Transactional E-commerce Site

The transactional site is a website that is popular for those who like to shop online. It is a website with an electronic storefront for a brick-and-mortar retailer or a catalog business. Besides that, it is also a manufacturer showroom for those who wish to sell their products to the public directly. This type of website has provided various types of services for them to compete in the markets such as allow the customers to search for, order, and pay for the products online. Some of these websites even offer the after-sales service to the customers. Among these sites, Amazon.com is the most famous and successful transactional site in the world.

In Malaysia, there are various types of local transactional e-commerce sites that are available to the public. The lelong.com.my is a local transactional e-commerce site that we would like to introduce this week. The lelong.com.my is a website that starts to operate at the end of 1998 and it is a website that provides online shopping and online auction services to all Malaysians. The mission of this website is “Serving the community and bringing a high standard of quality into homes and businesses by providing an avenue for on-line trading at a low cost”. The reasons for the success of lelong.com.my is the website will accept any types of products to sell or bid online whether there are used or new items. Moreover, their track record for selling items is extremely good with approximately 70% of all items posted for auction on the site are sold.

There are more and more local e-commerce transactional sites that can be found in the Internet. This is due to the increasing number of computer users, as well as wider coverage of broadband access and people are more willing to stay at home instead of going out shopping. This type of website is convenient and easy to use for the public. So, there will be increasing profitability and opportunities for these online transactional websites in future.

http://www.lelong.com.my/Auc/help/details.asp?productid=121

http://www.export.gov/sellingonline/typesofsites.asp

Mobile Payment Systems in Malaysia: Its Potentials and Consumers’ Adoption Strategies

Mobile payment is a type of payment that enables consumers to use their mobile phones to pay for the services and digital or hard goods that are consumed by them. It means using a mobile device to conduct a payment transaction in which money or funds are transferred from a payer to a receiver via an intermediary, or directly without an intermediary. There are four primary models for the mobile payments that are available in the market. There are Premium SMS based transactional payments, Direct Mobile Billing, Mobile web payments (WAP) and Contactless NFC (Near Field Communication). Furthermore, this system is widely used in Europe and Asia countries.

Steps in Mobile Payment Systems:

1) Consumers who choose to pay their bills via Mobile Money for the goods and services rendered from participating merchants.

2)Consumer gives his/her mobile number via phone, fax and email to the merchant.

3) Merchant can bill the consumer via IVR, Mobile Money website or SMS.

4) Consumer authorizes the payment by replying the SMS with the Bill Reference Number and customer's 6-digit Security Pins to the merchants.

5) After mobile money received the bank's confirmation, then they will send a payment notification to the merchant as well as the customer.

Mobile payment systems has a significant potential in Malaysia. This is due to the expectation of such system to reach more than $600 billion globally by 2013 from the combined market for all types of mobile payments. Moreover, the mobile payment market for goods and services is expected to exceed $300 billion globally by 2013 which has not included the contactless NFC transactions and money transfers. So, there will be a potential to generate huge profits to the local firms if the system is widely applied in Malaysia.

Besides that, the mobile payment system is not commonly used in Malaysia. So, the market for such system is still at the developing stage and the competition is weak at this point of time. The increasing numbers of mobile phone users is another potential for the mobile payment systems to be widely use in Malaysia.

The first consumers’ adoption strategy that the company carries out to encourage the use of mobile payment systems is to provide incentives for the consumers such as fulfill their needs, make the system to be convenient and easy to use, keep the system in low costs and ensure the system with perceived security. Second, the company co-operates with their competitors in the market. The cooperation can operate within industry (telco-telco) or cross industry (telco-bank). Third, the technology required for mobile payment systems is basically available. In such markets, the existing technology is good enough for the system and the company should improve upcoming technologies for its reliability, speed, costs and security. Next, the companies must ensure that they are complying with (regional) legislation even though there is not yet of any regulation or legal certainty for governing this field.

The use of mobile payment systems in the world is keep increasing in these few years due to the increasing number of mobile phone users. This system is more convenient and easier to use compared with the traditional payment methods. Compared to the advancements in other countries, Malaysia is still in its starting point. We believe that in future, this mobile payment strategy will become more popular as we have mobile phones that enable us to connect to the internet anytime we want. So, this system has a bright future in Malaysia.

Links:

http://www.neowave.com.my/mobilemoney_howitworks.asp

Review on E-tailing: Dell Incorporation Turns to Retail Stores

Dell Incorporation is a worldwide technology corporation which primarily develops, manufactures, sells, and supports personal computers and other computer-related products. The company has become the largest seller of PCs and servers since the company starts to grow during the 1980s and 1990s. The company is currently selling personal computers, servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, and computer peripherals around the world by using a direct-sales model via the Internet and the telephone-network

In 1996, Dell Incorporation began to sell computers to the public through its web site. It is the first company to sell computer online. However, Dell Incorporation opened the first full store, 3,000-square-foot (280 m2) NorthPark Center in Dallas, Texas in 2006. This is because the management of Dell Incorporation attempts to expand the company businesses and cultivate a closer relationship the consumers.

But, the main reason is that Dell Incorporation is confronting with the critical competitions from Apple, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Sun Microsystems, Gateway, Lenovo, Sony, Acer, Toshiba and Asus. So, Dell Incorporation attempts to strengthen their brick-and-mortar presence worldwide with especially in US and Europe. In the year end of 2007, Dell opened its first retail store in Malaysia and it is located at the Mid Valley Megamall's IT World section.

Inside the retail store, there will be various types of products to display and the consumers need not go online to browse or order for the Dell products. This will give the consumers a chance to touch the products on their own and need not wait for few months to receive the products which are ordered via the company’s web site.

Although selling online is a competitive advantage for a company’s business, customers today still prefer to have physical existence of the products when selecting or in the process of purchasing. This is because some of them would like to take a look at the product they need before deciding to buy the product or choose for alternatives. Therefore, in order to be successful in the virtual market space as well as expanding business in the traditional selling world, companies should be able to manage both sides of the markets cost-effectively and efficiently so that they can enjoy more benefits from both methods. However, if the retail stores are not carefully managed, the companies might lose their loyal customers as well.

Online Security Threats: How Safe is Our Data?

In the current world, people rely on computers to create, store and manage their personal data. But, the threat of online security has become one of the biggest challenges on the Internet today. Because of this, the use of security software and hardware such as firewalls and authentication servers became the most effective way in order to protect users’ computer and users’ personal data. However, these types of protections are not effective enough for the security of the users’ computer and their personal data. This is due to the online security threats which are more advanced than ever.

There are various types of online security threats:

(a) Computer Viruses

Computer viruses are programs or a fragment of code that replicates by attaching copies of it to other programs. There are four main classes of viruses which included file infectors, system or boot-record infectors, macro viruses, and multi-part viruses.

(b) Online Fraud

Online fraud is a broad term that covers all the internet transactions that involve falsified information. The common forms of online fraud includes sales via Internet of counterfeit documents, such as fake IDs, certification, and recommendation letters sold as credentials.

(c) Identity Theft

Identity theft is another common form of online fraud, or the misrepresentation of information. In the online world, most of the information can be intercepted as a result of vulnerabilities in computer security. Thieves can then use such information like credit card numbers and do something which is illegal or violates with laws.

(d) File Sharing Applications

File sharing programs are used by most users of computers to share files and data. Computer users use the Peer- to- peer files to share files between themselves because it is easier to use. This file sharing is linking the computers to one another by using a network for the purpose of sharing the information. But, this will allow the hackers to have easier access to search or download files from any computers on the network. Because of this, many experts conclude that it is not a good idea for the computer users to use peer-to-peer programs to share files.

(e) Mail Client

Many hackers spread the devastating viruses and worms by sending emails to the computer users. The computer users can prevent or limit such threats by configuring their mail server properly and regularly so that the suspicious attachments or files can be blocked by them immediately.

(f) Spyware Attacks

Spyware attacks are the threat that most of the computer users are familiar with because they are the most common online security threat that are faced by many Internet users today. Spyware is a computer program that is designed by the hackers to steal information from computer users without their knowledge. The common types of spyware include Trojan horses, key loggers, dialers, and adware programs.

History and Evolution of E-commerce

Electronic Commerce is defined as the process of buying, selling, transferring, or exchanging products, services, and information via computer networks.

History and Evolution of E Commerce

In 1960s Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) was invented and it is used to transfer data between different companies which use networks in its earlier stage, such as VANs or the Internet. Later on, the technology evolved to Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).

EFT is used to provide for electronic payments and collections. Funds could be transferred electronically online from one to another without using any existence of paper money. Because of this, EFT can help the users to save on administrative costs, increase efficiency, simplify bookkeeping, and enhance stronger security.

EDI and EFT gave an opportunity for users to exchange their business information and operate various types of electronic transactions. The ability to use such technologies appeared in the late 1970s and such technologies allow all the business companies to send their commercial documentation to each other electronically.

In the 1980s, e-commerce has grown rapidly when the credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking using online services have developed and accepted by the public. Besides this, the airline reservation system like Sabre in the USA and Travicom in the UK also facilitate the development of e-commerce. The other important steps for the rapid growth of e-commerce are the first online shopping site that was invented in the UK in 1979 by Michael Aldrich and the online shopping website was used extensively particularly by many of the auto manufacturers.

From 1990 onwards, e-commerce was used widely including enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing. In 1991, the first online information marketplace, including online consulting and another pre-Internet online system were being introduced. But, the commercial enterprise on the Internet was strictly prohibited. E- commerce started to be used widely in 1991 when the Internet was available for commercial use to the public.


In 1992, the development of Mosaic web-browser contributes an important step for the development of e-commerce. This web browser was given in the form of a browser which can be downloaded and it was named as Netscape. This web browser was further broadened on the scope and possibility of electronic commercial transaction.

In 2000, a major merger between AOL and Time Warner contributed another important step for the development of E-Commerce. By the end of 2000, there is an increasing number of European and American business companies that start to offer their services through the World Wide Web. Then people began to associate a word "e-commerce" with the ability of purchasing various goods and services through the Internet by using the secure protocols and electronic payment services.

In 2004, the term Web 2.0 was introduced by O’Reilly Media which refers to the second-generation of Internet-based services that enables people to collect and share information online with new methods such as networking sites, wikis, communication tools and folksonomies. Many researchers predicted that the booming of e-commerce will become more and more popular in future which will also generate large revenues to the companies.