ICT in Business

The main aim of this assignment is to establish the growth of E Commerce within British Retail. In order to do this appropriate research methods must be carried out which will mainly be done via internet. The two main E Commerce businesses I have chosen to research are Amazon and eBay, which are the two major e commerce stores currently dominating the online market.

British Retailing is also named as ‘E Tailing’, e-commerce consists of the buying, selling, , and servicing of or over . The industry might see it as an application aimed at commercial transactions.

Out of the two chosen e commerce companies it has proven that eBay is one of the main dominating companies it has been predicted that by April 2010 online shopping will have expanded by 320% resulting £60 billion a year and accounting for 20% of all UK sales.

Amazon was launched in 2000 and has taken on alliances such as ‘Cars Direct’, ‘drugstore.com’ and ‘wireless phones.com’ which has a connecting link to other British retail stores online. By Amazon and eBay using e commerce as source of British Retail it will enable consumers to access products a lot faster which will save time as opposed to going out and physically going to have to buy them. The benefits of using ICT within this specific area of British Retailing will enable customers to see the new ranges of products and services in which eBay and Amazon are offering.

Amazons key features as a website as a whole are it has easy browsing facilities, useful product information for customers which saves them time researching products or services elsewhere. Amazon also provides a broad selection, low prices, one click order technology, secure payment systems and efficient order fulfilment.

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Another method of ICT which plays a great role within E Commerce is making E payments, i.e. paying for goods online via credit/debit card. This is a more efficient and secure way of purchasing goods as there are several security questions which need to be answered in which only the cardholder is able to answer. By doing this customers will feel more secure as by having access to their personal details themselves will encourage them to shop online. Pay Pal is also another very common method which is used within ecommerce especially on popular websites such as Amazon, eBay, Dell and large companies like Microsoft. By customers using pay pal it protects them from fraud and other people accessing personal details without consent, it also enables payments to be made from the customers account if sufficient funds are available if not the payment is not authorised and prevents the customer paying additional charges.

The success of eBay has had a significant impact within today e-commerce society, from a business model perspective. P2P (peer to peer) business model which eBay is communicating on has built a successful reputation globally.

In today’s global economy people can do transactions through mobile devices and other means of communication. EBay has been prolonged with many fraud implications as many people will not use over the Internet due to concerns about theft and fraud.

Amazon is based through a B2C (business to consumer) business model. Through this business model, it aim purpose is to cut the middleman out. An example would be Dixons super store, a consumer does not require to go through the middle man while on Amazon, this save them money. B2C has many benefits but is also had disadvantages in today’s society. A consumer can not feel the item they are purchasing, this makes the consumer more cautious of what to purchase. Also another implication that occurs is that the consumer will have to wait for few days deliver of the item.

Issues which may arise within e commerce which can be classed as disadvantages of ICT could be the current competition of other e commerce businesses within the British Retail sector i.e. eBay and Amazon are the main two competitors currently within etailing. Another sector of the market which seems to be taking is the ICT companies in general such as Dell and Microsoft which have dominated a large sector within the etailing sector.

E commerce can only be accessed via ICT which is an advantage within itself, as it enables consumers who are unable to access shops or products locally to access the same facilities online.

By doing this, it enhances the current growth of E Commerce in British retail by expanding products and services wider audiences, which is less time consuming and may end up being cheaper from consumers as they may save on petrol or travel fares if postage and packaging of their products are cheaper or maybe even free.

The only downfall this could have is if the products or materials which have been ordered do not meet customer’s satisfactions and expectations, i.e. the wrong products being delivered, colour, size or even worse not being delivered to the customers at all.

As a whole E Commerce within British retail has proven to be the most successful and dominant at present as figure released by cyber source national predicting online sales were predicted as E Commerce revenue at 35% in 2005 which would mean that 20 million shoppers would spend over £17 billion online in the UK alone. By the figures being established by other researchers such as cyber source and IMRG proves that there is still room for E Commerce to expand even further within the British Retail market and has been proven that UK are predicted to fall into the billions category of spending which proves that the E Commerce market is secure within the British Market. This still indicates that there is still room for expansion within this market and that there is hope for other E Commerce companies to expand and dominate the market like eBay and Amazon.

Business such as Amazon and eBay has advantages of using ICT due to the fact it enables them to exchange information with other researchers such as Cybersource and IMRG.

Peer Reviews

Here's what a star student thought of this essay

danielbeal

28th of Feb 2012

Quality of writing

The report uses the case studies of Amazon and eBay, however though-out the report doesn't give any screenshot to allow the examiner to visualize the report. Some screenshot should be in-putted into the report, as this will link with the student's writing.

Level of analysis

The report states that on-line shopping will increase 320% by April 2010. However the student hasn't given any reason for such a large increase in sales. The report could include 'There are a number of reasons which will cause this increase in the coming years. The ease, price and convenience is three main reasons for this predicted increase'. This will show the examiner, that the student acknowledges that there is a upward trend regrading on-line retailing and stated possible reason for this upward trend. The report states consumer's will save time/money by shopping on-line. Although why will there? The examiner cannot assume the answer, and has to mark the work written within the report. Thus, the report could include 'If a consumer were to use traditional retailers on the high street, there would have to visit a number of stores to pay a reasonable price and this would be vastly time consuming. Using an on-line store, allows a consumer to visit a price comparison website and select the cheapest price and complete the order quickly'.

Response to question

In summary, the report is OK. This is due, as the report states a number of reasons for an upward trend in on-line sales. In addition, the student describes the use of eCommerce. However the report is lacking reasoning for the change, and the student needs to justify their points. The report states that Amazon.com was launched in the year 2000. From my own background research, this is in-correct. Amazon.com was launched in 1994. This should be changed within the report.

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