Things to Take Note to Prevent E-auction Fraud When A Consumer Participating in An E-Auction

E-auctions is an electronic "reverse" auction where suppliers use internet-based software to bid against each other online and in real time against a published specification. E-auctions can be based on price alone or can use transformational bidding to account for other criteria such as quality and delivery. E-auctions are most often used in the final stages of the procurement where all "non-price" factors have already been agreed like quality evaluation and terms and conditions.

E-auctions work best where:

• the requirement is of sufficient size to attract competition
• the requirement can be accurately specified
• there is a competitive market

Types of e-auction fraud:

• Bid shielding: Used by buyers to push down the price
  
• Shilling: Used by sellers to push up the price
  
• Fake photos and misleading descriptions
• Improper grading techniques
• Bid siphoning
• Selling reproductions
• Failure to pay
• Failure to pay the auction house
• High shipping costs and handling fees
• Lose and damage claims
• Fake Escrow Services
• Switch and return
• Other frauds
  

Protecting against e-auction fraud:

1. User identity verification: Verifying users' identification to ensure their validity. E.g. IC number, driver's license number, date of birth
2. Authentication services: Verifying identity of a party who generated some data, and of the integrity if the data, and to determine whether an item is genuine and described appropriately.
3. Grading Services: To determine the physical condition of an item.
   
4. Feedback: A way for participants in a transaction to rate one another and for others to see those ratings. And a large percentage of negative feedbacks is a clear signal to stay away from a particular seller.
5. Insurance Policy: Some sites (Amazon.com) provide insurance on auction frauds but extra cost is incurred.
6. Escrow Service: To avoid being deceived by fraudulent email, choose to pay or be paid through an Escrow Service, that both buyers and sellers in a deal are protected with a independent third party. This third party will verify the payment from the buyer and inform the seller. This third party will also hold onto the money from buyer until confirmation is received from buyer to pay seller.
7. Nonpayment Punishment: A friendly warning for first-time offense, sterner warning for second-time offense, a 30-day suspension for a third-time offense, an indefinite suspension for a fourth-time offense to protect sellers.
8. Item Verification: It provides a way of tracking an item if it charges ownership in future. Neutral third parties will evaluate and identify an item through a variety of means.
   

☆Review ~ on a post on Legal from My-Commerce blog☆

At the present time, cyber cafes can be found in every residential area and it is the teenage lover place, especially for male. It are included few more reason that why they like to go cyber cafes, but the most important factor affect them go to cyber cafes is playing online game. Some people feel that their home internet speed no enough rapidly to play online game. Other than that, some game required to build a team and play together, so they will meet at the same time in cyber cafes. Teenage people easily wallow in the online gaming world, so they need some rule to control them.

Therefore, Housing and Local Government Minister said the ruling, stated that Cyber Café operators required to take down particulars of their customers who use the computers to surf the Internet, was to ensure that the facilities at the cafes were not misused to spread false information through the Internet. Operators who failed to maintain the record book or did not record down the details could lose their operating license, but they really will do it step by step? The rules are really useful in our country? It is the big question for us to think about it. Last time, government said that the student wear the uniform cannot go into cyber cafes, but the operator will provide you a t-shirt to change the cloth. Further more, some of the cyber cafes even openly let the students with uniform go into there, and when have any spot check from the police the operator even help the students to left the cyber café.

Other than that, I very agree with some rule especially is cyber café banned from using tinted glasses. It is because it can let the public clearly seen that what happening inside the shop. Some more if really any incident happen in the shop, public can clearly seen what is going on, is that need help and this is protect ourselves. Besides, the forth rule of those under 12 years old must be accompanied by parents or guardian and only allowed to stay up to 10.00pm, cyber cafes actually are the place quite complicated, the people under 12 years old should have an adult can guide for them, can prevent that student waste time on surfing net and won’t do some illegal activities.

In conclusion, the government need always go to check the cyber café to make sure there are follow the rules. This just can decrease the social problem in the residential area and increase the number of customer goes to spend money at there. This is “sure win” for all people.

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

E-government is the use of information and communication technology to provide and improve government services, transactions and interactions with citizens, businesses and other arms of government. For example, e-government seeks to improve the convenience, accessibility ad quality of interaction.

The implementation of E-government started since the initiation of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) by the Malaysian government. The status of e-government implementation in Malaysia is widely discussed as to the potential of e-government implementation towards the public and businesses.

E-government is one of the seven flagship application introduced in MSC. The E-government project are:

1. E-Syariah
2. Electronic Labor Exchange (ELX)
3. Electronic Procurement (eP)
4. Electronic Services Delivery (eServices)
5. Generic Office Environment (GOE)
6. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
7. Project Monitoring System (PMS)

Besides that, that still have other project such as EG Net, EG IT Standards, Integration projects among flagships and legacy, PKI and Digital Signature and Shared Services outfit (SSO).

The implementation of e-government would bring benefits to public administration and also Malaysian society. For example, e-government improves efficiency since the use of information technology enables improvement in mass processing tasks and public administration operations.

However, e-government still have problem in implementation :

1. Language Barrier
2. Lack of public awareness
3. Online Behavior
4. Technological Barrier

The e-government citizen's adoption strategies are:

• Increase awareness through TV and radio advertisements and organizing workshops at shopping malls.
• Provide consultation services on how to use those services.
• Provide websites with multiple language version.
• Simplify procures needed to access to the e-government services.
• Require citizens show higher levels of satisfaction with the online service provided by the government. A higher level of customer satisfaction will increase the rate of e-government adoption

Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies.

In order to maintain a competitive edge, corporations are increasingly looking for opportunities to make them stand out. After some initial hesitancy, corporations are slowly starting to realize that it is important to jump on the virtual bandwagon of blogging. This medium represents the missing ingredient that traditional media lacks: the ability to directly connect a company to its customers.

A corporate blog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. The advantage of blogs is that posts and comments are easy to reach and follow due to centralized hosting and generally structured conversation threads. Recently, all major browsers (including Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer 7) support RSS technology, which is very useful for low-volume blogs.

Why is Blogging Crucial to Corporations??

A corporate blog can be:

• A tool that helps the organization achieve a business goal- Redeploying scare resources just to have a blog makes no sense if there is no business case for one.
• A useful extension of the company image in the marketplace- It is however no substitute for bad products or lack of commitment to customers.

• An opportunity to open a two-way channel between employees and customers.

It all comes down to practicing a natural and responsible human voice, one that companies may have discouraged by publishing and enforcing overly strict rules and policies not updated to change with the times. The easiest path for companies to rationalize starting a blog is for the purpose of sharing information on products and services.

For a New Relationship with Customers

Corporate blogs are not only interesting and useful, they are also helping the companies that author them develop a totally new relationship with their customers. In some cases, the blogs have helped the company move the needle in reputation, likability and thus purchase consideration.

1. Direct2Dell- this team is extremely plugged in the social media in general. The about statement is right in the banner:" A blog about Dell products, services, and customers".
2. Google Blog, the official- with 619,000 RSS subscribers and a very extensive blog roll.
3. Baby Babble by Stony field Farm- a company that provides content on child health advice.
   

Related Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/10/15/a-guide-to-corporate-blogging/
http://www.conversationagent.com/2008/02/corporate-blogs.html

$$Electronic Currency$$

Electronic currency (also known as Electronic money, electronic cash, digital money, digital cash or digital currency) refers to money which is exchanged only electronically. Electronic currency has involved the use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and direct deposit are examples of electronic currency. Furthermore, it is a collective term for financial cryptography and technologies enabling it.

In another hand, electronic currency is a representation, or a system of debits and credits, used to exchange value, within another system, or itself as a stand alone system, online or offline. Also sometimes the term electronic currency is used to refer to the provider itself.

Many systems will sell their electronic currency directly to the end user, such as Paypal and WebMoney, but other systems, such as e-gold (E-currency system which fully backed by gold), sell only through third party digital currency exchangers.


Electronic Currency Trading system (ECTS)





ECTS is an electronic currency trading investment platform that offers its clients an efficient way to trade foreign currencies against the strength and weakness of the US dollar. Utilizing its database of historical price patterns and technical indicators, the complex algorithms interwoven into the system allow for the recognition of entry positions with maximum profit potential.

In order to maintain prudent money management, 24-hours stops are put in place to lock in gains as well as prevent heavy losses. There has never been a better time to invest in currency trading than right now.

Related links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_money
http://www.electroniccurrencytradingsystem.com/

***Mobile Payment System in Malaysia~ It's Potentials and Consumers' Adoption Strategies***.

Mobile payment is a payment method that a consumer using a mobile phone to pay for services such as music, videos, ringtones, books, magazines and tickets. It is not using of cash, credit card or cheque.

There are few primary models for mobile payments:

• Premium SMS based transactional payments

This is where the consumer sends a payment request via an SMS text message to a shortcode and a premium charge is applied to their phone bill. The merchant involved is informed of the payment success and can then release the paid for goods.

• Direct Mobile Billing

This is where the consumer uses mobile billing option during checkout at an ecommerce site such as an online gaming site to make a payment.

• Mobile web payments (WAP)

This is where the consumer uses web pages displayed or additional application s/he downloaded and installed on his/her mobile phone to make a payment. It uses WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) as underlying technology. Mobile web payment providers include Billing Revolution, PayPal, Google, Amazon Payments, Luup, Javien, Valista, etc.

Mobile Money is the mobile payment system now available in Malaysia. It also known as Mobile Wallet. Mobile money provides any hand phone users the convenience to pay anyone, anytime and anywhere. 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. It allows registered users using only a mobile phone coupled with a 6-digit security PIN (Personal Identification Number) via SMS (Short Messaging Service) to pay for goods and services at anytime, anywhere. It also is a payment service provider that allows users to TAP to Pay (using MM Card) with just one account.

In order to attract the consumers adopt the mobile payment system, we should tell the consumers about the advantages of mobile payment system. There are significant advantages of mobile payments which are provide greater applicability than other payment. It’s because of very high usage and availability of mobile telephones. Because of the wide spread of mobile phones, accepting mobile payments may become more attractive for merchants. In particular of young people, they constitute an important part of digital content demand such as ringtones and games, so payment via mobile phone bills may be the only way for them to purchase goods.

☆The Application of Pre-paid Cash Card for Consumers☆

Pre-paid cash card seem like a credit card, it can be used to make payment for goods and services. Another that, it is same basic concept with the prepaid gift card or a prepaid mobile phone SIM card, because the users need to load the card before they use. It is better controlled over their finance for the consumers.

Pre-paid cash card are populated across America over the last 10 years. It is because it has many benefits for the pre-paid cash card holder. First, you can get it without worrying about your credit history. Second, this card can control your budget and help to manage children’s spending. Third, you are limited to the amount you put on card, so no debt risk. Beside on these three main benefits, pre-paid cash card still got a lot of benefits.

One kind of pre-paid cash card in our country is Touch ‘n Go card that can be used at all highways, major transports in Klang Valley, elected parking place and theme park of Bukit Merah Lake Town Resort. In addition, Touch ‘n Go card can be used to buy such items from 21 outlets (e.g. A&W, Burger King, Dunkin’ Donut, 7-Eleven, Carrefour hypermarkets, and etc.) in the Klang Valley.

Moreover, many same functions card at oversea, for example: Octopus in Hong Kong is more go forward than Touch ‘n Go card that which is more populated and can become an ornament, no just only a card.

Related link:
http://www.moneysupermarket.com/cards/prepaid-cards-guide1.asp
http://www.touchngo.com.my/WhatTNG.html
http://www.octopuscards.com/consumer/en/index.jsp
http://www.octopuscards.com/crystal08/en/index.html
http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/2008/04/using-touch-n-go-card-to-buy-fast-food.html
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/4/12/nation/20902911&sec=nation

Credit Card debts: Causes ad Prevention

First, I going to explain what is credit card then after that i will explain credit card debt. Credit card is card entitling its holder to buy goods and services based on the holders promise to pay for these goods and services.

Credit card debt is an example of unsecured consumer debt, accessed through ISO 7810 plastic credit cards. Debt result when a client of credit card company purchases an item or service through the card system. Debt accumulates and increases via interest and penalties when the consumer does not pay the company for the money he or she has spent. The result of not paying the debt on time are that the company will charge a late payment penalty and report the late payment to credit rating agencies. The late payment penalty itself increases the amount of debt the consumer has.

The causes of credit card debts are:
1. Less Income, More Expenses
It so happens that the main breadwinner of the household loses his job but monthly expenses are not cut down in line with the reduction in income. This obviously leads to a rise in debt. The family is forced to use their credit cards for groceries, utilities and etc.

2. Divorce
Fees for the divorce attorney, division of assets between you and your spouse, proceeds given to children are an easy way to rack up a huge debt. Filling for a divorce may force you to quit working for sometime which leads to reduction in income.

3. Poor Money Management
Poor money management is one of the best reasons why so many families accumulate lots of debt. Not having a monthly spending plan and not keeping track of your monthly bills makes you unaware of where your money is going. You might be spending hundreds of dollars every month towards items that are useless and have no value in your life, yet you do not realize it. While your money is going towards purchasing useless items, you might also be charging your necessary purchases on your credit card, forcing you to pay interest on these purchases every month.

4. Hoping to win the lottery
Most people hope to win the lottery but the chances of that happening are 0%. Do not spend tomorrow's saved money today just because you expect a promotion in your job or are expecting an inheritance from a decreased grandfather. We all know like is unfair and things can go wrong more easily than going right

5. Underemployment
If you are underemployed meaning you are not getting enough working hours at your job, you should also cut down on your lifestyle to match your current income. Forget about driving a BMW if ou are working only 30 hours a work a week. However, if you are a Financial Controller with a local corporation, then you should think about driving a BMW.

Now, i going to discuss the prevention for the credit card debt. Everyone can apply for credit card but you must know whether you can afford to pay the amount during the bills out.

1. Keep your credit card spending amount that you can pay off and don't go over board with unnecessary purchases. Other than that, you have to plan the budget you going to pay back.

2. If you don't want to have many credit card debt, you can cut out some credit card that you seldom use and left a credit card that has lowest interest rate. Although you have left one credit card, you also cannot keep on purchase items using credit card The credit card is just use when you have emergency thing happen.

3. Other than that, you have to avoid using credit card buying the expensive thing but if the items is necessary then just use it. The most important thing is think nicely before you buy the thing.

References Link:
1. http://ezinearticles.com/?Credit-Card-Debt---Prevention-Is-Better-Than-Cure&id=226244
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_debt

~prepare by Wendy Lee~

***How To Safeguard Our Personal and Financial Data***

Nowadays, our personal and financial data is private information. While we want to sign up to be a member of a website, we always need to fill in the application form through internet with our personal information such as name, age, gender, date of birth, email address, password and etc. Different application form requires different information that we need to fill in.

In order to avoid our data being stolen by hackers, we have to know that how to safeguard our personal and financial data.Here are some suggestions we recommend to protect our data won’t be illegally used by others:

• Try not to use the password that easily guessed by others. As we know, people always love to use password like their date of birth, identity card number and any number easy for us to remember.
• Don’t reveal any personal information and password to anyone.
• Remember to log out before u close the website that u logged into. If not your personal information will be stolen. This would be happen in cybercafé if u didn’t do it. Others can access it into the website that u logged in. We don’t suggest you log in to the related websites such as bank account. It is not safety if you are at outside.
• Install antispyware and antivirus software. For example, Kaspersky, Norton, Bit defender and 360 safe are mostly used by users nowadays.

☆Review ~ On a post on Internet Securiry from My E-Commerce blog☆

Nowadays, users of internet to dealing business or sharing own information such as blogging is fastest growing. Since the internet services bring to the public and many people or businesses rely on it, the security of internet becomes an important issue.

Most of the issue of internet security is spam mail, viruses, Trojan horse, bot-net, hacker etc. Most of the internet user have their own email account, spam mail always attack our mailbox, sometime it contains with viruses and Trojan horse. Users have to spend time to delete all spam mails. Once we open the mail, the virus will attack our computer and disturb some programme’s function. If it contains with Trojan horse, the horse will stay in our computer and will stolen some information then send it out itself. Maybe we will not feel that how serious of the problem, we only realise when the problem bring impact. Once the computer contains with viruses or Trojan, it consider as unsafe anymore, the data we key in and save will be steal out. Such as online banking service, if the data had been stole via internet, then we might have some losses. Teenagers create some virus, initially they just want to test their own skill, but it becomes disaster in IT industry.

Hacker is famous in the field of internet security. As we know from the real case, most of the hacker is teenager. Most of the young hackers are not consider as black hats; they try to hack the website because of their own training purpose. If the website is for doing business or consists of personal information, must be highly preventing the hacker.

If you have a website, you should always back up the data on the website because it will help you to recover your website soon. When surfing internet must be careful to prevent of unknown link or data receive. Most of the time we can prevent from the virus attack if we always were careful.

The threat of online security:How safe our data?

Nowadays, people is getting more rely on Internet, without that, people can't find their important data, check information and stored their data. But sometimes the websites are not so safety for the users to use. There are some types of threat of online security that the user facing during they surf Internet such as computer viruses, distributed denial of service attacks, worms, Trojan horse and phishing.

Computer viruses is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without the permission or knowledge of the user. A true virus is only can spread from one computer to another when its host is taken to the target computer, for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet, or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD or USB drive. Sometimes users will confuse viruses with computer worms and Trojan Horse but it is totally different.

Distributed denial of service attacks(DDoS Attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although a Denial of service does not usually result in the theft of information or other security loss, it can cost the target person or company a great deal of time and money. Typically, the loss of service is the inability of a particular network service is the inability of a particular network service, such as e-mail, to be available or the temporary loss of all network connectivity and services. A denial of service attack can also destroy programming and files in affected computer systems.

Worm is a self-replicating computer program. It uses a network to send copies of itself to other nodes and it may do so without any intervention. Worm unlike virus because it does not need to attach itself to an existing program. Worm almost always cause at least some harm to the network, if only b consuming bandwidth, whereas viruses almost always corrupt or modify files on a targeted computer.

Trojan horse is a form of malware that appears to perform a desirable function but in fact performs undisclosed malicious functions that allow unauthorized access to he host machine. Trojan horse payloads are almost always designed to cause harm but it can also be harmless. There have many types of Trojan horse payloads such as server Trojan, downloader.

Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as user name, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one.

In conclusion, users online have advantages and disadvantages . If you have prepare some anti-virus software, this will have lesser Internet threat and you can online happily.

Phishing: Example and its prevention methods

What is Phishing??
In the field of computer security, phishing is a fraudulent attempt to acquire confidential information such as user names, passwords and credit card details by pretending as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

Websites that are frequently spoofed by phishers include popular social websites (YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Windows Live Messenger), auction sites (eBay), online banks (Wells Fargo, Chase), online payment processors (PayPal), or IT Administrators (Yahoo, ISPs).

Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake window whose look are almost identical to the legitimate one. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures. The best way to protect ourselves from phishing is to learn how to recognize a phish.


Phishing Examples:
Email users are being bombarded with authentic-looking messages that instruct them to provide sensitive personal information. Phishing occurs when a consumer receives a deceptively-legitimate looking email from what appear to be a reputable company.

What to look for in a phishing email:

1. Generic greeting- Phishing emails are usually sent in large batches. To save time,
   Internet criminals use generic names like "Chase Bank Customer Update Department" so they don't have to type all recipients' names out and send emails one-by-one. If you don't see your name, be suspicious.
   
2. Forged link- Even if a link has a name you recognize somewhere in it, it doesn't mean it links to the real organization. Roll your mouse over the link and see if matches what appears in the email. If there is a discrepancy, don't click on the link. Also, websites where it is safe to enter personal information begin with "https"- the "s" stands for secure. If you don't see "https" do not proceed.
3. Requests personal information- The point of sending phishing email is to trick you into providing your personal information. If you receive an email requesting your personal information, it is probably a phishing attempt.
4. Sense of urgency- Internet criminals want you to provide your personal information now. They do this by making you think something has happened that requires you to act fast. They faster they get your information, the faster they can move on to another victim
   

PayPal Phishing Example:

PayPal is an online payment solution provider. It's like an online bank account at which you can receive funds and through which you can pay for products and services that you purchase on the web.

PayPal scam emails have the characteristic phishing attack features. The email subject is usually quite distressing and upsetting such as "Your PayPal account has been hijacked", "Your PayPal account has been blocked" etc. Some even come in milder forms such as "An email address has been added to your PayPal account" which, though, seem harmless, are bound to elicit your interest.

Also, and this is important, a legitimate email from PayPal will be addressed to you - that is, it will carry your name (first name and last name). The phishing emails will, usually, not have this information - in most cases, scam artists have access only to the email address and not the full name of an individual.

How to Prevent Phishing Attacks??
Preventing phishing attacks does not require advanced security skills. Following some basic precautions can significantly reduce this growing problem.

Keep Your Email and Instant Message Addresses Private
The best way to keep yourself from being tempted to respond to a phishing scam is to prevent them from landing in your email box in the first place. You may find it useful to have a separate email address for financial institutions, one for trusted friends and family, and one for general or public use. Many email providers will allow you to redirect emails from each of these different addresses to one account to minimize the inconvenience of checking each account. Do everything possible to keep the address you use for financial transactions as private as possible.

Immediately Report Suspected Phishing Contacts
If you do receive a message you suspect to be a phishing scam, call the customer service phone number right awayto confirm whether you've received an actual message or not. In addition, almost every bank and credit card lender has a website where you can report suspicious emails and instant messages. Typically, they will ask you to fill out a simple form that will give them enough information to trace the origin of the perpetrator.

Anti-Phishing Software
Some of the newer web browsers like Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox 3 have built-in software that can detect and warn against phishing links. Make sure the browser options are properly configured to enable these options. For more protection, an anti phishing toolbar int he browser might be considered. Some of them can check online lists of websites with known problems.

The best way to avoid becoming a phishing scam victim is to use your best judgment. No financial institution with any sense will email you and ask you to input all of your sensitive information. In fact, most institutions are informing customers that "We will never ask you for your personal information via phone or email".



Related link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
http://www.phishtank.com/what_is_phishing.php
http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/phishing.htm
http://www.webdevelopersnotes.com/articles/paypal_phishing_scam_email_attacks.php
http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Prevent-Phishing-Scams&id=1147318
http://security-antivirus-software.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_to_protect_yourself_from_phishing_attacks

Posted by Moo Hui Sin~

***Revenue Models for Google, Amazon.com and eBay***

Revenue models describe methods of generating profits of an organization. There are various types of revenue models, includes advertising, sales, transaction fee, subscription, affiliate and so forth.

Google is a search engine which most of the people prefer. Most of the income generated by Google is from advertising which are Google Adwords, Google AdSense and Google Product Search.

Google Adwords is a pay per click advertising program that designed to allow advertisers reach people when they are actively looking for information relate to what the advertiser are offering. Advertisers only pay when people click on their advertisement.

Google AdSense is an ad serving program run by Google. Google AdSense automatically delivers text and image ads that are precisely targeted to web publishers’ site and owner site content, people will actually find them useful. And when web publishers add Google WebSearch to their site, AdSense delivers targeted ads to their search results pages too.

Froogle has been renamed “Google Product Search” says Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Search & User Experience, is a searchable and browsable shopping index tuned to find information about products for sale online.

Amazon.com is an American electronic commerce (e-commerce) company in Seattle, Washington and yet Amazon was one of the first major companies to sell goods by Internet. Amazon.com started as an on-line bookstore to gain income, but soon diversified itself into various types of product lines such as video home system (VHS), DVD, music CDs, MP3 format, computer software, video game, toy and etc. Amazon.com also receives affiliates fees such as commission and per-unit fees from sellers through Amazon Enterprise Solution.

eBay is the major auction service on the Web. eBay popularized the concept of buying and selling online, and both individuals and commercial enterprises list items for sale. There is no charge to browse the site or make bids and purchases, but there is a fee to list items. If an item is purchased, the seller pays eBay an additional fee. It generated revenue from its three primary businesses: auctions, PayPal payment service and Skype voice over IP (VoIP) service.

Related link(s)

• www.google.com


• www.amazon.com


• www.ebay.com

**Prepared by ShihTing**

☆The history and evalution of E-commerce☆

Today, everyone known E-commerce and it is very popular in the world. But did you really understand what E-commerce is?? E-commerce is also called as Electronic commerce or eCommerce, it consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. A wide variety of commerce is conducted in the way of spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems.

The history and evolution of E-commerce as below:
In 1970s
~Meaning of E-commerce is the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technology, example are Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).
~There were allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders(PO) or invoices(Inv.) electronically.

In 1980s
~Growth and acceptance of credit card, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking and were also forms of E-commerce.
~In 1984, EDI was standardized through ASC X12. This guaranteed that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably.

In 1990s
~E-commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.
~In 1994, Netscape arrived. It provided to users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.

~In 1995, two of the biggest names in e-commerce are launched, their are Amazon.com and eBay.com.

~In 1998, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) provides fast and always-on Internet service to subscribers across California. This prompts people to spend more time and money to online. E-commerce needed to take four years to develop the security protocols (HTTP) and it which allowed rapid access and connection to the internet.
~In 1999, Business.com sold for US $7.5 million to eCompanies and the peer-to-peer filesharing software Napster launches.

In 2000s
~A great number of business companies in the United States and Western Europe represented their services in the World Wide Web (WWW). It changed the meaning of the E-commerce as the process of purchasing of available goods and services over the Internet using secure connections and electronic payment services.
~In 2000, the dot-com bust but the “brick and mortar” retailers recognized the advantages of E-commerce and began to add some capabilities to their web sites. Other than that, U.S government extended the moratorium on Internet taxes.

Recently, we can see that Amazon.com and eBay.com are very successful in online purchases, it is because the network improvement and it become more safety at online banking.

Related Links:
http://www.ecommerce-journal.com/articles/electronic_commerce_aka_e_commerce_history
http://www.ecommerce-land.com/history_ecommerce.html
http://newmedia.medill.northwestern.edu/courses/nmpspring01/brown/Revstream/history.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Commerce

Posted by Toh Jin Huey

E-commerce Benefits: Reducing Cycle Time, Improve Employees' Empowerment and Facilitate Customer Support

Nowadays, E-commerce is getting more popular as E-commerce enables the suppliers and consumers to sell or purchase the purchase the products and services. Now, i am going to share some of the benefits by using E-commerce.

Cycle time is the total amount of time between the consumer making order and receiving the goods. For example, if the customer wants to make an order, it just need a few seconds. Besides, it only takes 2 or 3 working days for the goods to be delivered to recipient. As E-commerce can reduce the cycle time, it not only can decrease the carrying costs and shrinkage costs, it also can increase the revenue and competitive advantage and improve the cash flow.

Now, let me give you an example of a company - Dell. Dell company having an online shopping without any limited country and also timing, It operates for 24 hours per day and no off day during any public holiday. If you want to buy any product from this company, you no need to think when can buy the product because the transaction is available at all the time. This is not only benefit of E-commerce but also benefit the consumers by giving them a convenience, fastest speed and lowest cost that can reduce the cycle time to process the online shopping.

Employees' empowerment becomes a very important issue to an organization producing services. They need to give the employee to have the power to make any decisions regarding their jobs or tasks because this can makes the employees have the responsibility of the quality of service that delivered to the customers. In order for the management to trust that their employees are successful in dealing with their customers, the management has to give the employees authority and support to succeed at it. For example, they should let the employees to respond the feedback or comment that given by the customer.

E-commerce facilitates customer support by providing customer the opportunity to shop more convenient. Other than that, if the customer has any question, they can go through the Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) section because this section has the answer they wanted. But, if there did not have any answer they want, they can contact the person-in-charge that mention at the contact us or just e-mail to the mail address that given. Besides that, E-commerce provides 24 hours operation. So that, if they get any complaint from the customer, they will use the fastest speed to complete the problem and update the new information to let the customer know about it.

In conclusion, E-commerce has brought many benefits to the consumer such as reducing cycle time, improve employees' empowerment and facilitate customer support during our daily life. Hope everyone can spread it around the world.

Reference Link:
http://www.remarkable.co.nz/ebusiness_cost_benefit.htm


~Post by Wendy Lee~

An example of an E-commerce success and its causes--- eBay

eBay is a global online marketplace where practically anyone can trade practically anything. Launched in 1995, eBay started as a place to trade collectibles and hard-to-find items.

eBay founded in Pierre Omidyar's San Jose, a computer programmer, wrote the code for an auction website that he ran from his home computer in September 1995. It was from start meant to be a marketplace for the sale of goods and services for individuals.

Today, eBay is the world's largest online community of buyers and sellers. With a global presence in 38 markets, including the US, and over 241 million registered users worldwide, eBay offers boundless opportunity to come together in one Internet site and be able to buy and trade a wide range of items, including fine collectibles. It allows people pursue their interests and their passions in the areas of their hobbies and their collectibles.

eBay has built an online person-to-person trading community on the Internet, using the World Wide Web. Buyers and sellers are brought together in a manner where sellers are permitted to list items for sale, buyers to bid on items of interest and all eBay users to browse through listed items in a fully automated way. The items are arranged by topics, where each type of auction has its own category. It's convenient and easy to be found by people.

eBay has both streamlined and globalized traditional person-to-person trading, which has traditionally been conducted through such forms as garage sales, collectibles shows, flea markets and more, with their web interface. This facilitates easy exploration for buyers and enables the sellers to immediately list an item for sale within minutes of registering.



eBay has done a regular basis to promote eBay, they have had isolated campaigns through radio and print, and they've also done some tradeoffs and some banner ads on other sites. But the really unique thing about eBay is that when compare theirs to traditional businesses or other e-commerce sites, they have done very little external promotion to build membership.

eBay is such a unique community that they've been able to build their membership through the word-of-mouth of their users and they've also attracted new members due to the amount of media attention that has come to the site in the past few years.

Another cause has helped to make eBay as successful as it has been, is that people really enjoy the experience of the shopping bazaar. They enjoy looking around for merchandise. The other component is they really enjoy the competition of the bidding process. Everybody likes to get a bargain, and in some way, shape or form, likes to haggle a little bit over the price. eBay's auction format allows users to do that.

Obviously, people are becoming more and more comfortable with shopping online and they're getting more and more accustomed to doing that. That's another factor why eBay is grateful.

Related links:
http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~magnus/ief248a/eBay/history.html
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/2127.html
http://news.ebay.com/about.cfm

Posted by Moo Hui Sin

☆Jin Huey's First Time☆

Hello everyone, I’m Jin Huey~~ This is my first time to write the blog and introduce myself to everyone, I hope I can get well in here. Same as first three people, I’m accounting year three semester one student in Utar, also is twenty one years old. Other than that, I same as Shih Ting come from JB. Actually, we are same school and same class in secondary school, but we just start to talk and know each other in this 2 years. We also are housemate in Flora Green Condominium now, but the TM Point not allow us to shift line and no more internet connection, so is very bored in Sg. Long. No internet, no life~~

I like to online to search any interest things on any website to improve my knowledge and let my life full filling. When I switch on my laptop, first is logging in MSN and check my mail box in the web of Utar, hotmail, yahoo and gmail to read through all mail. After that, I will go to read my friend blog in Wretch (http://www.wretch.cc/), Multiply (http://www.multiply.com/), and Google’s Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/), because that can let us know that each other’s what happen in recently and receive some interesting story. Thirdly, I will go to read online news at http://www.sinchew-i.com/ to get the new information at there and no need to spend money to buy newspaper. Forth, I will go to some forum (http://www.jbtalks.cc/, http://www.yeng9.com/, http://www.chinese3.cari.com.my/) to find out some interest information, knowledge and give some comments. Lastly, I will go to Friendster (http://www.freindster.com/) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/) to check my account. At the same time, I also will chat with friend in MSN messenger.

The top five websites that I mostly visited are:
1. http://www.hotmail.com/
Check my mail.
2. http://www.wretch.cc/
Read my best friend blog and left comment.
3. http://www.sinchew-i.com/
Read some interesting news.
4. http://www.dict.cn/
I always use this to check some word’s meaning when I cannot understand it for my poor language.
5. http://www.yeng9.com/
Support my friend forum, chat with friend, get and share interesting information.

Above is my internet life. Lastly, the Chinese New Year is coming, so I wish everyone have a nice holiday and Happy Chinese New Year.

***ᚤၥ ShIhtInG***

Hi everyone, Weng Shih Ting here. U can call me bunbun also. I’m Year 3 Semester 1 student of UTAR. Well, because of the subject of E-Commerce we have to write this blog. The first thing we have to do is introduction. I like to eat all the delicious food. I have a big stomach which can let me eat a lot although im skinny. I like to listen to the music. The thing I like the most is winnie the pooh!it's cuteee!^^


I like surfing also. Since I entered into UTAR, I realized that I can’t live without internet. The top five websites which I visited the most are:

1. www.friendster.com
   I use this to keep in touch with my friends. I also can upload my photo into this website.


2. www.hotmail.com
   I check my email through this website. I also can send and forward mail to my friends through this.


3. www.google.com
   This is a search engine which I like it the most. It can search any picture, song, websites, article or anything we want to find even though we only know few words related to the thing we want to find.


4. www.facebook.com
   This is a website which I can communicate with my friends and playing games.


5. www.xinxl.com
   I use this to download the newest drama, movie and TV show.

I always chit chats with my friends using msn or Skype and check my mail when I have online. I also have used PP Stream to watch drama or any show. Online shopping is one of the good internet activities for me. Now, I have to update our blog once a week by posting new post about E-Commerce.

I enjoy my life and I believe that happy go lucky. ^^

Mo0moo is here~~~

Moomoo.... That is how my friends call me, it's lovely and warmly for me.
In last time, i was not like my friends call me by this name, felt that they were not respecting me, call me like a cow, but now, i know that, i just lack of confidence on myself.

I am Moo Hui Sin, twenty-first years old, born in Kuala Lumpur and also pass my twenty one years in Kuala Lumpur. I'm studying in Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, taking a degree of accounting course, this is the 3rd year, and also the last of my university life. My secondary school is Chong Hwa Independent High School, which located on Jalan Ipoh. When I was in secondary school, I was a science student, so I still not very familiar with my accounting subject. "Credit??", "Debit???", so confusing....

Be honesty, I'm not a hardworking student(Obviously), 90% of my friends confirmed I was a lazy girl. I like to sleep, if nothing to do, i like to lay on bed. Besides sleep, i will browse any interest news, novel, entertainment, relevant information about assignment, and shops on WEB. If say sleep take-up 50% of my life, surfing is another 30%.

The top 5 websites that I spend time mostly are:
1. www.hotmail.com
I have check my mail box everyday, checking for any messages from my friends and family members wish to convey to me, interesting and important information those will build up our knowledges and intelligence.

2. www.google.com
It is the largest and useful search engine. Everything i wish to search, i will type relevant keyword and very soon will get the results. It is very useful to find any information, it likes a huge library build on the internet.

3. www.facebook.com
Facebook is the largest and common "contact book" currently. In this website, we can keep contact with our friends, find out those old friends were lost contact, and be friend with new comers.

4. www.youtube.com
Youtube is a premier destination to watch and share videos worldwide through web. There are many funny and intesting video clips that can entertain us.

5. www.ebay.com
Every girls also likes shopping, includes me. Ebay is a world online marketplace, it provides trading between customers, it makes our life convenient and satisfactory.

About me...{Wendy}

Harlo, my name is Lee Jian Hsin, everyone called me Wendy. :) I come from Klang. I were study in UTAR already 3 years. This year is my last year. My secondary school is Methodist Girl School Klang. During my secondary school, i have join quite many club such as Badminton, Ping Pong, Volleyball, Taekwondo and Choir. But, usually i were active in Choir club, Taekwondo club and also Volleyball club. In those club i have won many prices and was representing school and also state for the competitions.

My hobby is watch drama, read novel and sleep. :) Am i look like a pig???

My top 5 website that i visit always are :
1. http://www.hotmail.com
2. http://www.utar.edu.my
3. http://www.facebook.com
4. http://www.yeng9.com
5. http://www.friendster.com

The most website i visit is http://www.hotmail.com is because in the website i can check my mail that my friend sent to me. Other than that, i can chat with my listed friend about my feeling.

The second website i visit is http://www.utar.edu.my is because in the website i can find pass year question that i need. Other than that, i can get the new information under the announcement that was post by the person-in-charge. I also can get my result at the first moment.

Third website i visit http://www.facebook.com is because in this website i can find back my ex classmate, ex schoolmate and friends. In this website, i can share my interest with other friends, chat about our lifedays.

The forth website i visit always is http://www.yeng9.com . In this website consist many Utar students give their opinion, share the information to other people and have online shopping.

The last website i visit is http://www.friendster.com is because in the website i can know more friends and share own interest. Other than that in the website, everyone can post bulletin to let everyone see and we can become any fans in any singer and artist fans clubs.

Lastly, i want to wish everyone " Happy Chinese New Year " and Happy Holiday. Gong Xi Fa Cai ^-^