E-Business System (BUS101): E-Portfolio Weeks 3-8 Project

This e-portfolio assignment explores various aspects of e-business systems, covering topics from website development and e-commerce presence to security and payment systems, business strategy, marketing, and online retailing. The e-portfolio is structured around weekly modules, with each section (Weeks 3-8) analyzing specific themes. The assignment requires the student to research and incorporate academic and general references, along with multimedia elements, to enrich the discussion of each week's topic. Key areas include creating an e-commerce presence, ensuring payment security, developing effective business strategies, understanding marketing techniques, and analyzing social, local, and mobile marketing, alongside e-commerce services and retailing. The assignment aims to enhance learning and engagement with the unit resources, providing a comprehensive overview of essential e-business concepts.

Running head: E-BUSINESS SYSTEM
E-BUSINESS SYSTEM
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Week 3.......................................................................................................................................2
Week 4.......................................................................................................................................3
Week 5.......................................................................................................................................4
Week 6.......................................................................................................................................5
Week 7.......................................................................................................................................6
Week 8.......................................................................................................................................7
Reference....................................................................................................................................9

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Week 3
The lesson in week 3 provides information about how to create an e-commerce
presence. The e-commerce business is in huge demand because of the unique services
provided to the people however, the most important challenges the business can face is
management issues like understanding the business objective and how to achieve the business
objective which is customer satisfaction. Nisar and Prabhakar (2017) states that there are
various factors that ensure customer satisfaction other than the quality of the products like the
designs, the user friendly features of the application or website and failure to provide this
often hampers the business of the e-commerce company which has resulted in traditional
shops still dominating the market.
Website systems development is one of the vital factors for the creating an e-
commerce business presence. There are many stages of website system development which
aim on fulfilling the objectives of the business by creating website according to their vision to
attract customers to make purchases online. The lesson provides steps for the complete
development of the website systems like system planning and analysis, design, building of
the system, testing and the implementation of the service. A lesson video on YouTube
suggests the same process however a more elaborate approach to the development of website
system that include feasibility study, requirement analysis, design, code, test and operate
(Youtube.com 2019). This process is highly important to garner the attention of the users to
resort to online shopping and achieve full customer satisfaction.
From this week, one can get information about what are the factors that annoy
customers and restrict them from making any purchase online like confusing navigation, out
of date content, difficult interface, unprofessional designs, no return policies and many more.
According to scholars, retail web design is important and it should not have unnecessary

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features like unnecessary content, poor graphics, inconvenient to use can cause high
conversion rate (McDowell, Wilson and Kile Jr 2016). Thus, it is important to have a user
friendly website which will cater to the needs of the customers and contribute to the business
of the e-commerce.
Week 4
This lesson provides information about the e-commerce security and payment
systems. Payment security is one of the biggest concerns of the people while shopping
through online websites because of fraudulent activities. There is high risk of chance of a
payment fraud thus according to the lecture, it is important to incorporate measures and
machineries that help in providing good payment security like new technologies and
governmental laws. According to a video, online payment security issues are challenging for
a business and thus new technologies need to be used in order to avoid scams like Address
Verification System (AVS) that will help in controlling fraud and maintain proper payment
securities (Youtube.com 2015).
There are different kinds of fraudulent activities that have been growing with the
growth of e-commerce business these days. The rate of credit-card fraud and identity theft are
growing which has been raising questions on the security systems of the e-commerce
websites. Singh (2014) supports this and states that identity theft and credit-card fraud are
restricting the customers to make online purchase and thus it is important to focus on these
issues and come up with suitable solutions that might help in the solving the problem and
help in increasing the sales of the business.
The lesson provides concrete methods and approach to ensure secured payment
methods so that the issues of scams and frauds can be curbed by using encryption and
cryptography. Ahmad and Alam (2016) opine cryptography is used by most e-commerce in

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order to provide secured payments to their customers as this helps in converting the plain
ordinary text into text that is unintelligible which ensures that a third party website or the
hackers cannot read the texts which provides any kind of scam. This is mainly used in online
transactions, computer passwords and even in bank transactions.
Week 5
Week provides critical information about e-commerce business strategy. There are
many around eight key elements that are important for successful operations of the e-
commerce business. They are value proposition, revenue model, market opportunity,
competitive environment, market strategy, organizational development and management
team. Discussing one of the elements, value proposition, it is important for e-commerce
companies to provide the customers with unique features and service which cannot be
duplicated. Zolnowski, Weiß and Böhmann (2014) agreeing to the statement states that the
first strategy of the e-commerce business is to answer the question why the customers will
choose the company and operate accordingly by providing positive experience like
customization, savings and secured payment methods.
There are many business models that e-commerce uses like service provider, portal,
market creator and many more. All these business models help the e-commerce grow and
become successful by attaining full customer satisfaction. Guo and Hu (2014) in their paper
state that e-commerce business has innovated new business models which has helped in
connecting the buyers and the sellers directly and encouraging people to sell their services
like Amazon and products through their website creating shared economy like Airbnb and
Uber.
In this lesson it can be seen that how the advent of e-commerce has challenged the
traditional business structure and it can be seen that they have managed to change the

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structure like increased the rivalry among the competitors, increased the strengths of the
suppliers and also the bargaining power of the buyers. Youtube.com (2016) in this video, it
can be seen that e-commerce indeed has changed the structure of the business that existed
before and they have introduced non-price competition with dynamic and personalized
pricing, disruptive technology, helped in increasing the bargaining power of the buyers which
has gained a lot of appreciation and thus companies who operated in a traditional manner also
have been incorporating e-commerce strategies by coming up with their own digital platform
like Nike, Dominos and many more.
Week 6
The lesson in week 6 talks about the e-commerce advertising and marketing.
Marketing is one of the important functions in both traditional as well as e-commerce
business in order to appeal to the target customers. Three are various methods of marketing
online like viral marketing and affiliate marketing, social marketing, mobile marketing and
many more. Youtube.com (2015) according to this video, social media marketing has
becoming a rage and is important as it helps in creating brand awareness, build positive
relationship and reaches out to people in a short span of time.
From this week, one can learn about the factors that influence the consumer decision
making process in the e-commerce business. The behavior of the people while making an
online purchase do not only consider the pricing but also the user characteristics, the
characteristics of the product, the features of the website, their own perceptions about buying
products online and also the amount of risk they are able to take. According to scholars, the
consumer behavior of the people who are purchasing online are based on many factors like
the design of the website, the easy user interface like customization according to the price,
color, products, the discounts available, the speed and the smoothness of the website, the

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amount of trust, the delivery, secured payment method and positive reputation (Lim et al
2016).
Advertising e-commerce companies are highly important to create awareness among
the customers and also attracting customers to make a purchase from their websites. E-
commerce needs to use the powerful channels in terms of advertising their products like
newspapers. Sriram et al (2015) agrees to the statement and states that the powerful channels
of advertising are newspapers, radio, television and now on online platforms like social
media, advertisement posted on search engine and though e-mail campaigns. This helps the e-
commerce business to get acknowledgement and grow their market in order to increase their
sales.
Week 7
Week 7 solely focuses on social, local and mobile marketing. The new marketing
concepts these days are engagement and conversations thus, social media and mobile
marketing have become a rage as it directly markets and advertises the product to the
customer or the target customer. Social media and mobile marketing have paved way for a
two way communication process that helps in engaging the customers directly with the
companies. Lamberton and Stephen (2016) states social media and mobile marketing are
highly responsive and here customers directly have a connection with the companies where
they themselves invest their time on the pages and respond to messages directly that
encourages conversation and engagement that leads to create a meaningful and positive
relationship between the e-commerce company and the customers.
Local marketing markets services and products in a very unique way. Big companies
use this method to promote their services or products to their target customers via their
phones which is considered to be a very personalized form of marketing and highly effective.

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Agreeing to this statement, scholars have opined that local marketing usually tracks the
location of the people and suggest them activities and things that are within their reach so that
they can utilize or use it immediately (Shankar et al 2016).
However, there are negative aspects of social media, local as well as mobile
marketing because there is a loss of control like the advertisements posted are often for a
limited amount of time, the comments and posts about the services and products might be
inaccurate and based on individual preferences. states online marketing platforms like
Twitter, Facebook and Instagram can often bring negative backlash because of the opinions
of the people and inaccurate and misleading information about a company which spreads
within seconds and can pave way for a company having a negative reputation even if the
information is incorrect (Youtube.com 2016).
Week 8
Week 8 provides an insight about e-commerce services and retailing. The online
retailing and service market has been growing at a rapid growth due to the age of
digitalization and because of majority of the people having an access to the internet. The
retail industry has been functioning in various ways like providing shopping through website
or through calls where the delivery person delivers the products after the instructions over the
telephonic conversation. The vision of the online retailing business is mainly to challenge the
traditional retailing business and attract customers by the variety of products available, the
cheap price and also convenience. Hagberg, Sundstrom and Egels-Zandén (2016) states
online retailing has had a huge impact on the traditional retailing companies because of the
price offering, customization, availability of all types of products based on the choice of the
different customers which has been shifting the focus of the customers and influencing their
decision in terms of making a purchase.

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It is not just online retailing but even the online service industry has been blooming
because of their services provided online which helps in satisfying the needs of the
customers. Major industries in service are finance, education, health, insurance, travel and
many more. According to the video, the online service industry has been growing because of
the convenience, low prices and largely in order to save time (Youtube.com 2016).
The lecture focuses on the different online service industries. One of them is the
online travel services. These businesses initially practiced traditional business methods
however; they are also incorporating online business methods to acquire more customers. The
travel industry provides tickets and accommodation through their website which is growing
and has a huge demand in recent times. Scholars state that online travel services are growing
because of the convenience, it is not time consuming and it is easy as they can book tickets of
flights and rooms of hotels by looking at the information, the reviews and the pictures
provided through the website (Agag and El-Masry 2017). Thus, it can be seen that the online
e-commerce business has been growing and will continue to grow because of their
achievement in satisfying the customers.

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Reference
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Drivers and outcomes of consumer trust toward online travel websites. Journal of Travel
Research, 56(3), pp.347-369.
Ahmad, K. and Alam, M.S., 2016. E-commerce security through elliptic curve cryptography.
Procedia Computer Science, 78, pp.867-873.
Guo, Y. and Hu, J., 2014. Research on business model innovation of e-commerce era.
International Journal of Business and Social Science, 5(8).
Hagberg, J., Sundstrom, M. and Egels-Zandén, N., 2016. The digitalization of retailing: an
exploratory framework. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 44(7),
pp.694-712.
Lamberton, C. and Stephen, A.T., 2016. A thematic exploration of digital, social media, and
mobile marketing: Research evolution from 2000 to 2015 and an agenda for future inquiry.
Journal of Marketing, 80(6), pp.146-172.
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economics and finance, 35, pp.401-410.
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Nisar, T.M. and Prabhakar, G., 2017. What factors determine e-satisfaction and consumer
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Shankar, V., Kleijnen, M., Ramanathan, S., Rizley, R., Holland, S. and Morrissey, S., 2016.
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of Interactive Marketing, 34, pp.37-48.

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Innovative Research in Computer and Communication Engineering, 2(2), pp.2850-2858.
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