ASSIGNMENT

DRIVE WINTER SPRING 2014

PROGRAM MBA IT (SEM 4)
SUBJECT CODE &
NAME
MI0039- E-COMMERCE
BK ID B1325
CREDITS 4
MARKS 60


1. Electronic Commerce is commonly known as e-commerce, is a process of buying and selling
of goods or services using electronic systems. List the applications and benefits of e- Commerce.

Answer: What is e- commerce?
E-Commerce is one of the most important facets of the Internet today. E-commerce consists of the
buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other
computer networks.

It can be seen as part of e-business which may be defined as the utilization of information and
communication technologies (ICT) in support of all the activities of business.

The benefits of e-commerce include:

e-Commerce helps people to run their businesses without any hurdles of time, distance, or
place. The users can access the internet at any time, be it day or night to carry out online
shopping.
The cost-of-sale for online shopping done through a web site is less as compared to the
shopping done via traditional means (retail, paper based). This is because there is no face-
to-face human interaction during the on-line electronic purchase process. Also, online
shopping is a faster and convenient mode of shopping.
e-Commerce is the cheapest means of performing business. Operational advantages of e-
commerce consist of reducing both the time and employees necessary for all the business
procedures.
e-Commerce is especially ideal for niche products. Customers for such products are
usually few, but in the vast market place, that is the Internet, even niche products could
generate considerable volume of sales.
e-Commerce increases the sales income to the business.
It helps in easy tracking of the customers segments. Immediate worldwide sales
existence in quick time.
It facilitates in opening the shop in any part of the world, independent of geographical
locations.
It also aids in reducing customer support expenses through e-mail marketing and
customary or traditional newssheet.
It also facilitates the customers to easily purchase their products via various payment
accesses.
It helps in developing more shopping carts

E-Commerce provides a lot of physical benefits from the customers viewpoint by:
Reducing customers sorting out time
Making better customer decisions
Spending less time in resolving bills, demands, and order differences
Increasing opportunities for purchasing substitute products.

The applications of e-commerce are-

A number of software and hardware applications are used to carry out the e-commerce transactions.
Some common e-commerce applications include:
Email.
Enterprise content management.
Instant messaging.
Newsgroups.
Online shopping and order tracking.
Online banking.
Online office suites.
Domestic and international payment systems.
Shopping cart software.
Teleconferencing.
Electronic tickets.

Some of the benefits of e-commerce applications include:

Expanding geographical reach.
Expanding customer base.
Increasing visibility with the help of Search Engine Marketing.
Providing the required business information to customers.
Making the website available 24/7/365.
Building customer reliability.
Reducing marketing and advertising expenses.
Collecting customer data.
Increasing sales.

e-Commerce applications must have the skill to deal with the activities involved in a
business. Those skills include accepting and managing payments, handling the checkout
pipeline, and choosing, collecting and distributing products to customers. Apart from these,
companies use the applications to improve the online experience of customers and in turn enhance
customer traffic.

2 The e-Commerce architecture is divided into different layers which help us to have an
organized discussion of building blocks of e-Commerce in a logical order. Explain the layered
architecture of E-commerce Systems.

Answer:
E-commerce is a new kind of services where commercial activity is conducted through the Internet.
E-commerce systems provide the ability to purchase and sale of goods, payment orders, service
maintenance, generating prices subject to various conditions (discounts, delivery, quantity, the amount
of the order), conducting of marketing etc.

The e-commerce architecture is divided into layers which help us to have an organised discussion of
building blocks of e-commerce in a logical order.

Layered architecture of e-commerce systems
e-Commerce systems consist of six layers, each layer providing a service. Every layer has a precise
function, which is explained separately. The lower layers support the upper layers which helps us to
get a logical way to discuss about the e-commerce systems architecture. A possible layered
architecture is given in the table

Layered Architecture of e-Commerce systems

Layers Components
Application Layer C2B e-commerce
B2B e-commerce
C2C e-commerce
C2G e-commerce
Middleman services Layer Value-added networks
Digital signature certifying authority
Electronic cash
Electronic payment schemes
Hosting services
Messaging Layer Advanced encryption standard
Digital encryption standard
Public key encryption
Digital signature Electronic data interchange
Network services layer World-wide web services and browsers
E-mail Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (http)
Extensible Markup Language (XML)
Software agents Search engines
Logical Layer Internet
Intranet
Extranet
Firewalls
Physical Layer Public switched telephone networks
Private communication networks
Local area networks
Optical fibre and coaxial cable networks
Satellite-based networks
Wireless networks
Cellular networks
Router


Let us have a brief discussion about these layers starting from the bottom level.
Physical layer: Physical layer is the bottom-most layer in the architecture. This includes the
physical infrastructure, for example, wires, satellites, mobile phone system, cables, so on.
Providing a communication infrastructure for e-commerce is their function. It is impossible to
adopt e-commerce without high speed and dependable electronic communication. The growth
of wireless interactions has allowed us to use mobile hand-held computers. As a result,
mobile commerce that is abbreviated as m-commerce has come into existence.
Logical layer: This layer describes the protocols that are required to have a logical
interaction between the computers that are linked by the physical network. A protocol is a
group of jointly agreed rules. Internet is a worldwide network of computers that have
communication with each other using the TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet
Protocol). The global recognition of this standard protocol has resulted in the development of
the internet as the most important infrastructure for e-commerce. Most of the organisations
find it more attractive to use TCP/IP to interrelate computers within their organisation. The
two main benefits of this include:
1. Letting the organisation to connect the computers made by different companies.
2. Providing the availability of services including browsing, file transfer, e-mail, and so
on, obtainable on the internet that may be implemented economically within an
organisation. Such a local network within an organisation is referred to as intranet.
The major drawback of the internet is that anyone can connect to it. As a result, some anti-
social elements access into others computers and steal or damage important files.

Hence, special safety measures must be undertaken to prevent illegal access. This is provided
by firewalls which protect the intranets of organisations. But, firewalls do not provide
complete security from trespassers. Therefore, most of the organisations do not prefer to
connect their intranet to the internet. This would avoid electronic communication among
cooperating organisations. As a result, many cooperating organisations form a private
network interlinking their intranets. Such a private network interlinking the intranets of
cooperating organisations is known as an extranet. A private network formed by leasing
communication lines is costly when compared to internet usage. Hence, a technique of
ensuring safe interaction between cooperating organisations with the help of internet is
planned, and this is termed as a virtual private network (VPN).

Network services layer: This layer supplies services on the internet infrastructure and the
main service initially was the e-mail service. The most important service at present is the
World Wide Web service that helps users to easily get an access to the information stored in
browsers are different services which make e-commerce functions easier.

Messaging layer: Exchanging messages and documents between users in e-commerce is the
most essential requirement. For example, delivery notes, purchase orders, so on, are sent via
electronic medium, and the cheapest way of performing this is with the help of internet.
Internet is the only obtainable system in both C2B and C2C e-commerce. As mentioned
before, since anyone can access the internet, there is always the threat of some unlawful
elements changing the messages and documents. So, it is required to code the messages
before they are sent over the internet. It is also required to have an equivalent of a signature in
the electronic medium. These requirements like sending coded messages to make sure the
security and the digital signature to validate interactions that are received electronically are
given by the messaging layer.
Middleman services layer: This layer provides the necessary services to e-commerce users
to assist in making computers in any part of the world. HTML (hyper text mark-up language),
XML (extensible mark-up language), search engines and their transactions easier. Examples
for middleman services include safe credit card payments, validation of signatures done via
electronic medium, so on. Value-added systems offer more protected electronic transactions
among the users. Hosting services also offer many facilities including web presence for
organisations and electronic catalogues and registers so on, to users.

Application layer: The application layer helps in providing a particular application. There
are different application layer protocols such as simple mail transfer protocol which supports
e-mail services, file transfer protocol which supports file transfer services, and hypertext
transfer protocol which supports communications between a web client and a web servers
commerce applications including those which serve the B2B, C2B, and C2C e-commerce
provide the above described services of different layers. Thus, application layer acts as the
top-most layer of the layered architecture.

3 Suppose you are the network admin of WXZ Software Company and you are given the
responsibility of managing all the servers. What are the steps you would follow to avoid hacking
of the companys information?

Answer: Threats
Viruses and other malicious software (known as "malware") can cause data loss: malware can cause a
wide array of problems for your data, ranging from individual deleted files to drive partitions
becoming damaged, even entire disk drives getting erased.

A threat can be defined as the possibility of something bad happening. In the context of data security,
the word threat usually refers to the various threats to data and information security. Threats related
to data security in e-commerce could be the failure of the web site due to some reasons like problems
with the surroundings, power failure, fire or flooding, failure of the hardware, failure of the software
and attack through virus or computer hacker.
The three types of threats that we need to worry about the systems that are connected to the Internet
are:
Errors or mis-configuration problems in the web server that permits the unauthorized remote users to:
Steal secret documents which are not meant for them.
Execute various commands on the server host machine, which may modify the system.

Get information about the web server's host machine, which can be used to damage the systems
connected to the web server.
Start denial-of-service attacks which may damage the machine in such a way that it cannot be
used for some days.

Browser-side threats which includes:

Active contents: This may crash the browser, damage the users system and break the users
privacy.
The misuse of personal information provided by the users with or without the knowledge
for example session hijacking.
Blocking of network data sent between browser and server using eavesdropping.
Eavesdroppers work from any point on the path between the browser and the server:
The network on the browser's side of the connection.
The network on the server's side of the connection.
The servers or clients internet service provider.
Internet service providers regional contact provider.

Browser side threats are some of the threats that every user of the internet should to be aware of,
whereas other threats are the individual responsibility of the internet provider.
The small business owners should be aware of these threats and take steps to ensure that the website is
not at threat. To do this, they have to make sure that they are using a reputed hosting provider that will
monitor their site for denial of service attacks and other server side problems. They should also make
sure that they are using a secure socket layer to encrypt all sensitive data transmission between them
and their users. They should also have to make sure any software that is used on their site is from
good, reliable providers, so that they do not pass viruses to their users. Finally, strong passwords
should be used to log into the ftp site, so that no one can hack the site and upload bad viral content or
steal private programs or data.
Threat can also occur from fraud, processing errors, system disturbances or other possible events
resulting in the organisations failure to deliver products or services. This threat exists in all products
and services that are offered. The level of threat is influenced by the structure of the organisations
processing methods which includes the types of services offered and the difficulty of the processes
and the supporting technology.

Threats can always be reduced or managed. If we are careful about how we treat these threats and if
we are aware of them in advance, then we can take measures to make sure that threats do not turn into
failures.

Key components of threat management
There are many key components of threat management. Following are some of the important key
components of threat management.

Threat assessment: One of the important concepts of threat management is threat assessment. It is
simply a careful examination of what, in the work, could cause harm and it also helps to assess
whether enough precautions have been taken or some more steps have to be implemented in order to
prevent possible threats.
Threat assessment helps to take feasible measures to control threats. By now you must have
understood that security is the core of e-commerce. With rapidly developing network and appearance
of different continual net threats, threat assessment for e-commerce has become highly essential.
Threat assessment will include threat identification, threat analysis, and threat prioritization.

Threat identification: Threat identification is an efficient approach for examining threats and
implementing threat controls.

The main objective of threat identification is to:
Identify and categorise threats that will affect the application.
Document these threats.

The result of threat identification is a list of threats. A test manager who performs the threat analysis
for their e-commerce site has to look for information about potential threats from the list of threats.

Threat analysis: Threat analysis is a method to identify and assess factors that may put the success of
an application at threat. Threat analysis also helps to:

Define preventive measures.
Minimize occurring of the threats.
Identify countermeasures to successfully deal with these threats when they occur.
Prevent possible negative effects on the competitiveness of the company.

Threat prioritisation
In threat prioritization, each identified threat is evaluated and values are assigned for the following
elements

The probability that the threat will occur.
The impact of the threat that occurs.
The threat exposure.

Threat exposure can be calculated by multiplying threat probability by the impact. This threat
exposure is compared against all other threat exposure to determine, which threat will be given
priority for threat mitigation. A prioritized threats list that ranks threats by their exposure value
determines the order in which threats will be addressed in threat mitigation and contingency planning.

Threat control: Threat control methods are used to minimize the amount of inherent threat. Threat
control may include threat management planning, threat resolution, and threat monitoring.

Threat management planning: Threat management planning is about defining the process of how to
connect and manage threat management activities for an application. Having a proper plan on how to
manage threat will help to handle threats easily.

Threat resolution: Threat resolution can be defined as the emergence of reality, the resultant impact
on the variables that influence the outcome. Threats can be resolved based on the type of the threat. If
the threat is e-mail hacking, then it can be resolved by attaching digital signature.

Threat monitoring: Threat monitoring is very important in e-commerce. Regular threat monitoring
provides assurance to the site owners that the sites are working properly and no threat has been found
out.
4 Assume that you are the project manager of VSG Company. Due to some reason the
companys server got shut down and the company is not able to access the companys
confidential data. What steps would have been taken by you to avoid this?

Answer: Youve heard it hundreds of times if not more back up the data on your PCs. Maybe you
even do this on a regular basis.

Still, as events in the past have proved, it doesnt do much good to backup your critical data if its
going to be stored locally. A hurricane or other natural disaster can affect a large area, putting your
backup in as much peril as if it was stored at your organizations site.

The most essential component of a disaster recovery plan is to maintain a back up site, which provides
some degree of duplication of computing resources that are located away from the primary site. Based
on the extent to which the primary computing resources are replicated, the types of backup sites are
differentiated.

The most common types of backup sites are hot sites, warm sites, and cold sites. They are
differentiated based on how fast they can be used as an alternate processing site.

Let us discuss the characteristics of each of these sites:

Cold site: A cold site is a selected computer operations room with heating, ventilating, and air
conditioning that has no computing systems installed. Hence, it requires a lot of effort to install the
hardware and software, which is required to begin the alternate processing. These types of sites are
rarely used in an emergency.

Warm site: This site provides an alternate processing facility with supporting peripheral equipment.
However, this site does not include the principal computing platforms.

Hot site: A hot site includes all required computer hardware, software, and peripherals installed to
start alternate processing immediately or within an acceptable short time frame.
Till now we discussed about the most common back up sites. Now, let us discuss other additional
options.

Mutual aid agreements: A mutual aid agreement, which is also called as a reciprocal agreement, is
an agreement with another company that may have the same computing needs like software,
hardware, and communication network. In this, both companies agree to support each other in case of
a disruptive event by providing alternative processing resources to the other parties.

Rolling or mobile backup: Here, a contract is made with a vendor to provide facilities like mobile
power and heating, ventilating, and air conditioning to carry on alternate processing.

Multiple canters: Here, the processing is spread over multiple operation centers, creating a
distributed approach to share the available resources. These multiple centers are owned and managed
by the same company or it can also be used with a mutual agreement.

Service bureaus: To give alternate backup processing services, an organization can get into an
agreement with a service bureau. The benefits of this type of agreement are:
Immediate response.
Availability of the service.
Testing without disrupting normal operations.
Providing additional support functions.

5 Write short note on

a. Target Audience
Answer: With the advent of the World Wide Web, more and more companies are competing with
each other to make their presence felt in the web world. Advertising through the web is easier and
effective. However, it is very important to analyse and target a particular set of audience for specific
products and services. Strategic determination of the audience for whom the products are targeted is
very essential for the success of any business.

A target audience is a specific group of customers or clients at which a business aims its products and
services. Some of the demographic attributes for the target audience include age, gender, occupation,
net income, marital status and their geographic region.

Company web sites that are communicative, user friendly and interactive help to create a corporate
identity in the web industry. Business websites are designed depending on the nature of the
business, availability of the resources, corporate goals and the demands and need of the prospective
target audience. Depending on the industry, websites can be classified into static and dynamic.
Static websites are used by small industries. In static websites, contents and products are not updated
regularly and companies which use static websites depend on a website development company to
make the latest changes.

Dynamic websites are used by large organisations and are regularly updated by the site owners with
their own web-based software or programmed application. Dynamic websites can be further
classified into three types of dynamic websites of hybrid nature.

An interactive website gains momentum. Interactivity is possible only when the views and needs of
the target audience is understood.

A well designed website always appeals to the target audience. Determination of target audience is the
stepping-stone to build a successful website resulting in more traffic and threat business.

b. Preparing the budget

Answer: One of the tasks you face as a financial officer, especially if your organization makes
frequent business transactions, is that of preparing a budget. A budget is a tool used for planning and
controlling your financial resources. It is a guideline for your future plan of action, expressed in
financial terms within a set period of time. A budget does not have to be complex as the information
below will explain.

When creating a website budget at the website planning stage, companies have to consider their time
investment also. Each process of website designing incurs some costs. Let us now discuss the various
budgets that have to be planned at various stages of website development.

Building WebPages The website planning budget has to include an allowance for building web pages.
This should cover the cost of hiring professionals or cost of time invested by in-house developers.

The next thing to be considered in the website budget planning is the website content creation and
management .The actual words the viewers and search engines see is called as the Website content.
The content of the website has to, not just include a bunch of links to other sites or images. It should
contain actual information.

The success of a website depends on quality website content. Website content has to be constantly
updated with new content so that viewers and search engines keep visiting the website.

Another aspect that has to be included in the website planning budget are quality website graphics. As
we already know that website content is more important, budget for web graphics is not a major
concern. A site that uses a lot of website graphics will not perform well with the search engines.
An advertising budget is necessary in every business. A website planning budget should also include
advertising budget. After a company has developed its own website all the company letterhead,
business cards and promotional items need to include the website address and email on them. The
website planning budget also has to include new stationary and brochures.

Companies must identify and decide upon methods to advertise the website. If the website is being
submitted to search engines they have to be optimised, so that results are maximised. Search engine
optimisation is another item to include in the website planning budget.

If third party features are used by websites, the cost incurred to incorporate these features should also
be included in the website budget. Even if a company decides to use the many free services available,
it still has to hire an employee to manage these features.
The cost for using third party services includes the companys time to manage these features, that is
checking that the services are working properly, are these third party services charging correctly, cost
of processing online and off line payments and so on.
The other website budget items to be considered are sales tax, cost of purchasing the web space,
future expansion costs, and improvement costs and so on.

6 Guest look is an Indian based cosmetic manufacturing company which manufactures a wide
range of cosmetics for men. Although its product was used by men all over the world, a number
of new cosmetic manufacturing companies arose in the market challenging Guest look. Now
Guest look has to find innovative ways of advertising its products.

So far, Guest looks advertising aids were mostly printed and television media. Now Eguest look
realized the importance and benefits of e-Marketing and has started concentrating on e-
Marketing. As the company is known for its integrity and will not compromise on that with
spam and unsolicited mails. Therefore, company identified three techniques such as search
engine optimization, improving existing website and banner ads.

a. What are the benefits of offline advertising? Are Guest look following offline advertisement?
Justify your answer

b. If you are working with the development team of Guest Look, how would you go about
improvising the existing website?

c. What banner ads?

Answer: Benefits of offline advertising:

Print Advertising
Print advertising is a common way to reach people through newspapers and magazines. With proper
research, it is possible to target the exact audience you are looking for. The best part is that the
research can be easy for most businesses just walk into your local bookstore and peruse the
newsstand for getting the knowledge of the current scenario of market structure.

Here are some of the benefits of offline advertising;

Online advertising does not provide the guarantee of product quality.
Customer reliability is a very crucial point for selling of product which is less in online
advertising as there is a less chance of direct customer to company interactions in the online
advertising.
Online advertising is of poor quality for some instance as e commerce sites, service, and
payments accesses are always in danger as there are many hackers looking for opportunities
to get the access.
Some customers are uncertain of buying product online after online advertising slack of
awareness of security of online systems.
Some people consider shopping as a social experience.
Things like food, jewellery, antique and so on can never be sold with e-commerce
technologies after online advertising as it is impossible to check them from remove locations.
It is impossible to totally remove frauds in the e-commerce transactions hence online
advertising is not good for society in this respect.
Cyber laws are not correctly followed strictly, and the existing laws are not clearly defined in
e-commerce.
Offline advertising and selling are free from shipping and shipping cost.
Absence of doubts and fears of being theft as it is present in online shopping.
Inability to feel the physical is one of the major drawback of online advertising and selling
which is solved here.

These are some of the benefits of offline advertising.

Improvement of existing website include some basic steps as follows

Once the website goals and objectives are set, target audience are analysed, budget is planned and
web structure is understood, the next strategy is to improve the design of the website. The issue here
is to decide if the website can be improved by an internal development team or by a third party
vendor. The developed website must be hosted using a hosting service and finally the website must be
tested and maintained.
Internal development versus outsourcing

Once the management of a company decides to undertake a web project they will have to decide who
would be best to undertake the project and maintain the web site. Developing and managing
improvements in a website requires a variety of skills. Existing staff members may posses these skills
or the management may have to hire new full- or part-time staff or contract the services to an outside
source.

The management has to take a strategic decision after considering cost and other trade-offs.

Internal development
There are many advantages that a company might have by assigning existing employees to develop
the website in-house. Let us now discuss some of the advantages.

Timeliness: If an in-house development team is given the responsibility of creating and
posting content of a web site, the management will have greater control of posting and
updating the materials. Relying on a third party vendor to post time-sensitive or urgent
material may cause delay because the vendor may have other customers who need the
vendors services. This can be frustrating when only small changes need to be made. The
changes that an in-house staff would take few minutes to make, could take days together for a
vendor.
Content quality assurance: If a company relies on third party vendors to post and update
material on their web site, there are chances that the vendor could misplace and confuse
content due to their lack of understanding of the issues. Quite often, mistakes happen when
vendors are working with foreign languages and when print materials are being modified for
the Web.
New funding opportunities: Web sites developed for a company may be applicable to other
companies also. If an investment is made in developing in-house capacity to produce and
manage Web sites, new income can be generated by selling products that were developed in
house.

Financial predictability: It becomes easier for companies to estimate how much money to be
spent on Web projects when staff time is included in the companys budget. Vendor prices
may fluctuate, and the cost for individual projects may go beyond what a company can
accomplish with its in-house staff. It is difficult to assess this trade-off during the budget
forecasting process.

Outsourcing
Outsourcing website development to third party vendors has its own set of advantages. Let us now
discuss some of those advantages.

Technical expertise: Most third party vendors are dedicated web site development
companies. These vendors have the depth and diversity of expertise which will be lacking in
in-house development teams. A company may be working with one dedicated individual
assigned by the vendor, however that individual has access to tool and expertise of all of
his/her colleagues when it comes to developing specialised functions, as well as solving
problems that may arise. Vendors stay constantly updated and learn new technologies in order
to stay competitive, while the in-house staff may have more difficulties updating their skills.
More options: If a company is unhappy with the services provided by a vendor, it is easier to
switch to a new vendor than it is to fire poorly performing in-house staff and hire new people.
Cheaper for small sites: If a company is planning to create a small web site with limited
updates, it would cost less to pay a vendor a particular amount for managing the site, rather
than hiring new staff. Benefits have to be paid to staff members, and it also entails the
expenditure of time and money on supervision and management.

Testing and maintaining a website

Once the website is created, it has to be tested thoroughly for usability, before it is sent to the web
server to be made available to the public. .This can be done by publishing the website on a temporary
location called staging server and carrying on a series of tests. The hyper links and online forms have
to be tested and checked if they relate to the web page and the appropriate database. A stress test has
to be done on the website to determine if it can handle a heavy load of customer activity.

The website is sent to its final destination server after it is thoroughly tested. An online business must
carefully monitor and evaluate its website activities, to determine the traffic level on the site, and the
success or failure of the website in achieving its purpose. Viewer feedback must be acquired and
evaluated. Websites have to be re-examined at regular intervals, as it evolves over time.

The process of identifying the websites purpose, setting goals and objectives, reviewing Web design
issues, creating and publishing the website, and monitoring its effectiveness will take place many
times in the life of a successful e-commerce website.

Banner advertising

The billboards of the information superhighway are banner ads. They are more likes sign boards that
direct people to online locations. Though there is an ongoing debate of the usefulness of banner ads,
they are widely used on the web. You may find banner ads on search engine, portals or other popular
sites. Clicking on these redirects the page to a different web site. The flashing banner ads are either
enticing or irritating.

The two types of banners are static and interactive. Banners may incorporate both text and images,
and a hyper link to the advertisers home page. Depending on how targeted a companys banner is, its
click-through rates vary. The cost of placing banner ads also varies from site to site.

The click-through rates can be improved by the use of teaser questions, direct instruction, and
animations. Graphic design software package such as Macromedia Fireworks or Adobe PhotoShop
can be used to design a banner. The more specific the banner is, the more likely the clicks will be
converted into sales.

The cheapest and easiest way to advertise sites online is to take part in a banner exchange program. A
company can sign up and submit its banner at one of the many banner exchange sites. This banner
will then be displayed in rotation at other sites that have also signed up for the exchange program.
However, the company has to agree to save space on its web site to display other banners within the
exchange.

The draw backs of the banner ads are:

The ad will be displayed only once for every two times that a visitor of the site sees a banner
from the exchange.
There will very little control on where the banner will appear.
Most of the exchanges force the participating sites to include a link back to the banner
exchanges homepage.