The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers

Touch ‘n Go card is an electronic purse that can be used at all highways in Malaysia, major public transports, selected parking sites and theme park.

Touch ‘n Go uses contactless smartcard technology. The card looks similar to a credit card. Customer needs to fill in an application form at Touch ‘n Go Sales counter. The card costs RM10 each and comes with a one-year warranty period. However, If the card is faulty during this period, customer will get a card replacement free-of-charge. User can continue using the card as long as it is pre-loaded with electronic cash. User can reload the card at toll plazas, train stations, Automated Teller Machines, Cash Deposit Machines, Petrol kiosks and at authorised third party outlets. Reload denomination is ranging from RM20 to RM500.

Touch ‘n Go enhances the speed of paying for low value but high frequency transactions. Apart from the speed, it is also very convenient because user no longer need to prepare for small change or wait in queue at the cash lane to complete the transaction. For more information regards the Touch 'n Go Sdn Bhd, click here

http://www.touchngo.com.my/AboutUs_CompBG.html

Nowadays, the consumers can make purchases by using Touch n' Go card to make the payment.They are such as: Burger King, Dunkin' Dunuts, A & W,7 Eleven and so on.This is very convenient for cunsumers but however, that is only available for Klang Valley...

Mobie Payment system in Malaysia

Mobile Money is a PIN-based Mobile Payment Solution designed by Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd in Malaysia to address the limitations and bottlenecks created by cash, cheques and credit cards. It unlocks the power of the mobile phone to make payments, allowing registered users to pay for goods and services at anytime, anywhere using only a mobile phone coupled with a 6-digit security PIN (Personal Identification Number) via SMS (Short Messaging Service). This strategy is gives the freedom to shoppers to buy products online and pay the merchant using his/her mobile phone without being physically present at the store and it allows merchants to take online order without the need for online shopper to disclose their credit card information.

Mobile Money will encourage more consumers to shop online. This will definitely be a great boon to the e-commerce industry in Malaysia. It will surely encourage more merchants to adopt online selling as an extra sales channel which complement perfectly with their offline sales channel to help them sell more of their goods and services

The benefits of Mobile Money to merchants are it can sell to anyone, anywhere at anytime, no minimum monthly transaction, no rental fee, no merchant account required, super low transaction tee at 1.5%, safe and secure, low signup fees, get paid super fast, multi methods to request for payment, and refund and reversal features.

In order to pay using Mobile Money, a shopper must have a savings, current or credit card account with Hong Leong Bank or CIMB bank. It functions like a Credit Card if a shopper applies for a "Pay by Mobile Phone" credit card account (E.g. CIMB Mobile Credit Card). The shopper will be billed by the bank accordingly by month's end. In addition, it functions as a Debit Card if it is tied to shopper's savings or current account. The amount will be deducted instantly from the account upon successful transaction.

Moreover, Mobile Payment also introducing Mobile Money 0% Interest Easy Payment Plan (EPP) to customers with lowers merchant interest rate that allowed customers opt for greater value products / services & pay by installment.

In Conclusion, Mobile Payment system is a system that will enhance the business transaction process with using minimum resources and convenience ways for potential customer to get their thing easily.

Electronic Currency

Electronic money (also known as e-money, electronic cash, electronic currency, digital money, digital cash or digital currency) refers to money or scrip which is exchanged only electronically. Typically, this involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems

Peppercoin is acryptographic system for processing micropayments. Peppercoin Inc. was a company that offers services based on the peppercoin method. Peppercoin is a small payments technology company transforming routine card transactions into new revenue opportunities.

Peppercoin's platform accelerates the cash to card transition, getting customers to come back more often and spend more using the cards in their wallets - all while costing merchants less. Only Peppercoin provides a loyalty-ready PCI-compliant small payments suite for all payment models, including pre-paid, subscription, and pay-as-you-go with Intelligent Aggregation.

The peppercoin system was developed by Silvio Micali and Ron Rivest and first presented at the RSA Conference in 2002The core idea is to bill one randomly selected transaction a lump sum of money rather than bill each transaction a small amount. It uses "universal aggregation", which means that it aggregates transactions over users, merchants as well as payment service providers. The random selection is cryptographically secure -- it cannot be influenced by any of the parties. It is claimed to reduce the transaction cost per dollar from 27 cents to "well below 10 cents."

Peppercoin, Inc. was a privately held company founded in late 2001 by Micali and Rivest based in Waltham, MA. It has secured about $15M in venture capital in two rounds of funding. Its services have seen modest adoption. Peppercoin collects 5-9% of transaction cost from the merchant. Peppercoin, Inc. was bought out in 2007 by Chockstone for an undisclosed amount.

Waltham-based Peppercoin has landed a deal to provide Wurld Media with its Peppercoin Small Transaction Suite payments software to allow Wurld Media to sell legal digital content through Peer Impact, its peer-to-peer (P2P) network.

Using Peppercoin's software will allow Wurld Media to accept credit and debit cards for small payments, such as individual media downloads. No financial details of the deal were disclosed.
According to New York-based Wurld Media, its Peer Impact is the first P2P network in the world to sign agreements with the four major record labels. Peer Impact's business model is different from other paid music P2P services in that it allows consumers to earn money back by legally sharing their authorized music content with others.

Peppercoin enables profitable new business models for low-priced digital content and physical goods. Peppercoin's small-payment products help merchants, banks and other payments companies build market adoption quickly through a flexible, consumer-friendly approach.

Credit card debts:Causes and Prevention

Credit card debt is an example of unsecured consumer debt. Debt results when a client of a credit card company purchases an item or service through the card system. Debt accumulates and increases via interest and penalties when the consumer does not pay the company for the money he or she spent. It can prove a temptation too far, and soon they find themselves in debt. In fact, spending on a credit card is borrowing money. It is a debt and must be repaid at some point. The results of not paying this debt on time are that the company will charge a late payment penalty and report the late payment to credit rating agencies. The late payment penalty itself increases the amount of debt the consumer has.

There are several causes of credit card debts. Firstly, while the convenience and free credit feature of credit cards ,make them potentially useful to everyone, many consumers run up large unpaid balances on their card accounts and continually make sizable interest payments. The card issuers make this easy by asking that the cardholders make only a minimum monthly payment, which is usually far less than the unpaid balance.

Secondly, credit card interest rates are high so the profits can be high. Banks and other credit card issuers are after their slice of that big money, including from you. They can justify big marketing budgets to get your money. I deliberately do not say "get your business". You will resist better if you think "they are after my money."

Thirdly, it is very easy to get credit cards, multiple credit cards in fact. Issuers of credit cards make it easy for you, if you have had no debt problems in the past. If they seem to take it lightly, it is understandable that their customers do too. But remember, they take the risk factors into account when setting interest rates. That's why they are so high.

Fourth, your friends, neighbors and work colleagues will probably all have multiple credit cards, talk about them and flash them around from time to time. That can all influence your own attitude to credit card debt.

Fifth, depending on what country you are in, yours may be a " have now, pay later" society. Immediate gratification can take precedence over common sense. If everyone else is doing it, it surely must be right? It is wrong especially if the interest rates are too high.

If you have credit cards, but have not yet let your spending get out of hand then now is the time to take stock of you position and make some decisions about your financial future. Ask yourself what do you want those credit cards for? Do you just want them so that you have a source of payment in emergencies, to shop occasionally online, or when you travel abroad? Or do you plan on going on a shopping spree and spending the rest of the year struggling to clear the balance? Most people do not intend to ever use up their credit limits and max out their credit cards, but it is surprisingly easy to do and can be very difficult to undo. So, we will discuss several preventions that the credit card holders may take into account.

Firstly, most people know that credit card companies have given them far more than they reasonably can afford to pay back. So, it takes self control and discipline to keep these cards in your wallet and not over spend on them.

Secondly, you may plan all your borrowing. Sit down and write down what you absolutely must buy over the next year and add what you would like to buy. Total the cost and write down each month budget. Make sure you will not over budget.

Thirdly, you may pay off smaller balances first. It is common for a person to try to focus on their cards with larger balances first. Pay off the smaller ones. It will take less time and you will feel a sense of satisfaction when you have actually completed your goal. This will boost your confidence and make ir easier to tackle the higher balances.

Fourth, if you can afford it, pay doubles the minimum payment. The minimum payment usually pays just enough to cover the interest and a little more that pays downs the balance. Paying extra will pay your balance more quickly.

Fifth, credit card holders should avoid carrying a balance on credit cards, but if you do end up carrying a balance, make it a priority to pay it down. If you have more than one credit card carrying a balance, pay the minimum on the cards with the lowest APR and concentrate on eliminating each credit card, one at a time, starting with the card with highest APR.

In conclusion, we should always plan before spending especially in the case that the interest of the credit card is high sometime. Finally, we will manage to get rid of credit card debts.

p:)

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

The threat online security always occurs when someone poses as a legitimate company to obtain sensitive personal data and fraudulently conducts transactions on your existing accounts. The current methods of online fraud are fraudulent emails, websites, and pop-up windows, or any combination of these.

Fraudulent emails will often ask for personal information and contain an overly generic greeting and may claim that your information has been compromised, that your account has been frozen, or ask you to confirm the authenticity of your transactions. Usually appear to come from a legitimate source. While some emails are easily identified as fraudulent, others may appear to come from a legitimate address and trusted online source. Do not rely on the name or address in the "From" field, as this is easily altered. Sample of a FAKE email being circulated:

From: Maybank Bhd
To: user@website.com.my
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 10:58 AM
Subject: Alert Security Warning

Dear Maybank Berhad Customer,

At Maybank, we are dedicated to protect record and online information of our customer using any necessary security measure. We are introducing the New June 2008 Security Process which will protect all customers from the new and latest Spam Attacks.

We have upgraded our GGT-I Server to protect all customers using the new Maybank 56 HT Protection Due to this recent upgrade. All Maybank customers are required to update their information by following the below reference.

For additional security, after completing the first process a TAC code will be sent to your mobile phone. You are then required to fill that code on page two

www.maybank2u.com.my/security/56HT-protectionhtml

Please note that failure to update within this new security will result in account suspension and Maybank will not be held responsible for any loss.

Security Maintenance,

Maybank Bhd.

Beside that, fraudulent emails might be sending containing prizes or gift certificate offers that promise a prize or gift certificate in exchange for completing a survey or answering questions. They may direct you to provide your personal information to collect the alleged prize or certificate. Always confirm that the prize or gift certificate is being issued from a known and trusted company.

Followed by link to fraudulent websites which may direct you to counterfeit websites carefully designed to look legitimate, but which actually collect personal information for fraudulent used like below links that direct you to counterfeit maybank online banking website.

http://www.newsolutions-june2008.com/Maybank2u-Online.htm
http://www.new-malayan-gateway.com/Maybank2u-Online.htm
http://www.new-setupbrands.com/Maybank2u-Online.htm
http://www.may2u-june2007secured.com/Maybank2u-Online.htm -->
http://trackmapper.free.fr/images/_notes/maybank2u.com.my/signon.htm
http://sebastianschaper.net/aegabi06/cache/May2u-Service/Maybank2u_com.html
http://www.may-malayansolutions.com/Maybank2u-Security.htm
http://lordsofexodar.free.fr//images/mbb_login.htm
http://chrysantheme.guilde.free.fr/phpraider//authentication/smf/mbb_login.htm
http://210.217.236.12/wmaster/pop/mayredi.html

Moreover, it also may contain Trojan horses and other computer viruses. Fraudulent emails may include attachments that contain computer viruses, which you can access a virus via a link in an email. (A "Trojan horse" is a particularly harmful virus that can record your keystrokes or relay other information to an unauthorized source.)
Next method of online threat is fraudulent websites attempt to direct you to fraudulent websites via email and pop-up windows and try to collect your personal data. In many cases there is no easy way to determine if you are on a fraudulent website because the URL will contain the name of the institution it is spoofing.

Lastly, current method is pop-up windows, the small windows or ads that appear suddenly over or under the window you are currently viewing, to obtain personal information. These windows may be generated by Adware or spyware a programs possibly hidden in free downloads such as screen savers or music-sharing software and installed on your computer. While many of these programs enable harmless advertisements, some contain potentially harmful Trojan horse programs or may monitor your web viewing activity.

In conclusion to safe our data and information are use a current web browser, install a personal firewall, keep your computer operating system up to date, install, run, and keep anti-virus software updated and avoid downloading programs from unknown sources to prevent our data and information being misuse.

The application of 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia

Do you ever trust about online transactions?

3^rd party certification shows that your web site can be trusted. They give Web site visitors an easy and reliable way to establish trust online.

they are such as:



They both provide security solutions and trusted services to help companies build a secure network and application infrastructure for their electronic transactions and communications over the network. Security plays an important role for distributed, heterogeneous and mission critical applications. Valuable business resources that are accessible over the network need to be protected against misuse to ensure the business runs smoothly.

Both VeriSign and Trustgate give trust to the shoppers about the validity of a web site. Once the site was protect with Secure Site Pro with EV SSL Certificates and display the VeriSign Secured Seal, or

WebTrust the customers know that their transactions are secure and site can be trusted.

Data Confidentiality and Data Integrity

To ensure data confidentiality and integrity, all information transmitted over the Internet is encrypted using the 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol from Verisign Certificate Authority. SSL is a secure way of transferring information between two computers on the Internet using encryption. Strong end to end encryption is also adopted within the bank's computer networks and resources.

To show that a particular web site is a WebTrust certified. This certifies the web site compliance with leading international security standards and Best Practices, as well as their commitment to maintaining a secure environment. WebTrust is an independent corporation that monitors and tests the particular web site facilities to assure that they maintain the highest and most current standards in Internet information security and exchange.

Can its implementation helps to improve customers trust?

Recently, Security concerns are causing shoppers to limit spending online. Based on the VeriSign research, Fully one-half of Internet users today avoid buying online because they are afraid their financial information might be stolen, and 49 percent of those who express concern about their information security do not make online purchases at all. Moreover, Shoppers not only recognize and value third-party trust marks, but the presence of a trust mark can persuade them to complete the purchase. This is because the 3rd party trust marks had give them confident about their transactions are secure and that particular website can be trusted.

According to a recent eMarketer report, 29 percent of consumers surveyed have reduced the number of
items they bought online in the past year because of concerns about the privacy and security of their
personal information.
• 65 percent of online shoppers have abandoned a shopping cart/basket or failed to complete an
online purchase because they didn't get a sense of security and trust when it came time to provide
payment information.
• Half of all online consumers believe that the Web site they are purchasing from bears the
responsibility for protecting their personal information.
Therefore, Consumers need constant assurances that their online transactions are protected.

How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

Personal data is about living people and could be their name, address, medical details or banking details. How do we safeguard our personal and financial data? The manner of protection often depends on what kind of data you are safeguarding and how important or sensitivity it is to us. The following tips will help us to safeguard our personal and financial data.

Firstly, we may use and maintain anti-virus software, a firewall, and anti-spy ware software to protect ourselves against viruses and Trojan horses. They may steal or modify the data on your own computer and leave our vulnerable by using anti-virus software and a firewall. We should make sure our virus definitions up to date. Spy ware or ad ware hidden in software programs may also give attackers access to your data, so use a legitimate anti-spy ware program to scan your computer and remove any of these files.

Secondly, we should always create password in order to protect our access. By using a strong password or pass-phrase, it helps to protect access to our personal and financial data. For example, we need to choose PIN wisely. While we want to choose something you'll remember, you don't want it to be something that a clever thief could figure out just by learning your birth date or your child's name. A combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols will offer you more security. The stronger the password you create, the lower the risk of password being known.

Thirdly, we should encrypt stored personal and financial data whenever possible. This can help prevent unintended disclosure even if our system has been compromised. Data can be protected by encrypting the entire storage drive (whole disk encryption) or as selectively as you need, such as by folder or even individual files. If the encryption key or password is lost, access to the data may be lost as well. There are many products or options available, so be sure to carefully select one that is right for our personal requirement.

Fourth, we need to identify where the data is stored from time to time. We must have specific places within our network or computer where we store personal and financial data. Those network shares, hard drives, servers, or system folders can then have specific protection methods used to keep them more secure. If we need to store personal and financial data temporarily on a memory stick, laptop, or other device, remove that data from the device when we have finished. We should ensure that data has been completely erased and not just deleted.

Fifth, we should always limit transportation and transmission of data if you do not need to do so. For example, do not allow our personal and financial data to be sent via email or removed on a USB stick unless there is a clear need. When we do transport or transmit it, ensure that it has an appropriate level of security.

Sixth, it is a need to check privacy policies before providing personal or financial information. We need to check the web site's privacy policy and make sure we understand how our information will be stored and used. For example, attackers may attempt to gather information by sending emails requesting that you confirm purchase or account information. In this case, we should always alert the security of our personal and financial data.

Seventh, there is a need to limit physical access. Whenever possible, we store personal or financial data on devices that are physically secured. Allowing only authorized individual accesses to those devices, and monitor access to those devices whenever possible.

Identify & compare revenue model for Google, Amazon.com &Ebay

Revenue = $ 16,593,986

Amazon.com Inc. Revenue =$ 14,835,000

eBay Inc. Revenue = $7,672,329

Google is a global technology leader focused on improving the ways people connect with information.Google generate revenue primarily by delivering relevant, cost-effective online advertising. Advertising revenues made up 99% of revenues in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

The following present Google revenue models:

Year ended 31 December 2007

Advertising Revenues (in thousands)

Google website $ 10624705

Google network web sites $5,787,938

Total advertising revenues $16,412,643

Licensing & other revenues $16,593,986

Amazon.com

provide the widest possible selection for customers worldwide, while continuing to focus on in-stock inventory availability. Amazon.com have designed their websites to enable millions of unique products to be sold. Those product categories, such as:

• Books
• Tools, Auto & Industrial
• Digital Downloads
• Home & Garden
• Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry
• Grocery
• Health & Beauty
• Movies, Music & Games
• Electronics & Computers
  
• Sports & Outdoors
• Toys, Kids & Baby

Net sales information is as follows: Year Ended 31 December 2007

(in millions)

Net sales:

North America………………………………………………...$ 8,095

International…………………………………………………...$ 6,740

Consolidated……………………………………………...$14,835

Year-over-year percentage growth:

North America………………………………………………...38%

International…………………………………………………...39

Consolidated……………………………………………...39

Year-over-year %Growth, excluding effect of exchange rates:

North America………………………………………………...38%

International…………………………………………………...31

Consolidated……………………………………………...35
Net sales mix:

North America…………………………………………………55%

International…………………………………………………...45

Consolidated……………………………………………...100%

ebaY provide online marketplaces for the sale of goods and services as well as other online
commerce, or ecommerce, platforms, online payments services and online communications offerings to a diverse
community of individuals and businesses.
Net Revenues by Type: Year Ended December 31, 2007

Net transaction revenues

Marketplaces $5,135,363

Payments 1,838,539

Communications 376,715

Total net transaction revenues 7,350,617

Advertising and other net revenues 321,712

Total net revenues $7,672,329

Net Revenues by Segment:

Marketplaces $5,363,891

Payments 1,926,616

Communications 381,822

Total net revenues $7,672,32

Summary

Google are mainly operating as delivering relevant, cost-effective online advertising. While for Amazon.com designed their websites to enable millions of unique products to be sold by themselves and by third parties. Whereas ebaY, generate revenue mainly through transaction fees.They are from different type of business, still, very successful and common in our life.

Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

Introduction

Phishing is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging and often directs users to enter details at a website, although phone contact has also been used. Phishing scams are just another attempt to get valuable information. Scammers send a mass email to every address they can find. Typically the message will appear to come from a bank or financial institution. The email states that you should update your information for one reason or another, and they usually provide a link that you can click to do so. This all sounds reasonable and it may look legitimate, but phishing scams are anything but legitimate. The link provided does not take you to the financial institution’s website. Instead, you will be submitting your information to a website run by the scammers.

“Phishing” Examples

Fake Paypal messages are a favorite phishing method. Here are 2 Paypal phish. The first claims that the account will be suspended if your account information isn't updated. In the second, the scam claims your account information needs to be updated because they found incompatible information during a billing information check. Both have nothing to do with PayPal though they are designed to look “official.” Both use scare tactics to try to get you to act without thinking. The real PayPal never sends such emails.

Phone Phishing

Not all phishing attacks require a fake website. Messages that claimed to be from a bank told users to dial a phone number regarding problems with their bank accounts.Once the phone number (owned by the phisher, and provided by a Voice over IP service) was dialed, prompts told users to enter their account numbers and PIN. Vishing (voice phishing) sometimes uses fake caller-ID data to give the appearance that calls come from a trusted organization.




Online Banking Phishing

Here is an example of an online banking phish that uses a security feature many banks and credit unions have in place—if an online banking user attempts to log onto online banking and fails a third time, the user is then locked out. They want you to panic, thinking someone is attacking your account and respond without stopping to think and check it out. Never respond to emails such as this. Your financial institution NEVER asks you to respond through an email link as this phish requests. If you were really locked out, you would have to initiate contact with the institution to get it unlocked.

How to prevent phishing

It is easy to uncover a crude phishing scam. For example, if you get an email from a bank you’ve never opened an account at, then don’t follow the link and enter your personal information.
You need to look at the message carefully to see if it is a phishing scam. Are words misspelled? Sometimes scammers operate in a second language and they give themselves away by using poor grammar.

You should also examine the link provided. Does it really go where it appears to go? For example, I could tell you that I’m giving you access to the government’s Top Secret Database at https://www.TopSecretDatabase.gov but if you click the link you’ll find that you’ve been directed to a different site. The best way to prevent this is to copy and paste the link (don’t click it) to your address bar. However, you can still get tricked by URL’s that look legitimate but have one or two letters switched.

If you have been snagged by phishing scams in the past, you need to be vigilant. First, let your financial institution know what happened. They will likely want to pursue the scammer, and they will monitor your account more closely. Next, It is always suggest that victims of phishing scams put a fraud alert on their credit report by contacting one of the major credit agencies. Finally, you’ll need to keep a close eye on your mail and your accounts. If statements stop showing up or if you see unusual activity, call your bank immediately.

E-commerce

MacBook Air - A guided Tour

The history and evolution of E-commerce

History of E-commerce.

E-commerce is using technology such as electronic data interchange and electronic funds transfer. These were both introduced in the late 1970s, allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase order and invoices electronically. The evolution and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines, and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce. From the 1990s onwards, electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning system, data mining and data warehousing.

Evolution of E-commerce begin from:

In year 1984, electronic data interchange was standardized thru ASC X12. That the companies are guaranteed would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably.

In year 1992, CompuServe offer online retail products to its customer that give them first chance to purchase product thru their computer.

In year 1994, Netscape arrived with providing users a simple and easy browser to surf the internet. It also provided secure sockets layer that protected and safe online transaction.

In year 1995, Two of the biggest names in E-commerce are launched are Amazon.com and Ebay.com. That is two companies provided largest transaction buying and selling product thru online.

In year 1998, Digital Subscriber Line, provides fast, always-on internet service to subscriber across California. This prompts people spend more time and money to online.

In year 1999, Retail spending over the internet reaches USD 20 billion according resources from business.com. Further more, E-commerce shifted from business to customer (B2C) to business to business (B2B) strategy.

In year 2000, the U.S government extended the moratorium on internet taxes until at least 2005.

In year 2001, develop from business to business (B2B) to business to employees (B2E) such as c-commerce, e-government, m-commerce and e-learning.

An example of an E-commerce success and its casuses

Amazon.com (www.amazon.com), is an American electronic commerce (e-commerce) company in Seattle, Washinton. Amazon was founded in 1994. Amazon was one of the first major companies to sell goods by internet and now become very successful in electronic business.
Amazon

Amazon's initial business plan was unusual, the company did not expect a profit for four to five years, but the strategy was effective. Amazon grew steadily in the late 1990s while other internet companies grew blindingly fast.

The following show the reason why Amazon is successful in e-commerce:

• Amazon is targeting the right customers, which 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, industrial & scientific supplies, groceries, and more. Diversity of products may satisfied or fulfill different customers’ needs.


• Amazon.com web site is easy and convenience, just have to one click, customer can easily to get whatever information about the products they want or place and track an order. Therefore, it could attract more customers especially those Customers using the web and do not want to wait around for someone to help them. Customer can just type the key words of a product in the search tab in the Amazon website, and then all the relevant products will be appear on the web site.


• In order to better understand customer behavior and preferences, Amazon has access to customer information and transaction records. It could help in improve the sales target and needs of the buyer and create a more desirable profit.


• The Amazon Web Service returns helpful information about request errors and provides troubleshooting suggestions.


• Response groups enable developers to specify the information they want. The same operation returns different data according to the response group specified in the request. For example, in one request, you might return product images. In another request using the same operation and parameters, you might return offer information. The Amazon Associates Web Service includes over fifty response groups so that responses can be finely tuned.


• Retrieve detailed product and pricing information for all products being sold on Amazon.com. For example, developers can retrieve the color, luster, size, and clarity of a pearl sold on Amazon.com. Product information is encapsulated by a rich set of XML tags so that developers can display as little or as much information as they wish.

An example of an E-commerce failure and its causes

Introduction
Many people start an ecommerce site hoping that they can be the next Amazon, but the same hopeful people often spend very little time in developing and maintaining a good and practical ecommerce site. It is not as easy as they think.

One of the examples is etoys.com. The company is a purely e-commerce toy retailer focused on the sales of children’s products. The aims are to provide a unique and fun shopping experience with the convenience of staying at home or shopping from workplace to the consumers.

Content

It has suffered greatly due to slow sales and revenue shortfall. Financial troubles that arose because of slow sales during the holiday season, it stops paying some creditors and suppliers. The continued failure in profits is forcing the company to explore new options.
There are some reasons of its failure.
Firstly, an immediate need for a large infrastructure and plenty of cash are needed in order to support an untested business model.
Secondly, built too big an infrastructure and spent too much money too quickly. In an effort to avoid the shipping missteps of 1999, the top management of the company was too fast in expanding company’s operation such as putting heavy advertising and spent a lot of money in building two warehouses in order to keep the inventories. All that spending outweighed the company's income, and investors quickly jumped ship. It closed in March 2001.
Thirdly, it has poor customer service in delivering the products to certain customers in time for Christmas 1999,. It is an important part of the e-commerce activities. It leads to the failure of the company to fulfill the specification and requirement of the customers as a whole.


Conclusion

It is a very good example for those who wish to start e-commerce. It may provide some guidelines for them and learn from others’ failure and do the better one.

About Lim Yong Yee

Hi!
My name is Lim Yong Yee, I came from Batu Pahat, Johor.
I am pursuing Bachelor of Commerce Studies Accounting in UTAR, Bandar Sg. Long. Now I am in Year 3 Semester 1, group 13.

My hobbies are surfing internet, watching drama series, reading, feeding small animals and so on.
I love feeding them since some of them are very cute, but on the other hand, some of them are very pity.

5 websites that I visit most are:
www.yahoo.com
This is the website that i use to check my mail, check dictionary when i had problem with some words. Moreover, i also use it to listen to the radio.

www.wble.utar.edu.my
This is the website that i usually download some lecture notes, especially they are not clear. i also use this to communicate with my classmates or course mates about the latest news. In addition, i also use it to communicate with lecturer when i was not clear about the notes.

www.publicbank.com.my
i use it to do some transaction like paying water, electricity and transfer money to pay my rental. however, this is more convenient than the paper work, and no charges.

www.google.com
i will use this search engine to find assignment information.

www.114dy.com
this is the website that i will use to download some movie,favorite songs, ringtone, games and so on.