Overview

• Applications of E-Commerce • Regulatory Considerations in

E-Commerce
• Emerging Trends in E-
Commerce & Mobile • Ethical Considerations in E-
Commerce Commerce

• E-Commerce Applications: • Case Studies & Applications of

Economic Considerations E-Commerce

• E-Commerce Applications:
Technological Considerations

• E-Commerce Applications:
Social Considerations
Applications of E-Commerce
• Advantages of using e commerce in business are motivating lot of
businesses to use E-Commerce for their business.
• Various business areas such as retail, wholesale and manufacturing are
using E-Commerce.
• The most common Applications of E-commerce are as follows:
▫ Retail & wholesale
▫ Marketing
▫ Finance
▫ Manufacturing
▫ Auctions
▫ Entertainment
▫ Education
• Retail & wholesale-
• There are numerous applications for retail as well as wholesale in case of
ecommerce.
• Here comes e-retailing or may be called as online retailing.
• This refers to the selling of goods and other services through electronic
stores from business to consumers.
• These are designed and equipped using shopping cart model and electronic
catalog.
• Some of the examples are:
• Marketing-
• Using web and ecommerce, data collection about the following are possible:
▫ Preferences
▫ Behavior
▫ Needs
▫ Buying patterns
• The marketing activities like price fixing, product feature and its
enhancement, negotiation, and the relationship with the customer can be
made using these.

• Finance-
• eCommerce is being used by the financial companies to a large extent.
• By the name finance we know that there will be customers and transactions.
• The customers can check the balance in their savings account, as well as
their loan account.
• There are features like transferring of money from and to their own
accounts, paying of bills online and also e-banking.
• Online stock trading is also another feature of ecommerce.
• Some of the examples are: Economic Times, Business Today ,
BankBazaar , MoneyControl , TaxGuru , Bloomberg etc.
• Manufacturing-
• eCommerce is included and used in the chain operations (supply) of a
company.
• There are companies that form electronic exchange.
• This is by providing buying and selling items together, trading market
information and the information of runback office like inventory control.
• This is a way that speeds up the flow of finished goods and the raw
materials among the business community members.

• Auctions-
• eCommerce customer to customer is direct selling of goods among
customers.
• It includes electronic auctions that involve bidding system.
• Bidding allows prospective buyers to bid an item.
• In Airline Company they give bidding opportunity for customers to quote
the price for a seat on specific route, date and time.
• Examples- mybids.in, ebay.in, apkabid.com etc.
• Entertainment-
• eCommerce application is widely used in entertainment area also for video
cataloging, multiplayer games, interactive ads and for online discussion.
• The Entertainment Industry consists of 3 major areas. These are Music,
Movies, and Television.
• There was a definite way of how these 3 mediums were purchased and
distributed before the advent of E-commerce.
• With E-commerce people could go online through popular sites like
BookMyShow and MovieTickets.com to check show times and even
purchase movie tickets.
• iTunes is the largest source for Digital Media in the United States .They
started out with just music only and moved to Movies and Television. Other
examples include Netflix, HotStar, Voot etc as they have helped
television become more accessible to everyone.
• Education-
• In educational training also ecommerce has major role for interactive
education, video conferencing, online class and for connecting different
educational training centers.
• With the advent of online education, the entire admission process is being
rethought and the barriers to access being reevaluated.
• The mission of higher education institutions is moving toward making
education more widely available, nationally and internationally, and at a
lower cost.
• Some of the examples are:
Emerging Trends in E-Commerce
& Mobile Commerce
• eCommerce is nothing new to talk about, however, what has changed is the
way we shop.
• The whole shopping experience online, a few trends seem to be
emerging. Some of them are:
• Deals and Coupons
• Group Buying
• Impact of AI
• Social Ecommerce
• Quality rather than quantity
• Fulfillment options
• Mobile Image Recognition (MIR) Technology
• Video Content
• Rise in Mobile Apps with augmented reality
• NFC-enabled payment will increase
• Deals and Coupons-
• Offline deals and coupons were always there and now have been taken
online.
• Twitter’s model of offering special deals via its @earlybird account is an
outcome of the same.
• However, even before @earlybird, there have been models
like cheaptweet that would find all deals, sales and discounts from the
twitter database to let visitors search and save these.
• If deals do not interest you a lot or if you are a coupon person, you have
websites like retailmenot, dealcatcher, upto75 which help you save a
lot through coupons. The good thing is that most of these models let you
use codes of coupons for online shopping and even print for an offline
experience.
• Group Buying-
• Times might have changed but all we are doing is learning from the past.
• Most of us love shopping in groups, we love to take our friends advice, take
them along to help us shop.
• Group buying as a model is similar and simple: Consumers get together to
buy a deal and there are websites
like SnapDeal, Grabbon, Myntra which offer discounts on products and
services. Of course, the deals are as short as a few hours, but can also last
longer.
• Impact of AI-
• The most popular AI applications from the industry leaders currently using AI
appear to be:
• Chatbots/AI assistants: Responding to customer inquiries, responding to
voice commands for simple tasks and providing product recommendations
through interactions using natural language.
• Recommendation engines: Companies are analyzing customer behavior on
their websites and using algorithms to predict what products may appeal to
customers and provide recommendations.
• Integrate with everyday household items: There are few more interesting
examples of AI integration than the partnership between Amazon’s Alexa and
LG’s Smart InstaView refrigerators.
LG have experimented with several previous versions of the InstaView
refrigerator with enormous touch screens built into the door.
• Social Ecommerce-
• Retailers are adopting social media as their lead sales medium .
• Social network has come to play the most important role in the retail world
lately , almost 40 % purchases are made because of social media handles .
• Thus , social network is sure expected to rise in the coming time.
• Facebook has become the most visited site on the Web, the role of social
media, including Facebook and its local clones such as Twitter, is
increasingly important.
• Social media sites increasingly act as points of entry to e-commerce sites,
and vice versa, as e-commerce sites build rating, loyalty and referral
systems tied to social media.
• Quality rather than quantity-
• Retailers have come to an understanding that now having more variety will
not win them customers, thus the focus has shifted to enhancing
customized shopping experience by introducing new features.
• The emphasis is now being laid on unique online features like virtual trial
rooms, zoom in pictures, 360 degree image view.
• Fulfillment options-
• Users want to have multiple fulfillments and return options when
interacting with a vendor: ship to address, courier, pick-up in store, return
to store, etc.
• Having many fulfillment options is how customers view their overall
customer experience. Some companies have made a business proposition
online by being exceptional in service to the online channel (e.g., Zappos).
• To expedited shipping, more merchants will store inventory at fulfillment
centers located close to customers.
• Many online retailers have also found great success and customer retention
with membership opportunities. Perhaps the most common in the online
retail sphere is Amazon Prime, where any customer can join for $99 per
year and enjoy benefits like free two-day shipping and free streaming
services for both music and movies.
• Mobile Image Recognition (MIR) Technology-
• With MIR technology, consumers are able to snap an image of a product
with their mobile device and are given access to an unprecedented new
world of shopping.
• Mobile Image Recognition technology is transforming the way the
businesses will advertise and interact with consumers.
• With Image Recognition, consumers are able to point their cameras at a
product in any print advertisement and purchase it immediately.
• Video Content-
• With the emergence of the smart phones with the latest technologies, the
multimedia content is rising and gaining momentum.
• The multimedia content mainly includes videos and animations which have
started attracting huge traffic from the mobile devices.
• The development of this trend is on such a rise that by 2020, it may grab
the attention of more than 80% smart phone users.
• Mcommerce sites use videos more to showcase products and customer
testimonials, promote customer service, and advertise ecommerce business.
• Rise in Mobile Apps with augmented reality-
• The emergence of the augmented reality has brought immersive as well as
interactive experiences for the users regarding the products they use.
• For example, products like VR goggles, headsets, and a lot more in this
category give immersive experiences to the users, and they are
encouraged to use them through different mediums.
• AR helps bring the store to your home, quite literally. Features like virtual
changing rooms and customization help consumers make a more informed
decision while making a purchase.
• Here are a few AR apps:
• With L’Oreal’s Makeup Genius app, you can make your smart phone a mirror
and try new looks, check out different makeup shades, and share them on social
media.
• In the automobile sector, BMW aims to provide a personalized experience to
its shoppers with AR's help. It utilizes Google's Tango app to let the consumer
experience their choices- for instance, how their car would look with customizations
such as plush seat covers, steering wheels with fur trim, or parked in their own
garage.
• Gap, a leading fashion retailer, has developed the "Dressing Room" app that enables
shoppers to create a virtual avatar of themselves
• NFC-enabled payment will increase-
• NFC (near field communication) is the technology that allows two devices—like
your phone and a payments terminal—to talk to each other when they’re close
together.
• NFC is the technology that enables contactless payments.
• Examples of NFC mobile payments- Apple Pay, Android Pay, and
Samsung Pay.
• NFC mobile payments are dynamically encrypted, making them one of the most
secure ways to pay.
• Some plastic debit and credit cards now contain NFC chips, enabling people to
pay for items by simply tapping the card against an NFC terminal.
• Mobile phones are also being equipped with NFC capabilities, enabling
consumers to use the technology to interact with readers to access information,
validate tickets, redeem vouchers, collect loyalty points, make in-store payments
and use many other commercial services.
E-Commerce Applications: Economical
Considerations

• Lower prices
When you’re the only widget seller within 10 miles, you can charge list prices.
When you’re competing online in a global marketplace, prices tend to fall.
• Shipping & handling
New online retailers often experience sticker shock when they start looking at
the cost of shipping and packaging. Suddenly, your buyers are paying 20-100%
more to get your product, and all that revenue goes to your shipping provider.
It involves packaging cost also.
• Online store build out and “rent”
There are basically two ways to sell products online — go to where buyers are, or
bring the buyers to you.
If you want your own store at your own website, expect to pay for a hefty up-
front setup cost or a monthly subscription. In addition to the cost of software,
hosting, and domain registration, there is the human cost of web designers,
developers, and webmasters
• Equipment
Some basic equipment you'll need to effectively sell online:
 Good computer - This is the heart of your online business. A good
computer helps every part of your operations; a troublesome or slow
computer is conversely damaging to your processes.
 Broadband Internet

• Huge market
The Internet is the largest marketplace in the world. It allows buyers and
sellers from halfway around the world to conduct business. If you're not
already selling online, start soon. There are customers across the country or
even around the world that want to buy from you.
E-Commerce Applications:
Technological Considerations
• Scalability:
Will the site perform efficiently through traffic peaks and valleys?
• Scalability may be one of the most overused terms in IT marketing.
• An e-commerce Website is only as good as its ability to handle its peak
traffic.
• As your Website popularity increases, it needs to scale with minimal effort
so you can avoid incurring disproportionate infrastructure management
costs.
• When evaluating e-commerce applications, consider following questions:
▫ What is the peak number of visits (or open sessions) the site has supported?
▫ How many orders per day does the site take?
▫ How many page views per visit does each visitor make on average?
▫ How big or complex is the product catalog, and how many categories, products,
and stock-keeping units (SKUs) are in it?
▫ What is the average response time of the home page and typical detail pages?
▫ How much hardware, software, and infrastructure are required to handle these
volumes?
• Search:
How easily can customers find what they want, and how easily can I promote
the products I want to push based on customer searches?
• The search box is often the first tool an e-commerce customer uses.
• Today, users expect search to not only find but also guide them to the
products they’re looking for.
• A search experience that really works for your customers can significantly
increase online revenue.
• External search engines such as Yahoo! and Google also need to find your
products.
• When evaluating e-commerce applications, consider following questions:
▫ How easily can I integrate an e-commerce search experience into my online store?
▫ What product attributes can customers search on?
▫ Can I learn about my customers based on their searches?
▫ Is the search engine pre-integrated and catalog aware?
▫ What business control do I have in creating filtering and navigation paths?
• Reporting and Analytics:
Do I have all the features I need to understand my online business?
• Your e-commerce Website stores a treasure trove of information about your
customers, their behavior, and their preferences.
• But businesses typically struggle to figure out how to leverage the business
value this data holds.
• When evaluating e-commerce applications, remember that you can’t control
what you can’t measure. Having rich insight into the running of your online
store is critical to your ongoing success.
• Consider the following questions:
▫ How does the site capture and store both historic and behavioral data?
▫ What insights can I get from customers’ searches?
▫ How easy is it to monitor business metrics like conversion rates and average order
sizes?
▫ Do the reports allow me to drill down to find the data behind the results?
▫ How easily can I create ad hoc reports to get quick answers to specific questions?
• Integration:
How easily can the application integrate with my other systems?
• The e-commerce Website, once a standalone, is now a highly integrated
application that touches many other systems and processes.
• As businesses become more imaginative about how they mix their Web
channel with other customer touch points, clean and easy integration is
mandatory.
• When evaluating e-commerce applications, look for modularity and
consider following questions:
▫ Where does the application store customer data?
▫ Which application owns pricing?
▫ Which application does the financial reporting?
▫ How are orders communicated and fulfilled, and what happens when things go
wrong? How are credit card details authorized, and how is transaction settlement
handled?
▫ How is fraud detection handled?
▫ How can promotions and discounts be synchronized with the other channels?
• Security:
• Hackers can break into your business website's database to steal
confidential and proprietary information, along with customer data.
• Many customers have learned how to look for “security seals” on websites,
and will not make purchases from sites that are not secure.
• To prevent hacks and to increase customer confidence, secure your website
by purchasing a secure socket layer, or SSL, certificate. Most Web hosting
companies offer SSL certificates for an additional fee.
E-Commerce Applications: Social
Considerations
• E-commerce has huge impact on the economy and society. Social
considerations include the following:
• Privacy:
• Technology used in e-commerce has an effect on social issues such as
privacy.
• Companies engaged in e-commerce gather information about their
customer’s purchasing habits.
• Some companies compile information not only about their customer’s
purchasing habits but also their web browsing behavior across multiple
stores and information sites as well as name, address, contact number etc.
• The e-commerce companies should post privacy policies on the websites
indicating therein where and how personal information can be used.
• For example- A preliminary report in December 2017 by German
competition authorities found Facebook “abuses” its dominant position to
gain access to third-party data when an account is opened. That includes
transferring data from its own WhatsApp and Instagram products as well as
how it tracks what sites its users access.
• Security:
• As internet was not designed for business purposes, breaching security on
Internet is not difficult for those who understand its structure.
• Therefore, it is not easy to safely send message to the destination through
Internet.
• Credit card number theft, interception of proprietary product information,
defacing of existing web pages electronically, are the common type of
threats in e-commerce.
• To reduce this possibility, companies should use digital certificates to
authenticate that they are who they claim to be, and not use fraudulent site
stealing customer credit card numbers.
• The companies may install firewall to prevent unauthorized access to or
from private network.
• Another way to prevent attack on privacy of e-commerce transaction
information is to encrypt the information before sending it through the
Internet.
• Job Creation:
• The volume of domestic and international trade will increase through e-
commerce.
• E-commerce also expected to directly create new jobs in information and
communication technologies sector.
• Indirect creation of jobs will occur via increased in demand and
productivity.
• E-commerce is likely to affect job losses in retail sector, post offices and
travel agencies.

• Social isolation:
• E-commerce has been an imp facilitator of new flexible work forms in the
sense that people can trade on the move or sitting at home.
• On one hand, it provides all the comfort of shopping for social needs.
• This can lead to social isolation. The only time there is any personal contact
is when the consumer signs at the time of receiving the consignment or
when they call up customer service.
Regulatory & Ethical Considerations in
E-Commerce
• E-commerce is so new that the legal, ethical and other public policy issues
that are necessary for e-commerce existence are still evolving.
• But these issues are extremely imp. to the success of e-commerce as they
encompass one of the major pillars that support e-commerce applications.
• The implementations of e-commerce involves many issues, a few of them
are:
▫ Contract Law
 Software License agreements
 Business transactions in cyberspace, so called “e-commerce’
 Contracts for processing services
 Contracts for development of custom software or hardware
▫ Copyright Law
 Copy-right protection for computer software
 Copyright protection for text or pictures on Internet
▫ Trademark Law
 Domain name disputes
 Infringement or dilution of trademarks on internet.
 ▫ Patent Law
 Patents for novel software
 Patents for computer hardware

• Legal or regulatory issues that may be particularly relevant in an e-

commerce environment include:
▫ Adherence to national and international privacy requirements.
▫ Adherence to national and international requirements for regulated industries.
▫ The enforceability of contracts.
▫ The legality of particular activities, for example Internet gambling; The risk of
money laundering; and
▫ Violation of intellectual property rights.
Legal Disputes in B2C Internet based E-
commerce
• E-commerce has no legal boundaries. E-merchant and buyer an be from
any part of the world. In B2C, several kinds of disputes have been observed
which have legal implications. These are:
▫ Failure in delivery: The customer pays for the desired product to be bought,
but the e-merchant fails to deliver.
▫ Partial order delivery: The customer pays in full, but receives either the wrong
product or a partial order.
▫ No return policy: The customer does not like the product, but the e-merchant
has no return policy or no procedure for accepting returned product.
▫ No credit for returned goods: The customer does not like the product, but the
e-merchant refuses to accept returned product or give credit to settle the dispute.
▫ Denial of Service: The e-merchant delivers, but the customer does not admit
that he or she ever received the merchandise.
▫ Received damaged product: The customer receives the product ordered, but it
arrives in damaged condition. The carrier denies responsibility, the e-merchant
claims it is the carrier’s responsibility. And the vendor is located overseas with no
customer service number.
Legal Issues on the Internet
• There are many issues regarding laws and the Internet. Some of the issues
have been explained are:

• Privacy of Online Data:

• When people access the Web, they often entrust ital personal information
such a s their name, address, credit card number etc to their Internal
Service Poviders and to the websites they accessed.
• This information may fall into wrong hands and may used for wrong
purposes.
• MNC often receive information in one country and process this information
in some other country where privacy laws are altogether different.
• Therefore, in a globalized world it becomes very challenging for these
companies to ensure uniform standards of privacy.
• Cyber Jurisdiction:
• “Jurisdiction” is a concept whereby in any legal system, the power to hear or
determine a case is vested in an appropriate court.
• Internet can be treated as multi-jurisdictional because Websites can be
accessed from anywhere in the world.
• The issue of jurisdiction of Indian Courts in combating cybercrimes
committed by outsiders effecting Indian Cyber space located in India is a
very big challenge.

• Copyright Issues:
• Copyright is the ownership of intellectual property and its protection issue
related to e-commerce.
• The objective of copyright law is to encourage authors, composers, artists
and designers to create original work by rewarding them with the exclusive
right for a limited period to exploit the work for monetary gain.
• Most web pages are protected by copyright because they arrange the
elements of words, graphics and HTML tags in a way that creates an
original work.
• Patent:
• A patent is an exclusive right granted by the governments to an indiviual to
make, use and sell an invention. Patent law protects right confered in
respect to a new invention to manufacture the product patented or use the
process patented.
• The objective of patent law is to reward the inventors of new machines,
devices or industrial methods of the labor.
• Patents differ from copyright as they protect the ideas whereas copyright
protect expression of ideas.