The business environment has transformed considerably since the introduction of web technologies. Electronic commerce (E-commerce) refers to the process of buying and selling of products, services of information via the internet. It is a fast growing facet of the internet that has changed the focus of businesses from manufacturing to customization in order to meet the diverse needs of consumers.
E-commerce has also influenced the manner in which businesses relate to their customers, suppliers and rivals. It has allowed businesses of all sizes to overcome geographical and financial barriers to reaching a broad market across the globe. Conversely, consumers are able to conduct business with companies that were previously inaccessible to them.
The current nature of an international marketplace requires businesses to have access to fast and reliable information in order to gain an advantage over competitors. This paper examines the various factors that a major high street guitar shop should consider when opening an e—commerce website in order to exploit its popularity over a wider audience, online.
Website design strategy
Most of the current designs employ dynamic multimedia, and database application servers, unlike previous versions that used static hypertext. Commercial website design considers various elements including increased revenues, enhanced customer relations, and profitability. The two common website design strategies are informational strategy, transactional strategy.
Informational strategy
This strategy is also referred to as the communicational strategy. The e-commerce website is designed to complement the company’s primary business activities, but not to replace them. The informational strategy requires the business to consider both modern and conventional means of advertising and marketing in order to meet the company goals and objectives.
This strategy is common among many businesses since it considers marketing on the web as an additional tool for reaching the target market. According to a study by Wen, Chen and Hwang (7), over 905 of the Fortune 500 companies have publicly accessible websites; however, less than a quarter of these websites support transactions.
On the other hand, studies show that the communicational strategy can attract new customers by marketing through the website. The forms of promotion involved in this design include placing the catalog online, enhancing brand awareness, and augmenting core products by providing related information.
Some of the benefits of the informational strategy include the provision of large amounts relevant product information to potential customers, building the company’s global image and presence, and the development of new communication channels to enhance customer relations. A business can attain all these benefits at a reasonable cost. The informational strategy also has a few disadvantages.
First, the promotion of sales may lead to a saturation of the market with advertisements. This may, in turn, lead to ineffective advertising and damage the reputation of the brand. Second, sharing organizational and product information on an open website limits the ability of the business to control the information. As such, the information is open for interpretation in any manner, which may cause it to be used in a harmful manner.
Any new information may also be stolen by rival companies causing the business to lose its competitive edge. Third, there is increased possibility of miscommunication due to the release of too much information. This may harm the public relations of the company, and damage its reputation (Wen, Chen and Hwang 9).
Transactional strategy
It is also referred to as the on-line strategy, and involves the invariable provision of an electronic catalog of products that are available for sale. This design allows consumers to go through a catalog and order products that they prefer through the website.
The primary difference between this strategy and the informational/communication strategy is that the latter only provides a catalog and contact details if one chooses to order, while the online/transactional strategy supports online transactions. The online ordering web database allows businesses to exploit the potential of the Web as an interactive platform and significantly increase the overall sales of the company.
The creation of a virtual business on the web allows businesses to have an online presence that is much larger than a physical store. The virtual business can also provide consumers with numerous benefits that physical stores cannot provide due to the reduced marketing costs and convenience of shopping (Haryati 214).
Some of the benefits of the online/transactional strategy include the ability for businesses to provide a larger variety of products than competitors with physical stores, the existence of a sense of community between the business and the consumers, and the provision of economic benefits, better quality information, and enhanced convenience, compared to rival businesses.
The key advantage for transactional websites is their ability to display their products to a global market with fewer costs and enhanced accessibility at any time of day. However, transactional websites also have a few challenges including the loss of business or trade in the event of computer crashes or network problems.
Consumers may also face challenges getting through to the business personnel in the event of a breach in security. Another key shortcoming of transactional e-commerce websites is their focus on transactions such as online payments, which reduces their emphasis on ensuring that consumers get the right product (Haryati 216).
Recommendation for preferred strategy
The best option for the owner of the major high street guitar shop in setting up an e-commerce website is the information/communication strategy. This strategy will enable the business to focus on its strength, which are high quality guitars, competitive prices, and proficient staff who are capable of providing consumers with high level guidance and advice.
The content of the website can include a catalog of some of the products offered, such as the various kinds of guitars and amplifiers, without providing browsers with an option to make a purchase.
However, the website can also contain information about the location and address of the business in order for consumers to reach them when they choose to make a purchase. The website can also contain some information about selecting the right guitar, provided by the professional staff.
The construction of the website should be outsourced, as opposed to constructing it in-house. Outsourcing has numerous benefits including saving costs involved in hiring a web designer to do it in-house, and getting the best possible design from a wide pool of creative designers and companies, at an affordable price.
Outsourcing will also allow the business to focus on its core operations, which are selling high quality guitars and guiding their consumers to the right instrument. Once the website is ready, the designer can provide a manual or train the in-house IT personnel on how to make entries or any other necessary adjustments to the content of the website.
Key E-commerce security threats
E-commerce security involves integrity of the content provided, non-repudiation, authenticity of individuals using the platform, confidentiality of personal information, privacy control, and availability through continued provision of service.
Security threats in e-commerce can arise on the communication channel, in the server, or on the client side. The threats may be in the form of spoofing, malicious code, hacking, sniffing, or denial of service attacks.
Phishing
One of the common types of attacks on shoppers is based on tricking the shopper. This technique involves surveillance on the shopper in order to acquire personal information. The attacker may place a phone call to the shopper pretending to be security personnel and asking them to input their log in details in a phony website, thereby acquiring their private information.
Alternatively, a hacker may employ a phishing scheme, which involves the attacker laying traps on popular websites in order to acquire authentication and registration information. This form of attack can be stopped by educating the shopper and other users on internet safety.
Education involves informing users of the possible phishing schemes, as well as, the various kinds of social engineering attacks in order for them to enhance their judgment regarding irregularities in provision of personal information.
Snooping
Another form of attack involves snooping the shopper’s computer using various tools or software to penetrate the user’s personal computer. Such an application can be in the form of tool that scans a computer searching for personal information.
Such snooping tools can be avoided by installing firewalls and other kinds of software and hardware security features that are provided by the operating system manufacturers. Anti-virus companies also provide tools that can block the entry of malicious applications.
Sniffing a network
The third popular form of attack involves sniffing the network, whereby the attacker surveys the data being communicated between the shopper’s computer and the server. These attacks occur when the attacker is close to either the attacker or the server, where they can access personal information such as credit card numbers, whereby the information is in full packets.
Such attacks are common in wireless hubs since their security features are often disabled. Users can protect themselves from attackers who snoop the network by using the Secure socket Layer (SSL) protocol to encrypt data being sent over the network.
The server identifies SSL protected pages, and encrypts any vital information during a session, which implies that the attacker cannot access the content. Examples of such pages start with the prefix ‘https://…’ (Khusial 9).
Denial of service
Denial of service (DoS) attacks influence the availability of a website by sending the server numerous ordinary tasks that cause it to exceed the capacity to handle other tasks. The attacker makes the server to utilize more computational resources in processing the request than other users do in sending their commands.
Infected computers can be manipulated by an attacker at any time by sending resource consuming requests to the target server, thereby, making the target website to experience problems, as well as, the entire internet network. The effect of these attacks can be minimized by using external security audit, server firewalls, and password policies.
Server firewalls ensure that the requests accepted by a server are from authorized ports or machines. This involves setting up a demilitarized zone (DMZ) with double firewalls. The first one is located on the periphery and allows the user to access the server.
The inner firewall is heavily fortified to safeguard the e-commerce firewall, and permits only specific ports to go through. Security audits help to detect intrusions in order to stop them from occurring using security logs. For instance, a user can be locked out after several wrong attempts at accessing an account (Khusial 11).
Password policies also help to safeguard from DoS attacks, and should be enforced by all users including shoppers and in-house users. These policies involve the setting of limits for various entries in authentication. For instance, the threshold for account lockout can be set to six attempts, with a consecutive unsuccessful login delay of ten seconds.
Other policies involve the number of instances of any character, inclusion of numeric character, minimum length of password, and lifetime of password, among others. The settings can be varied for shoppers and internal users, whereby administrators are locked out after three failed login attempts, or the requirement for symbols in a password. Lockouts prevent hackers from guessing login details (Khusial 14).
Types of online auctions
Online auctions are also referred to as online marketplaces that require participants to bid for products and services over the internet. Some online auctions serve as facilitators and provide the framework for bidding and transacting on listed items. The three types of online auctions in use are the Dutch auction, the English auction, and treasury bills.
English auctions involve a low initial price that gradually rises with each successive bidder. The Dutch auction system involves the presentation of two or more items for auction, whereby the highest price is the winning price at which all items are sold.
Treasury bills employ the Dutch auction method whereby the largest bidding amount is used for all. The English auction system is preferable for the sale of guitars due to the diverse variety, which implies that each product has a unique overhead cost (Hernández, Jiménez and Martín 361).
Online auction models have unique advantages over other e-commerce websites. For instance, the auction process is exciting to consumers, which encourages them to buy more, and also motivates seller to sell more items. Secondly, the time for online auctions is synchronized, which allows any person from any time zone to participate.
Online auctions also provide sellers with a cost-effective, convenient and open means of marketing their products or services due to the high volume of traffic that they attract. Lastly, auctions provide an informal setting for making sales, which attracts feedback and develops a global community with common interests (Hernández, Jiménez and Martín 365).
Works Cited
Haryati, Tri. “Use OsCommerce in Online Stores Linux.” Open Source 32(17), (2011): 213-224. Print.
Hernández, Blanca., Julio. Jiménez and José Martín. “Key website factors in e-business strategy.” International Journal of Information Management 29(5), (2009): 363-371. Print.
Khusial, Darshanand. e-Commerce security: Attacks and preventive strategies. 2005. Web.
Wen, H. Joseph, Houn-Gee’ Chen and Hsin-Ginn Hwang. “E-commerce Web site design: strategies and models.” Information Management & Computer Security 9(1), (2001): 5-12. Print.