JOMO KENYATTA UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY

NAKURU CAMPUS.

NAME: LELGO FAITH JEPKORIR

REGNO: SCT221-COO7-0421-2017

UNIT NAME: ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

UNIT CODE: BIT 2315

LECTURER NAME: DR. VICTORIA

CAT 1
BIT 2315 Electronic Commerce CAT 1 November 2020
QUESTION 1
Describe an e-market in detail, clearly discussing its components and players/participants (10 marks)

An e-market is a marketplace in which sellers and buyers exchange goods and services for money,
or for other goods and services, but do so electronically. It is an e-commerce site that connects
sellers with buyers. It’s often known as an electronic marketplace or market space and all
transactions are accomplished by the website owner. Companies use online marketplaces to reach to
customers who want to purchase their products and services. Examples of online marketplaces
include Amazon, eBay, and Craigslist.

E-Market /Market space components are:

i. Customers- the buyers of goods and services
ii. Sellers- the sellers of goods and services
iii. Products and services also known as digital products- Goods that can be transformed into
digital format and delivered over the Internet
iv. Infrastructure
Front end- The portion of an e-seller’s business processes through which customers interact,
including the seller’s portal, electronic catalogues, a shopping cart, a search engine, and a
payment gateway
Back end-The activities that support online order-taking. It includes fulfilment, inventory
management, purchasing from suppliers, payment processing, packaging, and delivery
Intermediary- A third party that operates between sellers and buyers.

v. Business partners- enterprisers or individuals who have partnered with the seller to promote
the product or service
vi. Support services- these includes but not limited to invoicing and delivery services
QUESTION 2
Describe e-tailing under the following subtopics
a) Characteristics of successful e-tailing
Vision- Sound business thinking, visionary leadership, thorough competitive analysis and
financial analysis, and the articulation of a well thought out Electronic Commerce strategy.

Infrastructure- particularly a stable and scalable technology infrastructure to support the

online and physical aspects of Electronic Commerce business operations.

Branding- Brand recognition and guarantees

Suppliers and Vendors- Guarantee provided by highly reliable or well-known vendors

E-Products and E-Services- this is digitized products and services

Inexpensive items- ensuring items the e-tailing business aquires is not expensive e.g office
supplies.

Frequently purchased good- a good example is prescription drugs.

Commodities with standard specifications- these includes books and CDs

Well-known packaged items- these include items that cannot be opened even in a traditional
store e.g. chocolates

b) E-tailing business models

Direct marketing by mail-order retailers that go online. (QVC) Companies are attempting
to leverage their existing infrastructures by using a new marketing system (online), in
addition to their existing method (catalogs, etc.). No intermediaries.

Direct marketing by manufacturers (Dell) -The direct marketing model takes place
without intermediaries between manufacturers and buyers.

Pure-Play E-Tailers (Amazon)-Virtual (pure-play) e-tailers; Firms that sell directly to

consumers over the Internet without maintaining a physical sales channel.

Click-and-mortar retailers (Wallmart) - the firm sells to customers through the Internet
and through physical sales locations.

Brick-and-mortar retailers- Retailers who do business in the non-Internet, physical world

in traditional brick-and-mortar stores.
 Multichannel business model- A business model where a company sells in multiple
marketing channels simultaneously (e.g., both physical and online stores).

Retailing in Online Malls- firms use referring directories to connect with malls with
shared services to find, order and pay for a product.

Online Group Buying- Find people to share freights and buy in bulk to lower prices.

B2C in Social networks- can be used as a platform to advertise and support purchases, as
well as acting as a review center where customers can leave reviews about the products
they bought.

Virtual Shopping – the use of virtual reality for 3D SW in buying furniture, LCD. For
example Dell sells computers in virtual world

c) Internet job market (10 marks)

Job markets – is a place where employers are looking for employees with specific skills, and
individuals are looking for jobs. It is a very volatile market, moved to the Internet, with
millions of job seekers, hundreds of thousands of jobs
The Internet offers a perfect environment that is especially effective for technology-oriented
jobs. It hosts the following kinds of people:

Job seekers

Job offerers

Recruiting firms

Government agencies and institutions

Benefits for job seekers

Find very detailed and timely information on a large number of jobs world-wide

Quickly communicate with potential employers

Post resumes for large-volume distribution

Search for jobs quickly from any place at any time

Obtain several support services at no cost – career planning

 Assess their market value

Benefit for employers

Advertise to a large number of job seekers

Save on advertisement costs

Lower the cost of processing (using electronic application forms)

Provide greater (‘equal opportunity’) for job seekers

Find highly skilled employees

Conduct interviews online

Describe positions in great detail

Arrange for testing online

Salary surveys

QUESTION 3
a) Discuss the consumer decision making process (4 marks)
Problem recognition: Recognizes the need for a service or product

Information search: Gathers information

Alternatives evaluation: Weighs choices against comparable alternatives

Purchase decision: Makes actual purchase

Post-purchase evaluation: Reflects on the purchase they made

b) Briefly discuss the following as used in E-Commerce

i. Personalization
Personalization is the process of delivering personal experiences on eCommerce sites by
dynamically showing content, product recommendations and specific offers based on
 previous actions, browsing behavior, purchase history, demographics, and other personal
data.
Personalization can influence which brands people prefer. In this way
getting personalization offers right could increase your market share, with more
customers preferring your brand over competitors. Having the technology in place to
power personalized offers is the first step towards increased brand preference.

ii. Loyalty
Repeated satisfaction of a customer with purchases of products or services from a
specific e-commerce Website. The notion of e-loyalty extends the traditional definition
of brand loyalty concept to online consumer behavior.
The idea of rewarding shoppers is to incentivize them to repeat their behavior, providing
businesses with increased revenue. Not only do loyalty programs allow business to retain
customers, they are also a great way to attract new customers and entice old customers to
shop with you again. 

iii. Satisfaction
Satisfaction is defined as the degree of customers' response related to their experience
with all aspects of e-commerce system, suggesting that customers experience using e-
commerce system surpass their expectation with the e-commerce website.
Customer satisfaction is defined as a measurement that determines how
happy customers are with a company's products, services, and capabilities. Customer
satisfaction information, including surveys and ratings, can help a company determine
how to best improve or changes its products and services.

iv. Trust (10 marks)

Trust is an essential tool for a transaction to take place, both in an online and offline
environment. In e-commerce, the Internet vendors as well as their websites can
be trust building sources in themselves. So, it is important for companies to learn how to
manage consumers' trust in e-commerce.
Trust is identified as a psychological state that people have the intention to accept
vulnerability based on their beliefs that transactions with sellers will meet their confident
 transactions expectations due to the sellers' competence, integrity, benevolence, and
predictability

c) Discuss in detail what market research for E-commerce entails. (6 marks)

Market research consists of systematically gathering data about people or companies –
a market – and then analyzing it to better understand what that group of people needs.
Market research gives you both a qualitative and quantitative understanding of why your
ideal customers would want to buy your products.
Market research helps entrepreneurs make well-informed decisions. It can take the
guesswork out of innovation, and funnel resources into ideas and projects that hold the most
potential. Businesses at different stages of growth carry out market research for different
reasons. The purpose of collecting in-depth information is to help you make better decisions.

Types of Market Research:

Primary Research: Data and information that you collect yourself. You control and own the
method of collection as well as the data itself.
Secondary Research: Data or information that you collect from existing sources. You can
analyse the data in any way you want, but the information is also available to other people
and your competitors.

Market Research Tools: Anything you use to collect, gather, organize, and analyse data and
information through primary or secondary research. For example, surveys, focus groups,
interviews, observations, publications, magazines, government reports, institutional research,
and more.