Chapter 4

Chapter 4

1.    Name the six main pieces of the e-commerce site puzzle.
Organizational Capabilities, Hardware Architecture, human resources, software site design, and telecommunications.

2.    Define the systems development life cycle and discuss the various steps involved in creating an e-commerce site.

The systems development life cycle is a methodology for understanding the business objectives of any system and designing an appropriate solution. The various steps involved in creating an e-commerce site are Systems analysis/planning, systems design, building the system, testing, and implementation.

3.    What are the three main factors to consider when choosing the best platform for your Web site?
Business objectives, system functionalities, information requirements.

4.    Why is Web server bandwidth an important issue for e-commerce sites?
The larger the bandwidth the more customers can simultaneously hit a site.

5.    Compare and contrast the various scaling methods. Explain why scalability is a key business issue for Web sites.

Vertical scaling refers to increasing the processing power of individual components. Horizontal scaling refers to employing multiple computers to share the workload and increase the “footprint” of installation. Improving the processing architecture is a combination of vertical and horizontal scaling, combined with artful design decisions. Scalability is a key business issue for Web sites because as traffic to a site increases, the size of the site should be able to increase to.

6.    What are the eight most important factors impacting Web site design, and how do they affect a site’s operation?

Functionality—Pages that work, load quickly, and point the customer toward your product offering.
 Informational—Links that customers can easily find to discover more about you and your products.
Ease of use—Simple fool-proof navigation.
Redundant navigation—Alternative navigation to the same content.
Ease of purchase—One or two clicks to purchase.
Multi-browser functionality—Site works with the most popular browsers.
Simple graphics—Avoids distracting, obnoxious graphics and sounds that the user cannot control.
Legible text—Avoids backgrounds that distort text or make it illegible.

7.    Name and describe three tools used to treat customers individually. Why are they significant to e-commerce?

You could personalize Web content if you knew the personal background of the visitor. You could also analyze the pattern of clicks and sites visited for every customer who enter your site. The primary method for  achieving personalization and customization is through the placement of cookie files on the user’s client computer.

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8.    What are some of the policies e-commerce businesses must develop before launching a site and why?
A privacy policy is a set of public statements declaring to your customers how you treat their personal information that you gather on the site. Accessibility rules are a set of design objectives that ensure disabled users can effectively access your site.

Chapter 8 Ethical, Social, and Political Issuses in E-commerce

Chapter 8

1.    What basic assumptions does the study of ethics make about individuals?

The basic assumptions the study of ethics make about individuals are that individuals are free moral agents who are in a position to make choices.

2.    What are the three basic principles of ethics? How does due process factor in?

The three basic principles of ethics are responsibility, accountability, and liability.
Due process is the ability to appeal to a higher court to make sure the law was applied correctly.

3.    Explain Google’s position that YouTube does not violate the intellectual property rights of copyright owners.

Google’s position is Google do not allow the users to make money off the downloads to You Tube.

4.    Define universalism, slippery slope, the New York Times test, and the social contract rule as they apply to ethics.

Universalism is if an action is not right for all situations, then it is not right for any situation.
Slippery Slope is if an action could not be taken repeatedly, the it should not be taken at all.
The New York Times test is assume that the results of your decision on a matter would be the lead article in the New York Times the next day.
The Social contract rule is would you like to live in a society where the principle you are supporting would become an organizing principle of the entire society.

5.    Name some of the personal information collected by Web sites about their visitors.

Some of the personal information collected by Web sites about their visitors are name, address, phone number, zip code, email address, social security number, bank account, credit card numbers, gender, age, occupation, and education.

6.    How does information collected through online forms differ from site transaction logs? Which potentially provides a more complete consumer profile?

Information collected through online forms are given voluntarily by the users for exchange for some kind of benefit, while the site transaction logs collect and analyze detailed information on page content viewed by users. Online forms provide a more complete consumer profile.

7.    Name three ways online advertising networks have improved on, or added to, traditional offline marketing techniques.

Three ways online advertising networks have improved on, or added to, traditional offline marketing techniques are:
First, they have the ability to precisely track not just customer purchases, but all browsing behavior on the Web at thousands of the most popular member sites, including browsing booklist, filling out preference forms, and viewing content pages.
Second, they can dynamically adjust what the shopper sees on the screen—including prices.
Third, they can build and continually refresh high-resolution data images or behavioral profiles of customers.

8.    Explain how Web profiling is supposed to benefit both consumers and businesses.

Profiling permits targeting of ads, ensuring that customers see advertisements mostly for products and services in which they are actually interested. Businesses benefit by not paying for wasted advertisements sent to customers who have no interest in their product or services.

9.    How could the Internet potentially change protection given to intellectual property?

Once intellectual works become digital, it becomes difficult to control access, use, distribution, and copying.

10.  What capabilities make it more difficult to enforce intellectual property law?

The Internet technically permits millions of people to make perfect digital copies of various works and then to distribute them nearly cost-free to hundreds of millions of Web users.

11.  What are some of the tactics illegal businesses, such as betting parlors and casinos, successfully use to operate outside the law on the Internet?

The sites are located offshore so the can operate beyond the jurisdiction of state and federal prosecutors.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

1.    What are the eight key components of an effective business model?

The eight key components of an effective business model are: value proposition, revenue model, marketing opportunity, competitive environment, competitive advantage, market strategy, organizational development, and management team.

2.    Describe the five primary revenue models used by e-commerce firms.
The advertising revenue model is used when Web sites offers it users content, services, and/or products also providing a forum for advertisements and receives fees from advertisers.
In the subscription revenue model, a Web site that offers its users content or services charges a subscription fee for access to some or all of its offerings.
In the transaction fee revenue model, a company receives a fee for enabling or executing a transaction.
In the sales revenue model, companies derive revenue by selling goods, information, or services to customers.
In the affiliate revenue model, sites that steer business to an “affiliate” receive a referral fee or percentage of the revenues from any resulting sales.

3.    Why is targeting a market niche generally smarter for a community provider than targeting a large market segment?
Targeting a market niche generally is smater for a community provider because the community provider should start on a level in which the provider is familiar with. The provider should start with a niche that can be supplied and then move to a bigger market.

4.    Besides the examples given in the chapter, what are some other examples of vertical and horizontal portals in existence today?
Examples of vertical and horizontal portals in existence today are alot.com, itunes, michaelbasiden.com, and blackamericanweb.com.

     5.     What are the major differences between virtual storefronts such as Drugstore.com   and bricks-and-clicks operations such as Walmart.com? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
Virtual storefronts customers only have to connect to the Internet to check their inventory and place an order. The bricks-and-clicks are subsidiaries or divisions of existing physical stores and carry the same products.

chapter 1

Chapter 1


1. What is e-commerce? How does it differ from e-business? Where does it intersect with e-business?

E-commerce is the use of the Internet and the World Wide Web to transact business. E-business is the digital enabling of transaction and processes within a firm, involving information systems under the control of the firm. E-commerce is the business done on the Internet with customers, while e-business is business done inside a firm with employees only over a Intranet system. E-commerce intersect with e-business at the business firm bounder.

2. What are some of the unique features of e-commerce technology?

Some of the unique features of e-commerce technologty are ubiquity, global reach, universal Standards, richness, interactivity, information density, personalization/customization, social technology.

3. What is Web 2.0? Give examples of Web 2.0 sites and explain why you included them in your list.

Web 2.0 is a set of applications and technologies that allows users to create, edit, and distribute content, share prefences, bookmarks, and online personas; participate in virtual lives; and build online communities. Some examples of Web 2.0 are You Tube, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Photobucket, WordPress, Twitter, Goggle, Second Life, Wikipedia, and Digg. I would include them in my list because: they relay on user- and consumer-generated content; easy seaarch capability is a key to their success; they create new opportunities for people to socialize with one another; they rely on broadband connectivity to the Web; they are currently marginally profitable, and their business models unproven despite considerable investment; and they attract extremely large audiences.

4. Give examples of B2C, B2B, C2C, and P2P Web sites besides those listed in the chapter materials.

B2C-- Walmart; B2B -- samsclub.com; C2C -- oodle.com; P2P -- limewire.com.

5. What factors will help define the future of e-commerce over the next five years?

Factors that will help define the future of e-commerce over the next five years are: expensive technology, sophisticated skill set, persistent cultural attraction of physical markets and traditional shopping experiences, persistent global inequality limiting access to telephones and personal computers, and saturation and ceiling effects.