E-Commerce Business Models and Strategies

This assignment delves into the realm of e-commerce, requiring students to analyze diverse business models employed in this sector. It emphasizes understanding how these models influence customer behaviors, such as repeat purchase intentions, trust, satisfaction, and perceived risk. Furthermore, the assignment explores successful strategies adopted by businesses for global e-commerce expansion, highlighting key considerations like web infrastructure, innovation, and organizational adaptation.

Running head: E-COMMERCE AND E-BUSINESS
E-COMMERCE AND E-BUSINESS
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Executive summary
The objective of this report is to discuss about the aspects of e-commerce and e-business. Gift
Barn is one of the biggest online retailers in New Zealand. Different methods are discussed in
order to maintain customer satisfaction and to promote the sales of the organisations, are
discussed in the following report. Advantages and disadvantages of online retailing is also
discussed in this report.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
1. Opportunities and barriers for E-Commerce............................................................................3
1(a) Opportunities.....................................................................................................................3
1(b) Barriers.............................................................................................................................4
2(a) Product suitability.............................................................................................................5
2(b) Ways of combining e-commerce and traditional commerce............................................6
3 .Revenue model identification and recommendation................................................................6
3(a) Potential revenue models for Gift Barn............................................................................6
3(b) Most suitable revenue model............................................................................................7
4. Web Usability..........................................................................................................................8
4(a) Web design of Gift Barn for attracting more peopple......................................................8
4(b) Need of customer centric website for Gift Barn...............................................................8
4(c) Ways of maintain loyalty..................................................................................................9
5. Supply Chain Management......................................................................................................9
Value of suppliers and importance of supply chain management............................................9
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
This report discusses about the opportunities, barriers, different features of E-Commerce
and E-Business. There are many advantages and disadvantages of the E-Commerce and E-
Business and those are discussed along with several features of E-Commerce and E-Business
regarding the Gift Barn Company which is the biggest E-Commerce and E-Business companies
in New Zealand (Barnes & Hunt, 2013). Gift Barn mainly supplies various gifts and hampers for
the people of New-Zealand and they are also the pioneer in the online market in New Zealand. In
today’s world people are more interested and comfortable in making the transaction and buy
things through internet. Online marketing is one of the largest products of the advancement of
internet and information technology.
In this report advantages and disadvantages of E-Commerce and E-Business are
discussed with respect to the organisation of Gift Bard. Several recommendations are also given
in order to make the online marketing system more advanced and user friendly.
TASK
1. Opportunities and barriers for E-Commerce
1(a) Opportunities
E-Commerce and E-Business have many potential benefits and advantages which are also
applicable in case of Gift Barn (Cherif & Grant, 2014).

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 The process of selling and buying becomes more faster. As Gift Barn gives the
opportunity to other people to buy gifts and hampers for other, it is very easy to
choose the gifts for the customers (Chiu et al., 2014). Customers can see the cost,
detailed specifications and the features of the object in a same portal. Customers
can find any kinds of gifts in a same website.
 Customers can also compare the objects of same type with respect to the cost and
features of the object from a particular portal. The availability and the access of
the websites of the products are for 24x7 hours (Da Costa, 2016). People can send
and buy their gifts from anywhere and the customers have the gifts easily by the
advanced delivery process.
 There are also several types of transaction processes like cash on delivery and
online transactions (Einav et al., 2014). The operational cost is lowest for the
company and the quality of the service is also very better in case of online
marketing.
 Customers don’t need to physically move for buying several products. This type
of business is also very easy to initiate and to manage (Fang et al., 2014).
1(b) Barriers
There are also many issues regarding the e-commerce venture of the organisation. The
main disadvantages are given below.
 In this e-commerce business the main issue is regarding the reliability of the customers
with the organisation on the basis of the quality of the products. Since there is no direct
connection between the organisation and the customers, it is always an issue with the
loyalty (Fielt, 2013).

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 Another important issue is hacking. In case of online transaction the customer has to put
the information like name, address and account details in the corresponding website.
These kinds of information are very sensitive and should be kept confidential (Hartono et
al., 2014). The security of the public data is most important for the company. In some
cases like hacking and data breaching the security of this information is important to be
kept. It is seen that in many cases the hackers have stolen the data regarding the banking
details from many e-commerce website. It is important to keep the data secured for the
organisation.
2. Suitability to E-commerce
2(a) Product suitability
The suitability of the product is always been an important parameter for any business. It
is an important principle set by the business authority for recommending the product to the
clients according to the need and suitability of the product. For the suitability of the product the
recommended product must be the best option for the choice of the customer. The information
regarding the need of the customer is determined on the basis of some assessment done on the
choices of several clients. The main products that Gift Barn sells are gifts and hampers. There is
no doubt that these types of products are very suitable for e-commerce and e-business. People
buy a lot of gifts for their relatives and friends for whole year and this type of marketing
increases drastically in case of various occasions (Huang & Benyoucef, 2013). In occasions and
in different events people need to buy several gifts for the organisation (Laudon & Traver, 2013).
For this reason it is very suitable for the Gift Barn organisation to come in the e-commerce
business. To increase the product suitability the information regarding the client’s choice and the
assessment of the needs of the clients are also needed including the set up of goal to the client’s

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regarding the customer’s choice. It is also important to get the feedback from the client in order
to get the best possible idea about the product suitability.
2(b) Ways of combining e-commerce and traditional commerce
Gift barn has performed very well in the e-commerce market since they have started the
journey. The main advantage for Gift Barn is that they have blended the e-commerce and the
traditional commerce in a well defined direction. In e-commerce the transaction of items and
money is done in online platform (Popa, Soto-Acosta & Loukis, 2016). The company keeps track
of all these transactions with the help of big data base system. People make the payment either
by online or by cash on delivery method. Actually it is easy to keep track of all the transaction in
case of e-commerce. E-commerce is one of the largest markets in modern world and for this
reason most of the transactions are being done through the online platform. In traditional
commerce the data regarding the transaction of money is being done by maintaining the data
sheet and hardcopies but in case of e-commerce all the processing of transaction is done through
information. Another advantage of doing the e-commerce is that it is available for 24x7 hours
whereas the traditional marketing is done for limited duration. Gift Barn utilises the e-commerce
and the traditional commerce in a complementary way (Soto-Acosta, Popa & Palacios-Marqués,
2016). It can use some shops where the transaction of gifts and hampers are done by utilising the
e-commerce. It can deal with other organisations whicg are in the market of traditional
commerce and can have gifts as a discount which can be taken place through e-commerce.

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3 .Revenue model identification and recommendation
3(a) Potential revenue models for Gift Barn
There are many possible revenue models for the Gift Barn organisation that can be utilised in
order to collect more revenue in a better way. Here are two revenue models which are discussed
below (Taylor et al., 2014).
 The revenue can be collected in several ways. One of them is cost per click (CPC) or pay
per click model. Many advertisements are used in the portal of the nline marketing
platform (Veit et al., 2014). Revenue can be collected on the basis of not only the number
of displaying the advertisements but also the number of clicks which are used to access
the advertisements. These advertisements can be used on the organisation’s portal as well
as on the third party websites. The cost per click can be very high in several cases and
can be used to collect a good amount of revenue.
 Another model can be created on the basis of sponsorship of other sites and contents. In
this case the Gift Barn Company can give advertisements for other websites and contents
on their portal and it can make a good amount of revenue for them collected from the
other organisations (Wang, Wang & Liu, 2016).
3(b) Most suitable revenue model
In the above discussion two revenue models are discussed that can be utilized for the e-
commerce model. Among the two models one can be utilized in a better way which can be
utilized in order to maintain better gain of the revenue. The CPC model is more advantageous
from the point of view of collecting the revenue. It can also collect a lot of revenue and it simply
depends upon the usage of the website on which the advertisements are discussed. The CPC

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model is based on cost per click model. It can be easily understood that more is the number of
clicks; more is the amount of revenue that is collected. The collection of revenue simply depends
upon the traffic of the website (Yee-Loong et al., 2014). As Gift Barn is one of the main online
retailing companies in New Zealand and it sells gifts and hampers, the attractiveness of the
website is very high. As the number of the click for this website is very high due to customers
attempts of choosing different products, the CPC can be more.
4. Web Usability
4(a) Web design of Gift Barn for attracting more people
There are many important features of making a well structured website for the better
customer satisfaction and accessibility. The main reason of making the website in terms of the
customer satisfaction is to understand the reasons of the customers for using the website. Once
the goal is understood then the outline of the website should be designed with the proper
designing of the framework. Then the design of the grid is important in order to provide a outline
for the system. In case of an e-commerce company it is very important to understand the
customer’s requirements and choices about various products. The colour theme, layout and the
prototype should also be in such a way so that the customer can find it usable and well
accessible. As there is no face to face connection between the company and the customer, it is
hard to understand the customer’s review about the website. In case of e-commerce the
connection is like screen to face. In order to do so the company must design the homepage of the
organization in a better way so that the customers can share their reviews easily to the website.
Gift Barn also uses a well designed website that helps to understand the people’s choice (Soto-

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Acosta, Popa & Palacios-Marqués, 2016). The first priority of the website should be in such a
way that helps to find out the problems of the customers regarding the interaction between the
website and them. The homepage should contain various feedback options and review options
that can help the company to understand the view of the people about the website (Huang &
Benyoucef, 2013).
4(b) Need of customer centric website for Gift Barn
As Gift Barn is one of the most popular e-commerce website in New-Zealand, it has a
large number of customers that is the main source of income of the company. The main product
that is sold by Gift Barn is the gifts and hampers (Yee-Loong et al., 2014). There are lots of
needs for the customer centric websites. It basically increases the ease of use. It also helps to
resolve the problems. It can increase the amount of sales in a large amount. It makes the
company more transparent to the customers. People buy gifts and hamper for their relatives and
friends in different occasions and gifts are also bought for programs in offices and institutes. As
a result the number of products is high for the huge requirement of it the website of Gift Barn
must be of customer centric as the main source of income is the customers. Their review and
requirements should be taken care of with highest priority.
4(c) Ways of maintain loyalty
The trust and loyalty of customers are the most important factors for any company in the
e-commerce market. As the connection between the website and customers is screen to face,
therefore it is a challenge to maintain the loyalty towards the customers (Fang et al., 2014). The
website should maintain the quality of the products with highest priority and the service
regarding the supply of the products should be also taken care of.

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5. Supply Chain Management
Value of suppliers and importance of supply chain management
The supply chain management is the most important thing in the e-commerce
management. The distribution and supply of the gifts depend upon the main chain system and the
middleman companies which take an important role in this case (Barnes & Hunt, 2013). As the
reliability of the company depends upon these middleman companies, it is very important to
communicate with these companies. The importance of the main supply chain lies in the supply
system of the Gift Barn organization. The main advantages of supply chain are that it works
physically in case of transferring the products to the customers. The supply chain is also
important in case of making the system more suitable for the customers in terms of fast response
and presentation.
Conclusion
From the above discussion it is understood that Gift Barn is one of the biggest
organizations in New Zealand and to promote this organization in the e-commerce market
different aspects are discussed in this report. Public reliability is an important factor for this
organization. Different models of e-commerce and e-business are discussed to understand the
revenue collecting method of Gift Barn.

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