is available to those who know how to use it. Discusses how technology can be used to encourage and facilitate customer-business relationships. Shows through a customer relationship life cycle model how the management of related procurement functions in customer companies can adjust to take advantage of these relationships.
Keywords: Business-to-business, E-commerce, Supplier relations, Customer relationship
Developing usable Web sites - a review and model The number and range of organisations developing a Web site is growing rapidly. Many of these Web sites are developed in-houseeven though the skills and resources required for developing a successful site may not be available. It is argued that some of the limitations in terms of resources and skills inherent in the small-scale in-house development environment can be overcome through the adoption of an informal Web site development model and suitable usability methods. Presents an informal development model synthesised from a review of development case studies and published Web research literature. This model identifies the main stages and tasks of development. A review of information gathering and usability methods currently being employed is integrated into the model. The importance of understanding user and information provider needs is discussed. A number of common usability methods are then examined in greater detail. The appropriateness of the model and methods for the small-scale in-house development environment is considered.
Keywords: World Wide Web, User studies, Human-computer interaction
Domain name and site hosting preferences: empirical evidence At the Multimedia University, Malaysia, a first-year undergraduate course in electronic commerce was given the task of evaluating commercial Web sites. The existence of the host was verified when it was added to the sample, and again six months later. The sample was then analysed for correlation between domain names and regional allocation of IP addresses. Three characteristics of the sample stand out. First, in many cases the top-level domain name does not correspond to the location of the host; there is a noticeable bias toward hosting sites with regional domain names in North America. Second, dot COM and certain regional domains seem to dominate the Internet commercial landscape. Finally, there is a measurable rate of attrition over time, which may or may not be truly significant.
Keywords: Internet, Web sites, Information retrieval, Sampling
Internet-based security incidents and the potential for false alarms The paper explains the background to experimental work that was conducted with the aim of measuring aspects of the WWW (specifically the average lifetime of a web link and the impact of the "Millennium Bug"), but which inadvertently caused two perceived security breaches on remote systems. The paper explains the nature of these incidents and considers why, when over 700,000 IP addresses were randomly sampled in the experimental study, only two sites considered the activity to be an attempt to breach their security. It is concluded that, while the appropriate protection of Internet-based systems is undoubtedly of importance, the problems experienced during the experimental study suggest a lack of uniformity in what different organisations will class as a security breach.
Keywords: Computer security, Internet, WWW, Hacking
The evolution of software pricing: from box licenses to application service
provider models Software is the intellectual capital output of the codified knowledge of a programming team. The development cost is high, but the variable cost of sale is substantially lower (negligible) than for hard goods. Unfortunately, there does not exist a valid or reliable measure to value software. The trend has been to align pricing to the activities that buyers realize value from. However, new architectures change the nature of where value is realized and how service becomes part of the equation. There does not exist a perfect generic pricing model. Vendors must understand the value they provide to their customers and create a price structure that aligns pricing with value realization, but more importantly facilitates their business objectives of the product (and service).
Keywords: Computer sofware, Pricing, Intellectual capital, Telecommunications, Human resource management
systems
Factors influencing the types of products and services purchased over the
Internet Presents the findings of an empirical investigation of Internet shopping in Singapore. Specifically, Internet buying behaviour is compared between potential Internet buyers and non-Internet buyers. It was found that the classification of different types of products and services will significantly influence the consumer choice between a retail store and Internet shopping mall. The types of products and services that are suitable for selling through the Internet are also identified. Generally, products and services that have a low outlay, are frequently purchased, have intangible value proposition, and relatively high on differentiation are more likely to be purchased via the Internet. Based on the analysis and results obtained from the study, some recommendations are presented to retailers who are interested in selling their products via the Internet.
Keywords: Electronic commerce, Internet, Shopping, Consumer behaviour, Singapore
Australian academic use of the Internet: implications for university
administrators Reports on the first-ever nationwide quantitative survey of academic staff use of the Internet. After briefly noting reasons for adopting a mailed-out survey, the article discusses some of the results obtained. These include daily use of e-mail, access to the Internet via remote dial-in services and technical support provided to academics. More than one-third of respondents seem in need of more training in Net use and time limitations and lack of training are typical barriers to effective use. The study concludes with opportunities for further research at both national and international levels and discusses possible implications for university administrators. The full report of the study is published as Academics Online (Auslib Press, Adelaide, 1998). The research team also included Edna Sharpe of the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service.
Keywords: Internet, Academic staff, User studies, Surveys, Australia
Perceptions of Web site design characteristics: a Malaysian/Australian
comparison Compares the perceptions of Malaysians (representing eastern, Asian culture) and Australians (representing western, European culture) for four Web site design characteristics - atmospherics, news stories, signs and products and services - as part of the integrated Internet marketing model. Under controlled laboratory conditions, two groupings of 30 subjects evaluated eight Web sites - four in Malaysia and four in Australia - in the retail and services sectors. Hypothesises that the predominant culture is not generalised to another culture. Some tentative support for the research premise is found since where a group's perceptions for Web design characteristics and their effectiveness was significantly higher, it was for sites originating in that group's country. Furthermore, perceptions both support and contradict previous research suggesting that Australians prefer an environment of low context and high explicit communications while Asians operate in an environment of high context that stresses implicit communications.
Keywords: National cultures, Design
Quantitive evaluation of Web site content and structure Describes an approach automatically to classify and evaluate publicly accessible World Wide Web sites. The suggested methodology is equally valuable for analyzing content and hypertext structures of commercial, educational and non-profit organizations. Outlines a research methodology for model building and validation and defines the most relevant attributes of such a process. A set of operational criteria for classifying Web sites is developed. The introduced software tool supports the automated gathering of these parameters, and thereby assures the necessary "critical mass" of empirical data. Based on the preprocessed information, a multi-methodological approach is chosen that comprises statistical clustering, textual analysis, supervised and non-supervised neural networks and manual classification for validation purposes.
Keywords: Web site classification, Neural networks, Non-profit organizations As always we have only skimmed the surface of relevant articles this week and only those that are particularly relevant for Asia-Pacific managers. Many other articles are available as well including those focusing on other countries and international perspectives.
None this week! |
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