E-c0mMeRcE cHaNnEl

Things to take note to prevent e-auction fraud when a consumer participating in an e-auction

2008-07-09T06:11:00.008-04:00

There are several antifraud measures can be used as the protection measures when consumer participating in an e-auction. An escrow service is one of the popular measures. Escrow.com

reduces the potential risk of fraud by acting as a trusted third that collects, holds, and sends a buyer's money to a seller according to instructions agreed on by both the buyer and seller. Typically, once the buyer receives and approves the item from the seller within an agreed time frame, the escrow service then sends the payment to the seller.

Escrow.com is the recommended transaction settlement service of many of the top names in e-Commerce, including eBay and eBay Motors. Escrow services are provided by a licensed and regulated escrow company. Government agencies perform regular audits of independently licensed escrow companies. The audit examinations serve to protect public funds, determine safety and soundness of operations and determine compliance with escrow statutes and regulations. It also governs under the Escrow Law.

Beside, the Feedback Forum is the place to learn about your trading partners, view their reputations, and express your opinions by leaving feedback on your transactions. Such member-to-member comments help the millions of buyers and sellers in the community build trust and share their trading experiences with others. Therefore, consumer may make their purchases decision base on the multiple feedbacks from buyers to a seller.

Authentication service is to determine whether an item is genuine based on an independent authenticator's physical inspection and described appropriately. It is a way of confirm the identity and evaluate the condition of an item. Third parties will evaluate and identify an item through a variety of means. For example, some collectors have their item “DNA tagged” for identification purpose. It provides a way of tracking an item if it charges ownership in future. There are companies that provide this specialized services, we should find the right type of expertise.

Review a local E-commerce Site

2008-07-08T00:41:00.002-04:00

Blooming Florist began operations in 1981. Through the years, it has grown from a small retail shop to six retail outlets, and Blooming is also networked with 75,000 florists worldwide through its membership in Interflora Pacific Unit Limited. Their services and products include floral fresh cut flowers for all occasions, especial in Roses , Tulips, Gerberas, Lilies and Heliconias, and also have flower and fruits, fruit baskets, hampers, gifts, cakes and candies.

Through to visit the Blooming Florist site, we can identify what product them service for and all the picture had been decorate nicely and each product stated with a standard price. Beside that, the shopping card process is standard and it is convenience to consumers take order. However consumers can choose different option payment such as through online banking, mobile payment or credit card, in state it provide secure payment of verified by visa/master card. Futhermore, its also had provided the products search engine, customer service such as payment methods, delivery service, refund policy etc, information about Blooming Florist, etc.

Consumers not only order the purchase through network, but also Blooming Florist has provided “Live Support” service that will have operators to take your call and order. At the end, Blooming Florist had a “World Delivery, Satisfaction Guaranteed” services through internet to consumers. Importantly, all the transaction payment is in RM (Ringgit Malaysia).

Corporate Blogging

2008-07-07T12:12:00.006-04:00

A corporate blog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. There are 2 major types of corporate blogs, which are either external or internal.

Internal blogs
An internal blog, generally accessed through the corporation’s intranet, only allowed employee to view and access. These blogs may encourage the employee participation, free discussion of issues, collective intelligence, direct communicating between various layer of an organization and a sense of community.

External blogs
An external blog is a publicly available weblog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons can share their views. It is often used to announce new products and services (or the end of old products). It also allows a window to the company culture and is often treated more informally than traditional press releases. Besides, it is better than the press release as it allowed to post the comment by the reader.

One of the corporate blog example is Yahoo! Search blog. As Yahoo! prepares to support standards, like RDFa for example, we've continued to work closely with the best and brightest in the semantic markup community. Click here to look more detail about the Yahoo! Implementation.

Although there are debates on whether CEOs should blog or not, blogging among CEOs is becoming popular. (Top 10 CEOs Blogs)

Pros and Cons
The advantage of blogs is that posts and comments are easy to reach and follow due to centralized hosting and generally structured conversation threads.

However, having a blog may be important to a technology-based company such as Apple or Microsoft, but it does not means that it is same important to other company that are lack of used of the technology. Besides, the irritated discussion forum may occur, if the reader may post or reply something slanderous in an unprofessional manner. For more detail about pros and cons, click here.

For more information:

Top 15 Corporate blogs

The Corporate Blogs List

Why corporate blogs

E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies

2008-07-07T03:49:00.000-04:00

The Government has implemented government operation internally, as well as how it delivers services to people of Malaysia through launched the Electronic Government in order to lead the country into Information Age. It brings potential for better growth as to provide a better service to the public. E-Government has introduced e-Filling, Renewing Road Tax and Driving License online, KWSP’s i-Akaun and E-Perolehan. Others than that, the Government has defined seven innovative Flagship Application in order to accelerate Malaysia’s vision 2020.

Problems:

1. Lack of acceptance on Malaysian. There are some problems may faced by users where Malaysians may feels distrust on banking online or buying from an internet store like very unsecured transaction during performing with another party through a computer. There should provide more government staff to consult the citizens and explain how to use the e-government services in the safety way.

2. Language barrier. There is a problem on English language is most using for the government websites. For those citizens is lacks in English language where they will not perceive to attempt on it. The government website should be in different version language in order to take care the minor who do not or not proficient in English language.

3. Lack of public awareness. Majority of the citizens are not aware of the services offered due to the government less of promoting the services. The government should increase awareness of the citizens through TV advertisement, organizing workshops at shopping mall.

4. Lack of IT knowledge. The Malaysian not every one has IT knowledge so it is hard to handle on the technical problem aroused. They will feel it brings problem more than benefits the users. Thus, most of users more likely involves in physical attend on the making every transaction with the physical medium not through internet medium. The industry should have consultant in order to promote the e-features when the user is doing any transaction at your place or to supervise every step in performing transaction to user.

Electronic Currency

2008-06-28T01:51:00.013-04:00

Electronic currency refers to money or scrip which is exchanged only electronically. This typically involved uses of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. One of the ways of e-micropayment that used to make online payment is PayLoadz.

Payloadz has carving its own niche and providing means to market and sell downloadable products such as music, software, e-books and other files. While, Payloadz offers an easy and powerful e-commerce service. If you want to sells downloadable digital files, Payloadz is definitely worth considering.

Besides, Payloadz not only provides the means to sell the software, e-books, music, movies, digital art, manuals, articles and anything that resides in a digital file and can be downloaded, it also managed the transactions through eBay and provides the server space to store the files.

After uploading and configuring your products, Payloadz generates software code that you simply paste into your Web site and that adds a "Buy Now" button. Beyond the secure storage and transactions, Payloadz carries out file delivery and handles product key registrations. Overall, the Payloadz is the seamless path to selling digital goods on the Web.

With the accounts configured, you're ready to enter the products that you wish to sell. A product page asks for item name, ID number and selling price and allows you to write a "thank you" note that will appear in a customer's e-mail along with the download instructions.

The product detail screen accepts product information before uploading your files to PayLoadz' servers.

When customers browse your Web site and decide to buy something, they simply click the "Buy Now" button that adds item to their shopping cart. After that, when they finished shopping, they click the "check Out" button and are prompted for their PayPal account information. If they don't have PayPal account, they can still pay with a credit card.

After the sale, PayLoadz sends an e-mail to the customer that thanks them with your message and provides a link to download the product. The link serves a traditional pop-up box so customers can "seve" or "open" files. As the vendor, you will receive the e-mail that lets you know that someone purchased your product.

For security, Payloadz supports keys that require customers to validate and register their products. As you would expect, these keys can be tied specifically to transactions. PayLoadz also offers an option to reference "remote key scripts" that are running on remote server to create keys.

Furthermore, optional features let you list an item on a PayLoadz e-store or PayLoadz eBay store. Here, PayLoadz offers an online store of its own that provides subscribers with an additional marketing channel. You can also work through PayLoadz to list and sell products through eBay auctions. Beside that, the service supports Google Checkout to charge credit cards, process orders and send payments to your bank account.

An impression affliate sales systems allows other sites to refer customers to you and receive a commission for promoting your sales. With each sale, both you and the affiliate are alerts via e-mail. At the end of each week, PayLoadz calculates the sales for the period and makes a payment to the affiliate through PayPal.

PayLoadz offers the reports that summarize sales and affiliate commissions.

In addition, PayLoadz offers you 2 types of pricing: 1) a flat monthly fee that is based on the size of your files and, 2) a fee that's a percentage of your sales, typically is 15%. At press time, PayLoadz was offering the first month of service for free. You can visit this websites to view the pricing information.
For more information about the PayLoadz, click here to have a look.

The Causes and Prevention of Credit Card DEBTS

2008-06-27T01:09:00.001-04:00

Nowadays, credit card become popular because it more convenience and effective to settle the payment when want pay a huge amount bill (9 reason to love credit card). BUT user are not usually seen as a good risk for obtaining a loan, overspend on credit card will cause user to carry the debt because using credit card settle bill is faster, however when face to the monthly credit card statement user will grab their head to settle/pay the balance. Especially those are new applying first credit card such as students (More info that causes, consequences, and solution). It common happens on male than female.

The causes of credit card debt because users want to show off their card that treat their friends eat, or help girlfriend pay their bills such as clothes. In other hand, poor money management is the reason why many users accumulate lots of debt. “Swipe! Swipe! Swipe!” the card but at the end of month item you pay is useless, or over the credit card limit. So at the end, the credit card statement become greater as user is carrying the debt. Beside that apply too many credit card also will causes users bear the credit card interest, even users didn’t use the card.

Prevention of credit card debt First, effective pay-down plan is sticking with it. Don’t let up on the monthly payments as the card’s minimum payments inch down and as bills get paid off. Second, think before you act that take a hard look at your finances and determine how much you can realistically afford to pay each month. Third, pay more than the minimum. Once you start paying more than the minimum, the debts start to disappear. Use Bankrate.com’s credit card minimum payment calculator to see how increasing your payments will cut your time in debt.

Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: Its potentials and consumers’ adoption strategies

2008-06-25T08:22:00.008-04:00

Nowadays, every people owes mobile devices such as PDAs, wireless tablets and any other device. These all devices can be connected to mobile telecommunication network and possible to make payment through the devices called as mobile payment system.

Mobile money (MM Wallet) is one of mobile payment systems that available in Malaysia. Mobile money is a pin-based mobile payment solution designed by Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd to address the limitations and bottlenecks created by cash, cheques and credit cards because MM Mobile Payment system is very secure and it is a closed loop payment system. Its service allowing the users to make any payments at anytime and anywhere by using only a mobile phone coupled with 6-digit security PIN (Personal Identification Number) via SMS (Short Messaging Service). The services are convenient for the user without physical present at the store and disclose their identity for make any payment.

Mobile Payment systems are involving local cash deposit and withdrawal solutions and its highest potential adoption by customer. Paying cash transaction can entail high transaction costs so it can reduce by using mobile payment system. Besides that, the merchant also can enjoy the lower transaction cost instead with credit card services. They are targets 1million users for MM wallet by year end (19/6/06, The Edge Daily) and also 100,000 merchants for mobile payment service (19/1/2005, The EDGE). Recently, many banks also launch mobile service as an extension of their channel in the large mobile user country such as Citibank and OCBC bank.
Its system provides many benefits for merchants( http://www.neowave.com.my/mobilemoney_benefits.asp) and users as well (http://www.mobile-money.com/mmlogin.htm).

Customer using mobile payment will be rewarded instant cash rebate for each transaction in order to encourage more people to involve the system. After that, accumulated cash can be used to make purchases at any of Mobile Money retail outlets. For example KFC and Pizzahut meal voucher and Maxis. Besides that, it has more than 2,500 merchants have signed for the service now.

The mobile payment process link : http://www.neowave.com.my/0doc/MobileMoneyPaymentSystem.pdf
Related link :
http://www.mobile-money.com/
http://www.neowave.com.my/index.asp

The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers.

2008-06-25T07:32:00.006-04:00

Touch 'n Go Sdn Bhd (formerly known as Rangkaian Segar Sdn Bhd) incorporated in October 1996 which provides contactless means of fare payment services via a pre-paid e-payment card called the Touch ‘n Go card. There are several ranges of Touch ‘n Go cards to suit different market needs, included Manual Touch'n Go, Fleet Xs, Biz Xs, and Touch'n Go Zing Auto Reload Card.

Touch'n Go card is an electronic purse that can be used at all highways in Malaysia, major public transports in Klang Valley, selected parking sites and theme park.Touch'n Go uses contactless smartcard technology which looks similar to a credit card. User can continue using the card as long as it is pre-loaded with electronic cash.

In my opinion, the implementation of Touch'n Go enhances the convenience and efficiency of paying for low-value but high frequency transactions. It is able to reduce the transaction time effectively at the point-of-usage and eliminate the trouble of preparing small change for the fare. In the near future, its will be used more widely in merchant outlet and bring more convenience cashless environment to our daily life.

The Octopus card launched in September 1997 to collect fares for the city's Mass Transit Railway (MTR). It is a rechargeable contactless stored value smart card used to transfer electronic payments in online or offline systems in Hong Kong.The Octopus card system is widely used payment system for virtually all public transport in Hong Kong. It is also used for payment at convenience stores, supermarkets, fast-food restaurants, on-street parking meters, car parks, and other point-of-sale applications such as service station and vending machines.Therefore, everybody in Hong Kong knows that time its really does equal money.
The Octopus card has been internationally recognised, winning the Chairman's Award of the World Information Technology and Services Alliance's 2006 Global IT Excellence Award for being the world's leading complex automatic fare collection and contactless smartcard payment system, and for its innovative use of technologies.

The application of 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia

2008-06-22T02:32:00.010-05:00

Trust Services are defined as: A set of professional assurance and advisory services based on a common framework (i.e., a core set of principles and criteria) to address the risks and opportunities of IT.

A 3rd party certification programme will ensure that access to an enterprises electronic commerce system and data is restricted only to authorized individuals in conformity with its disclosed security policies. The Security Principle sets out an overall objective for the security of data transmitted over the Internet and stored on an e-commerce system.

WebTrust.
The WebTrust service is designed for e-commerce-based systems and by independently verifying a web site's compliance with online security best practices, would entitle the entity to display a WebTrust Seal and accompanying practitioner’s report on its Web site.

Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd is example of 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia which established in 1999 as a licensed Certification Authority (CA) operating out of the Multimedia Super Corridor in Malaysia under the Digital Signature Act 1997(DSA). The service provided including digital certificates, cryptographic products, and software development.

In my point of view, third party certification helps increase consumer confidence in a company's business practices and in the integrity and protection of any transaction undertaken. Several study also indicated that potential customers are 46 percent more likely to buy from a site with the WebTrust Seal. A company may taken a competitive advantage in a faster growth of the e-Commerce marketplace by gaining their customers' trust with participated in the WebTrust Program.

Phishing: Examples and its Prevention Methods

2008-06-22T00:29:00.008-05:00

What is phishing? Phishing is a type of deception designed to steal your valuable personal data, such as passwords, credit card numbers, account numbers and other information. Paypal, eBay, Citibank are the common targets. Phishing is typically carried out by email or instant messaging and often direct users to key in the details to the websites. Below are the examples of phishing scam:

Phishing email for target users of eBay members

This eBay phishing email includes the eBay logo in an attempt to gain credibility. The email warns that a billing error may have been made on the account and urges the eBay member to login and verify the charges.

Phishing email for target users of Citibank members

The attacker claims to be acting in the interests of safety and integrity for the online banking community. Of course, in order to do so, you are instructed to visit a fake websites and enter critical financial details that the attacker will then use to disrupt the very safety and integrity they claim to be protecting.

The Prevention methods

Nowadays, computer users are bombarded with an increasing number of phishing email and attacks. However, several ways that can prevent them are as follows:

1) Always be wary of any email requesting personal information. Don’t reply any suspicious looking emails or click in any links that you’re unsure of. For example, if you receive an email from eBay requesting personal information such as your username and passwords, visit eBay directly by typing http://www.ebay.com/ into your browser to check on your account status. Usually, phishers will include link leading to a fake website, similar name like ebayauctions.com, actually this can give them full access to your sensitive information.

2) Always ensure that you are on a secure connection to a web server when submitting personal information. This can determined by:
--Seeing an https:// appear in the URL instead of http://
--Seeing a picture of a locked padlock in the lower right-hand corner of the BROWSER WINDOW, not the page itself. (Sometimes, phishers display this icon on their websites to trick users to think that they are secure connection.)

3) Avoid emails with urgent requests for financial or account information. Such email that may ask for usernames and passwords, credit cards numbers, social security numbers or other personal information.

4) If you receive spam or an email you suspect is phishing-related, forward it to spam@uce.gov is maintained by the FTC and they regularly investigates emails that they receive.

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

2008-06-20T12:46:00.002-05:00

Nowadays, people are busy to do their business, everyday just working from morning to night. Saturday and Sunday is a rest time and enjoy their personal life hours. So, more and more getting using internet to do online banking or payment transaction, apply credit card, and update personnel information through network system. No wonder, now network system is getting popular and more convenient because internet is easy and useful tool that help people to do thing with lesser cost and more efficiency. But, as the internet users display more of their personal information on social networking web sites, and office workers upload more sensitive data to online software programs, computer hackers are employing increasingly sophisticated methods to pry that information loose. In many cases, they are devising small attacks that can go into traditional security software, while exploiting the trust users place in popular business and consumer Web sites.

There are many threats to e-commerce that may come from sources within an organization or individual. The followings are some of the potential security threats that can be found:

1. Tricking the shopper - It is one of the easiest and most profitable attacks, also known as social engineering techniques. These attacks involve surveillance of the shopper’s behavior, gathering information to use against the shopper. For example, a mother’s maiden name is a common challenge question used by numerous sites. If one of these sites is tricked into giving away a password once the challenge question is provided, then not only has this site been compromised, but it is also likely that the shopper used the same logon ID and password on other sites.

2. Snooping the shopper’s computer - Most users’ knowledge of security vulnerabilities of their systems is vague at best. Additionally, software and hardware vendors, in their quest to ensure that their products are easy to install, will ship products with security features disabled. In most cases, enabling security features requires a non-technical user to read manuals written for the technologist. The confused user does not attempt to enable the security features. This creates a treasure trove for attackers.

3. Sniffing the network - Here, the attacker monitors the data between the shopper’s computer and the server. He collects data about the shopper or steals personal information, such as credit card numbers.

4. Using known server bugs - The attacker analyzes the site to find what types of software are used on the site. He then proceeds to find what patches were issued for the software. Additionally, he searches on how to exploit a system without the patch. He proceeds to try each of the exploits. The sophisticated attacker finds a weakness in a similar type of software, and tries to use that to exploit the system. This is a simple, but effective attack.

How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

2008-06-19T23:42:00.006-05:00

Personal and financial are classified into several categories such as sensitive, confidential, secret, top secret and etc. For those more valuable or sensitive data is required some safeguard to protect it. There are several safeguards to be applied.

The computer users need to choose the password or pin wisely for log in into the computer or system in order to prevent outsider to enter to get some confidential information. For chosen a wisely or strongly password or pin should be a combination with up uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols will offer you more security. Those people more prefer to use number then must remember minimum 6 digits due to more and more digit will have more combination of numbers and need more hours to break it.

For those users are very much interested involve in online activities or transaction, they should always maintain anti-virus software and a firewall in order to protect against viruses or Trojan horses that may steal or modify the data on our computer and leave you vulnerable by using anti-virus software and a firewall. Here are recommended some my preferable anti-virus software such as Norton360, kaspersky and bit defender (similar as kaspersky).

Shred all the confidential papers like bank monthly statement, automatic teller machine (ATMs) receipt or others statement that containing personal details. This is the best ways to protect against potential fraud or identity theft to misuse our personal information.

Option yourself out of all pre-approved credit card offers. If received any mail and e-mail with pre-approved credit offer and cash-advance checks, it may possible spell disaster in the hands of the unscrupulous. I am here to suggest tossing these in the garbage rather than to accept offer.

Related link:
www.fool.com/personal-finance/general/2006/09/23/safeguard-your-financial-life.aspx
http://its.noctrl.edu/tech_ethics/Gramm-Biley-Act-1.doc

An example of an E-commerce success an its causes

2008-06-15T05:56:00.000-05:00

E-commerce is one of the online activities where everyone is discussing in every company now. It consists of the buying and selling of products or services via electronic system which internet and other computer network. Its can help companies to gain competitive advantages. For those companies are involving in the e-commerce, its can save cost because without intermediaries involved in every transaction called as disintermediation.

Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/) is one of an example of e-commerce success in year 1999 and also one of the first major companies to sell goods by internet. The company is located in Seattle, Washington. Amazon.com been founded in 1994 and launched it internet in 1995.Amazon.com's major activity is on-line bookstore with varieties of topic and also diversified product lines of VHS, DVD, music CDs, MP3 format, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, etc.

The success factor of Amazon.com in e-commerce is a feature which is the ability for user to submit reviews to the web page of each product. User must rate the product on a rating scale in their review that can provide the popularity and dependability of a product. Through the review, the Amazon.com can extensive customers profiles and know what product the customers searching always. They can recommend them once got new related topic published. Its can make customers convenient when log in website.

On others hand, the web site features also lead to success in e-commerce. Its web site is fast, reliable, and easy to use where provide a high customer services and trust. Customers can always keep track on their goods status that how is their product shipment and do not happen hassle return to the customers. Otherwise, the Amazon.com also provided a large selection to all customers where it has collaborated with publishers, wholesales and unlimited self space. Amazon.com also gives gift to customers like bookmarks, note pads, cups, etc. These can generate loyalty through the good services on the customers.

Besides that, Amazon.com provides fast, reliable and inexpensive shipping. Its originally no inventory is through Ingram. It generates low overheads because less employees, less real estate and low inventory. So, its can give the lower price to customers. The products are reached to customers on time without delay time. It also provides extended services out of print search of the products and can order before publication.

These all factors are leading the Amazon.com to success in the e-commerce field. I experienced to order book in the Amazon.com for my assignment purpose. Its provides a fast and easy way to place an order and the instruction all stated to users.

The history and revolution of E-commerce

2008-06-15T02:25:00.001-05:00

The history of E-commerce dates back to 1968, when EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), allowed two companies to perform electronic transactions with one another. However, there were no set regulations in place that would regulate the transactions capabilities and overall fairness of electronic exchange. However, in 1984, the ASC X 12 standard was created in order to deal with this. It was also a dependable means of dealing with a large number of transactions at once. This was a defining moment for e-commerce, because it severely reduced the potential pandemonium of e-commerce.

Beside that, E-commerce is the movement of business onto the World Wide Web. This movement has been broken up into two main sectors consisting of business to business and business to consumer. As this being the history of E-commerce it is best to tell the story of the pioneers. Business to consumer e-commerce has one defining pioneer. He is the founder of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos. On the other hand Business to Business E-commerce has been marked by milestones.

Well, E-Commerce has revolutionized further & has been converted into eBusiness with the optimum usage of resources such as the internet, credit cards, ecommerce software or shopping carts solutions. Loads of companies are shifting to E-commerce & E-business solutions because of easy availability of clients & a better & more forward approach towards the market. These modern techniques provide new & healthy business without much needed investment.

By looking at the evolution of E-commerce, it will be easier to judge its trends for the future:

1984 ~ EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), was standardized through ASC X12. This guaranteed that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably.
1992 ~ Compuserve offers online retail products to its customers. This gives people the first chance to buy things off their computer.
1994 ~ Netscape arrived. Providing users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.
1995 ~ Two of the biggest names in E-commerce are launched: Amazon.com and eBay.com.
1998 ~ DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), provides fast, always-on Internet service to subscribers across California. This prompts people to spend more time, and money, online.
1999 ~ Retail spending over the Internet reaches $20 billion, according to Business.com.
2000 ~ The U.S government extended the moratorium on Internet taxes until at least 2005.

An example of E-commerce failures and its failures

2008-06-14T23:12:00.005-05:00

One of the examples of the e-commerce failure company is the Pet.com. Pet.com is the short-lived online business that sold the pet accessories directly to customer over the World Wide Web. The business is launched in the August 1998 and went public in February 2000, the former Nasdaq before 9 months went into liquidation. The business has rolled out the advertising to 10 cities through a variety of media by Christmas 1999. The company has had succeeded making its mascot, the pet.com sock puppet well known.

Pets.com has the investment of their warehousing. They anticipated that their revenue target would cover back their investment in the 4 to 5 years. This time period depends on growth of internet shopping and the percentage of pet owner that shopped on the internet. Unfortunately, in the year 2000, in the light of the venture capital situation after the bursting of the dot-com bubble, the Pets.com board realized that they would not be able to raise further capital. Thus, they forcefully to take action to sell their company. However, when PerSmart offered the lower price lower than the net cash value of the company, Pets.com’s board has refuse to sell.

Therefore, the company has closed down on the afternoon of November 6, 2000. As a result, the stock price had fallen from the date Feb 2000 at $11 per share to $0.19 the day it is announced liquidation. With regard to wind up the operation, Pets.com will lay off 255 of its 320 employees. Although the offer from PetSmart.com was declined, some assets were sold to PetSmart.com.

How E-Commerce reduce cycle time,improve employee empowerment and facilitate customer support.

2008-06-12T11:15:00.000-05:00

E-commerce just means taking things that your company is already doing in person, through the mail, or over the telephone, and doing those things in a new place--on the Internet.

Company can reduce lead-times and cycle times for customers by streamlining the acquisition process through E-commerce. It empowers customers by providing desk-top access to company catalogs. Company’s inventory system may automatically place order with supplier when inventory is low. Therefore, e-commerce helps to reduce the overall time from order to supplier until delivery to customer.

The most important concept of empowerment is to delegate responsibility to the lowest levels in the organization. In e-commerce, the decision making process might be higher decentralized and individuals or work designed teams should be responsible for a complete part of work processes. In such, employees perform a larger variety of tasks than in traditional; this promotes empowerment and a better understanding of the work process. Empowerment in the e-commerce environment enables employees and management to learn and implement new ways of working.

A Web site is naturally a 24-hour-a-day operation, unlike a traditional 9-to-5 company. Therefore customer is allowing to configure, price, place, track, change orders and even reflect their complaint on the means time. Beside, company can tracking their activities, providing guidance about the company’s products and services, responding to their product information requests and answering cusomers' questions. Company may also providing product availability information and promising delivery. It is much easier to keep a Web site up to date with all your company and product information than it is to do the same thing with print materials. Moreover, the interactivity and completeness of an e-commerce Web site can engage customers more directly; we can response to the customer requests and needed more rapidly. The company is giving them a comfortable and control that is difficult to duplicate through other methods of doing business. Millions of customers took advantage of this simple and engaging new way of selecting and purchasing products.

0606978~ChloeLimJiaYin

2008-06-05T23:15:00.000-05:00

I am youngest in my family members so will got a bit emotional when someone treating me badly. However, my emotional will go to cool temperature easily after one or two hours for a small case. My hometown at klang and the famous food "bah kut teh" is also from there. Therefore, anyone is interested on "bah kut teh" then I can be a guide for you all. I like the most to do in my life is jungle tracking and go for trip. Everytime I go for trip and I will capture many picture with my friends at the place.Besides, I also got a lot of small hobbies such as drawing, swimming, reading magazine and a little time on text book and chatting.
I normally going for two search engine such as http://www.google.com/, http://www.wikipedia.com and http://www.yahoo.com/ for searching related information for my assignment and tutorial works. As a accounting student and for the assignment purposes, I also need to go http://www.bursamalaysia.com/ to get annual report because the site providing all the listed companies' published annual report for public and any others information related to market in the Malaysia. dictionary.cambridge.org is a site providing you a free electronic dictionary. It is useful when you are doing assignment and reading news by the computer and internet. Others site are http://www.chinapress.com/, http://www.sinchew-i.com/, and etc for save cost without go out to get a newspaper.
As a teenager, messenger, friendster, writting blog, facebook and youtube are the most common internet activities to spend our leisure time. We can get the latest news(gossip) through the messenger with very fast and save cost rather than by hand phone. Friendster is a more effiecient for peoples to write letter and send to the related person. Teenagers can release the stress, comment on the social issues and giving opinion on certain information related their education on the blog. Facebook and youtube are entertainment for teenagers to release pressure in leisure hours by playing some games and chatting or watching some comedy video.
I am stop at here. I hope anyone who read my post and can give some comment on it.

LyDiA Saw Lay Lin

2008-06-05T10:05:00.001-05:00

Hello...everybody, my name is Saw Lay Lin. Welcome to view my blog! Here, I would like to introduce myself. Usually, I like to listen the music or watch the movie when I free at home. And sometimes, I like to swimming with my friends to have some exercise. This can be make my time more useful and also can entertain myself during my study time. The top 5 websites that I always visited including sinchew.com.my, google.com.my, ntv7.com.my, baidu.com.my, and yahoo.com.my. I always visited these websites because these websites can provide me some latest news and information. Sometimes, I also used these websites for my assignment purposes and checking mail. Besides, I also used these website to watch movie for entertainment. Finally, if you have any comment please leave it in the comment box to share with me. Thanks!

Veron Chew Wai Sun

2008-06-04T23:04:00.001-05:00

Hi,welcome to our blog. First of all, I am a friendly but emotional girl, I like to make friend with people. I am also a talkative person but I will be very quite when I feel down. My hobbies are reading, traveling, swimming, listening music and surfing internet. I normally used internet for checking e-mails, sending files, searching for informations, chatting with friends and reading online newspaper. The websites i visited the most is Yahoo.com, Google.com, Baidu.com, Sinchew.com.my, and 988.com.my. I visited these website the most because it provided huge of informations for me in doing assignment and thesis. Beside, I also can receive the latest news and the current market issues from it. Lastly, if you have any interesting idea about this blog please leave your comment to share it out with us!

Leng Mei siew ~~ eni3

2008-06-04T17:04:00.000-05:00

I'm enie leng from Mengkuang, pahang. Enie is a student and studying at UTAR on sg.long, now year 3 semester 1, as like other normal gal, study study study...play play play...focus focus focus that face through the problom. Hobbies?? most i like is shopping becuase can search through the fashion (but i'm not follow it^0^), usually i like quiet place that to study, and sometime like to listen music or feed some pet like tortoise and fish or like plant some green flora(most of the time my hobbies change frequently =_=).

The top five website that i mostly visited are; the first and second are http://www.google.com.my/ and http://www.yahoo.com/ because it help me search through more information needed for the assignment ; the http://www.chinapress.com.my/ and http://www.thestar.com.my/ are enhance our knowlegde to understand on latest news of the world; and the last one is http://www.ntv7.com.my/ because sometime need release myself that watch some movie and etc....

Beside that through the internet services, i also favourite in some internet activities. First, chat with friends using mns web messager that i can meet up my outstation friends. Second, entertainment on internet services like download some musical or movie. Sometime i also useinternet to play some online game, so don't think that only guys will like play online game. Through online game i can create story and also can vent out whatever i not satisfy with. http://www.friendster.com/ also is one of the internet activities that i liked. That let's me post some lifestyle, meet up with oversea friends, and read through other people blog that their real story.

My blog is http://enieblog.blogspot.com/ , so please come my blog look through and give some comment. thanks ^v^