Points Of Interest: Amazon, Customers, Company's, Food, EBay, Online Banking, PayPal,
E-Commerce in today’s society is an ever growing market for consumers and companies. There are numerous different E-Commerce services available over the internet such as online banking and online auctions.
All of these enable consumers and companies an alternative to the classic way of trading from a shop window.
Let’s analyses some E-Commerce services:
Amazon - The never ending success:
In 2005 Amazon.com produced a profit of $359 million (USD) so it is not surprising that it is one of the world largest E-Commerce sites. Amazon currently offers a large array of goods including computer software, home ware and even clothing. Users can simple “purchase” the array of goods through the site and pay for them using a variety of different credit card payments. Amazon is always seeking new types of markets and for this on 18th April 2006 BBC reported “Online retailer Amazon has begun serving up soup, breakfast cereals and other basic foods on its US menu” on how Amazon was going to venture out into the market of selling cereal.
(See movie on an example of how easy it is to add a product to a virtual shopping basket)
From a customer’s point of view:
For customers, Amazon is a 24/7 service where customers can almost for fill all their needs in a just a few clicks of a button. Customers no longer have to travel out to shop when they can do the shopping in the comfort of there own home.
However Amazon works on the principle of payment methods of credit cards. For many youths unable to obtain a credit card this can be tedious. Amazon also offers some of the world largest range on goods for users to buy. Also, Amazon allows users to set up a “mini e-commerce” section of the site through Amazon’s feature called “market place”. This allows users to sell items through Amazon instead of in fact setting up their own E-Commerce site.
From a company’s point of view (Amazon):
For Amazon, having an E-Commerce site enables them to trade round the clock 24/7. Running an E-Commerce site is relatively low maintenance in comparison to running a shop. However the road to success has been a steep one for Amazon. Only in 2003 did Amazon start making an annual profit, 8 years are the launch of the site. Amazon now currently offers sites in Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, France, China and Japan.
Other ways of shopping:
People can now complete their food shopping all over the internet. People can now go onto a high street supermarkets’ website and purchase the food and have it delivered to their front doors. Instead of traveling out to the supermarket and going to the effort of loading the shopping trolley, people can just do it with a few clicks of some buttons.
Food shopping over the internet does have a down side though. Many shoppers argue that when they buy particular types of foods over the internet (i.e. meats) they cannot examine the quality of the food they are buying. Also in some cases the cost of delivery and time to deliver can prove a worse off option rather than going direct to the supermarket. A good example of an online food shopping site is Tesco. Tesco currently offer a wide array of goods via their website available for home delivery. As a result of the success Tesco has achieved over the internet, it has decided to expanded is online range. On 30th August 2006 BBC reported that “Tesco is launching a new home shopping service for a range of 8,000 non-food items including sofas, bikes, golf clubs and cameras.” The report goes on to say that the new service will be called “Tesco direct” and you can use the service via the Tesco website or a mail order catalogue, and place orders on the web, by phone or in some stores.
Other:
People can now a days just about buy anything over the internet from Food to the latest computer game. Big high street stores such as Marks and Spencer have all branched out into the E-Commerce website in hope of the attractive market. Other popular E-Commerce sites include:
Argos
WH Smith
Game
EBay is the world largest online auction site. EBay enables users to advertise their goods and auction them through the site. EBay then allows users to pay through it partner company, PayPal. EBay has million of auctions each day running in categories such as collectibles, appliances, computers, furniture, equipment, vehicles, and other miscellaneous items.
However, EBay has been scrutinized for what items it allows users to sell. There have been numerous reports on how users are selling “illegal” items including guns and livestock. EBay has now however got a ban on these types of items and staff are constantly monitoring for “suspicious” items for sale. Another problem which is arguable “ruining” EBay is people sell counterfeit goods past on as genuine. This can leave users who buy the goods frustrated and angered with the sellers when they found out the good are actually “fake”. This can draw people away from EBay through the fear of buying fake goods “accidentally”. This is also a problem EBay is trying to tackle. Another problem is people “running away” with the user’s money. This can happen when users pay for the goods and the seller never delivers them. The user selling the goods just basically “vanishes into cyberspace” effectively not being able to contact them. An example of a “scam” is that on 28th September 2006 BBC reported on how “A man has been charged with fraud in South Africa after detective work by a mid Wales woman over an eBay sale.” The report goes on to say how the women tried selling her son’s games console through EBay and the eventual winner never paid.
Online banking enables users to complete banking tasks round the clock 24/7. Users can simply manage their money rather than having to go 
to the bank directly. As of yet high street banks have not been nulled out although as internet banking grows ever more it may only be a matter of time until all banking tasks are completed over the internet. Online banking has become as massive feature for everyone be it a “home” user or a large business. It is designed to save people huge amounts of time using a simple process to obtain relatively simple information. With online banking running round the clock, people don’t need to worry about opening times and trouble reaching the bank.
However online banking is not all smooth flowing. Many users have growing fears into how safe their information is over the internet. As with all internet transaction (i.e. online shopping) involving personal details such as credit cards people are worried about the information being intercepted and used inappropriately. People tend to have bigger fears with online banking as more “confidential” information tends to be exchanged to the banking server. Also online banking can be dangerous if using a computer in an internet café for a lot of reasons including: possible key logger installed in a pc or other users of the computer may attempt to retrieve the information off the pc. Most high street banks have online banking facilities today with banks including:
Nationwide
Barclays
HSBC
PayPal allows users to complete money transfers with one another over the internet. What makes PayPal so different is the fact that it is solely available over the internet, thus no high street PayPal bank as of yet. Through PayPal users can “store” their money in PayPal by setting up an account with them. Users can them choose whether or not to directly transfer the money into “physical” money available in their high street bank. Users can alternatively keep money in PayPal online and when a transaction happens involving a PayPal payment, the money just goes out of the PayPal account, thus no credit cards involved. PayPal receives by far the majority of its customers through EBay. As of 2002, PayPal was in fact brought by EBay. Many EBay sellers and buyers tend to prefer using PayPal as their first choice of methods of payment. However there has been some criticism about PayPal. Wikipedia reported the following as criticism in the past of PayPal:
“PayPal is accused for its lack of customer support. Questions asked through e-mail are likely to get a reply that doesn't actually answer the question. The reply is almost invariably a template, as opposed to a reply written by a human for each e-mail.
PayPal stopped business with several gay owners after they implemented their policy of not doing business with sites that offer pornographic products or services, despite the fact that the businesses in question were not selling pornographic products or services.
PayPal's Seller Protection policies do not cover intangible goods or goods that are "not as described". Many scammers have used this lack of policy to their advantage. They will buy a product and pay for it via PayPal. When the product is received, they will dispute the charge as "not as described." This freezes the seller's account until the dispute is finalized. After the freeze, PayPal is unlikely to gain back the funds, thus leaving a negative balance to the seller.”
To add to any problems PayPal may be having on 29th June 2006 BBC reported
“Search giant Google has launched an online payments system which aims to compete with auction giant eBay.” Could this be the revolution of online banking today and the decline of the dominance in the market of PayPal?
I use a wide variety of e-commerce services over the internet these days. I tend to use Amazon and EBay the most however I do occasional use more specialist sites for items such as computer parts. I find shopping online to be just so easy to do and I can shop at any time I want. Also I tend to find that online shops offer better deals than high street stores as they don’t have to pay the costs of rent etc. A good example of online shopping is that I managed to order my Christmas presents all over the internet one night and waited a few days and they were delivered to me door. This meant I didn’t have to face to busy Christmas rush on the high street.