A Faliure of E-commerce

Egghead Software was founded in 1984 as a computer software retail company. Faced with declining revenues, in 1998, the company shifted its focus to online business, closing its retail locations and selling entirely through its egghead.com website. Egghead.com merged with online auctioneer OnSale.com in 2000 and assumed the name Egghead.com.

 

Egghead was successful from the early days, expanding from a single store in Bellevue, Washington to a 200 store chain, with locations primarily on the West Coast. Early on, the company focused on repeat business, customer service and sales integrity. Egghead easily became the premier retail vendor of software and peripherals in the United States. Egghead was hurt by a December of 2000 revelation that hackers had accessed its systems and potentially compromised customer credit card data. The company filed for bankruptcy in August of 2001. Its an example of a large sized company that failed - (but not completely since some business taken up by a larger more stable company

 

Egghead suffered a deep decline in sales recently, which forced the bankruptcy filing and asset sale, Jeff Sheahan, Egghead's chief executive, said in the statement. He added , they have investigated a number of alternatives and believe this action will allow the company to realize a value for its assets which will benefit our creditors.

Several factors had contributed to failure of Egghead. The factors are as follow:

 

A Decline in Profit Margin                                                                

Chief Executive John Fry said in a statement that Egghead executives "have done an excellent job of building a strong brand and sizable online business which enables us to move online quickly with a robust and proven site."

Egghead also filed an incomplete earnings report with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday that showed the decline in the company's sales and its tenuous cash position. In the second quarter, Egghead lost $4.7 million on $59 million in revenue. Egghead's results do not include the impairment of goodwill as a result of the bankruptcy. By the time of the filing, Egghead had just $750,000 in cash and cash equivalents.

 

Not enough capital

Egghead laid off 77 employees in March to cut expenses. Egghead's restructuring moves were the right way to go, but the company didn’t have enough capital to see them through, Sheahan told CNET News.com.

Egghead's stock has closed consistently below $1 a share since February, prompting the Nasdaq to warn Egghead in April that its stock would be delisted if it was not able to maintain the $1 per-share minimum price.

In June, Egghead executives authorized a reverse stock split as part of a strategy to avoid being delisted. Companies risk delisting if they cannot maintain a $1 minimum share price for 30 days. Egghead's stock last topped a dollar on May 2.

Start-up e-tailer Onsale.com changed its name to Egghead.com after purchasing the former brick-and-mortar software retailer in 1999. Like Onsale, which launched the first online auction site, Egghead was also a pioneer. In 1998, the company shut down all of its brick-and-mortar retail stores to focus on Internet sales.

Onsale's purchase of Egghead was one of a number of acquisitions of traditional companies by online players as their share prices swelled and as the Internet took off.

Onsale rival eBay, for instance, bought traditional auction house Butterfield & Butterfield and classic car auctioneer Kruse International in 1999.

Tide turns

However, more recently, the tide has been flowing in the other direction, with traditional companies picking up the pieces of failed dot-com companies or bringing their own struggling online operations back in-house.

Egghead handed over maintenance of its auctions to auction service company FairMarket. Egghead's Hartzell said the company has about 130 employees left, 105 of which are in Vancouver. Those employees will remain with the company through the bankruptcy and may be offered positions at Fry's after the bankruptcy proceedings have been completed.

 

Discuss how E-commerce can reduce cycle time, improve employees' empowerment and facilitate customer support.

REDUCE CYCLE TIME

Cycle time in order form means the amount of time taken to complete a process between the customer placing an order and receiving the goods. Nowadays world changing rapidly, everyone strive to minimize the total time spend for every transaction. E-commerce can reduce cycle time by eliminating the time taken in business process and taken shorter time to complete a business transaction between the supplier, intermediaries and customers. The eliminated of middleman or intermediaries, supplier can send the products directly to customers, by this, the company can reduce unnecessary cost and gain competitive advantage towards other company.


Internet can operations in 24 hours, so through e-commerce customers can directly order the product they needed to access to internet where ever they are and no matter at what time they like. Beside that, customers can received digitize products in second by supplier through internet. This will reduce the time taken to shipping, inventory level, verify registration, account entry and transaction authorization. E-commerce also can reduce the traditional phone calling and snail mailing.


IMPROVE EMPLOYEES' EMPOWERMENT

When conducting e-commerce, the company will need the employees to check on the system and process on any transactions and requested by customers. Employee empowerment can be explained by which the company give their employees more decentralization of decision making, power, responsibilities and authority to their work without supervisory approval. A good manager will expected to help their employees to refine their job achievement by encouraging, instructing, guiding and giving them advice. Employee empowerment can increase employees' motivation, job satisfaction and loyalty to their companies.


Furthermore, nowadays many companies giving their employees more flexibility working hours. By having this systems, the employees can even work at their own house at any time, and can provide a quick response or feedback to the customers through internet. As a result, it will benefit organization in term of getting closer and enhance understanding between customers, improving service quality, increasing productivity, and gaining an competitive advantages.


FACILITATE CUSTOMER SUPPORT

Quality of services is much more emphasize nowadays compare with the physical product. Moreover, e-commerce allows the company of the system to facilitate the customer support by provide a place on the website to the customers or users to place their comments, complaints, and asking any questions through online. More of the company website had support 'Frequently Ask Queations' (FAQ), there are where the customers can ask question they have occur and the company also provide their customers to directly have a contact and speak to the customers service department. From internet customers can give immediately feedback compare to traditional through complaint letters, may give feedback after a few months.

Retaining customers by satisfying their needs is the core of the business. By e-commerce, it creates an interactive and more convenients ways to customers to find detailed information about the company or the products online, and more easier to customers to compare the product between other competitors and also traditional store, then customers service can be also greatly improve. Hence, a well define feedback of the services and products are essential for the company long term improvement.

The history and evolution of E-commerce

What is commerce?

Commerce is a division of trade or production which deals with the exchange of goods and services from producer to final customer. It comprises the trading of something of economic value such as goods,services,information or money between two or more entities.

What is e-commerce?

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of the buying and selling of product or services over electronic system such as the internet. A wide variety of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic processing,electronic data interchange(EDI), inventory management systems ans automated data collection system. E-commerce can be business to business(B2B) and business to customer(B2C).

History of e-commerce

The history of E-commerce is a history of how Information Technology has transformed business processes. It provides with a detailed explanation of the stages which E-commerce has actually evolved and began to be used as a popular online mean of economic exchange where it refers to the online transaction of goods. There have been several key steps in the history of e-commerce.

At first, the term ecommerce meant the process of execution of commercial transactions electronically with the help of the leading technologies such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) which gave an opportunity for users to exchange business information and do electronic transactions. The ability to use these technologies appeared in the late 1970s and allowed business companies and organizations to send commercial documentation electronically.

The next major step occurred in 1992s where the Mosaic web-browser becomes the first ‘point and click’ browser. The Mosaic browser was quickly adapted into a downloadable browser, and Netscape which allowed easier access to E-commerce. Moreover, the development of DSL was allowed quicker access and a persistent connection to the Internet.

The development of Red Hat Linux was also another major step in E-commerce growth. Linux gave users another choice in a platform other then Windows that was reliable and open-source.

Evolution of E-commerce

Evolution of E-commerce can be attributed to a combination of regulatory reform and technological innovation. Through internet which played an important role in evolution that appeared in the late 1960s, E-commerce of today took off with the arrival of World Wide Web and browsers in early 1990s. The liberalization of the telecommunications sector and innovations such as optic fiber and DSL which has helped to expand the volume and capacity of communications that helped in the process of rapid growth. As a result, the barriers to entry and engage in E-commerce have fallen rapidly.

Let’s have a look into how gradual technical development attributed to the growth of ecommerce:


* In 1960’s Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) was formulated. This is a set of standard instructions to interchange data and to carry out business deals electronically.

* In 1969 ARPANET, was developed by Americas department of defence for researching new reliable networks and later this enhanced into Internet that was purely used as a research tool for nearly 20yrs.

* In 1991, Tim Berners-Lee developed World Wide Web at CERN that started the first Internet transaction. These technology supported exchange of data that was in text format only.

* Later in 1993, Mosiac was developed by Marc Andreessen, this is the first graphic web browser launched to interchange text and graphics and loads of people started downloading it.

* Netscape the most successful graphic browser was later developed by Marc Andreessen. On the other hand, Microsoft came up with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

* Later in 1998 DSL was launched into the market that provided much faster access and persistent connection to the internet. AOL swamped the market and had about 1.2 billion sales over a period of 10 weeks from online sales.

* Another major improvement in ecommerce came with the development of Linux a platform more reliable and open source that allowed itself to be customized by its users and put a tough competition to Microsoft that compelled it develop much better versions of networking.

* Amazon and EBay were the first International companies that implemented electronic transactions. Initial public offerings by Netscape, Amazon, and EBay had tremendous success and almost every one started implementing business on internet.

http://ecomspace.blogspot.com/2008/06/history-and-evolution-of-e-commerce.html

http://ecommerze.wordpress.com/2008/06/12/the-history-and-evoltion-of-e-commerce

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_commerce#History/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce

http://utar-e-project.blogspot.com/2008/06/history-and-evolution-of-e-commerce.html

http://linyinqiteng.blogspot.com/2008/06/history-and-evolution-of-e-commerce.html

http://ict.cdimm.org/man/engleza/ecomm03.pdf

http://www.ecommerce-land.com/history_ecommerce.html

http://www.netecommerce.net/history-of-ecommerce.html

Amazon.com - Success and Factors

Information technology is advancing from days to days. In order to meet the changing trends in globalization, E-commerce development has boomed in the past few years and it has become more popular nowadays. One of the significant examples is Amazon.com Inc.

Amazon.com Inc. is an American E-commerce company located in Seattle, Washington. It was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and officially launched in 1995. The company began as an online bookstore and it was soon diversified to product lines of music CDs, MP3s, computer software, electronics, furniture, food, toys and etc. And now, it is recognized as one of the most popular online shopping globally.

There are few reasons that contribute to the success of Amazon.com. One of the reasons is that the company offers a wide variety of products, including video, music, electronics, computer software and hardware, furniture and etc. to meet different customers’ needs. The most significant feature of the company is its wide range of books related to a variety of subjects and topics. Besides, Amazon.com allows users to submit reviews to the web page of each product. This has actually helped to improve its customer relationship.

Secondly, Amazon.com offers competitive price to customers by putting great effort to interact with wholesalers and cutting down the operating cost. The company is also providing inexpensive services by allowing customers to conduct quick online searches and comparisons. It makes sure that the products are of the equivalent quality as any other products offered by competitors.

Amazon.com is gaining competitive advantage with its excellent marketing techniques and expertise with respect to the market trends and demands. The company has its fulfillment centers in many large cities to achieve global success. It hires local employees in foreign countries to help them collect the information of the local market and discover potential customers. The company's excellent customer services, such as customers differentiation and personalization do helps in improving customers' loyalty.

Last but not least, Amazon.com provides users friendly interface with convenience and ease of use which help to maintain customers’ loyalty. It provides personalized product recommendations, web advertising and e-mail notices, reliable payment system and interactive support for all the customers. Thus, customers are always informed of the latest news such as the transaction processing system. The company also provides guarantees and adopting return policy.

Online shopping has become a trend in the modern world, Amazon.com Inc. as one of the most popular choices of e-commerce, shall maintain or developing its competitive advantages in order to expand worldwide.

Hello everyone! I am Seong Ling...............>_<


I am now strarted at here to introduce myself.

My name is Tung Seong Ling. I am 20 years old only and had to wait for 8 months just 21 years old. My family had 4 children and I am the elder sister in my family, therefore I had a very important responsibilities to as a lead to my brother and sisters. I am a girl just want to had a simple life and everything are well and not too much worry and hinder, I will very happy of it. Before started my school life in Utar I had graduate in TARC with Diploma In Business Administration.




I am born at Negeri Sembilan and I live in a village between Port Dickson and Sepang, the peoples here call our village as a 'pig village' , but now not peoples grow the pigs already. From my village to Kuala Lumpur International Airport(KLIA) is just want to take 30 to 45 minutes only. From my house I can see an aeroplane fly over the sky between 5 minutes and it is comes from many differents country.



My favourite hobby is singging. My friends had bring me go to take a competition of Super Star at The Mines before, but i can't get into second round interview. I so sad however I think is because i no practice well before going. Beside that, my mother's brother is a singger, his name is called 'Yau Yi' are you recognize him? My another hobbies are sleeping, shopping, watch television, but not reading because when I see the book I will starting to sleeping...haha!



The top 5 websites I visit the most and activities:

1.www.utar.edu.my- to check for updated news and information, also download the lecture notes and tutorial questions.

2.www.hotmail.com- to check who send mail and information for me.

3. http://www.friendster.com/- from this website I can recognize many friends from different areas, and can send regards to the friends in a very short times and very easy.

4. http://www.google.com/- to check for many information about my assignment

5.www.tom365.com-to download movie.

Me, me and the only me..

Logeswary was the name given officially in the birth certificate. As we all know human, always prefer a shorter name. Therefore, I was called Loges ever since my kindergarten days. The other part of my life, my family and relatives recognize me as Banu. Whereby, some of them do not even know my official name. I was a Pahang born baby but rose up in Negeri Sembilan.

 

My education life has a lot of diversification; I started with a co-ed primary school then went to a single sex secondary school. Then I did my Diploma in a Government university and now my Bachelor in a private university, UTAR. Therefore, I would say, I tasted most of the system of education in Malaysia. Well, I would say every place taught me different lesson made me a stronger person and a better person.

 

There is say about do not judge a book by its cover it is a good say. Most of my friends used to say, when the first time they look at my face I used to have that fierce look.

Some even worse scenario, they said they feel like vomit out blood. OMG that is the most horrible thing I have heard in my life. Later, they take back their words. Once you are a friend 0f mine, then you would know me well. Can ask around if you want to, I do not like to boost around.

 

My free times, I will usually pamper myself with a cup of tea and a nice program on TV (I put it in a better way that I am a cough potato). If were in a better mood, I would love to cook. Some of my friends love my cooking, although sometimes there is some up and down. Still I have a fan for it. Thank you LLKT.

 

The websites that I visit the most would be the:

www.facebook.com – This page ensures me to keep updated about my friends, since all of us are part from each other. This is the sole tool make us feel together.

 

www.thestar.com.my – This would be the first thing I browse in the morning, as I had the habit of reading newspaper with coffee. Since I do not buy one everyday, I use the online service.

 

http://www.utar.edu.my  -UTAR website is the officially webpage I used to check my results and everything else related matter to studies.

 

www.google.com -  The first website that strikes to my mind when there is an assignment is this page. In order to make my life easier, I would actually find most of the material on this page.

 

www.tamilforce.com – For me keep updated with Indian Film Industry, this is the page. I can watch free online movies and keep updated about the latest gossips.

 

Self introduction: JoAnne~

Hello~

I am Lai Yuen Foong, but I prefer people to call me Joanne, since it sounds more easier to be remembered. ^^

I am 20, yet to be 21, soon...I am a final year student in Utar, taking Accounting course.

I come from historical city, Malacca, a small but wonderful place. ^^

I am kinda weird person. People who don't know me well will think that I am fierce and not friendly to others. In fact, I am kinda easy-going person, depends on how close I am to others. I admit, that sometimes I am too serious and emotional. But I think most of the Pisces are like that, since it is one of our characteristics. >.<

I like to listen to musics, especially Jay Chou's. I once went to his concert in 2008, it was so amazing and I love him so much! Haha..

I sing as well, even though I am not really well in singing. And I like to watch dramas, from HK TVB, Taiwan, Japan and etc.

The top 5 websites that I like to visit are:

http://www.hotmail.com/ ---> check mails

http://www.friendster.com/ ---> new friends found

http://www.google.com/ ---> search engine

http://www.baidu.com/ ---> songs

http://www.youtube.com/ ---> videos

Me..Kee Rhu En

Hello~~~

My name is Kee Rhu En and I grew up in Malacca which is one of a historical places in Malaysia. My family consisted of five children of which I was the last second born.

<- This is me..Ruen..

I’m from Accounting group 6.I’m a very friendly person. After I get to know people better and more relaxed around them, I become an ‘air-conditioner’ because I like to make a ‘cold’ joke. ^^..I’d to see more smiling faces surrounding me. That’s why I like to make a joke.

Mathematical question:

"Under what situation.... the answer of 1+1 will not be 2??
The answer is...when u count wrong loh...haha.."

My hobby is swimming and I like dog a lot!!

<- This is my puppy. I love it a lot but I can’t play with it anymore because it is at heaven now. T_T

Whatever...i will stay strong without u...my dear puppy..haha..

Top 5 websites I visit the most and activities:
1. Hotmail- check emails
2. Friendster- make new friend
3. Youtube -watch videos
4. Yahoo - Read news
5. Utar Website - check news and information