Alipay Case Study: E-Business Challenges and Social Media Impact

This assignment consists of two main tasks: a case study on Alipay and a research paper on the impact of social media. The Alipay case study delves into the detailed mechanisms used by the platform, comparing it with other online payment systems, and highlighting the benefits and problems it presents, including challenges related to sales tax and income tax collection in international transactions. The research paper explores the impact of social media on various aspects of society, including politics, e-commerce, the world of work, training and development, and personal relationships, while also addressing the moral challenges and potential social evils associated with its use. The paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of focusing on the positive aspects of social media while mitigating its negative influences.

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Contents
TASK A................................................................................................................................................2
Detailed mechanism used..................................................................................................................2
Difference and similarities between Alipay and other online payment systems................................2
Benefits offered.................................................................................................................................2
Problems presented............................................................................................................................3
TASK B.................................................................................................................................................0
Abstract.............................................................................................................................................0
Index terms............................................................................................................................................0
Introduction.......................................................................................................................................1
Impact of social media.......................................................................................................................1
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................................3
References.............................................................................................................................................0

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TASK A
Detailed mechanism used
Alipay tackles online payments for the customers making a purchase. The company ensures
the buyer’s protection. The customers can select a product and make payment through
Alipay. In order to the transaction at Alipay, it requires bank card and identity card. Alipay
holds the money as escrow and updates to the retailer that the payment has been made by the
customer. The money is not transferred to the Vendor’s account of the Alipay. The company
has attained the most prevalent digital wallet in China. The shopping malls and stores do
admit the Alipay for the payments. Alipay is leading its mission of doing business anywhere.
The company aims to form an online stand to be castoff by merchants or businesses in order
to reach customers.
Difference and resemblances between Alipay and other online payment systems
Alipay is identified as a part of the Alibaba group and is the most commonly used online
payment platform. The company uses Visa and Mastercard to offer payment services to e-
commerce platforms. The company operates with over 180 financial institutions. Alipay has
even an extensive range of online and offline merchants (Xu, Ghose & Xiao, 2018). It is a
secure way. On the other side, TenPay has more than 400 thousand business users.
Both TenPay and Alipay deduct the payment from the consumer’s account in real time in
CNY. Both settle the payment to the account in the preferred currency. Supported currencies
by both the online payment apps are GBP, CAD, USD, HKB, EUR, AUD, KRW, THB and
more. Another similarity between both is the withdrawal of the minimum amount which is
$5000. The commission charged by both the companies is 1-2% on all the transactions.
Benefits offered
Alipay has revolutionized online shopping through innovative technology and vast customer
base. The company reduces the burden of the operations along with the costs. The businesses
can build a reputation through Alipay and offer shoppers to access to reliable products and
satisfies the experience of the customers. The ePass offered by Alipay has a role in
overcoming the challenges and put the business into the higher gear. Alipay is regarded as not
just app but it is a lifestyle in the non-cash society (Lu, 2018).

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Other than the finance, Alipay even offers funds, gold, and other financial products. The
company has a role in managing the assets. The insurance can even be purchased from
Alipay. It also offers some interesting insurance like Love insurance, if a person does not
break up with their girlfriend or boyfriend then they are credited with the rewards. Add on,
Alipay can even be used for the registering and lining up. A person can even pay water bills,
electricity bills, gas fee, income tax, and traffic fees. The app can even be used for searching
name of the newborn kids (Fu, et al. 2019).
Problems presented
The problems identified by Alipay are over the break of the user’s discretion. The problem is
confronted by the Alipay in handing data of the users. It has increased the apprehension over
confidentiality. The customers in China tend to face a lack of confidentiality in China. The
internet users also retorted with some odd disgrace in learning the usage on Alipay. Alipay is
used by the lots of clients on a constant basis. A spotlight was thrown on the company and
complained that the company was not stimulating enough about its intention of sharing user
data with the commercial partners (Guo & Bouwman, 2016). Although there is cyber security
law in China, under which the companies can collect data but are equally responsible for
sharing usage, storage, and deletion of the data within the limits.

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TASK B
Abstract
The social media is comprehended as a
way to interact with the family and friends
in the initial phase, later it was adopted by
the businesses which desired to take
advantage of the popular communication
method in order to reach customers. The
social media has attained power in
connecting and sharing information with
anyone instantaneously. This report
defines the social media and its impact on
politics, society, e-commerce, work,
training and development and personal
relationships. The challenges faced in
using social media have been also defined.
In the end, it can be determined that if the
negative influence of the social media is
ignored then, more positive impact can be
attained.
Index terms
IT- Information Technology
E-commerce- Electronic commerce

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Introduction
The social media is identified as the means
of interaction among people in which they
generate, share and interchange
information and ideas in the simulated
communities and networks. It is
acomputer-based technology. The social
media is more over regarded as an internet
based and offer users rapid electronic
communication of content. The content
tends to comprise personal information,
documents, photos, and videos. The users
can engage with social media through
smart phone, tablet or computer through
web-based software or application. Social
media is generally utilized for messaging.
Impact of social media
The social media is utilized in several
ways which shape government, world
culture, business, careers, education,
invention and more. The influence of
social media can be understood from the
factors given below:
The effect of social media on the politics
It has been realized that almost 2/3rd of the
people attain the news from social media.
The social media has more inspiration in
the political campaigns and it has also
increased enormously. Add on, social
networks play an extensively significant
role in democratic politics. For instance,
the election of Trump is the prime
illustration of the usage of social media
and its influence on human society. The
social media enables people to
communicate with each other more
effortlessly (Ngai, Tao, & Moon, 2015).
People assist each other to influence social
organizations.
The impact on society
The society is most impacted by the social
media. One quarter of the populace is on
Facebook. Almost 80% of the internet
users are on this stage in USA. The social
media has become more powerful over the
time. Every person can share it views
through the internet. The people with the
marginal views do the things like creating
memes, publications and the whole online
worlds. The social, moral and political ills
will have slight visibility without the
social media. The social media has
increased the perceptibility of the issues. It
has moved the balance of power from few
hands to the multitudes. The social media
even inspires people to use computer or
mobile in order to prompt apprehensions
on the social issues. The support is
restricted to liking and sharing content
(Kumar, e al. 2016).
The impact on e-commerce

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The upsurge of social media means to
identify an organization which does not
extent customers through one social media
platform. The organizations can realize the
importance of expending social media to
unite with the customers and generate
revenue. The social media can be the
organizations to create insights, inspire
demand and generate beset product
offerings. Social media is more significant
in the out-dated brick and motor trades and
in the sphere of e-commerce and IT (Holt,
2016).
.
The usage of the social media at the
workplace strengthens the knowledge
sharing. The project management activities
improve the result and enable the specific
knowledge. The implementation of the
social technologies at the workplace
eliminates boundaries, eradicates silos,
enhance interaction which helps in
creating high skilled and knowledgeable
experts. The social sharing in the
organizations has even become the
standard than the exclusion in the business.
On the other side, a low number of social
shares on the website can lead to negative
social proof and destroy the credibility of
the business (Miller, et al. 2016). The
companies have even definite to eradicate
the social sharing button from their
website after experiencing some negative
effects of social media. The products
fascinating a lot of shares on social media
can reinforce the sales whereas the reverse
happens; the customers tend to disbelief
the company (Dessart, Veloutsou &
Morgan-Thomas, 2015).
Effect on the world of work
The social media has a reflective
consequence on both recruitment and
hiring. It has been realized almost 20% of
the hiring managers take their hiring
decision on the basis of the information
originated on social media. Add on, 60%
of the employers make use of social
networking spots in order to investigate
job candidates. The specialized social
networks like LinkedIn is a significant
social media platform for anyone viewing
to stand out in the profession. It enables
persons to form and market a individual
brand (Boulianne, 2015).
The impact on training and development

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The job employees who prefer to progress
skills on social media techniques are likely
to be more employable. A substantial
increase in the usage of social media has
been realized in learning in recent years.
The educators also agreed that the usage
ofsocial media inspires interaction and
provides an environment to foster learning
(Agnihotri, Dingus, Hu, & Krush, 2016).
The tools like blogs, Twitter, wikis,
Facebook, and podcasts are used for the
leading in the several education
institutions. The social media has even
subsidized to upsurge incorrespondence
learning (Felix, Rauschnabel & Hinsch,
2017).
Moral challenges of social media
The social media even contributes to social
evils like:
Cyber bullying: The teenagers have the
requirement to be fit in, be prevalent and
to outdo others. It was a stimulating
process before the prevalence of social
media. The teenagers feel the compression
to grow up too fast due to Facebook, Snap
chat, Twitter and Instagram. The teenagers
also tend to use social media platforms for
spreading rumors, sharing videos and
destroying reputations (King, Pan, &
Roberts, 2017).
Lack of privacy: There is a lack of privacy
and threats are confronted by the usage of
social media like stalking, individual
attacks and misappropriation of the
information.
The impact on personal relationships
The social media inspires people to custom
relationships. The term ‘friend’ to be used
on social media absences intimacy as
acknowledged with conventional
friendships (Schivinski & Dabrowski,
2016).
Conclusion
The emergence of social media has
brought a considerable amount of change
in information and communication. As
coin has two faces, social media also have
both positive and negative aspects. A
person can go for the positive side and
ignore the negative one. The social media
should be used for making something
useful.

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References
Agnihotri, R., Dingus, R., Hu, M. Y., & Krush, M. T. (2016). Social media: Influencing
customer satisfaction in B2B sales. Industrial Marketing Management, 53, 172-180.
Boulianne, S. (2015). Social media use and participation: A meta-analysis of current
research. Information, communication & society, 18(5), 524-538.
Dessart, L., Veloutsou, C., & Morgan-Thomas, A. (2015). Consumer engagement in online
brand communities: a social media perspective. Journal of Product & Brand
Management, 24(1), 28-42.
Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P. A., & Hinsch, C. (2017). Elements of strategic social media
marketing: A holistic framework. Journal of Business Research, 70, 118-126.
Fu, J., Zhou, Y., Wu, S., & Wang, X. (2019, April). Let's Chat in Alipay: Understanding
Social Function Usage in Task-oriented Apps. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (p. LBW0276). ACM.
Guo, J., & Bouwman, H. (2016). An ecosystem view on third party mobile payment
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Holt, D. (2016). Branding in the age of social media. Harvard business review, 94(3), 13.
King, G., Pan, J., & Roberts, M. E. (2017). How the Chinese government fabricates social
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Kumar, A., Bezawada, R., Rishika, R., Janakiraman, R., & Kannan, P. K. (2016). From social
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behavior. Journal of Marketing, 80(1), 7-25.
Lu, L. (2018). Decoding Alipay: mobile payments, a cashless society and regulatory
challenges. Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Financial Law, 40-43.

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Miller, D., Costa, E., Haynes, N., McDonald, T., Nicolescu, R., Sinanan, J., ... & Wang, X.
(2016). How the world changed social media (Vol. 1). UCL press.
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