E-Commerce World

Review a local, transactional e-commerce site

2009-07-10T23:30:00.006+08:00

AirAsia has expanded since 2001 and it is the leading low fare airline in Malaysia, and even in the whole Asia. It operates more than 400 flights daily from hubs located in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. In order to save cost and convenience for potential customers, AirAsia always encourage people to reserve and purchase the flight ticket through their website, AirAsia.com.

I believe, all of us agree that AirAsia website is one of the most visited ecommerce website for Malaysian. AirAsia use internet as one of its sales medium by providing the customer the service of booking and making payment online.

Customer can pay via credit card, direct debit, debit card (Visa Electron & MasterCard Synergy) and American Express for the booking the made. Besides Malaysia, Airasia also provide booking and payment method in other countries such as Brunei, China, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

How To Book

Online booking provided by AirAsia is issuing ticketless booking method instead of traditional tangible air ticket method. AirAsia will issue a Booking Number to the customer after the booking had been confirmed by both parties.

Next, a Flight Itinerary with your travel details will be emailed or handed to you after you have made payment. It is important to provide AirAsia with your latest contact details so that you can be reached if there is any changes to your itinerary.

Furthermore, customers do not have to bring their Flight Itinerary for check-in. All they need to remember is their Booking Number, or mention their name. However, to secure this system, AirAsia require customers to show their identity card or passport for identification and check-in purposes.

It is so much more convenient and easier to travel this way. There is no need for tickets, all we have to do is just to bring our identification card or passport and we will be on our way to the desired destination. More importantly, it helps AirAsia to keep their costs low so that they can pass on these savings back to the customers by providing low fares ticket.

The website of AirAsia is providing the following services and info such as promotion news, search engine, membership, updated news about travel and flight, bookings, flight info, products and shopping, travel services, corporate services, company background and customer services.

Besides that, AirAsia show their website 3 available languages which are English, Malay and Chinese. And the country that customers can choose are 19 in total.

A discussion on E-learning offered in Malaysia universities : Pros and Cons from the student perspective

2009-07-09T16:40:00.003+08:00

In this new era, Malaysia education is trend to improve. E-learning has become more and more popular in Malaysia.Most of the universities and colleges have started to implement e-learning in education. The first university which use e-learning is MARA University of Technology (UTM) in year 1997. However, they are still lacking knowledge and skill about e-learning. After 1998, E-learning system is becoming more famous than before. Government is approaching this e-learning system to university to run this program.

Pros

From the students' perspectives, e-learning is convenient to them. The courses are portable and available all the time. Student need not have to go around the world to take the course. Moreover, student can access an online course at the time and place that is most convenient to you. Student can move around, be transferred anywhere in the world or travel extensively and still access online classes.

Another advantage of e-learning is its time flexibility. Student can 'attend' lectures at anytime, anywhere that they wish to be, provided they must able access to internet. Furthermore, the students can also get the online resources easily, such as lecture notes, tutorial questions , additional notes; and communicate with their lecturers.

Cons

On the other hand, there are disadvantages using e-learning. One of the disadvantages is lack of face-to-face communication with teachers contributes lack of understanding between a student and a teacher. Besides, some students learn better in a traditional classroom. They need the live interaction with an instructor and other students. E-learning may try to simulate classroom interaction, but they cannot duplicate it. In order to succeed at e-learning, students have to have some specific skills. they have to be self-motivated, responsible for their own learning and have good time management skills. If not, they might be hardly to catch up syllabus.

In conclusion, there are disadvantage and disadvantage to e-learning. Students are requiring identifying and overcoming the entire problem in order to make decision on taking e-learning.

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

2009-07-09T16:34:00.004+08:00

E-Government is the use of IT and e-commerce to provide access to government information, services and interacts with people in order to increase efficiency, convenience and accessibility of public sector services to individuals, business partners and its internal operation.

Malaysia’s electronic government (e-government) initiative began in 1997 with the launch of the Multimedia Super Corridor’s (MSC) E-Government Flagship Application. This implementation has improved the convenience, accessibility and quality of policy development in Malaysia. Besides, it also provides effectively and efficiently delivering services and responsive that requirement to citizen in Malaysia.

The Electronic Government Flagship Application is divided into 7 pilot Flagship Applications which include:

1. Electronic Procurement (eP)

An system enable suppliers to supply goods and services to the government efficiency through the ICT system including the goods advertising and deliveries.

2. Electronic services (E-Services)

E-services can conduct the transactions with Government agencies, such as the Road Transport Department (RTD) and private utility companies such as Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) and Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) through various convenient channels such as the internet. This system can help in solving the traffic jams and queuing problems.

3. Project Monitoring System (PMS)

This system is used to monitor the implementation of government’s development projects from the high-level management down to activity levels. This enables government agencies to have a better management and access information.

4. Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)
This project provides a one-stop job search and job advertisement platform for Malaysian jobseekers and employers.

5. E-Syariah
This is a management system that integrates the process which related to the syariah courts. They able to improve the quality of services, productivity and efficiency of the Syariah court through country. It consists of Syariah Court Management System, Office Automation System, E-Syariah Portal, Syarie Lawyers Registration System and Library Management System.

6. Generic Office Environment (GOE)
The purpose is to introduce a fully integrated, distributed and scalable office environment that leverages use of Multimedia information technology. This will allow efficient communication, allowing collaboration across all workers, and ensuring right information reaching the right people in a timely manner.

7. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)

This project provides a single interface for government employees to perform human resource functions effectively and efficiency. It also helps to standardize all human resource processes for federal state, statutory body, and local authority services.

Citizen's Adoption Strategies

Generally, E– Services has emerged and become gaining attention and importance for the citizen. Moreover, governments all over the world are developing information systems and electronic services that have the capacity to meet the citizen’s needs and demands. Thus, government should encourage citizen to use their services through internet. Government should guide and control the transformation of government into e-government rather than just focusing on introduction of ICTs. Meanwhile, the use of ICT to strengthen the involvement of citizens and businesses in public decision must be progress at the same time. Beside that, the successful of implement the E-Government in Malaysia is a way to determine Malaysia’s progress towards the vision 2020. The strategies of e-government in Malaysia can help to improve the legislation on personal data protection, privacy, and security that can protect citizen’s private information.

Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

2009-07-08T22:28:00.020+08:00

A corporate bloggging is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. The advantage of blogs is that posts and comments are easy to reach and follow due to centralized hosting and generally structured conversation threads. It is still in the infancy phase. Yet many have been launched in recent years. There are many considerations an organization needs to weigh when thinking about launching a blog or encouraging the use of social media tools on behalf of the company. Although there are many different types of corporate blogs, most can be categorized as either external or internal. An internal blog generally accessed through the corporation's Intranet, it is a weblog that any employee can view. Internal blogs may be used in lieu of meetings and e-mail discussions, and can be especially useful when the people involved are in different locations, or have conflicting schedules. Whereas external blog is a publicly available weblog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. It is often used to announce new products and services or the end of old products to explain and clarify policies, or to react on public criticism on certain issues.

An effective blog enables you to to have a two-way conversation with customers and employees, recruit Millennials looking for an open company culture, diffuse a crisis by publishing your side of the story and perhaps most crucial shape the conversation online around the company brand. A list of externally available corporate blogs is available at The NewPR/Wiki whereas the top 15 corporate blog stated.

The advantanges of Corporate blogging as follow:

1. Tool that helps the organization fulfill a business goal
If you're thinking about publishing a blog for your business, make sure it's not just to have one. I strongly believe that businesses need to keep the best interest of the organization in mind. Redeploying scarce resources just to have a blog makes no sense if there is no business case for one.

2. A useful extension of the company image in the marketplace
It is however no substitute for bad products or lack of commitment to customers.

3. An opportunity to open a two-way channel between employees and customers
There are potential pitfalls like inadvertent disclosures you should address up front. The other big issue companies need to address here is that of the star blogger(s).

The disadvantages of corporate blogging are:

1. Negative comments
For this one I suggest you get your team in a room and put the worst case scenarios on the table to understand how you would address them.

2. Loss of control over message
For this one I suggest you train your subject matter expert team to be facilitators of conversations or hire people who already are. Plus, when you put the customer at the center, it's about them, not you.

3. Neglect
This is probably the biggest hindrance to starting. I recommend setting aside a good number of posts before going public, just like many prolific bloggers do. The content strategy will also help here. If you create series of posts on certain topics or regular themes, it will be easier to know what to write about.

Corporate blogs are helping the companies that author them develop a totally new relationship with their customers exspecially in marketing communication with customers. In some cases, the blogs have helped the company move the needle in reputation, likability and thus purchase consideration. For example, Direct2Dell this team is extremely plugged in the blogosphere and social media in general. This is one of those blogs where I would welcome being part of the blogroll. The about statement is right in the banner: "A blog about Dell products, services, and customers".

Credit Card debts: Causes and Prevention.

2009-07-07T02:14:00.007+08:00

One of the part of payments system is credit card which is the small plastic card issued to users of the system. It is a card entitling its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services. The issuer of the card grants a line of credit to the consumer (or the user) from which the user can borrow money for payment to a merchant or as a cash advance to the user. This was result numberous of consumers or credit card holders overload their credit limit and caused credit card debts. Credit card debt is an example of unsecured consumer debt, accessed through credit cards.

Debts are caused by a client of a credit card company purchases an item or service through the card system. Debt accumulates and increases via interest and penalties when the consumer does not pay the company for the money he or she has spent. The results of not paying this debt on time are that the company will charge a late payment penalty and report the late payment to credit rating agencies. Being late on a payment is sometimes referred to as being in "default". The late payment penalty itself increases the amount of debt the consumer has.

In order to prevent the accumulated credit card debts, there are several methods to stay out the credit cards debts:

1. Photocopy the credit card offer, including the interest rate and terms
Create a letter to your credit card company/companies stating that you are thinking of switching to their competition because they are offering a far more reasonable interest rate. Credit card companies do not want to lose your business. Nine times out of ten they will match or even offer a lower rate than the competition has offered.

2. If you can afford it, pay double the minimum payment
The minimum payment usually pays just enough to cover the interest and a little more that pays down the balance. Paying extra will pay your balance more quickly.

3. Pay off smaller balances first
It is common for a person to try to focus on their cards with larger balances first. Pay off the smaller ones. It will take less time and you will feel a sense of satisfaction when you have actually completed your goal. This will boost your confidence and make it easier to tackle the higher balances.

4. Cut up your cards
So that you are not tempted to use them. Save one card for emergencies.

5. Refinance or fixed-rate home equity loan
If you have equity in your home, look into paying off credit card debt with a refinance or fixed-rate home equity loan. Do not use a home equity line of credit, the rates will rise as the prime rises and suddenly you may find it impossible to keep up with your bills.

The Application of Thirrd Party Certification Programme in Malaysia

2009-07-06T22:06:00.017+08:00

One of the problems faced by entrepreneurs in the fast paced business world today is selecting the proper technology foundation to secure their business transaction in open network communication. Having the proper "implementing technology" in place can make a difference between failure and incredible success.

To secure their business transaction, they need the third party certification for security purpose. Third parties who issue digital certificates are also known as certification authorities (CAs). A digital certificate contains the holder’s name, validity period, public key information, and a signed hash of the certificate data.

Besides that, the users will be able to make transaction on the internet without fear of having the personal data being stolen, information contaminated by third parties, and the transacting party denying any commercial commitment with the users by using the digital certificate.

MSC Trustgate.com

MSC Trustgate.com Sdn. Bhd. is Malaysia affiliate of VeriSign and it is a licensed Certification Authority (CA) operating since 1999. They offer complete security solutions and leading trust services that are needed by individuals, enterprises, government, and e-commerce service providers using digital certificates, digital signatures, encryption and decryption. They are committed to provide the finest Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to assist all types of companies and institutions conducting their business over the Internet.

DIGICERT

Digicert is a joint venture company between POS MALAYSIA Berhad and MIMOS Berhad was incorporated in February 1998 with its objective as a premier licensed Certification Authority (CA). As a Certification Authority, DIGICERT is responsible for the creation of digital identities through the use of digital certificates. DIGICERT is in the center of an effective trust model that the government is creating to address the issue of information security and the negative perception that has been painted in association with online transactions. Digital signatures, encryption, and the infrastructures to support their use are becoming essential for further growth of e-business in

.Malaysia.

Mobile payment system in Malaysia: its potentials and consumers’ adoption strategies.

2009-07-06T21:37:00.003+08:00

What is mobile payment system?

Mobile payment is the solution to the limitations and bottlenecks created by cash, cheques and credit cards. It unlocks the power of the mobile phone to make payments, allowing registered users to pay for goods and services at anytime, anywhere by using only a mobile phone coupled with a 6-digit security PIN (Personal Identification Number) via SMS (Short Messaging Service). This gives the freedom to shoppers to buy products online and pay the merchant using his/her mobile phone without being physically present at the store.

Potential and future development

Mobile payment system will encourage more consumers to shop online. This will definitely be a great boon to the e-commerce industry in Malaysia. Besides that, it will surely encourage more merchants to adopt online selling as an extra sales channel which complement perfectly with their offline sales channel in order to help them gain more sales and profit.

Consumer’s adoption strategies

In order to pay using Mobile Money, a shopper must have a savings, current or credit card account with participating banks. It functions like a Credit Card if a shopper applies for a "Pay by Mobile Phone" credit card account (eg Hong Leong Mobile Credit Card). The shopper will be billed by the bank accordingly by month's end. In addition, it functions as a Debit Card if it is tied to shopper's savings or current account. The amount will be deducted instantly from the account upon successful transaction.

The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers

2009-07-06T00:43:00.007+08:00

What is Pre-paid cash card?

Prepaid cash cards are plastic cards, which fall under the pay first category of plastic payments. They offer the same ability as credit and debit cards to purchase products and services but you can only spend the balance that has been preloaded onto the card. Prepaid cash cards can be used to make payment for goods and services and even to withdraw money. The user needs to reload the card with a sum of money before using the card. Prepaid cash cards are designed to be used as a safer alternative as compare to cash. With just a card we can go anywhere we want. It is so convenient and safe.

Prepaid Cash Cards – Why use them?

Nowadays, people can limit their spending with their prepaid cash card that load funds onto the card and use the money. The following are the benefits if you have a prepaid cash card on hand.

1. To budget for yourself, keep track all of activity online or by phone. Like a credit card, you get a full breakdown of spending on the card so you can see what has been purchased, who from and when. Therefore, you will improve your credit rating without running the risk of having any debt.

2. Avoid bounced check fees; always know exactly how much money you have to spend. The prepaid card can help protect you from over spending.

3.Prepaid cash cards are a good option if you are going overseas. They are popular with students heading off on gap years and children who go abroad on school trips as parents can reload them conveniently and efficiently.

4.Eliminate check cashing fees and enjoy immediate access to your money through direct deposit of your paycheck, government payment or other income sources, no bank account needed.

5.No chance of spending too much. By using prepaid cash cards, you are limited to the amount you put on your card.

Example of Pre-paid cash card using in Malaysia

Touch ‘n Go (TnG) smart card is an electronic payment system that can be used by Malaysian at all highways, major public transport in Klang Valley, selected parking sites and theme park. Well, it is expanding its business to retail purchase by starting with fast food industry that enables consumers to buy dough nut, burger or fast-food from 21 outlets such as Burger King, 7-Eleven, Dunkin’ Donut. It is imitating the success of Hong Kong’s Octopus Card by setting 5 to 10% of the card holders for retail purchase as current target of the company.

Electronic Currency

2009-07-05T00:39:00.012+08:00

Electronic currency known as e-money, electronic cash, digital money, digital cash or digital currency it is refers to money or scrip which is exchanged only electronically. Typically, e-currency involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems which is refers to stored-value card. The examples of e-currency are Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and direct deposit as well as a collective term for financial cryptography and technologies enabling it.

The interesting problem for electronic currency is cryptography to date, use of digital cash has been relatively low-scale. however, the was one rare success which is Hong Kong's Octopus card system, which started as a transit payment system and has grown into a widely used electronic cash system. Singapore also has an electronic money implementation for its public transportation system for example commuter trains, bus, and etc while it is very similar to Hong Kong's Octopus card and based on the same type of card (FeliCa). There is also one implementation in the Netherlands, known as Chipknip.

Technically electronic currency is a representation or a system of debits and credits which used to exchange value within another system or itself as a stand alone system whereby online or offline. Sometimes the term electronic currency is used to refer to the provider itself. A private currency may use gold to provide extra security, such as digital gold currency. Some private organizations, such as the US military use private currencies which is Eagle Cash. Many systems will sell their electronic currency directly to the end user such as Paypal and WebMoney, but other systems such as Liberty Reserve, sell only through third party digital currency exchangers.

In the use of off-line electronic currency, the merchant does not need to interact with the bank before accepting a coin from the user. Instead he can collect multiple coins Spent by users and Deposit them later with the bank. In principle this could be done off-line, for example the merchant could go to the bank with his storage media to exchange e-cash for cash. Nevertheless the merchant is guaranteed that the user's e-coin will either be accepted by the bank, or the bank will be able to identify and punish the cheating user. In this way a user is prevented from spending the same coin twice (double-spending). Off-line e-cash schemes also need to protect against cheating merchants, such as merchants that want to deposit a coin twice.

How to safeguard our personal and financial data

2009-06-30T01:20:00.009+08:00

Internet is a public network that connecting millions of computers throughout the world. Internet users can share information in a variety of forms through telephone wires and satellite links. Sometimes, we need is to fill in some personal information when we surf the internet or register to become a member. In this case, hackers have the ability to intercept and use our personal information, such as credit card numbers and expiry dates to falsely do the transactions. Therefore, actions must be taken in order to increase the internet security and decrease the data stolen probability.

1. Install and update antivirus of the computer

The first step we must do is installed antivirus software and keep it updated daily as new viruses may occur anytime. Updated version of antivirus able to combat a wide range of threats, including worms, phishing attacks, rootkits, trojan horses and other malware and thus safeguard our personal and financial data.

2. Password protection

After using any of the Financial Data Center or member services, we must remember to log out according proper procedure before leaving the Financial Data Center. Remember to avoid using passwords that are easy for someone to guess, such as the name of your favorite pets or your date of birth and never to write it down on the paper and put inside your wallet or briefcase. Lastly, do not simply reveal any password that related our personal and financial data to anyone.

3. Avoid financial transactions and accessing financial information through public computer

Prevent form logging on to check your bank balance and online transaction such as e-banking when working from a coffee shop that offers wireless access. This is because the process required financial data and those data can be easily tracked in an unsecured computer. Although the systems are convenient but we do not know how powerful their firewalls are.

4. Practice safe ATM use

Pay attention when using an ATM and keep your eyes peeled for anyone who seems a little too interested in your transactions. Use your free hand to shield the keypad when entering your PIN. When your transaction is complete, keep your card and any cash immediately. Do the counting later in the safety of your locked car or home. If you see anyone suspicious around you, please do the transaction later.

5. Match your receipts to your billing statement each month

This action is to make sure you have not been billed for fraudulent purchases. If you spot any suspicious transactions such as charges you don’t recognize, or duplicate charges. Therefore you must contact your card issuer immediately.

6. Don't reply to requests for personal information

Never reply to, or click a link in an unsolicited e-mail. If you received any e-mails from banks regarding changing passwords or personal information, you must contact that particular bank to ask for confirmations. Nor should you give out personal information over the phone if there are any strangers calling you.

The Threats of Online Security: How safe is our data?

2009-06-25T20:07:00.012+08:00

Online security threats are one of the biggest challenges on the Internet nowadays. Security threats seem to be rising almost as quickly as e-shopping revenues. From phishing to pharming to hacking and cracking, electronic fraudsters are stealing identities from customers and credit card processing databases, and all parties are more than a little concerned.

The two types of attacks are non-technical and technical. Non-technical attack is an attack that uses chicanery to trick people into revealing sensitive information or performing actions that compromise the security of network. In contrast, technical attack is using software and systems knowledge to perpetrate an attack.

The following are some major threats of online security:

Phishing

Phishing attack is relying on social engineering where it is a type of non-technical attack. It uses some ruse to trick users into revealing information or performing an action that compromises a computer or network in order to gain unauthorized access to systems or information.

Accidental Actions

Accidental actions contain the problems arising from lack of basic knowledge about online security concepts and it does contribute to a large number of computer security risks. Insecure information transfer may leads to the security products and information leakage. Poor password choices,

accidental or erroneous business transactions, accidental disclosure, and erroneous or outdated software are examples for accidental actions.

Malicious Attacks

Malicious attacks refer to the attacks that specifically aim to harm by malicious code, also known as premeditated. It includes the computer viruses, denial of service attack and distributed denial of service attack.

Computer viruses

Viruses

Virus is a piece of software code that inserts itself into a host, including the operations systems. The virus is activated once its host program be executed and attempts to copy itself into

more program. Viruses may simply infect and spread; others do substantial damage such as deleting files or corrupting the hard drive. For example, "I LOVE YOU" virus caused over $100 million in United States damages and over $1 billion in worldwide losses.

Worms

Worm is a self-replicating software program, consuming the resources of its host in order to maintain its capable of propagating a complete working version of itself onto another machine. It uses networks to spread itself or spread through instant messages; it does infect a computer or handheld device without human intervention. Macro virus or macro worm is executed when the application object that contains the macro is opened or a particular procedure is executed. Examples of worms include

Trojan horse s

A program that appears to have useful function but contains a hidden function which presents a security risk is known as Trojan horse. Trojan horse is unlike a worm, it requires user cooperation. Once on your machine, Trojans then function as independent programs that operate secretly. Commonly, Trojans steal passwords or perform "denial of service" attacks. Examples of Trojans include Backdoor and Nuker.

Denial of service (DOS) and distributed denial of services (DDOS)

DOS refers to an attack on a web site in which an attacker uses specialized software to send a flood of data packets to the targeted computer with the aim of overloading its resources.

Online threats also include the identity theft and data theft. Personal identity theft on the Internet is the newest form. In the online world, electronic commerce information can be intercepted as a result of vulnerabilities in computer security. Thieves can then take this information and do with it what they will. Data theft is the term used to describe not only the theft of information but also unauthorized perusal or manipulation of private data.

There is variety of solutions to protect our online data such as password protection, trusted anti-spyware or anti-virus program and the list goes on. If you know how you become vulnerable, you will be able to protect yourself better and get surf net without constantly worrying about online the security threats.

What Is a Virus? How Do I Defend Against Viruses?

What are the main Online Security Threats?

Phishing: Examples & its Prevention Methods

2009-06-23T23:42:00.012+08:00

What is Phishing?

Phishing referred as brand spoofing or carding, is a variation on ‘fishing’, the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting. It is one of the greatest security problems that you face today while using your email account. In fact, phishing is a much more serious threat than the commonly heard about problems like spyware and viruses. If you are tangled in the network of fake links set by phishers, you can have severe financial loses. So, before anything of that sort happens, be on your guard and learn how to prevent phishing.

Examples of Phishing

1. Link Manipulation

Links are internet addresses that direct one to a specific website. We usually give out links to our personal blogs or digital album sites to our friends and family via emails or instant messages.
In phishing, these links are usually misspelled. One or two letters make a big difference and it will lead you to a different, and often fake, website or page. It is a form of technical deception. Phishers use sub domains. For example, a link appears to take you to an article entitled "Genuine"; clicking on it will in fact take you to the article entitled "Deception".

2. Filter Evation
This is the use of images instead of texts. Through this, anti phishing filters will find a hard time to detect the emails.

3. Website Forger
There are some phishing scams that use JavaScript commands to alter an address bar. This directs the user to sign in at a bank or service of the phisher. This is where he will extract information from you. An attacker can even use flaws in a trusted website's own scripts against the victim. These types of attacks (known as cross-site scripting) are particularly problematic, because they direct the user to sign in at their bank or service's own web page. The Flash-based websites avoid anti phishing techniques. This hides the text to a multimedia object.

4. Phone Phishing

This is done by using a fake caller ID data to make it appear that the call came from a trusted organization. The operator of the phone who answered your call will ask you to give your account numbers and passwords. There are many other phishing techniques. Some have developed counter-phishing techniques already but scammers continue to invent still newer tricks. Always be alert and never trust to give your most private details easily.

How to prevent phishing? One of the easiest ways to prevent phishing is to install up-to-date antivirus software, such as Anti-Virus PLUS. Provide your email account with a phishing protection program, such as Spam Controls to keep away possible phishing emails. Even after applying such phishing filter, you cannot stop such spam. In that case, use your brain to be convinced that your bank already has that information and would not request you to confirm them over emails. The other thing that you can do in place of phishing software is to contact the company in question and crosscheck the authenticity of the mail.

Identify and compare the revenue model for Google, Amazon.com and eBay.

2009-06-23T14:18:00.008+08:00

Google offers targeted advertising solutions and global Internet search solutions. Google advertising revenue model includes Google AdWords, Google AdSense and Google Content Network.

Google AdWords

Google AdWords is a pay per click advertising program designed to allow the advertisers to present advertisements to people at the instant the people are looking for information related to what the advertiser has to offer.

Google AdSense

AdSense is an ad serving program which can let website publishers to earn money quick and easy by displaying relevant Google advertisement on their website’s content pages. Revenue is generated on a per-click or per-thousand-ads-displayed basis and the ads are administered by Google.

Google Content Network

The Google Network is a large group of websites and other products, such as email programs and blogs, who have partnered with Google to display AdWords ads. Advertisers have the option of running their ads on Google as well as the Google Network for no extra cost.

Amazon.com is an American-based multinational electronic commerce company. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, it is America's largest online retailer, with nearly three times the internet sales revenue of runner up Staples, Inc.

Amazon Marketplace is a fixed price online market place that allows sellers to offer their goods alongside Amazon’s offerings. Buyers can purchase new and used items which sold directly by a third party via Amazon.com by using Amazon Marketplace. Amazon charges a commission rate based on the sale price, a transaction fee and a variable closing fee which is a very profitable sales strategy.

Amazon is pioneer affiliate partnership marketing. An Amazon partner website can display Amazon books directly on their website, and sends customers to the Amazon’s website when the visitor is ready to buy it. In return, Amazon pays a commission for the sale to the site owner.

eBay is an American Internet company that manages eBay.com. It is also an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. In eBay, bids can be placed at any time. This convenience increases the number of bidders. Their main sources of revenue is from fees charged to list items up, picture service fees, listing upgrade fees, final value fees and reservation fees. They charge fees to list an item. For example, for listing of regular items, eBay charges a fee which serves as a starting price. Besides, eBay also obtains it's revenue by charging a picture service fee. The first picture uploaded in its site is free but te subsequent pictures incurs fees. Other than that, eBay obtains its revenue from listing and updating fees. It provides various services to help its users to enhance their advertising or promotion of products but for a fee of course. Moreover, they also charge final value fees when there is a closing bid. If the item listed is not sold reservation fees will be charge.

An Example Of An E-Commerce Failure And Its Causes

2009-06-22T00:50:00.020+08:00

E-commerce has been familiar with the world nowadays. There are so many successful examples of e-commerce however, there are also a numbers of e-commerce failures. One of the examples of an E-Commerce failure I found out is Pets.com.

Pets.com is a former dot com enterprise that sold pet supplies to retail customers. It began operations in February 1999 and folded in November 2000. A high profile marketing campaign gave it a widely recognized public presence and its popular sock puppet advertising spokespersonality was interviewed by People magazine and appeared on Good Morning America.

Although sales rose dramatically due to the attention, the company was weak on fundamentals and actually lost money on most of its sales. The high public profile of Pets.com during its brief existence made it one of the more noteworthy failures of the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s. US$300 million of investment capital vanished with the company's failure.

Larry Barrett reported in Cnet news that Pets.com was shutting down because it was unable to find a purchaser or financial banker. The company said it's going to sell the majority of its assets including its inventory, distribution center equipment, content and its sock puppet brand icon. Pets.com was finally closed in 9th November 2000. For an Internet company to survive in an environment for business-to-consumer it is very hard said by CEO Julie Wainwright in a prepared release.

One of reasons that caused Pets.com to close down its business is never discuss their future investment strategies one way or another but they remain bullish on e-commerce. In fact pet supplies are not a natural e-tail market, pet owners are less likely than others to shop online said by Matt Stamski who are a famous analyst. Additionally, the e-tail pet stores have not offered a compelling reason to shop online. Although delivering pet food and supplies directly to consumers is a convenience, but the benefit is outweighed by the fact that the consumer has to wait days to receive their orders, Stamski said. Considering that pet food is available at just about any neighborhood grocery, few people have a reason to shop online, he said. Thus, this was the main reason that Pets.com going to shutting down although most e-commerce companies have been operating in the red, but Pets.com was among the more financially challenged. In every quarter of operation, the company contended with negative gross profit margins. Furthermore, employees who resign from the company were not replaced which also caused the company could not work effectively and efficiently.

The History and Evolution of E-commerce

2009-06-21T15:50:00.011+08:00

What is E-commerce?

E-commerce, also known as Electronic Commerce, consist process of electronically buying and selling goods, services and information. The transactions take place over networks, mostly the Internet and other computer networks. E-commerce also can be defined as a modern business methodology to cut costs while improving the quality of goods and services and the increasing speed of service delivery, by using Internet.

History and Evolution of E-commerce

Early of 1970s, electronic commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically with the help of the leading technologies. One of the technologies is Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), which refers to the computer-based systems used to perform financial transactions electronically. Besides, Electronic data interchange (EDI) was then developed in the late 1970s to improve the limitation of EFT. EDI enlarged the pool of participating company from manufacturers, retailers, services, and others.

Online shopping was invented in the UK in 1979. During the 1980s, online shopping was use by auto manufacturers such as Ford, Peugeot-Talbot, General Motors and Nissan. At this time, credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking were also forms of electronic commerce. The other form of e-commerce was the airline reservation system which typified by Sabre in the USA and Travicom in the UK.

When come to 1990s, there is a significant change for E-commerce due to the access to the internet. The internet is a global network that internet was quickly accepted in the business transaction due to its function for allows the business to search for the new market, Although the Internet became popular worldwide around 1994, it took about five years to introduce security protocols and DSL allowing continual connection to the Internet Besides, the World Wide Web that emerged in the years when the internet was liberalized rendered e-commerce both more accessible and more affordable. It enabled small business to sense for the first time the benefits that can be reaped from the technology of E-commerce.

The video below show the evolution of E-commerce

In conclusion, e-commerce today is still at its infancy. There are more businesses are using the e-commerce to conduct their business such as E-bay, Amazon and so on. Invisible shopping carts, annoyance-free assistance and no lines at the register and many more benefits awaits the future of e-commerce. There is a bright future of e-commerce due to the continuous development and invention of the technology.

An Example Of An E-Commerce Success And Its Causes

2009-06-19T18:18:00.010+08:00

With the evolution of technology, most companies are carrying on E-Businesses besides doing the physical world business transaction. There are many success examples of E-Commerce such as eBay, amazon.com, lelong.com
and the list goes on.

The example of a success E-Commerce I want to share is Walmart.com.. Walmart.com is as a retailer, a subsidiary of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc which founded in January 2000. The headquarters is on the San Francisco Peninsula near Silicon Valley, where they have access to the world's deepest pool of Internet executive and technical talent.

Walmart.com successful causes are as following:

Customers Services

Walmart.com is providing an easier access to the Wal-Mart. It has over 1,000,000 good-quality merchandise available online for customers with the lowest prices. It also gives customers the convenience of ordering products online and picking them up at a local Wal-Mart.

Effectiveness

The secret of success in retailing is their business philosophy which based on simple idea of making customers No.1 by serving the customer’s needs first. In the addition, Sam Walton's "Always Low Prices" philosophy helps to attract more customers to purchase their products all the times and indirectly it does increase the company’s profit continuously.

Payment Method

Furthermore, the key success of Walmart.com is the convenience and safety of payment. A variety of payment methods are available for customers when they do purchase through Internet. Meanwhile, the safety banking payment process making the website private and disallow hacking on customer password by other intentional hackers.

Webpage Presentation

Walmart.com presents a clear and simple direction for the users. It classifies all products in departments and it is easy for user to search. Besides that, users can get the products details and compare similar products in a shorter time without step out from the house.

In short, Walmart.com is passionate about combining the technology and world-class retailing in order to give customers a wide assortment of their favorite products, Every Day Low Prices, guaranteed satisfaction, friendly service, convenient hours (24 hours, 7 days a week) and a great online shopping experience.

Gals' Secret World

2009-06-12T11:36:00.018+08:00

Poh Sin's Silly World

Hi everyone, my name is Poh Sin. I come from Kuantan. I’m now pursuing my final year in Bachelor of Commerce (HONS) Accounting course at UTAR (Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman) which is located at Bandar Sungai Long, Kajang. I like to dance with my friends and feel the rhythm of music when I have free time or I want to take a rest from my study. Dance always make myself comfortable and relax all the time. Since I stay near to the sea, I always go and walk at the seaside to feel the warm wind blow from the sea. Besides that, I always enjoy the beautiful scenery of the sunset from there.

I will always check my mails from different people and resources each week. Through Hotmail, I can keep contact with my friends and share information with them. Besides that, hotmail give me the opportunity to send message to different people from different countries instantly. Facebook is another frequent website that I visit. It enables me to make new friends and keep contact with my old friends. Other than that, Facebook have a lot of interesting feature and games to help me spend my leisure time. I can search, get image and information that I want through Google. Sometimes, I will use google map to help me in understanding the map of certain places that I not familiar with. Sin chew website enables me to read news without paying. It saved both money and paper usage (reduce in paper usage can help to protect earth environment). This website helps me to update myself to the latest social issues, national and international news, and knowledge. I can always watch funny and interesting video clip in Youtube to reduce my stresses from study. Furthermore, sometimes I will check Youtube for the latest news or hot topic to make myself up-to-date.

There are five things that I will do for sure when I online, which are chatting, read news, check mails, watch video clips, and surf net for information. These activities help me get closer with my friends, the society and the world. Besides that, it helps in my education by providing vast information that I need and it also helps me to enjoy and relax sometime.

Chai Li's Cutie World

Just a brief introduction of myself, I’m chai li from Banting and currently study in Utar, Sg long Campus for the course of accounting and e-commerce is one of the subjects I’m taking in my year three semester one. I’m enjoying my student’s life except the period of examination, I like to watch movie during the weekend and Wednesday since I can enjoy the student price to purchase the movie ticket. The magazine store in supermarket is my first choice when I have free time since I like to read magazine which is specialize in fashion and those gossip of entertainer. Other than that I like to shop with my friends during the mega sales period however all of the expenses still have to subject to my budget. I’m used to jogging and swimming with my roommate since there are the way that we going to reduce our pressure. My top five internet activities are checking my mail box at Hotmail and chatting with friends and family in msn. Besides, I enjoying the game in Facebook and I can meet more friends through this website. I used to access Google and Sogou to search the information for my assignment as well as downloading my favorite song. Youtube is my first choice to access for updated the latest movie and song.

Loo Wei's Melodious World

Hi, my name is Tang Loo Wei who came from Petaling Jaya, Selangor. All of my friend call me Felishia. I am taking Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) Accounting in University Tunku Abdul Rahman. This is not the first time I write my blog. I have other blog in Wretch and My Space. However, this is the first time for me to write a blog in English. During my pass time, I like to surf net. My other hobbies is play music instrument such as piano, guitar and ‘er hu’.

The websites that I visited the most are Youtube to watch interesting and special video clips here. I seldom buy newspaper after I shifted away from home. Therefore, I read the latest news at Chinapress. Besides, I got to Hotmail to check my mail daily. Other than that, I keep in touch with my secondary schoolmate through Facebook. Finally, I will use Google scholar to search journal to finish my assignment and thesis. There are many journals to search in google scholar.

The main internet activity that I will do is searching information, especially searching journal and articles for assignment and thesis. Other that that I also like to watch movie as my internet activities. I using PPStream and Qvod to watch or download movie. There are many types of movie and program to watch such as Hong Kong drama, Taiwanese entertainment program and so on. Besides, I will check my mail daily. Download songs is also one of my internet activities. Lastly, the other internet activity is chatting through MSN messenger.