So, welcome to the third post of my blog! My, we have learned a huge load this week even though its just one topic, e-commerce.
E-commerce first came to me as an alien term, I mean electronic commerce? what's that? But hey, luckily it just simply meant, doing business online. Amazon, E-bay and Google are just a minute fraction of businesses found online. But there is more to e-commerce than just simply doing a business on the internet.
First of, with the millions of e-commerce websites out there on the web, selecting a product/service to sell is pretty challenging, what do you have to offer that everyone else doesn't? There is also the problem of customer loyalty as e-commerce is not the most personalized method of shopping. Security and privacy also proves to be an obstacle when engaging in e-commerce as the lack of the usual physical receipts, signatures and exchange of handshakes are not present.
Having said the difficulties of e-commerce however, its benefits cannot be underestimated. With e-commerce, your market reach is to everyone around the globe that has an internet connection. You don't need much capital to be as visible online as the big boys and more and more potential customers are engaging in online shopping as the popularity of the internet and it abilities continue to increase.
With these benefits, using certain steps can increase your chances of e-commerce success. Doing your research, planning your market strategy and making sure your website is clean are stome of the things you can do to increase your chances of success. Here's a list of 10 steps to e-commerce success that I've found.
Of course success comes with a price and there are failures and misconceptions in e-commerce as well. Though starting e-commerce is easy, it does not mean that it is easy money. Planning and hard work is still as vital as working in real life. Online clients also have to be convinced that your product/service is of top quality and they also have to be assured that your website is secure for online transactions. Failing to keep these points in mind can, well, lead to failure. Here's 10 misconceptions of e-commerce that we all should avoid.
As you might have already noticed, there are cons to being part of e-commerce but I think its fair to say that its pros and benefits certainly outweigh the costs. Personally, I feel that is so when I find myself engaging in e-bay more and more when I initially thought that e-bay-ers are rich people that buy unnecessary things. Now, I have an account and am buying and selling things online as well. Guess I'm an e-bay-er too! Second-hand soccer boots anyone? Haha, till my next post, stay well!
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
The second to none
So, here I go once more! For the first time in my life I have a second post on my blog! I don't know about the others but it is quite an achievement for me. But of course I did have the right motivation to push me along but anyway, cheers to this second!
Ok, enough about blabber about my first second blog. Right before the CNY holidays, we managed to learn about how the internet is a social media. About one or two decades ago, traditional media dominated much of society. This becomes a problem when the institutional control of information meant that news and entertainment were generalised and not all people were getting what they need and what they want.
Introducing the internet. Because of the personalised nature of the web, each and every person in society has the power to mould it. This power shift of institutional control to consumer control gave birth to platforms like weblogs(hi there!), podcasts and forums. This meant that consumers now have the power to find, receive and create whatever news and entertainment that they want or need.
We went on to cover things like web 2.0 and RSS but I know all these are all dry and technical. Having reflected upon what I have learnt last week however, the most important lesson wasn't about power shift or podcasts. It was about walking through the forest searching for firewood because you know you need firewood. It was about asking the right question in order to engage in further learning. I find that very meaningful because amidst all the assignments and projects that we students rush to complete, we often lose track over what we are supposed to learn in doing the assignments/projects in the first place. I realise that I find this even more meaningful when I honestly haven't actually asked myself, what do I want to learn in this module.
Such a simple question and an essential one, yet I have no answer. It is an important question and hence I will ponder over it, but for now, I guess 'what can I learn from this module that i do not know' will have to do first.
Well, I know this post is a little too long but hey, comes to show how much you can learn within a week! Till the next post, happy cny and happy learning!
Ok, enough about blabber about my first second blog. Right before the CNY holidays, we managed to learn about how the internet is a social media. About one or two decades ago, traditional media dominated much of society. This becomes a problem when the institutional control of information meant that news and entertainment were generalised and not all people were getting what they need and what they want.
Introducing the internet. Because of the personalised nature of the web, each and every person in society has the power to mould it. This power shift of institutional control to consumer control gave birth to platforms like weblogs(hi there!), podcasts and forums. This meant that consumers now have the power to find, receive and create whatever news and entertainment that they want or need.
We went on to cover things like web 2.0 and RSS but I know all these are all dry and technical. Having reflected upon what I have learnt last week however, the most important lesson wasn't about power shift or podcasts. It was about walking through the forest searching for firewood because you know you need firewood. It was about asking the right question in order to engage in further learning. I find that very meaningful because amidst all the assignments and projects that we students rush to complete, we often lose track over what we are supposed to learn in doing the assignments/projects in the first place. I realise that I find this even more meaningful when I honestly haven't actually asked myself, what do I want to learn in this module.
Such a simple question and an essential one, yet I have no answer. It is an important question and hence I will ponder over it, but for now, I guess 'what can I learn from this module that i do not know' will have to do first.
Well, I know this post is a little too long but hey, comes to show how much you can learn within a week! Till the next post, happy cny and happy learning!
Sunday, January 18, 2009
The first of many
So, I am here once more typing my first blog after almost a decade. Yup, it was that long ago and my so-called blog then had just one post. Clearly that shows my motivation to maintain a blog.
But with a new blog now, I'm glad that I have a new motivation to continue posting, which is using this blog to reflect on the things that I have learnt every week in COM 125 and also trying earn a good grade (well, true motivation actually lies in the latter).
I have never been a good friend of all this online stuff so I am really relieved to find that java and all that coding extravaganza will not be forced upon me on this course and if the first week were to be to most technical-driven, I have no qualms.
In general, the past week we have had a chance to learn about the history of the internet, how it started of as a military project as ARPAnet and went on to conquer the world. Well, not exactly the whole world but at least the 15% of the world that own computers, and we got watch a few clips too.
Terms like intranet, browsing, groupware and networking were explained to us and its interesting for me to recall that using the intranet can be safe/fast yet extremely troublesome as months in NS has proved.
Essentials like URLs and IP addresses were also covered and basically all this are gearing us up for the weeks ahead which I am rather interested to see what else the syllabus has in store.
So, cheers to my first blog in almost a decade, cheers to my first post and cheers to the one more binding chain to an alternate reality that has once again proved itself to be as important or even more important than the real thing. cheers!
But with a new blog now, I'm glad that I have a new motivation to continue posting, which is using this blog to reflect on the things that I have learnt every week in COM 125 and also trying earn a good grade (well, true motivation actually lies in the latter).
I have never been a good friend of all this online stuff so I am really relieved to find that java and all that coding extravaganza will not be forced upon me on this course and if the first week were to be to most technical-driven, I have no qualms.
In general, the past week we have had a chance to learn about the history of the internet, how it started of as a military project as ARPAnet and went on to conquer the world. Well, not exactly the whole world but at least the 15% of the world that own computers, and we got watch a few clips too.
Terms like intranet, browsing, groupware and networking were explained to us and its interesting for me to recall that using the intranet can be safe/fast yet extremely troublesome as months in NS has proved.
Essentials like URLs and IP addresses were also covered and basically all this are gearing us up for the weeks ahead which I am rather interested to see what else the syllabus has in store.
So, cheers to my first blog in almost a decade, cheers to my first post and cheers to the one more binding chain to an alternate reality that has once again proved itself to be as important or even more important than the real thing. cheers!
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