Business Performance of Ecommerce Applications †MyAssignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about the Business Performance of Ecommerce Applications. Answer: Introduction Ecommerce business involves the selling and buying of services or goods or the transmission of funds with the help of an electronic network. There are three types of ecommerce business which includes, business-to-consumer, business-to-business or consumer-to-business. This report is based on the plan of an ecommerce website which is built on the concept of business-to-consumer style of website. The analysis in this report is based on the formation of a business plan for incorporating an ecommerce business in Saudi Arabia (Akazue, Aghaulor and Ajenaghughrure 2015). Lot of hard work is required to start up a new ecommerce business as it requires a lot research work and many complicated processes are involved in the process of opening a new business. The ecommerce business which is being started in Saudi Arabia is named Goldengate.com. The products offered by Goldengate.com will include a wide variety of fashion apparels, household items, kids products, beauty products, electronics and mobile phone related products. The fashion apparel category includes, clothing for men and women, shoes, jewellery, bags and luggage items. The product range will include books, tablets, laptops, computers, mobile accessories, movies and mobile games, computer accessories, musical instruments, office stationaries, school stationaries and many more (Balaraman and Kosalram 2012). The other products include home and kitchen supplies, pet supplies, grocery products for suitable locations, car accessories, appliances required for personal care, diet products. Electronic and large products will also be available in the website. These include, TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, cameras, air conditioners. The website will offer free delivery services to the customers who shop for a minimum of 30 riyals. The other services that will be offered in the website will include the different payment modes like, cash on delivery, card payment and payment through any other type of payment gateways. The website will also offer a membership to the customers for a fee 50 riyals per year which is named the Goldengate Royals. The customers who are members of this club will be offered free deliveries for any amount of money and faster deliveries are also offered. The Goldengate Royals will have the facility to get access to many deals and offers related to the products of the website (Doloto and Chen-Burger 2015). The website will provide online videos and movies free for the members for the first six months of the membership. This is the inaugural offer of the company. The website is attached with an electronic wallet which is named Goldengate quickpay. This electronic wallet can be used by the memb ers as well as the normal customers to make payments for their purchases. The purchases made by paying through the electronic wallet of the website will be discounted at a rate of 10% (Ghandour 2015). Statement of the vision The vision statement of the company states that Our vision is to build an easy to use and customer friendly company, where the customer can find anything they wish to own in an easy and convenient manner. The vision of the company is to build an easy to use environment for the customers, so that the customers can get accustomed with the website within a short period. The company will aim at making each and every good available for the customers, so that they can get what they under the same platform (Giri 2016). The website will be designed in such a way that the customers can search for their choice of products or services within moments and the products will get delivered to the customers once ordered. The website of Goldengate will be interactive in nature and the customers will get all possible help from the customer service executives of the company. In this manner the company aims at building a strong liaison with the customers and thereby creating a loyal customer base (Jiwnani and Tanwar 2015). A start-up ecommerce business involves many steps and processes as explained further. The products that are to be showcased and sold on the website are selected based on the needs and desires of the customers. The selection of the correct products is the most challenging part of the commencement of the business. The products of the website are selected based on other factors which includes the trends in the market and requirements of the customers according to that. The ways of selecting the right products include, building a brand which is interesting, identification of the passion of the customers, looking for opportunities and trends in the market (King et al. 2012). After the selection of the products the next step involves the evaluation of the decision taken regarding the product selection and checking the viability of the products as well. The next step in the process involves obtaining the selected products from the market, by contacting the suppliers or the manufacturers of the products. The products need to be sourced safely from trusted manufacturers and suppliers, so that the best is delivered to the customers. The competition in the market related to ecommerce business needs to be researched in the next step and the business plan is prepared for the website (Kumar and Raheja 2012). The business plan is the most vital part of the whole business process, as this plan will decide the success of failure of the business. The next step that is taken is to register the business with the name Goldengate.com and incorporate it. The costs related to the registration of the business can be huge. The next step is taken to create the logo of Goldengate.com and incorporate the logo. This step is followed by the optimization of the website with the search engines like Google to start the website or the online store (Lixandroiu and Maican 2015). SWOT analysis of the business Strengths of Goldengate.com The strengths of Goldengate.com include the products and service offerings of the website. The variability of the products and services of Goldengate.com in larger than the other websites that operate in Saudi Arabia like, Souq.com, Wadi.com, Namshi.com. The concept and the look of the website will be new and innovative as well. The services offered by Goldengate.com that include electronic wallets, membership offers are capable of attracting more customers towards the website (Muntjir and Siddiqui 2016). Weaknesses of Goldengate.com Goldengate.com is a start-up business and this can act as a weakness of the company. The company is new to the business and making the tie-ups with the suppliers regarding the supply of the products can act as a barrier as the other competitors of the company are also there in the market. The other weakness is the process of building the trust of the competitors towards the business and gaining loyal customers (Niranjanamurthy et al. 2013). Opportunities of Goldengate.com Goldengate.com has huge opportunities in the ecommerce market, as this a growing sector and the customers of the online sector are increasing day by day. The customers are turning more towards the online sector as compared to the offline marketing sector. Goldengate.com has the ability grow in the market and pose threats towards its competitors. Threats towards Goldengate.com The threats to Goldengate.com include the competition that is posed by the other ecommerce websites that are already operating in Saudi Arabia. The companies are in the market for quite a long time and their experience in the market acts as a threat (Peliknov 2013). The website of Goldengate.com will have many functions which includes the menu and the categories of the products, the services offered to the customers, the ways by which the customers can contact the officials of the company. The website functions need to include the description about the available products, for example the prices of the products, the details of the products. The customers will be able to contact with the executives of the company as and when any type of help is required (Rawat and Divekar 2014). Menu of the products The products will be divided into different categories as per their relevance. The different categories of products will include, Appliances and Electronic products, Kitchen and home products, Mens fashion products which will include clothing, shoes and bags, Womens fashion products including clothing, shoes, bags, jewellery and fashion accessories. The other categories include healthcare and beauty products for men and women, sports products, books and movies, accessories for cars and motorbikes. The services of the website will include, the membership plan for Goldengate.com named Goldengate Royals, the registration for the electronic wallet option of the website and the facility of free videos on the website (Singh 2012). The contact option in the website will include the ways by which the customers can contact the company. These ways include the email and call options to the connect with the customer care executives which will come under the Contact Us or Help options of the websites. The other ways by which the company can connect with the customers are the social media websites, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The website will provide the links to these websites so that the customers can contact with the company and a loyal customer base can be built as well (Sohaib and Kang 2012). The software that is suitable for Goldengate.com is the Ability Commerce software, which helps in the incorporation of the system of order management and the system of accounting. This platform includes a content manager named SmartSite which helps the users to store the images, prices and the promotions regarding the products within the Web store. The other software that is suitable for launching an ecommerce website is Intuit Ecommerce and it mainly offers a simple interface which facilitates the design and launch of the online store. The Intuit Ecommerce software also provides facilities related to the link to the social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. The business page of Goldengate.com in Facebook and the other social media will be linked with the help of this software (Spencer, Harding and Sheahan 2014). The above discussed software will be used in the creation and development of Goldengate.com. Functions required in the website The functions that will be provided in the website include the category of the products and the information and details regarding the product. The customer support function is also provided in the website. The information regarding the company is provided in the website. The payment options, the membership plans are provided. The other important aspect that is addressed in the website is the return and replacement policy of the company and processes related to the return of the products or the replacement. The replacement policy is designed keeping in mind the requirements of the customers (Umberto 2015). The company will be registered with server where the website will be hosted. The web protocol will be assigned to Goldengate.com and the database of the company will be created and linked to the website. The next step is the formation and registration of the domain name of the company, that is, Goldengate.com. This step will complete the design of the online ecommerce website of Goldengate.com (Winter 2012). The security issues related to Goldengate.com include, the frauds related to online payments made through credit cards and debit cards or with the help of net banking facilities. The payments made through electronic wallets also poses security issues to the customers as well as the company. The hacking of the bank websites is a major threat in case of online payments. The customers are sometimes hesitant towards the online payment of products purchased from the ecommerce websites. This reduces the trust factor of the customers on the company and its operations. The website of the ecommerce company can get hacked and this can lead to huge problems for the customers. There are many ways by which a security can occur in case of any ecommerce website, in this case, Goldengates.com (Akazue, Aghaulor and Ajenaghughrure 2015). These ways include, the breach of a payment gateway, the computer of the customer can be infected, the software provider of the shopping website is not secure. Type of security required The security issues related to the website of Goldengate.com can be resolved with the help of the ways discussed further. The ecommerce platform of Goldengate.com should be chosen by checking the security of the platform, Goldengate.com has to use SSL or Secure Sockets Layer for authentication and protection of data. The sensitive data of the customers, for example, the records of the customers and the banking details should not be stored, a feature of verifying the address and the card of the customer should be included, the customers should use strong passwords. The security system of Goldengate.com should be layered in such a way so that it becomes difficult for the hackers to breach (Balaraman and Kosalram 2012). The threats that are posed towards the website includes the breach of security and theft of the information related to the customers, which will lead to the loss of customer base for Goldengate.com (Doloto and Chen-Burger 2015). The Goldengate.com website therefore needs to be created keeping in mind the various security issues and thereby taking measures to address these issues. Conclusion The report can be concluded by stating that the ecommerce website named Goldengate.com that is created for Saudi Arabia, has to be incorporated by keeping in mind the various issues related to the ecommerce business. The process of incorporation of an online business is complicated and the security issues related to this business are also quite complicated. This will require intensive research and planning before starting the business in full form. References Akazue, M.I., Aghaulor, A. and Ajenaghughrure, B.I., 2015, January. Customer's protection in ecommerce transaction through identifying fake online stores. InProceedings of the International Conference on e-Learning, e-Business, Enterprise Information Systems, and e-Government (EEE)(p. 52). The Steering Committee of The World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Applied Computing (WorldComp). Balaraman, P. and Kosalram, K., 2012. 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