Digital Business: E-commerce, Models, Alliances, and Concepts Report

This report delves into the multifaceted world of digital business, examining its advantages and disadvantages, and exploring various e-commerce models. It analyzes the impact of digital technology on businesses, highlighting the shift from traditional practices to online platforms. The report covers different digital business models such as B2C, B2B, C2B, and C2C, illustrating how companies like Boohoo leverage these models. Furthermore, it discusses the importance of collaborative relationships and strategic alliances in the digital landscape, emphasizing the benefits of partnerships and supplier relationships. The report also explores key concepts of digital business, including the use of technology to enhance customer experiences and improve core operations, and e-commerce principles. It concludes with an overview of the challenges and opportunities within the digital business environment.

Digital Business

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Lo1...................................................................................................................................................3
Advantages and Disadvantages of digital technology............................................................3
Lo2...................................................................................................................................................5
Emerging Digital business models:..........................................................................................5
LO3..................................................................................................................................................7
Collaborative relationships and strategic alliances................................................................7
Lo4...................................................................................................................................................8
concepts of digital business.......................................................................................................8
Lo5.................................................................................................................................................10
E-Commerce principles..........................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
E-Commerce or electronic commerce define buy or selling of the products and services over the
internet. It's a service which is provided on the internet and through the internet. Transaction of
cash funds and data are also assessed as E-commerce business.
Boohoo is an online store that offers a range of clothing, accessories, and footwear which was
founded in 2006 by Carol Kane, Mahmud Kamani..The company's brands, boohoo,
boohooMAN, PrettyLittleThing, Nasty Gal, Miss Pap, Karen Millen, Coast, Oasis & Warehouse
design, sources, markets and sells clothing, shoes, accessories, and beauty products.
This report includes how digital businesses have drastic growth in today's time and what are their
advantages and disadvantages. And it will help to understand about the digital business issues
faced by people and also how people will face this issue and overcome these issues with ethics to
manage effectiveness in digital business. Besides this report will include the different business
models used in digital business. (Foroudi and et.al., 2017)
MAIN BODY
Lo1.
Advantages and Disadvantages of digital technology
As all know the concept of digital marketing is drastically changed in today's time and e-
commerce has made many small or unknown businesses feasible and successful.
Advantages and disadvantages of Digital Business.
All the business or thing has their own pros and cons. But about 15 year ago people didn't have
an idea about e-commerce and people played games and read newspapers or took print out of the
documents but now the situation has totally changed. Due to e-commerce or online portals
people get to know about the Netflix, prime, play store and so on who provide games and movies
online, also every person has smart phones in their hand they read all the latest news in their
phone. (Büyüközkan, 2018 )They read e-books on the phone or laptop. And e-commerce will not
stop here it will increase the performance in future also.

Advantages
1. Time saver: Digital business saves the most time for the customers as they do not need to go
to shop or store to purchase anything. People only need a laptop or phone with good internet in
their phone and yes credit or debit card, and they are good to go. They have numerous choices of
the product, they can choose products as per their convenience and also they can check whether
it is available or not and order it for themselves or for family or friends. So it's worth the time of
customers.
2. Full Description about the products: the online stores also have different products and
Customers decide whether to buy a product or not based on the packages and brief description
given by the producer. But in online shopping, they also get a more comprehensive product
description with photos, tutorials or unboxing videos and many different suggestions. Plus,
through online shopping they get product reviews on the website or application which are written
by other consumers, and All this data helps buyers "to purchase or not to purchase the product”
and take the decision instantly . It is one of the best advantages of digital business.
3. Easily availability of customer insights: in the e-commerce business producer will easily
find out the traffic on websites and customers' entire history. So accordingly they sent emails and
offers to that particular customer on the basis of his last purchase.
4. lower cost: in the digital business company need high and advanced technology to meet
customers' needs on time. As they don't need a fancy and large space to open the store they can
easily handle their business from anywhere and deliver the product to the customer mentioned
address, so they do not need to pay a higher amount for the same which saves a lot of money.
5. Capacity to handle many purchases - in the store shopkeeper can handle 2 or 3 people at the
same time but not in online stores. they have solution for all. they have different kind off
software who take the record and after customers checkout they sent message to the relevant
team who will pack the product and ready the product to ship.

Disadvantage
1. Product quality issue: this is the biggest problem in the e-commerce business. Some people
have always doubted the product. They provide the full description about the product but still the
buyer is not able to see or check the material as per his or her need, and consider it as a risky
purchase.
2. Long Delivery time : the second best disadvantage is delivery of the goods. If someone is
operating
ecommerce business, then he need to arrange the delivery logistics, find out the transportations,
make sure about products delivery to correct person and on time and handle all kinds of delays
and difficulties and payment of the good you will receive only when it is delivered to the right
person, which is a very discouraging factor. If the product may not be delivered, either lost in the
mail or sent to the wrong address it will harm the company reputation.
Lo2.
Emerging Digital business models:
As the time is going rapidly the e-commerce business is also growing rapidly. It the year 2013 e-
commerce made a business around 9 to 10 % and by 2020 it has made around 18 to 20% because
of covid-19. Large number of people have been entering in this business and earning profits.
There are generally 4 types of e-commerce models are there in market.( Oswald, G. 2017.)
Boohoo
These are as follows:
1 B2C (Business to consumer) - It is the Most common and has many approaches there in this
model. It includes anything that customers think off and purchase. It is a relationship

between seller and customers. They generated higher sales but faced a lot of competition.
Boohoo conduct its business on this model basis.
2 B2B (business to business): it is a very commonly used and accepted model. Business could
be related to the product or services. This transaction made between the two businesses like some
companies are providing products to another seller. It requires a lot of money and they work with
limited clients and work extensively as per their clients requirements.
3 C2B (Customer to business): businesses enable individuals to sell their goods and services to
companies directly. It helps consumers to post the work they want to be completed in specific
time duration and businesses will bid for the opportunity. Affiliate marketing agency would also
be considered as a C2B. This approach provides customers the strength to name their product
and decide it's price and have businesses directly compete to fulfill their needs.( Mentsiev, and
Yunaeva,., 2019.)
4 C2C (consumer to consumer) : A C2C business — C2C also called as an online marketplace
which engages customers to exchange their goods and services and typically earn money for that
product by charging transaction or listing fees. Online businesses like Craigslist and eBay
pioneered this model in the early days of the internet.
The key security threats to businesses:
Online retailers use their wealth in heavy and advanced technology to sustain in the market but in
the same way they face some issues also.
These issues are as follows:
1 (DDoS) distributed denial of services: DDoS attack pertains to the website’s servers being
attacked with requests from dangerous thousands of untraceable IP addresses. These kinds of
attacks cost the business and lost thousands of revenue and also damaged the company's
reputation and customer trust and confidence about the product and services.

2 credit card fraud: it's a very common issue of threat in e-commerce business. This kind of
fraud could happen on the kind when websites have lots of traffic or due to successful order
preceded by multiple unsuccessful one. And it’s very important to assess these kinds of trades
before any payment is taken. If you fail to do this, not only will you lose valuable inventory, but
it’s your responsibility to pay back whoever’s card has been scammed.
LO3
Collaborative relationships and strategic alliances
Digital collaboration makes it easy for the business to covert, get quick communicatation,
combine, and obtain the work done effectively on time with particular team members to
improvise the workflow and decreasing lead duration.
A strategic alliance could help a company to develop a smooth beneficial process, expand the
business into a new and beneficial market or formulate an expectation over a competitor, among
other possibilities. Agreement between two or more union or among new or independent firms
to works together to achieve their common goal. This particular alliance related to the specific
period. One the period or goal is achieved they drop the partnership.
boohoo has seized the e-commerce world storms by their products and amazing cloths collection
and it is currently a household word in the UK and other countries. They provide variety of
affordable clothes for men and women, which are fashion-led clothing and quirky, innovative.
They also have great team for their marketing campaigns which helps them to keep them forward
of the curve, they have approx over 4 million social media followers, who are obsessed with their
collection in the UK. Boohoo expanded numerous ranges in different varieties in other

segment including boohooFIT, boohooKIDS and boohooMan as well as now they are planning
to sell their products in some other several international countries from their actual base which is
there in Manchester. They are also planning to launch their website in other countries too to
expand their business. And they have very affordable products which are helping their business
to grow.
The relatively boohoo has different business model, which expects high level of skills and
quickness to market to sustain in the market. Because it very important to come in the market
and then maintain the business for longer time. Besides that they need to maintain the
relationships with their suppliers, who are main key part of the success of the company and
critical for company's future performance. They work collaboratively and in partnership with
their suppliers. Many of their suppliers have been with them from the starting of the business and
they value the relationship and trust their suppliers have in them. Also they take them seriously
as they are important role and boohoo is also reason for their success. On the different events
they collaborate with other brands to socialize their brands also they works with many celebrities
of UK to promote their business.( Esposito De Falco,.,and et.al., 2017.)
While maintains the relationship with their suppliers last year they initiated industry's
leading 14-day payment duration for UK. It means boohoo will pay their suppliers with in short
period of time. Many of their suppliers are from small families who maintained small businesses
and so regular cash flow is very important to pay and invest to purchase raw materials, labor and
to pay wages to their teams and their supply chain. That's why collaborative practice helps this
kind off business to identify the new opportunities of the market and meet the requirement of the
customer.

Lo4
Concepts of digital business
Digital businesses mostly operate with different, advanced and innovative technology to develop
new significance in business. With this new technology idea they also adopt some digital
business concepts or theories. With the help of this concepts or theories they creates different
experience for customers which they never seen. This digital business concept helps the business
to develop inner capacities which will benefit to its core operations. This term contains both
digital-only brands and traditional players that are renovating their businesses with digital
technologies.
E-Business Or digital business is the usage of electronic, computing, and Internet-based
technologies to rewrite or improve traditional or old revenue models and this business are
basically designs to the mutual benefit of companies and consumers and dealers. E-Business is
the alternate of unsuccessful and meaningless existing methods of information flow in the
supply and value chains of an company, and developing new methods with Internet-
based, computing, and transmissions technologies. E-Business saves resources like
manpower, entities, money and duration, which can be allotted to more value-added duties or
works, to generate accumulative earnings and profits to consumers and suppliers. E-
Business means m the usage of Internet-based technologies, but to what end? Initially,
e-Business was obtained to renew the current techniques of flow within the organization
and outside the organizations. Current methods of digital business for consumers can be quite
slow and costly, but they are different and unique.( Kumar, S.,2017)
As we talk about boohoo have 36000 products in their website and weekly they add large
no of products in the website store. Also they have principal or provide the trend to customer that
is “try and repeat" which is very unique concept in e-commerce history. Also they believe in
handmade or unique clothes for this they explore the UK tradition and explore the latest and
quirky styles which are mainly affordable. They have very cheap rates compare to forever21 and

H&M. With the help of this concept they contribute these costs to new emerging talents. This
concept helps them to sustainable in environments of extreme competing. (Wirtz, 2019.)
Before e-Business, industrialization needed proprietary client-server solutions to
transmitting through modems or devoted lines. E-Business was distinct from these former
solutions. Before they want the website for general purpose only but after this many offline
companies are developing their own website or own online stores to be the competition. They
have their own applications, website, and offline stores and also they provide different offers to
catch the customers. They highly investing their money into this category. Boohoo has strong on
the social media as they have large number of followers on their Instagram profiles. Which is
helping them to promote their business in effective way? They highly invest their amount in their
advertising and marketing team. They actively involve with the people and arrange different
events or contest to aware about the product in the other countries too.
Lo5
E-Commerce principles
A digital business is that they are naturally collective or combine for, Means digital businesses
committed and collaborate with consumers to solve the problems and tasks they know.
Digital business mainly depends on some principle which are basically accepted by all the
company these days.
1. Customer centric (one face) :
Digital businesses use technology to create new importance in business models, they mainly
focuses on the customer and their experiences and they use their internal capabilities to serve

better. Because they are totally depend upon the customers and traditional one more focuses on
the profit, so they are altering their companies with digital technologies.
2. Collabrative system:
Boohoo has sense of intention and of challenging the status with distinctive qualities of the
entrepreneur. They maintain the relationships with their partners or suppliers to overcome from
all the future threats. They also collaborate with differed brands or companies for solve the
customer issue and handle the work. They more focus on market and the trends. they are market-
oriented and realize that success lies not in what the technology can do but rather in what
customers wish to do with the technology and that this is where the value exists in that context.
This kind off businesses understands that success is all about having a true marketing orientation
based on marketing-informed strategy. (Vulkan, N., 2020.)
3. Self- disruption
Digital business avoid any personal disturbance and concentrates more on how technology
allows companies to create new value and understands that distinguish companies give a
competitive horizon over their companions.
Boohoo has become the biggest clothes retailer in the world with the help of efforts of logistics
that allow it to frequent refill boohoo 7,300 stores with new designs, enabling it to quickly
respond to changing tastes and trends
Boohoo have the ability to test with small ranges which reduces the financial outcomes
of a product not selling well and gives Boohoo products the “newness” craved by the 16- to 24-
year-olds it targets
4. Rule all in one: boohoo's promotional marketing is more focused on a mix of media; they
take help of social media influencers, bloggers, TV campaigns, email and outdoor events and
student exclusive offers. With compare to their opponents, boohoo is extremely stronger at
familiarity and engagement with their consumers. Boohoo
Also known as “test and repeat” strategy, Boohoo’s strategy included to make less
amount not more than 300 of a wide collection of clothes and then quickly ramping up
production of the third or so that trade best. The company tells the shortest a design can go from

inception to sale is two weeks, Generally half of Boohoo’s products are authorized from UK
manufacturers and only a section of clothes from overseas factories, with the rest of clothes are
coming from UK-based intermediaries. Boohoo’s rise has been steady since then, but it is still a
fairly small company. But it is creating a portfolio of new brands and expanding its business
warehouse infrastructure and also targeting some overseas countries.
CONCLUSION
We conclude from the above interpretation and discussions, about importance of e-business in
today's world and we have also discussed different advantages and disadvantages of digital
business. And how organization will overcome from this issues. This report also discussed about
the different approaches of digital business in currently applies by the company Boohoo. Boohoo
have large customers base in very short period of time. In this short time it becomes one of the
leader fashion online store. With this report we can conclude that to maintain their websites
companies need to be focused on their security. Also boohoo has limited portfolio so it’s very
important to maintain the portfolio with all the rectification and they need to more focused about
customers suggestion about the product. (Wirtz, 2019.)