Case Study For E-Business: Mobile Phones And Accessories

Aim

Describe about the Case Study for E-Business: Mobile Phones and Accessories.

E-business or E-commerce stands for electronic business or commerce and refers to exchange of goods through electronic means. It may include buying and selling of goods, transfer of funds or a lot many transactions that are done online over a computer system, mobile device or any other network enabled device. There are a number of applications and protocols that are used to execute the entire process such as through e-mails, fax, shopping carts, online catalogs and many more (SearchCIO, 2016).

Aim

The aim of the report is to suggest models, marketing trends, functional requirements, issues and technology infrastructure for small to medium sized e-business for mobile phones and accessories.

Objective

• To provide an overview of e-business
• To suggest e-business model
• To describe the functional requirements
• To represent the various issues associated
• To discuss the benefits and disadvantages of e-business

Scope

The report presents the technological infrastructure along with the functional requirements that are associated with the e-business and website for mobile phones and accessories. It would also include the issues and benefits that are associated with the same.

Limitations

The report does not cover the budget and schedule constraints that are specific to the website. It also does not cover the resource management that would be an important area otherwise in the project. Also, the non-functional requirements of the website are not covered.

E-business Models

• B2B

This is the e-business model that is an abbreviation for Business-to-Business. It basically involves the two businesses such as firms, companies and organizations that perform transactions with each other through electronic means. For a website of mobile phones and accessories, this model would apply when the transaction would be between a retailer and a supplier. For example, a retailer may contact the website for 1000 earphones and various mobile covers for selling.

• B2C

It stands for Business to Consumer and is the most important model for the e-business website of mobile phones and accessories. It included the electronic transaction done between a business firm and the end-user or the customer. Electronic retail is another term that is widely used for this model.

• C2B

Consumer-to-business model involves bidding of products or the auction that is performed by the customer and the business is present at the other end. The model does not apply in the case of mobile phones and accessories that are being discussed in the report.

• C2C

Consumer-to-consumer is a model that involves third party marketplace for the customers that behave as buyers and sellers for the exchange of goods. This model is also not something that would apply in this case (Yourbusiness.azcentral.com, 2016).

Objective

Business-to-Consumer and Business-to-Business are the two e-commerce models that are applicable in the case of a website for mobile phones and accessories.

E-business Functional Requirements

• Login and Sign Up

The website would have the option to log in through the existing credential or sign up through mobile number or e-mail id. It would also be integrated with the popular social networking and mailing platforms such as Facebook and Google+.

• Product Catalogue

This section would have the product description of all the products that are offered to the customers such as mobile phones and accessories. There would be filters applicable to refine the search for the customer such as by Brand, price, type, OS, Memory Size and many more. Also, there would be an option to sort the list on the basis of price, popularity, availability and rating.

• Shopping Cart

This would provide the ability to the users to select the products they like and add them to the cart for buying them later on. The cart would have the ability to add or delete any of the products along with an option or increase or decrease the quantity.

• Wish list

There are products that may not be available for purchase at a specific point of time. This option would allow the users to add them to the wish list and an alert would be made on the user account once the product would be back in stock.

• Payment and delivery

The products from the shopping cart should be available for purchase through an easy payment cycle. The website should have the ability to offer various modes of payment such as credit card, debit card, net banking, wallets, credits and cash on delivery. Also, once the payment is made and is successful, an alert should be sent to the registered mobile number and email id of the user with confirmation and order id. This order id would be used by the users to track the delivery of the product.

• Feedback

Customers must always feel connected with the business and should be provided with an ability to provide their comments and rating for the web site and for every single product as well.

• Technical Support

This is also a prime requirements which would allow the users to contact the customer care for any sort of support around product information, payment system or delivery details. The support should be made available through mails and calls and 24/7 chat as well.

E-business Marketing Strategy

Marketing is an important entity that plays an important role in the success or failure of a company. E-business marketing strategy for the website should cover the following points:

Scope

Gathering of the information around customer choices and preferences from several data sources with prime focus on the social media platforms.

Content is the key in any of the market strategy and proper content in the advertisements and on the websites should be posted so that it may reach out to a larger number of people in an effective manner.

Social media marketing is much in trend in the present era and use of popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter must be incorporated in the market strategy.

Videos are always more effective and have a lasting impression in the minds of people as compared to the plain text. Hence, videos must be incorporated in the e-business market strategy. Videos such as displaying features of a particular mobile phone or mobile accessory can be used for the marketing purpose.

The website under design should be customized for mobile devices as well as these are the devices which are primarily used by the users for accessing of any online portal (Gehl, 2006).

E-business Infrastructure

Infrastructure decisions that take place for e-business depend upon a number of different factors as described below:

Of all the framework components, marketing might be the most imperative. To succeed, the site must be found. When guests are on the site, it is expected to keep them there and propel them to purchase. That is the occupation of the marketing group. Whether it is site outline, online networking, look marketing, promoting, email, or different types of publicizing, it’s about marketing.

There are numerous decisions today to deliver top notch customer administration. It is conceivable to deal with those exercises in-house or outsource to an outsider. Fundamental customer administration for deals and post-deals exercises can be taken care of utilizing email, and by giving a number to more broad telephone support. A customer-administration framework will make those exercises less demanding, yet for littler organizations it is not a prerequisite.

Picking the right e-trade stage is a standout amongst the most critical choices to be made in the business. To assemble and have own framework, outsource the advancement and afterward deal with the framework going ahead, or utilize a facilitated, programming as-an administration stage that is more turnkey and remotely overseen is not a simple choice to make.

Similarly as with different business operations, it will be expected to choose if the administration needs to oversee account and organization exercises in-house, outsource, or a half and half of the two. In the event that it is chosen to utilize separate frameworks for the site, request administration and bookkeeping, it might require more help for information section and ensuring that the data is legitimately overseen (Traxler, 2016).

Limitations

Keeping all of the above points in consideration, the infrastructure that has been suggested for e-business for mobile phones and accessories would cover the following:                  

• Infrastructure Management Suite

This is the top-most entity which comprises of the sub-systems which will assist in the integration and management of the entire infrastructure and components as a whole. It would consist of the following:

• Quality of Service management for all the phases and components
• Data collection and data re-use from a number of different sources
• Baselines
• External communication with other applications and services
• Real-time troubleshooting
• Command and Control

This level controls and arranges the (conceivably extensive) arrangement of cutting edge components. It has breakthrough topology and administration stream data and also the knowledge for mechanizing administration undertakings that are excessively mind boggling or tedious for most administration staffs. This data is consolidated to facilitate exercises all through the system foundation. Case in point, a foundation administration apparatus would request propelled hubs in a specific way to be actuated for measuring delays. The command and control layer would utilize its topology and component data to recognize the components and actuate the proper procedures.

• Infrastructure Element Managers

These are the elements which are required for the design, development, communication, maintenance and deployment of the web site. These include the following:

• Hardware that is required for the completion and execution of the process
• Software in terms of operating systems, design tools, developments tools, testing tools, reporting tools, analytical tools and many more that would be necessary in the completion of the project
• Database Management Systems which would be necessary in order to store and manage the data
• Monitoring and measuring tools
• Network Managers

These are the agents and tools that would be necessary in the set-up and management of the network and also for the successful execution of all the in-house activities including communication between the team members (cisco, 2016).

E-business Payment System

The website would provide two types of payment gateways that is hosted payment gateways and non-hosted payment gateways.

• Hosted Payment Gateways

Hosted Payment Gateway Process

It is the payment gateway that would re-direct the user to the payment service provider’s page as soon as the user clicks on the pay button. Payment details are required to be filled by the user and once the payment is made successfully, the user will be re-directed to the website.

• Non-hosted Payment Gateways

These are the payment gateways that take place at the merchant’s site itself. It would require the user to enter his or her card details on the site itself and the payments will be processed with the help of APIs or HTTP queries.

In light of entered points of interest framework will inside make an installment calls to the installment passage. These call could be of making client profile (for repeating just) at passage for programmed future installments OR just for one-time installment. Subsequent to making call, installment entryway sends the warning because of these calls. Framework needs to handle it and close the client for fruitful installment or the mistake.

E-business Models

Non-hosted Payment Gateway

Legal Issues in e-business

• Brand identity

The character of the brand is critical on the Internet. With such a large number of organizations and items promptly accessible to customers at the snap of the mouse, advertising and PR must stand out from amongst the opposition. One of the initial phases in doing this is to secure a proper space name or web address. The space ought to mirror organization’s name additionally simple for clients to recall. In addition, it must be a legitimate organization name, one that has not been guaranteed by another firm. On the off chance that a man picks something excessively comparative, making it impossible to a trademarked name or logo, he or she may wind up in a bad position. Essentially, logo and brand character ought to coordinate your purchasers’ inclinations and the look.

• Protecting the trademark

Trademark the logo and item name to secure its lawful status. Generally as a man shouldn’t make brand components that are excessively near another company’s, it would not be needed that another e-business to have a logo or name excessively near individuals own. Having a trademark permits a man to secure individual’s name and gives the privilege to bring lawful activity against another organization on the off chance that they encroach on individual’s personality. It’s essential to know, be that as it may, that the trademark and patent office won’t enroll an area name as a trademark unless that space name can really claim to be remarkable. Non specific names can’t be trademarked. The trap is to discover a space name that is sufficiently singular to apply for legitimate assurance yet sufficiently bland that clients can undoubtedly think that it is on the web.

• Tax Implications

While a few locales customarily permitted e-organizations to work without paying deals charge, most states now have laws on expenses for Internet based deals. When all is said in done, these laws are comparative or indistinguishable to the laws on mail request deals. Regardless of the fact that a client needs to send an item outside the state or nation, he or she may in any case be at risk for assessment. Inability to pay it could imply that the IRS documents legitimate activity against the organization. If all else fails on the assessment status, contact the state charge office and know that the sort of business substance fused as frequently affects the duty risk (Smallbusiness.chron.com, 2016).

E-business Functional Requirements

Security and Privacy Issues

There are a number of issues that may occur in terms of security and privacy to the data and information. Information security and data protection are some of the major areas that are impacted through e-business. Some of the attacks that may hamper the same are:

• Virus

These are the programs or a set of instructions that are designed for malicious intent or purpose. These get transferred from one system to the other through the use of storage media or get injected in the system through shared network such as internet.

• Spyware

These are the tools and programs that are injected in the system to capture and monitor the activity on a system such as keystrokes, chat logs and many others.

• Man-in-the-middle

These are the attacks in which the man or the attacker sits on the network that is used to access and transfer the information from the source to the destination. The attacker acquires all of the information by monitoring the network through unauthorized means.

• DDoS

It stands for the distributed denial of service which is an attack wherein an attacker floods the network or service with unwanted traffic.

• Spoofing

It is the attack where impersonation is used to mislead the user or the victim to make him or her perform an activity. The user gets victimized by trusting the source as an original

• Phishing

The attack attempts at acquiring the confidential and sensitive details by misleading the users through false mails and messages

There is protection required for three categories of information as:

• Sensitive: This is the information that is most critical to the organization and the loss or damage to the same can have devastating effects. For instance, payment information of a person is extremely sensitive in nature which required critical degree of protection.
• Confidential: This is the information that is of high importance for all the stakeholders that are involved with the business. The third parties and the external sources that are involved with the organization and the information related to the same is confidential in nature.
• Private: The information that belongs to personal use and purpose is private in nature. Product information and description are private in nature unless they are fit to be released in public.

Advantages of e-business for mobile phones and accessories

• Convenience

For most of the individuals, e-Commerce gets to be one of the favored methods for shopping as they make the most of their online as a result of its effectiveness and comfort. They are permitted to purchase items or administrations from their home whenever of day or night.

The best thing about it is purchasing choices that are brisk, advantageous and easy to use with the capacity to exchange reserves on the web. As a result of its comfort, customers can spare their share of time and cash via seeking their items effectively and making obtaining on the web.

• Lower Operational Cost

With e-trade business, the suppliers can diminish the expense of dealing with their stock of products that they can mechanize the stock administration utilizing electronic administration framework. In a roundabout way, they can spare their operational expenses.

• Competitive Advantage

For successful business exchanges, e-trade is a productive and ability strategy. Setting-up expense is greatly low as contrast with growing your business with more block and mortar areas. Not very many licenses and allows are required to fire up an online business than physical store.

• No Geographical Limitations

E-business Marketing Strategy

On the off chance that you are running a physical store, it will be constrained by the geological region that you can benefit, yet with an e-Commerce site, you can offer your items and administrations over the world. The whole world is your play area, where you can offer your complete scope of items with no topographical points of confinement.

• 24/7 Availability

A standout amongst the most essential advantages that ecommerce vendors can appreciate is store timings are presently constantly open as they can run e-business sites constantly. By along these lines, they can build their deals by boosting their number of requests. In any case, it is additionally useful for clients as they can buy items at whatever point they need regardless of whether it is early morning or mid-night.

• Brand Awareness

As like e-trade business can help B2B associations to get new clients, so it will be useful for e-trade organizations to support their image mindfulness in the business sector. Creating pages that can be filed via web indexes crawlers is one of the most ideal approaches to improve site’s website streamlining and upgrade the intended interest group on the webpage (Medium, 2014).

E-business Strategy

The main aim of the business owners would be to provide the users with an online portal that would provide all the information present around mobiles phones and their accessories. It would be made possible with the help of advanced tools and technologies integrated together to develop an efficient solution.

The data would also be easily stored and managed with the help of database management system and relative DBMS as well. Data analytics tools would be utilized for the in-depth analysis of the data to bring about perfect results in place.

The recommendation for the website is to have a responsive web design such that the website customizes itself as per the user choices and preferences. Also, it is suggested to make use of several security measures to fight the attacks on the data and privacy of information.

Easy navigation and friendly interface are the two prime features that are extremely important as far as the user-friendliness is concerned and must be paid special care and attention.

Conclusion

E-business is the need of the present era and the e-business website for mobile phones and accessories would be based on two models as Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer. There is an essential need of a well-defined market strategy in place along with special focus on the social media marketing. The infrastructure that has been suggested comprises of the several elements that would aid in the integrated infrastructure system such as network elements, hardware, software, DBMS and several others. The payment systems that would apply for the website would be hosted and non-hosted payment systems. There are a number of advantages that are offered with e-business with convenience, cost-saving and non-stop availability being the primary ones in the list. There are also some of the issues that emerge in the world of e-business and majority of them revolve around legal, privacy and security areas.

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