E-commerce Strategies

This portfolio discusses various aspects of e-commerce, including building an e-commerce presence, security and payment systems, business strategies, and marketing and advertising. It covers topics such as revenue models, e-commerce security threats, digital marketing strategies, and social mobile and local marketing.

Running head: E-COMMERCE
E-commerce
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
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Portfolio 1: Building an E-commerce Presence
In consideration of structuring an e-commerce occurrence, example can be taken of
the Financial Times which is one of the remodels in the 21st century and held a lot of
profitability. Clear discussions are made based on the objectives that The Financial Times
followed while redesigning its e-commerce presence and in what consideration the
newspaper is considered as a unique one. While building an e-commerce presence, the needs
that the newspaper considered for its mobile device users are also discussed in this chapter.
This chapter also reflects the ideas or vision that needs to be focused on while developing an
e-commerce presence (Lu, Fan and Zhou 2016). The vision ideas that needs to be addressed
in this respect includes the mission statement, the targeted audiences, intended marketplace
for the e-commerce presence, tactical analysis, advertising matrix, expansion of timeline and
initial budget (Laudon and Traver 2018). The necessary ideas about the money that is used in
the business and revenue models, the demographic location, lifestyle ideas of the targeted
audiences and the characteristics of the market place is also considered in this module. After
determining all these, a SWOT analysis also needs to be done while developing the e-
commerce presence map, its milestones and its estimated budget idea. For developing a
simple e-commerce-based website the cost usually ranges up to $5000 while for small
startups the cost may be estimated around $25000 to $50000 (Lee and Park 2014). While
constructing an e-commerce site, a organized approach needs to be followed considering the
objectives and technologies the business wants to implement within the e-commerce
platform. The main factors that needs to be considered while developing an e-commerce
platform includes management, hardware architecture, software used, designing,
telecommunications and human resources needed. A systematic development of e-commerce
platform follows five major steps of planning which include system analysis, design, building

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the system, testing and finally implementing the system. An estimated, a $40k e-commerce
site may require $40k cost annually to maintain it.
Further, the factors like page delivery, page generation and content of the page need to be
considered while optimizing the website is discussed. E-commerce architectures are of two
types- two-tiered and multi-tired. Different types of dynamic generation tools are used here
like CGI, ASP, JSP and many more.
Figure 1: E-commerce website design process
References:
Lu, B., Fan, W. and Zhou, M., 2016. Social presence, trust, and social commerce purchase
intention: An empirical research. Computers in Human Behavior, 56, pp.225-237.

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Laudon, K.C. and Traver, C.G., 2018. E-commerce 2017.
Lee, E.J. and Park, J., 2014. Enhancing virtual presence in e-tail: Dynamics of cue
multiplicity. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 18(4), pp.117-146.
Portfolio 2: E-commerce security and payment systems
With the rise in the global cyber attacks like WannaCry and Not Petya, various
reports have claimed about the existing issues in the e-commerce platforms. According to the
survey in the year 2017, about $21 million was lost as a result of the data breach in the US.
The different kind of cyber threats that may take up the e-commerce platforms includes
usability in low cost webs, online credit card frauds and many more (Roy and Venkateswaran
2014). This to attain the highest grade of security in the e-commerce platform, new
technologies along with organizational policies and procedures by industry standards need to
be followed. Customers, as well as merchants, have different perspectives on the various
dimensions of the e-commerce security which includes honesty, legitimacy, confidentiality,
secrecy and many more. In the e-commerce platform, security threats may take place on the
client side, on the server side or in the communication pipeline (Isaac and Sherali 2014).
While processing an e-commerce transaction vulnerable points may exist in the Wi-Fi
network that is used or in the shipping process. The vulnerability may also exist in the
database servers, web servers, and in the transaction process where credit cards are
vulnerable for having DDoS attack. Among the various types of attacks that e-commerce
platforms may face includes malicious codes, unwanted programs, phishing attack, hacking
and data breach. About 15 data breach incidents are reported in the year 2016 which are
mainly caused. As a result of-of employee negligence and insider theft. The data breach of
Equifax is the most notable one which was caused due to a vulnerability in the web

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application. Another reason for which e-commerce platforms are on the verge of security
risks is due to the use of poorly designed software which leads to SQL injection attacks.
Apart from the e-commerce websites, modern day smartphones are also in the risk category
were attacks like vishing, smishing or spoofing may also take place. To mitigate all these
issues, it is needed to follow some technological solutions like encryption, SSL, firewall
implementation and OS security (Amboala et al. 2015). There are different kinds of e-
commerce payment systems available like credit cards or debit cards and operational payment
systems like PayPal. Digital currency like Bitcoins is very much beneficial to protect coins
from online thefts.
Figure 2: E-commerce website security and payment system
References:
Roy, S. and Venkateswaran, P., 2014, March. Online payment system using steganography
and visual cryptography. In 2014 IEEE Students' Conference on Electrical, Electronics and
Computer Science (pp. 1-5). IEEE

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Isaac, J.T. and Sherali, Z., 2014. Secure mobile payment systems. IT Professional, 16(3),
pp.36-43.
Amboala, T., Mokhtar, A.H.A., Muhammad, M.Z., Noordin, M.F. and Othman, R., 2015.
Development method for shariah compliant e-commerce payment processing. International
Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering, 7(5), pp.408-415.
Portfolio 3: E-commerce Business Strategies
In consideration to the e-commerce business policies, mention should be taken in
terms of Ace & Tate which is noted for taking up a more customer-centric approach in terms
of digital innovation and is known to have disrupted the European Eyewear market by its
business strategy. E-commerce business needs to follow specific commercial models to gain
profit in the marketplace (Chaffey 2015). The key elements that are included in a business
model provide proposition of values, revenue model, opportunity, marketing strategy,
competitive advantages and many more. It is very much important that the customers should
be valued to have successful e-commerce (Veit et al.2014). A perfect revenue model allows
business organisations to earn money strategically. While raising capitals crowdfunding is
very much useful. Companies that are known to have operated over one year can use
crowdfunding to raise funds. There are two types of e-commerce business models including
B2B and M-commerce. Apart from this, there exist B2C models that provide an online
environment to share contents and communicate (Abebe 2014). B2C models also help in
processing online transactions and mainly the financial services, job placement services make
use of this platform. The service providers of B2C models include google maps, Gmail and
many more. B2B models are generally owned by companies who seek to serve many
customers. E-procurement refers to the creation of digital markets to transact indirect goods.

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Example of such is Ariba. Case of Industry consortia that are vertical digital marketplace is
Supply On. In E-commerce business models, examples of private industrial networks are
Walmart that is used in firms to engage business together. Thus, it can be said that the e-
commerce platform has altered the overall corporate environment in many ways by allowing
business organisations to sell and buy elements and bringing in new methods in business and
enhancing the user experience.
Figure 3: E-commerce business models
References:
Chaffey, D., 2015. Digital business and e-commerce management. London: Pearson
Education Limited.
Veit, D., Clemons, E., Benlian, A., Buxmann, P., Hess, T., Kundisch, D., Leimeister, J.M.,
Loos, P. and Spann, M., 2014. Business models. Business & Information Systems
Engineering, 6(1), pp.45-53

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Abebe, M., 2014. Electronic commerce adoption, entrepreneurial orientation and small-and
medium-sized enterprise (SME) performance. Journal of small business and enterprise
development, 21(1), pp.100-116.
Portfolio 4: E-commerce marketing and advertising:
With the advancement of e-commerce advertising, it has an enormous benefit over
traditional marketing in terms of reduced costs, real time results and brand development.
Social networking sites such as Facebook fit in best in the marketing strategy to feature
mobile ads via different platforms and pages (Abebe 2014). However, some risks arise while
placing ads on the web which includes invasion of user’s privacy, stealing advertising ideas,
defamation and many more. In today's modernized world, about 75% of the US population
has internet access. As the usage of online internet access increases, the consumer behavior
model also changes (Zhang and Benyoucef 2016). The five stages by which the decision
process of consumers is dependent include consciousness of needs, search for more evidence,
evaluation of replacements, actual acquisition decision, post-purchase a interaction with the
firm. From the analysis of the types of browsers and buyers it is found that about 90% of the
population uses the internet and over 78% of users fall under the category of buyers.
Consumers and buyers generally shop for big-ticket items like computer hardware,
electronics and small ticket items including apparels, books, software etc. It is found under
the survey that shoppers generally find online vendors having marketplaces like Amazon and
e-bay and having a specific retail site. However, about 8% of the internet users do not opt for
online shopping as they are afraid to trust and due to other hassle factors like shipping cost
return policies etc. Herein comes the use of digital e-commerce which is a more personalized
and communal facilitating multi-channel marketing plan, establishing a better customer

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relationship and helping in online marketing and advertising (Chen et al. 2015). The
implementation of digital marketing resulted in about 18-34 audience in the online platform
where the majority of the ads are targeted to individuals. Digital marketing in e-commerce
platform makes use of search engine marketing and advertising to support its sales.
Advertising networks such as DoubleClick is worth mentioning here. Other types of outdated
online advertising include viral marketing, lead generation marketing etc. The online
marketing strategies that are used include customer retention strategies, customization and
coproduction. The pricing strategies are based on a immovable cost, mutable cost and request
curve. The Internet plays a vital role in creating an impact on marketing as it adds scope in
marketing communication and initiates intensity of information in the marketplace. Digital
marketing also enables data warehouses and data mining including Big data and Hadoop as
well.

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Figure 5: E-commerce marketing strategies
References:
Zhang, K.Z. and Benyoucef, M., 2016. Consumer behavior in social commerce: A literature
review. Decision Support Systems, 86, pp.95-108.
Chen, J.V., Yen, D.C., Pornpriphet, W. and Widjaja, A.E., 2015. E-commerce web site
loyalty: A cross cultural comparison. Information Systems Frontiers, 17(6), pp.1283-1299.
Abebe, M., 2014. Web 2.0, social networks and e-commerce as marketing tools. Journal of
theoretical and applied electronic commerce research, 9(1), pp.56-69.
Portfolio 5: Social Mobile and Local Marketing:
A new age of social marketing involves the concept of conversation and engagement,
creating an impact on smartphones and tablets. Social marketing is somewhat different from
traditional online marketing as it encourages consumers to engage and share online
conversation (Amirkhanpour, Vrontis and Thrassou 2014). According to the report, the most
popular sites like Facebook, Twitter, accounts to over 90% of social network visits (Yadav,
Joshi and Rahman 2015). The different types of Facebook marketing tools include reaction
button, Facebook live and many more. The marketing result of Facebook is measured by
basic metric systems and by various analytical tools like Facebook page insights, Hootsuite
etc. Among social media, marketing mention should also be taken of Twitter marketing
where it facilitates real time interaction with consumers, and according to report about 90%
of people access Twitter from their mobile devices (Fulgoni 2015). Other social marketing

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sites include Pinterest marketing, Instagram, LinkedIn etc. Though there are many benefits of
online marketing but still marketing to children is a controversial practice as young mindsets
easily influenced by the advertisements. As a result of which the Children’s Online Privacy
Protection Act is released. Consumers nowadays are becoming multi-platform, and this
changes the marketing funnel resulting in consistent branding and responsive designing.
Location-based mobile marketing has taken up the market place in a considerable manner,
and it is predictable that it will tripartite over in the
next five centuries.
Figure 6: Social media marketing sites
References:
Amirkhanpour, M., Vrontis, D. and Thrassou, A., 2014. Mobile marketing: a contemporary
strategic perspective. International Journal of Technology Marketing 5, 9(3), pp.252-269.
Yadav, M., Joshi, Y. and Rahman, Z., 2015. Mobile social media: The new hybrid element of
digital marketing communications. Procedia-social and behavioral Sciences, 189, pp.335-
343.

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Fulgoni, G.M., 2015. How Brands Using Social Media Ignite Marketing and Drive Growth:
Measurement of Paid Social Media Appears Solid But Are the Metrics for Organic Social
Overstated?. Journal of Advertising Research, 55(3), pp.232-236.
Portfolio 6: E-commerce retailing and services:
In todays world, e-commerce mainly operates via the internet connections making it
more convenient for customers to buy and sell things online. Selling over the internet world is
somewhat difficult as it increases the overall cost. The Souq.com which is the largest e-
commerce provider took considerable steps in lowering the overall costs in the internet. In the
field of online retail, retail mobile e-commerce is gradually exploding and Big data is used
for predictive marketing (Morganti et al. 2014). Online retail sector is taking up about $19.25
trillion of US economy. There are about 7 segments in the retail industry which includes
clothing, durable goods, etc. The main vision of the US economy is to provide reduced search
and transaction cost to enable customers with reduced low prices. The economic viability of
the online firms has the ability to provide profit during specific period of 1-3 years. Certain
firm specific factors essential for taking into deliberation with this respect including firm
value restraint, core capabilities, synergies, social and legal trials. The greatest example of e-
commerce in action can be taken for Amazon.com whose vision is mainly related to customer
centric (Nisar and Prabhakar 2017). The future prospects of Amazon have turned to a
sustainable profit to about $879 in the year 2016. Amazon still continues to invest its
products and services according to future. Big data plays a huge role in online predictive
marketing in both online and disconnected service sectors. Connected e-commerce market is
gradually growing establishing over online banks, brokerages and many more. The vison of

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online retail services is to disintermediate a complex industry. Operational travel market is
also one of the greatest notable area in e-commerce market (Lin et al. 2016). Other than this
other industry includes online recruitment trend, on-demand service companies and many
more.
Figure 7: E-commerce retailing and services
References:
Morganti, E., Seidel, S., Blanquart, C., Dablanc, L. and Lenz, B., 2014. The impact of e-
commerce on final deliveries: alternative parcel delivery services in France and
Germany. Transportation Research Procedia, 4, pp.178-190.
Lin, Y., Luo, J., Cai, S., Ma, S. and Rong, K., 2016. Exploring the service quality in the e-
commerce context: a triadic view. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 116(3), pp.388-
415.

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Nisar, T.M. and Prabhakar, G., 2017. What factors determine e-satisfaction and consumer
spending in e-commerce retailing? Journal of retailing and consumer services, 39, pp.135-
144.

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References:
Abebe, M., 2014. Electronic commerce adoption, entrepreneurial orientation and small-and
medium-sized enterprise (SME) performance. Journal of small business and enterprise
development, 21(1), pp.100-116.
Abebe, M., 2014. Web 2.0, social networks and e-commerce as marketing tools. Journal of
theoretical and applied electronic commerce research, 9(1), pp.56-69.
Aigbe, P. and Akpojaro, J., 2014. Analysis of security issues in electronic payment
systems. International journal of computer applications, 108(10).
Amboala, T., Mokhtar, A.H.A., Muhammad, M.Z., Noordin, M.F. and Othman, R., 2015.
Development method for shariah compliant e-commerce payment processing. International
Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering, 7(5), pp.408-415.
Amirkhanpour, M., Vrontis, D. and Thrassou, A., 2014. Mobile marketing: a contemporary
strategic perspective. International Journal of Technology Marketing 5, 9(3), pp.252-269.
Chaffey, D., 2015. Digital business and e-commerce management. London: Pearson
Education Limited.
Chen, J.V., Yen, D.C., Pornpriphet, W. and Widjaja, A.E., 2015. E-commerce web site
loyalty: A cross cultural comparison. Information Systems Frontiers, 17(6), pp.1283-1299.
Fulgoni, G.M., 2015. How Brands Using Social Media Ignite Marketing and Drive Growth:
Measurement of Paid Social Media Appears Solid But Are the Metrics for Organic Social
Overstated?. Journal of Advertising Research, 55(3), pp.232-236.
Isaac, J.T. and Sherali, Z., 2014. Secure mobile payment systems. IT Professional, 16(3),
pp.36-43.

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Laudon, K.C. and Traver, C.G., 2018. E-commerce 2017.
Lee, E.J. and Park, J., 2014. Enhancing virtual presence in e-tail: Dynamics of cue
multiplicity. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 18(4), pp.117-146.
Lin, Y., Luo, J., Cai, S., Ma, S. and Rong, K., 2016. Exploring the service quality in the e-
commerce context: a triadic view. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 116(3), pp.388-
415.
Lu, B., Fan, W. and Zhou, M., 2016. Social presence, trust, and social commerce purchase
intention: An empirical research. Computers in Human Behavior, 56, pp.225-237.
Morganti, E., Seidel, S., Blanquart, C., Dablanc, L. and Lenz, B., 2014. The impact of e-
commerce on final deliveries: alternative parcel delivery services in France and
Germany. Transportation Research Procedia, 4, pp.178-190.
Nisar, T.M. and Prabhakar, G., 2017. What factors determine e-satisfaction and consumer
spending in e-commerce retailing?. Journal of retailing and consumer services, 39, pp.135-
144.
Roy, S. and Venkateswaran, P., 2014, March. Online payment system using steganography
and visual cryptography. In 2014 IEEE Students' Conference on Electrical, Electronics and
Computer Science (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
Veit, D., Clemons, E., Benlian, A., Buxmann, P., Hess, T., Kundisch, D., Leimeister, J.M.,
Loos, P. and Spann, M., 2014. Business models. Business & Information Systems
Engineering, 6(1), pp.45-53.
Yadav, M., Joshi, Y. and Rahman, Z., 2015. Mobile social media: The new hybrid element of
digital marketing communications. Procedia-social and behavioral Sciences, 189, pp.335-
343.

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Zhang, K.Z. and Benyoucef, M., 2016. Consumer behavior in social commerce: A literature
review. Decision Support Systems, 86, pp.95-108.