unit 8 business online p1

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In this unit I will be examining different online business activities, understand what makes it feasible for a business to go online, find out the issues which affect how businesses operate online and consider the benefits of operating online.

TASK 1 (P1)

A) John Lewis:

)

John Lewis website sells goods and provides good service for customers. John Lewis sells in both, stores and online. You can shop or browse items online and get them delivered free. Products that John Lewis sells on-line are:

* Home & Gardening items

* Electrical Appliances

* Technology

* Sports & Leisure & Travels

* Fashion

* Gifts & Flowers

* Toys

* Baby items

Also John Lewis has own credit card service called the Partnership card which

has link on the main page, this link's leads to another website

www.patnershipcard.co.uk which is designed for applying for the Partnership

Card.

The People behind this card: The Partnership card team is issued and managed by John Lewis Financial Services Limited, which is a member of the HSBC Group of Companies. The John Lewis Partnership teamed up with the HSBC Group in 2003 to create and jointly manage John Lewis Financial Services Limited, with the aim of providing a card offer that is right for John Lewis and Waitrose Customers. The combination of the John Lewis Partnership's retailing expertise and customer knowledge, combined with the HSBC group's significant card experience and technological skills enable John Lewis Financial Services to offer a compelling and attractive credit card. For more info: visit, www.parnershipcard.co.uk/html/aboutus.jsp

2)

John Lewis is in the Private Sector:

The John Lewis Partnership is a creative and successful way of doing business, bravely putting the happiness of Partners at the centre of everything it does. It's the embodiment of an ideal, the outcome of nearly a century of endeavour to create a different sort of company, owned by Partners dedicated to serving customers with flair and fairness.

All 68,000 permanent staffs are Partners. The partnership owns 26 John Lewis department stores, 187 Waitrose supermarkets (www.waitrose.com), an online and catalogue business, John Lewis Direct (www.johnlewis.com), a direct services company, Green Bee (www.greenbee.com), a production unit and a farm with a turnover of nearly £6 billion last year. Partners share in the benefits and profits of a business that puts them first.

3)

John Lewis has a massive brochure which gives information about the products to customers before they buy it. John Lewis also provides to customers a John Lewis website where they can shop through John Lewis website as well as the brochure.

4)

John Lewis does have a website to advertise and market, to promote the business. If a business has a website, it's useless if no one knows about it.

5)

As well as providing information The John Lewis website is about advertising and marketing and education and business an activity which includes the direct selling of goods.

6)

Yes, this site is used to support mail order by customers being able to order catalogues.

7)

Yes, it is possible for you to carry out online transactions over the website this is because customers purchase/order from online and are able to pay for the goods.

8)

Apart from transactions John Lewis website does introduce others things. Customers can get updates, offers such as, Christmas, Mothers Day, Summer Sale and promotions as well.

B) Watford Borough Council

. This website is informational and does not sell goods or products online.

2. Watford Borough Council is a public, local government service.

3. No, this website also provides a whole lot more than just providing information because you could make payments on the website and there is also a whole lot more links you could choose from.

4. Yes, because its lots of people know about their services and advertise their latest news the website is used to advertise and market. The products and services.

5. Letting people know what their rights are and by using different languages for those who don't understand English the site educates people.

6. There is nothing on the website that can be order or use for mail order, so the site does not support mail order.

7. Yes, you could carry out online transactions over the website because this allows people to pay their council tax and other local authority charges.

8. There are other interactive activities as well as transaction, such as you could get information on planning or even submit planning applications and you can review it by using the website.

C) England shelter

. This site is for on-line selling of a service, it is just a service for homeless people because there isn't any goods or services to be sold.

2. The service is a charity service; shelter is a privately owned not for profit company. It is not owned by the government.

3. No, apart from providing information this website helps people to find place to live.

4. If they don't advertise customers wouldn't know about this site, it's pointless and their services so this website is used to advertise and marketing.

5. This site does educate users because you can find out all about your rights if you become homeless.

6. There's nothing to order on this website so it does not support mail order.

7. Yes, you can carry out online transactions because you can donate money online.

8. There is no other major interaction although you can get advice and support.

TASK 2 (P2) (M2) PLANNING ISSUES.

) Yes! It's suitable to have a website for a Pizza Company because customers can save time, it means you can avoid the trip to the shop and it's easy and secure. Also business should know is there a market for what you're trying to sell, this has to be researched and a questionnaire can find out. I would say there's a market for a Pizza Company to have a website that sells pizza online.

2) All websites have a domain name - which is normally the same as the organisational name, such as www.lush.com, www.boots.co.uk, and www.zara.com ideally, these names are easy for customers to remember, to say and spell and as near to the operational name as possible.

Many UK businesses own the domain name ending with.com and .co.uk (and possibly.net as well) - and may even register common misspellings of their name so that anyone entering these will be automatically redirected to the main site. British Gas has gone one further and registered www.house.co.uk as well as their own name.

A name must be officially registered before it can be used. It is then leased to the owner for a specified period, after which time the owner can choose to renew it or not.

There are loads of issue's when you choosing a Domain name, which are:

1 Your Domain name should be your Website name.

2 Generic names of Brands.

3 Long or Short Domain Names.

4 Hyphenated Names.

5 Plurals "The", and "My" Forms of the Domain Name

6 www.petra'spizza.co.uk

3) The businesses have to choose whether to create the website "in - house" or "out source" ask a professional to do it so.

In house: Do I need to obtain help and advice through many free services and local agencies, such as Chamber of Commerce. Are more skills needed to use specialist packages like Macromedia's Dream weaver, fireworks and flash technology, which enables professional developers to produce many different effects and designs.

2 Outsource: Do I know how to run a professional web-design agency for a business, which is worthwhile to ensure that the site positively promotes the company's image.

My Recommendation:

4) The most ideal website should include an e-mail address, in order to contact them. However this means that they need to hire an employee in order to check these mails and update the websites, this employee would also be very useful in suggesting future developments based on the customer feedback. Selling stock online would also mean that they need to keep enough stock to meet the customer demand, this mean that an extra storage space is needed. Extra staff would also be necessary in order to dispatch items. There must be a thorough check to see that the payment is received before sending the goods.

5) These will depend upon the scope of the online business, the type of site and whether it is hosted in-house or by ISP: to run a website these skills are needed.

? Technical Skills - to ensure the website stays operational and is fully secure

? Website design and maintenance skills - to develop or update the site on a regular basis

? E-marketing skills - to ensure that the site is ranked highly by Internet search engines and are easy for customers to find

? Admin and customer service skills - to respond to customer enquiries, orders and feedback promptly and appropriately

? Management skills - to take account of the legal responsibilities related to operating online, to identify opportunities for improvements and future developments, to ensure staff are well-trained and resourced and capable of coping with the additional and different demands received.
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IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES

) If the site doesn't run correctly or efficiently, users wouldn't reuse it and wouldn't like it.

* The biggest potential problem of going online is that the information will be badly organised.

* Websites should be planned so that users can easily find what they are most likely to need.

* Customers can decide whether they like a website within two clicks, if they see a badly designed site with too much text or cannot find what they want they are likely to leave it very quickly.

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