Bloggin' Out Loud

E-government in Malaysia

2009-07-11T23:08:00.006+08:00

The E-government initiative was launched to lead the country into the Information Age. It will improve government's operation internally, and delivers services to the people of Malaysia. It is purposely to improve the convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses. Besides that, it also will improve information flows and processes within government to improve the speed and quality of those policies.

The 7 pilot projects of the Electronic Government Flagship Application are as follows:

1. Project Monitoring System (SPP II)
2. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
3. Generic Office Environment (GOE)
4. Electronic Procurement (EP)
5. Electronic Services (E-Services)
6. Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)
7. E-Syariah

Citizen's adoption strategies :

1. Service Quality
Government must be able to provide faster services to citizen in order to attract more citizen involved in e-government service. For example, when someone leave a message, government should respond to them and help them to solve the problem.

2. Customer Satisfaction
E-Government adoption requires that citizens show higher levels of satisfaction with the online service provided by the government. A higher level of customer satisfaction will increase the rate of e-Government adoption.

3. Webpage design
The design of the webpage must be user friendly and easy to use. For example, in the website, there should has a option to choose the language that citizen familiar with such as english, malay and mandirin. This will allow a wide range of citizen involved in e-government.

References :
- Malaysia, Information and Communication Technology
- E-government in Malaysia

Review on Legal post - New rules for cyber cafes soon

2009-07-11T05:36:00.013+08:00

This is a review regarding to a post in My E-commerce, which discuss about the new rules for cyber cafes. According to the post, there are SEVEN new rules that will be implemented to control the cyber cafes (“CC”) business.

1.Have to close by midnight daily.
2.Banned from using tinted glasses in their premises. (must be able to see through from the outside)
3.Only allowed to operate from the ground floor.
4.Those under 12 years old must be accompanied by parents or guardian and only allowed to stay up to 10.00pm.
5.Prohibited from providing gaming activities, gambling, pornography, music and publications with negative element.
6.Cigarettes and alcohol to be prohibited from being sold.
7.A book log to record the entry and departure time of the patrons.

Over these seven rules, most of them are still acceptable for the CC to comply with it. However, there are some significant rules which will affect the CC business significantly. 1st rule require the CC to close by midnight daily, which causes them to earn less from “overnight kaki”. Besides, gaming is the most important thing that a CC operates for. Most of the people go to CC play games is due to be able play together. This is because some games need local area network to be played.

Now, the government requires the cyber cafe to stop providing gaming activities, where it will cut the main income for the CC. If it does really happen and the cyber cafe has complied with it, the target market for cyber cafe will be dramatically cut down, where most of the consumers will be only those who do not own a computer at house, or those who has emergent use.

Previously, there is a rule where people who wearing school uniform are not allowed going into cyber café. However, we still can see some students wearing uniform in the CC. Most of them have become smarter where they change clothe before go in.

Thus, from the previous case, I do not think that Cyber café will comply with what the government has set. In my opinion, the cyber café might fight for the 5th rules, to allow them to provide games activity. This is because that is what CC famous and popular for. Hence, if government did really implement these rules to this industry, I think we will see the Cyber Café shops close down 1 by 1.

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

2009-07-10T12:34:00.012+08:00

E-learning is a term for all types of technology-enhanced learning, where technology is used to support the learning process. Many universities in Malaysia are adopted the system of e-learning. A question comes up my mind, does this system really work among students?

As a student's perspective, e-learning does have many advantages such as:

- students' learning option are not constrained by geographic location.
- e-learning reduces learning time as students can learn when they need it
- students can learn at their own pace and the learning can be fit into their busy schedule
- it provide less costs for students.
- students may also gain side benefits of learning new technologies and technical skills
- there are more often student-to-student interaction during learning process.
- students are being trained to be more independant in learning instead of spoon feed by lecturers.

However, e-learning system may caused some problems to students too such as:

- e-learning requires some equipment needs to support the system such as computer technologies.
- it lacks of face to face interaction among students and lecturers
- students may not be able to access to the information uploaded if the system broke down.

Obviously, e-learning system in universities provides more pros than cons. Students should utilized it in order to have a higher achievement in learning.

References:
(1) Wikipedia - E-Learning
(2) Canadian E-Learning Conference - Student Responses
(3) The Benefits and Drawbacks of e-Learning

Corporate blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

2009-07-10T12:33:00.009+08:00

Blog marketing is the term used to describe internet marketing via web blogs. Corporations use blogs to create a dialog with customers and explain features of their products and services. Anyhow, is it really an effective marketing tool for corporate?

A blog for marketing can give a company an identity gaining visibility on the web. It have become a way of promoting just about anything whether it may be public relations, marketing a new product, improving brand image and for research.

Blog achieves the goal of growing business because the company expands as it caters to online customers who may come across it. Blogs are a great way of promoting a business in that it can help in interacting with users and display their feedback. Thereby when other people view any testimonials made by customers like themselves they will be satisfied that the company is serving its clients well and listening to their needs.

Blogs are low cost way of marketing. Besides that, they can be changed and edited at will to suit the different tastes and fashions that keep coming up from time to time.A blog is indeed a powerful medium for corporate with many benefits such as:

- allowing readers or prospective employees get a sense of the corporate culture or work environment

- creating an online presence that builds brand equity and awareness

- allowing readers to post feedback directly on issues or features that they may or may not like

- shows the personal side of a company or a company leader

- let's companies and individuals build quality relationships with loyal readers or users

- allows companies or individuals to make important news or event announcements

As a conclusion, companies are starting to realize exactly how powerful blogs can be, especially as marketing tools. Thus, they can use blog as a valuable marketing and relationship building tool.

References:
- Blog as a Marketing Tool
- Wikipedia - Blog Marketing

- Business Pointers - Blog Marketing

The Application of Pre-paid cash card for consumer

2009-07-04T23:17:00.017+08:00

Nowadays, majority of the consumers like to use pre-paid cash card when buying products that they are needed. Why consumers like to use pre-paid card? The main reason would be they no need bring a lot of cash on hand during shopping time. It reduces the risk that the cash on hand being rob by thief.

Consumers need to reload the pre-paid card in order to make sure that there is no credit balance. Consumers can reload their pre-paid card by cash at bank, post office, Payzone or PayPoint terminals or through bank transfer.

Application of pre-paid cash card for consumers :

1. Touch' n go - It is a form of pre-paid cash card that can be used for toll payment, KTM , LRT and etc. Consumers should reload the card when there is a credit balance.
2. Online purchase - User also can use pre-paid cash card to make payment when conducting online purchase
3. Prepaid card for mobile phone - Consumers enable to use this card to top up the balances.
4. Withdraw cash - Consumers can use this card to withdraw money from ATM machine.

Reference :
- Master Card Website
- Guide to Prepaid Cards

Credit card debts : Causes and Prevention

2009-07-04T23:15:00.019+08:00

What is credit card debt? Why there is credit card debt exist? How to solve this problem?

Credit card debt is an example of unsecured consumer debt. This will occur when consumers continuously used credit card to make payment. The debts will be increased due to there is an interest charge on the credit payment. Therefore, nowadays, many people owe credit card debts and they are unable to repay the debts and interest charged by bank.

Causes of credit card debts:

Poor money management - Consumers may not have a proper plan for money spending over the month. Therefore, the money they spend is more than their monthly income. As a result, when they received the bank statement from bank, they are unable to pay the debts.

Less Income, more expenses - Due to current economic condition ( inflation ), all products' price has been increased rapidly. In other words, this shows that expenses that occur will increase if compare to last few years. As a consequence, income is unable to cover all the expenses, so it may lead to use credit card to make payment first.

No saving - Sometimes, when there is an unanticipated event that need a huge amount of money, because of consumer has no saving in the bank and therefore they may use credit card to setttle the payment first.

Prevention of credit card debts :

Proper Money Management - You should determine your monthly income and needed expenses, and plan the expenses that is neccesary over the month. And if there still have money at the end of the month, you should save the money into bank for future use.

Avoid extra expenses - Those expenses that are extra can eliminate it. For example, having dinner at home rather than at restaurant.

Use cash to make payment - You can settle all the paymeny by using cash, this is because no interest will be charged on the cash. In addition, you should reduce the number of using credit card when make payment.

References :
- Top 10 causes of debt
- 3debtconsolidation - Top 10 Causes of debt
- How to avoid Credit Card Debt

A review on e-tailing - Using Touch n Go card to buy fast food in Malaysia will be a reality

2009-07-04T22:19:00.015+08:00

Today, I am going to share with you all about what I have read from a post in My E-commerce. The post is disclosed that Touch n Go card could be used to buy fast food from 21 outlets.

After reading the post, I personally think that this implementation might not be as success as what Hong Kong’s Octopus card has done, due to the culture in Malaysia. Touch n Go is design for those who are run out of time, which ease the users and save their time while they are making payment. However, Malaysians prefer to use cash, or use future money to buy things (at least I am one of them who think like this). It is popular and successful in transportation area, such as use in LRT, KTM, and Highway Toll, but this is because when we use the card in these facilities, we could really just touch and go, where we do not need to wait it to count the cost.

However, if it implement in fast food area, we have to wait the cashier too. We can just prepare the money while they are preparing the food for us, and just wait a while for the small change. Besides, Touch n Go is successful in transportation area because it is targeting in all drivers and public transports’ passengers. However, if Touch and Go is aiming for fast food area, it is targeting on those who buy fast food through drive through, which is quite specific and smaller market.

Besides, there is another card, which is similar to Touch n Go, known as Zing Card. It is offered by various banks, where you could register if you are a visa or master card holder. This card offer an auto reload feature, which could be a threat for Touch n Go.

In conclusion, I think that this implementation is hard to be use in Malaysia, due to the culture in Malaysia. It might be successful, if the company could offer the card to be use in more area, and increase the availability of the services.

Electronic Currency

2009-07-04T22:19:00.010+08:00

Electronic currency, or also known as e-currency, is the electronic money that uses to make payment on internet, such as e-gold and PayPal. Basically, there are 2 types of electronic currency, where the different of these 2 types are their backed base. For instance, e-gold is backed by gold, whereas PayPal is backed by hard currency.

There are benefits for using e-currency, which are:

E-currency can be used on the internet related commercial applications
By using electronic currency, we could buy things through online, without applying credit card, or any others card.

Credit card information will be secure
We do not know how well are the sellers are working on the security of our data. Thus, through using electronic currency, our credit card information could be secured. This is because electronic currency does not need any of your credit card information. All you need to do is to buy the pin number from the shop, and key it into the website that you wishes to make payment with.

Convenient and efficient while making payment
Both sellers and buyers could just click “confirm” button to finish the process. No further steps are needed.

In conclusion, e-currency is value of money in the form of electronic, stored in a system. Merchants do not need to communicate with the bank to get their money. In fact, they will just need to claim it from the electronic currency issuers, such as e-gold and PayPal.

Additional Information:

- E-currency company introduction

- Wikipedia - Electronic Money

Review on Internet security - Favourite passwords used online

2009-06-27T21:06:00.009+08:00

Recently i have read a post from My E-commerce, which is about the favourite passwords used online. In that post, it discuss about the passwords that are usually used. After reading the post, I agree with the post, to choose a password that is longer than 8 characters, and include some character with capital letter and symbol.

Many people like to use their name, date of birth, telephone number, IC number as their password. But this will create a chance for other to have unauthorized access to your account. They can easily get those information from elsewhere in order to access into your account.

Therefore, your password should include some capital letter and symbol to avoid any unauthorized access. This is because they cannot guess your password easily. There may need some time to guess your password.

The password should be unrelated to your birthdate or name. But if realy want include name in your password, you can insert some capital letter or symbol in between your name.

These are my opinion about review on Internet security.

Additional Information:
- Secure Passwords Keep You Safer

- Password Cracking

- Password Strength

How to safeguard our personal and financial data

2009-06-26T20:20:00.016+08:00

Due to the reason of so happen that our personal and financial data are esposed to risk of being hacked, we have to take consideration in safeguarding our data.

Ways to safeguard personal and financial data:

(1) Do not give away any valuable or sensitive persoanl information on Myspace or Facebook profile or within messages to other members of the network.

(2) Do not click on any links in social network messages from people that you do not know.

(3) Use one of the many antivirus, antispyware, and firewall programs on the market.

(4) Pay attention to the messages from Windows that pop up on your screen. They often contain helpful security information that many users overlook.

(5) Beware of e-mail that you received. No reputable company will ask for password, account number, or other log in information via e-mail or instant message.

(6) Upgrade the browser to the most current version.

(7) Update virus scanning utility on a regular bases so that you can protect your system from the lastest computer virus ciculating.

(8) Do not open e-mail attachments from the e-mail addresses that you do not know.

(9) Implement and stick with an automated backup system, where you regularly monitor the log files and run test restore jobs.

References:

- How Safe is Critical Data

The threat of online security:How safe is our data?

2009-06-26T20:19:00.024+08:00

Internet is widely used today. Unfortunately, hackers appear with malicious intention. They hack, steal as well as destroy consumers' personal or financial data. Hackers are increasingly attacking online services. For consumers, their profile containing their personal information on social network is exposed to risk. Hackers might hack their accounts by using malicious software. For example, Facebook users had their profile defaced by an attack which installed a Trojan while displaying animated graphics.

In a corporate world, the hackers are hunting for more of the valuable information stored on companies' servers. Besides that, the cyber thieves are also intended to attack corporate databases in search of undisclosed financial data or proprietary design and engineering information that can be sold.

Other than that, hackers are also unleashing viruses into consumers' personal computers. This is because new viruses circulate the Internet daily and you will not fully be protected. By doing so, consumers may lose all their personal information and falls into trouble.

In addition, as far as organization is concerned, disgruntled employees should be aware too. the greatest threat to business online security is from its own staffs. The organization should ensure that policy and procedures are set up to protect against potential threats such as email viruses, internet misuse and mishandling of personal and private data. These can all lead to an attack on the company's security.

In short, become aware of the online security threat as data security is a complex issue the potential for disruption, to both the consumers and corporate may be alarming.

References:
- Top Online Securuty Threat for 2009

The application of 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia

2009-06-26T16:19:00.010+08:00

In e-commerce world, reliability of business on the Web is one of the key concerns for online consumers. According to a research, there are more than 50% of people will choose to buy things from well-known and major site, in stead of those unpopular sites. Normally these sites have applied a digital certificate from a 3rd party, to ensure their sites’ reliability and boost online users’ confidence. The most popular 3rd party certification companies in Malaysia are DigiCert and MSC Trustgate.

DigiCert
It is the 1st certification authority in Malaysia, which licensed to issue digital signature and digital certificate. Basically, DigiCert provides services according to:

1.Screening of the authority of the people that apply for issuance and revocation of certificates.
2.Issuance, revocation and publication of certificates.
3.Delivery, storage and archiving of certificates and certificates revocation list.

MSC Trustgate
It is the 2nd certification authority company in Malaysia, which is similar to DigiCert. It provides security services to various Internet markets such as:

1. Issue digital certificates
2. Establish public key infrastructure
3. Provide cryptographic technology

Applications of Digital Certificate
Privacy and confidentiality -- use for message encryption and decryption.

Integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation -- use for digital signing of messages to establish the identity of the sender and to establish that messages have not been alter with.

Access control – use to control access to facilities, Internet sites, Intranets, and other digital networks.

Document archive and retrieval – use to validate that stored messages have not been altered and to provide controlled access to authorized individuals.

Identification and privileges -- to establish their rights and privileges, for instance, for licensing purposes.

Through these 3rd parties’ digital certificate, those business transaction through online will be secured, and thus, increase the reputation of their sites. Online users’ will feel secure to trade and communicate with the business site through online.

Additional Informations:

- What is Digital Certificate

- Internet security system-iVEST

Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

2009-06-26T16:17:00.016+08:00

Do you know what does it means by “phishing”? Yea it is sounds alike with “fishing”, but the meaning behind the words are different. Fishes are the target of “fishing”, while “phishing” is targeting on our personal private data!

Definition - criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication

Here is an example for a phishing email:

It is so dangerous where our personal information will be used to perform wrongful things, or even we will lose our money. Therefore, to prevent this happen, there are several ways to avoid it:

Check the grammar and the sentences of the email
Normally, the phishing email is sent in bulk. Therefore, you should take not when you got an email with “Dear Valued Customer”. Besides, formal email is normally free of grammar mistakes (a company would not do this mistake to spoil their own company name). Therefore, when you did notice grammar mistake in the email, beware of it.

Compare the link address before clicking on it
When you receive an email that require you to fill in your information by clicking the website, compare the link address that written in the email, with the actual link that you are going to. The actual link that you are going to is provided by the browser where it normally located at left bottom of the browser when you mouse hover on the link. When the link address are different, do not click on it, it might be a phishing website that try to trick you.

Verify the e-mail with the original website
You can forward the email to the original website, or call to their service centre, to ask them to help you to verify whether it is an email from their website.

Directly go to the original website to precede the steps
If you think that verify with the original website is troublesome, you can directly go to that original website and precede the steps. By doing it through this way, you would not get into the phishing website, and you will get know if the original website did not require you to do so.

Check the link address with 3rd party – PhishTank
PhishTank “www.phishtank.com”, is a online database that store numerous of phishing website address. When you suspect that the email might be a phishing website, copy the link address and paste to this website to ask them verify for you. The website will then check the address with their database. If they could not find it in their database, they will try to access the website and verify for you whether it is a phishing website.

Install online anti-phishing software
Use online anti-phishing software to verify the website for you, for instance, ScamBlocker, PhishBlocker, and TrustWatch.

There are many ways to prevent getting trick, but the most important is to be careful and do not trust the email easily. Get smart before getting trick.

Additional Information:
- Alert: Watch Out for "Phishing" Emails
- example of phishing
- Wikipedia explanation about phishing
- PhishTank

- CNN news about phishing

An example of an E-commerce success and its causes

2009-06-20T22:04:00.010+08:00

Amazon.com is one of the success e-commerce in the world. Amazon.com was started in the year 1994, in the beginning, Amazon.com was served as an online bookstore. Nowadays, Amazon.com selling a lot of products in its webpage. It allows costomer to buy products through online.

Why Amazon.com can success?

The main reason would be Amazon.com offers variety of products in the webpage. This allows customer to buy the product that they needed. Sometimes, customers may want to buy products that produced at other country, and this particular products may not sell at their own country. Therefore, they need a 3rd party such as Amazon.com that can offer a lot of products. In addition, the product sell at Amazon.com is cheaper if compare to market price. Therefore, buying through Amazon.com enable customers to save time and travelling costs.

Second reason is Amazon.com provides better customer service and the procedures for buying online is user friendly. This allows Amazon.com attract a lot of customers over the past 10 years and established good reputation from their customers.

The success of Amazon.com is due to the reasons that mention above.

For those who are interested, can visit to www.amazon.com

Additional Information:

- Wikipedia - Amazon.com

~ History of E-Commerce ~

2009-06-20T22:01:00.013+08:00

Electronic commerce or e-commerce (EC) can be defined as a process of buying, selling, transferring, or exchanging products, services or information through computer networks and Internet.

HISTory....
In 1970, Electronic fund transfer (EFT) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) have been introduced to facilitate commercial transaction ellectronically. EFT enables the financial institution and organization to transfer their fund to their suppliers, employees, customers and etc. Whereas, EDI allows companies exchange of document such as purchase order, invoice and etc.

In 1980, credit card, automated teller machine (ATM) and telephone banking have been introduced to the world. There are also considere as a form of e-commerce. In addition, airline reservation system is also a form of e-commerce. For example, AirAsia and MAS are the airline company in Malaysia that has been implemented airline reservation system. The advantages for this system are it can save time, save cost, and user friendly.

From the 1990 onwards, electronic commerce include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.

There are 3 common types of e-commerce which is B2B, B2C, and C2C.

1. Business-to-Business (B2B) - all participants are businesses or organizations. For example, Dell and its suppliers.

2. Business-to-Consumer (B2C) - Participants are businesses and individual. For example, customer buy computer from Dell's website.

3. Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) - All participants are individuals. For example, auction between individuals at lelong.com .

There is a lot of changes in e-commerce over 30 years. This may cause by the technology keep on changing and the needs and requirements for e-commerce has increased.

As a conclusion, e-commerce plays an important role in our life!!!

Additional information:

- Wikipedia - Electronic Commerce

Review on Real-World Case: Google is changing everything

2009-06-20T03:06:00.037+08:00

“Hey, have you found the info for our assignment?”
“Don’t ‘kacau’ me, I am ‘googling’ now”

Google is well known for its search engine, and it has affected our life style very much. Just take the conversation above as an example, do you all feel familiar with the word of “googling”? Yes I think we all do knew it, it brings the meaning of searching. Although this is not a formal or proper English to be used, many people are still saying it, due to the effectiveness and efficiency of its search engine.

Other than its search engine, Google is also providing many free online services. Below are some of the examples of services:

Gmail
As compared to other email services, most of the working person would like to use Gmail as a working life’s email. In my personal opinion, I think that this incident happen is due to the popularity of its search engine. It has given people a working perspective, where it has become users’ 1st choice when deciding email services to be used for working. Besides, Gmail offers features to group related message together, and keyword searching through email messages.

Google Spreadsheet
It is a totally free Web-based application, where users are not required to install it, nor buy it. It breaks the key limitation of Microsoft Excel where it can be used and shared with up to 10 users simultaneously through online.

Google Earth

A collection of zoomable aerial and satellite 3D photo of the earth that enables users to find information linked to geographical location. Through this software, the users are able to search the place they are interested. It eases the drivers when they are searching for places that they did not go before.

Google Chrome
An internet browser, just like what we normally use, such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. The different is its address bar has been modified to Google search engine. Besides, it also offers a secure browsing, which is incognito window. By using incognito window, the history of website you have browsed will never be saved into computer, which enhances private information security.

Google has also included many others services that can be seen in other website, such as group, calendar, blog, web-hosting, and more. Google has been categorized as a Web2.0 company, where it facilitates communication, secures information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web.

Google has changes everything, from our living life, to our working life.

Revenue model: Google, Amazon.com, eBay

2009-06-20T01:02:00.023+08:00

A revenue model outlines how the organization or EC project will generate revenue. The revenue model comprises of five major components which are sales, transaction fees, subscription fees, advertising fees and affiliate fees. So for Google, Amazon.com and eBay, their revenue are as followed:

Google earned revenue from advertising related to its internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing as well as selling advertising-free versions of the same technologies.

Transaction fees:

Google Answers was an online knowledge market offered by Google that allowed users to post bounties for well researched answers to their queries. Asker-accepted answers cost $2 to $200. Google retained 25% of the researcher's reward and a 50 cent fee per question. In addition to the Researcher’s fees, a client who was satisfied with the answer could also leave a tip of up to $100. In late November 2006, Google reported that it planned to permanently shut down the service, and it was fully closed to new activity by late December 2006, although its archives remain available.

Affiliate fees:

Google Adwords is a pay per click advertising program of Google 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. When a user searches Google's search engine, ads for relevant words are shown as "sponsored link" on the right side of the screen, and sometimes above the main search results. Google generate most of the revenue from Google AdWords. In year 2005, Google launched the Google Publication Ads Program through which they distribute their advertisers’ ads for publication in magazines. Google recognize as revenue the fees charged advertisers when their ads are published in magazines.

Therefore, people can promote their websites online regardless of budget,they can advertise their business on Google and its advertising networks (Google Adwords). They only pay if someone click on their ads. Take a look at the below diagram, it show Organic listings and Paid listings (Pay per click).

Other than that, Google also earned revenue by pay per action advertising. However, it was then replaced by Conversion Optimizer and Performics Affiliate which enable the business to manage their advertising on a CPA (Cost-per-acquisition) basis.Amazon.com is America's largest online retailer. It started as an online bookstore but soon diversified to product lines of VHS, DVD, music CDs and MP3s, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, etc.

Sales:

Amazon has steadily branched into retail sales of music CDs, videotapes and DVDs, software, consumer electronics, kitchen items, tools, lawn and garden items, toys & games, baby products, apparel, sporting goods, gourmet food, jewelry, watches, health and personal-care items, beauty products, musical instruments, clothing, industrial & scientific supplies, groceries, and more.

Transaction fees:

There are no start-up charges, monthly charges, hidden fees, or long-term contracts

Fees are assessed on a per-transaction basis and vary depending on the transaction amount. They are based on a percentage of the transaction amount plus a per transaction fee.

For Transactions >= $10:

2.9% + $0.30 for all transactions

Volume Discounts:

2.5% + $.30 for all transactions for monthly payment volume from $3k-$10k

2.2% + $.30 for all transactions for monthly payment volume from $10k - $100k

1.9% + $.30 for all transactions for monthly payment volume over $100k

For Transactions < $10:

5.0% + $0.05 for all transactions

Affiliate fees:

There are no monthly fees and no minimum spend - you are charged only when an Amazon customer clicks on your ad and is taken to your Web site. You control not only the maximum price you are willing to pay for that click, but also your daily budget. This allows you to measure the return on your advertising investment and optimize your budget accordingly. Product Ads by Amazon provides a new, highly targeted advertising channel. Amazon's world class shopping experience and product pages ensures you only pay for qualified customers. You don't pay for customers to read about and view your products on Amazon. You only pay when they click on your ad to go to your Web site.
Ebay is an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide.

Subscription fees:

As an eBay Store owner, you’ll pay the monthly subscription fee corresponding to your Store level.

Insertion fees:

If you want to sell on item on eBay, you create a listing using the Sell Your Item form. When you list an item on other eBay sites, you are charged an Insertion Fee for the listing. The Insertion Fee is based on what you decide is the Starting Price of your item.

Final value fees:

If the item sells, you are charged a Final Value Fee if you list on other eBay sites. The Final Value Fee is based on the final amount the item sells for. The Final Value Fee does not include postage costs.

Listing upgrade (Optional):

If you want to add a subtitle or an extra picture to your listing, a charge would be added for each listing upgrade. The charges also depend on the category and format you list in.

Additional Information:

- Google

- Amazon

- eBay

Example of E-commerce failure and its causes

2009-06-19T16:14:00.020+08:00

The development of E-commerce undergrounds a rapid changes in today's world. Internet-based firm have to be aware of the management plans and strategy and be updated in order to keep themselves up with the current changes. Otherwise, they might be eliminated.

One of the e-commerce failure can be shown by Pets.com. It was a short-lived online business that sold pet accessories and supplies direct to customers via world wide web. It began operations in February 1999 and ceased in November 2000. It is not bankrupt but self-liquidated. The company succeeded in making its mascot which is the Pets.com sock puppet. Besides that, its website design is well received and had been garnering several advertising awards. Pets.com was successfully in building brand recognition. Since then, why it went into liquidation?

There are many causes that make Pets.com failed in e-commerce. The main reason would be the company was weak on fundamentals and actually lost money on most of its sales. Pets.com's revenue is less than the advertising cost. It earned $619,000 and yet spent $11.8 million on advertising during its first fiscal year. It lack a workable business plan. It was selling merchandise for approximately one-third the price it paid to obtain the products even before the advertising cost.

Other than that, this company had a improper selling strategy. It tried to build a customer-based by offering discounts and free shipping with the purpose of shifting customers into higher margin purchases. However, customer buying patterns failed to change and it is impossible to turn a profit while absorbing the cost of shipping. Thus, it only hastened the firm's demise.

The uncertainty of the existence of substantial market was another reason that caused Pets.com went into liquidation. There was no independent market research preceded the launch of Pets.com. In light of the venture capital situation, Pets.com management realised that they were unable to raise further capital. As a consequence, they undertook the action to sell the company. US$300 million of investment capital vanished with the company's failure.

Additional Information:

- Wikipedia - Pets.com

cMi in the house...

2009-06-12T22:24:00.014+08:00

Hi, all my friends!!! I'm here because of the e-commerce assignment requires us to write blog! Haiz...Lets start my homework!

My name is Chai Szee Mee, come from Kajang ( Satay town!). Although I'm live at Kajang, but I seldom eat satay because I do not like to eat satay! (hey guys,do you like satay?)Hehe... Anyway,welcome to Kajang!

My hobby for this semester is sleep because all the classes start at 8am, and then the class end at 5pm and 6pm ( monday and tuesday). When I back from school, I already very tired ( physically and mentally)! Therefore, no mood to do tutorial questions. Hehe...I know this is not a good reason, but this is truth! I am lazy!! Beside that, I like to online, listen song, watch tv and so on. I also like to chat with my friends because I will get a lot of information and the latest news from them. Haha...

Top 5 websites!!!!! Firstly, is http://www.facebook.com/ , I sign up facebook because I want to play pet society, it is an interesting game. But now, I seldom play pet society because no time for me to play.Hehe...Uni life is so busy!!! The second website is http://www.hotmail.com/, this is the website that I used to check email. Next, is http://www.sogou.com/, I normally go in this website beacuse I want to download the songs that I want to listen. The forth website is http://www.youtube.com/, here I can watch dramas from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and so on. Lastly, is http://www.google.com/, I access to google when I'm doing assignments because need to search some informations, other than that, I won't go in to google! Hehe....

The top 5 internet activities that I always do are playing games, downloading songs, watching drama, chatting with friends through MSN and searching informations.

Yeah! Finally, I finish writing this blog! So happy!!

Have a nice day...

Long gas man

2009-06-12T02:23:00.016+08:00

Hi everyone, welcome to our blog – Bloggin' Out Loud!! My name is Lai Chee Hong, or you can also call me as LyChee. Yea, you didn’t see it wrongly, it is a fruit name, given by my lovely friends^^ because my surname and first name sounds similar to LyChee. I like this name, as it is easy to be remember, and sounds friendly, hahaha^^ Actually I am a guy who did not talk much, at least I think so (but my friends always say I m noisy =.=” ) If I did not join wushu club and dance club in UTAR, I think I will just become another boring guy, who have a systematic life style – go school for class > eat > go for tuition >back home face computer > eat > computer again > sleep. In fact, this is what I did for my primary and secondary school life, what a boring life…

However, things change when I come to Degree Life. When I 1st came to FAM campus, I was influence by my friend (allow me to call him as Chun here) to join in dance club and wushu club, but Chun left wushu club in 2nd sem, because he wants to concentrate more in dance (the guy who ask me to join wushu club left =.=) . I am still participating in these 2 clubs because I prefer to play with gangs, hahaha, this is why there are not much improvement in both area (quite pity actually, maybe this is the cost to play with gangs, hahaha).

There are many fun and joy after join into these clubs, I enjoy training with friends, joking with friends, and the most important – performances. Through those performances, other than those performance skills, I also learnt to be presentable, or in another words – THICK FACE SKIN. This skill is useful because you won’t be easily got shy when you face problems (e.g. won't be hesitate to ask question, better communication skill, and blah blah blah.... quite benefit, right? =P)

Other than dance and wushu, I did like to use computer too. When I 1st touch to the computer, all I know is about games. But slowly, I was attracted by the nice background and picture. In my foundation life at UTAR PJ campus, I got the chance to learn web page design, where its assignment is to build a webpage by using notepad to key in codes. In that sem, I start to learn to use photoshop through online, where one of the site is www.d-xite.com. In that website, there are lots of guidelines, which are suitable for beginners. Besides, I also used Google to search for codes, which cannot be learnt from school. (haha, quite proud for the assignment outcome^^, although it does not look professional =P). This time, here is another chance to let me play around the codes again, hahaha (but there are not much time for me to learn, so sorry for the original designers, I have used and combined your templates’ code to build this blog =P). Therefore, one of the most visited website that I have went to is Google (www.google.com), because it really helps a lot while searching for information or doing assignment.

Besides, I also like to login to the Friendster (www.friendster.com) and Facebook (www.facebook.com), to view my friends current updates. Sometimes when I am bored, I will go to those comics or anime website (www.crunchyroll.com & dm.wangyou.com) to use up my times (and of cause I am enjoying it).

Normally when I power on my computer, the 1st program I will run is msn messenger, to online and wait people to find me to chat (hahaha, don’t feel weird, I did said I am a guy who did not talk much =P). Besides, I also did like to go to Friendster to update my current photo (but not that frequent, if there is nothing to be update, haha). Basically when there is no people chat with me, or no more comic and anime for me to watch, or play games until bored, or no assignment to do, I did like to go watch TV show or go to sleep, rather than sitting there do nothing =P (I think lecturer or tutor won’t deduct our marks if there are not sufficient online acitivity and website include in the blog, right? =P)

Anyway, through online it brings lots joy to me, where I can chat, play, and do assignment. But there are more joys and funs out there, so don’t just sit in front of the computer (you may just get sick from it if you facing it for long time). Happy reading^^ forgive my long gas ability, haha, 1st time write blog =P

I am...

2009-06-11T00:45:00.030+08:00

Hi all! My name is Kah Ling, a quite popular name. But in fact, an ordinary girl who got SMS (Short-term Memory Syndrome). I can forget things easily. I have never been serious in people's mind. They will think that I'm playing fool with them even if I'm serious. Sweat!! The word 'talkative' always follows me. Or i should said I am good in talking nonsense. Besides that, I have a lively fancy. Day dreaming is an activity that i always do especially during class. I don't like to attend lecture in the early morning. This is because I couldn't wake up and that's the reason why i always late into class. Sometimes even absent just because of sleep!

My hobbies?? The is no exact answer for this question. I like to sleep, eat, shop, surfing net, online chatting, watch tv and so on. If there must be an answer for it, I would say my hobby is online. I will online every night unless I am really busy. Arghh!! It is quite irritating to write in here. I keep using the abbreviations which created by kahling. Delete and retype, quite troublesome.

There are several websites that I oftenly visit such as hotmail, friendster, facebook, youtube, ifeel, yahoo, google, so on and so forth. Most of them are related to entertainment. Friendster and Facebook are popular websites that almost every youngster know about it. These are the sites to know more friends and the best place to share the photos, ideas or opinions. I will log in to hotmail everyday to check my mail. I have this habit since study in UTAR. The main caused is assignments. We have to aware of information send by the assignment group members. Yahoo and Google are definitely used to search information for assignments purpose. I seldom go in these websites if there is no assignments. i prefer to visit youtube, ifeel or sogou to download songs or updated myself with the current entertainment news. I have totally no interest in political issues. I feel that it is complicated. Other than that, I like to chit chatting with friends in MSN. It helps to save cost instead of using mobile phone. As an accounting student, costing is very important!

Internet activities that i always do would be searching information, downloading songs and movies, browse through those entertainment websites, chatting with friends as well as playing games. I would like to surf any website without any purpose occasionally.

Well, there are a lot more to introduce about myself. I would like to stop here. Happy reading of our blog!!