PROJECT REPORT ON A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO E BUSINESS

Submitted in partial fulfillment of Post-Graduate Degree MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

2010

NAME

: TAMILARASAN.A

ENROLMENT NO

: SAA04M147ELB1HA3

Under the guidance of

Dr. Annamalai Murugan.,M.B.A., M.T.A.,M.L.,PhD.,

SOUTH ASIA UNIVERSITY UNITED KINGDOM

BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that project entitled A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO E BUSINESS is submitted by

TAMILARASAN.A

(ENROLMENT

NUMBER

SAA04M147ELB1HA3),

GEMS

SCHOOL,

PONDICHERRY

in partial fulfillment of the Third trimester requirement in E BUSINESS for the award of

the degree Master of Business Administration and is Certified to be an original and bonafide work.

Date :

Guide signature

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am indebted to all powerful almighty God for all the blessings he showered on me and for being with me throughout the study. I also express with great pleasure and sincerity to record my thanks, gratitude and honour to Mr. L. Alphonse Liguori-Managing Director, Mr. M. Tamijuddin-Director academics. I place on record my sincere gratitude and appreciation to my project guide Dr. MURUGAN for his kind co-operation and guidance which enable me to complete this project.

I take this opportunity to dedicate my project to our loving faculty Dr. ANNAMALAI MURUGAN who was a constant source of motivation and I express my deep gratitude for his never ending support and encouragement during this project. Finally I thank each and every one who helped me to complete this project

DATE :

TAMILARASAN.A

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Sr. No. 1 2

Topic 1.1 INTRODUCTION RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2.1 NEED OF THE STUDY 2.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 2.3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2.4 PERIOD OF THE STUDY 2.5 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AN OVERVIEW OF SYSTEMATIC APPROACH ON E-

Page No. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

3 BUSINESS 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 CATEGORIES OF E- BUSINESS MODELS OF E-BUSINESS STEPS FOR THE SUCCESS IN E BUSINESS ESSENTIALS OF E BUSINESS WEBSITE MODELS OF E BUSINESS SYNNONYMOUS OF E COMMERCE AND E BUSINESS CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS

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14 16 18 21 25 36 59

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

Many of the current legal issues and developments applicable to e-business are described in these materials. The internet has become a mainstream information resource and a medium of commerce and advertising. E-business is merely a form or procedure for conducting business transactions. E-business allows parties to buy products and services using the internet. It is a broad grouping of activities that allows products and services to be selected, purchased, received or serviced using electronic based technologies. All laws apply to e-business just like they apply to other forms of business activity. However, e-business applications have greater legal exposure than most brick and mortar business applications because they may be used by anyone anywhere in the world with internet access, twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. These materials are designed to assist in identifying and avoiding legal problems in connection with an e-business application. The issues described in these materials focus on some of the legal issues that are more specific to e-business applications. These materials seek to provide legal risk management strategies and best practices that will be of particular help in connection with planning, setting up and operating e-business applications. E-business uses the new family of technologies available on the internet. These technologies enable people to communicate in new ways, provide new business models, permit businesses to operate more efficiently and take advantage of the new global network economy.

CHAPTER II RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

2.1 NEED OF THE STUDY

The systematic approach on E business should have a huge impact with the consumers so that to be known how effectively handled it by the techniques.

2.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

The objectives of the study are as follows.

1. To study in depth, the E business needs and how that to be used. 2. To know about the types of transactions in E business 3. To find out the various advantages and disadvantages of the E business.

2.3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research methodology is a very important aspect of any research. As more websites are there, few websites are taken by random sampling for the study. The study is descriptive in nature. Secondary datas have been used for the study. The materials collected by referring journals, books, magazines and downloading from the internet

2.4 PERIOD OF THE STUDY

The period of the study limited for a span of three months. (January 2011 March 2011)

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2.5 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

It is hereby stated that the study was conducted for a span of three months and as a result the inferences and the conclusions are slightly biased due to the constraint of the short time span.

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CHAPTER III

AN OVERVIEW OF SYSTEMATIC APPROACH ON E - BUSINESS

INTRODUCTION
Electronic business is a major force in the global economy. According to the Gartner Group, worldwide business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce reached US$145 billion in 1999 and was projected to reach US$7.29 trillion by 2004, with a 155% growth rate in the Asia/Pacific region. The Boston Consulting Group estimated that B2B E-Commerce in Australasia would increase from A$17 billion in 2000 to A$235 billion in 2005, however New Zealand businesses would only contribute 9% ($21 billion) of this volume (Wetenhall, Sutherland & Boven, 2000). Such phenomenal growth rates signal major changes in the way business is conducted, accompanied by challenges from new types of electronic markets and electronic businesses. There is a need for research to describe and explain the impacts of these changes for managers and to develop theories incorporating the new E-Business practices. Several major descriptive studies have been conducted on the nature of E-Business and its impacts. PriceWaterhouseCoopers (2000) polled Conference Board executives in 78 leading multinational companies from many industries around the globe. Their recommendations for successful E-Business initiatives stressed the importance of planning and flexibility, the need for integrated solutions, and taking full advantage of business partner and alliance relationships. Commenting on E-Business growth opportunities, they noted: The E-Business growth of the past year has raised the stakes so dramatically that it is more important now than ever that companies act proactively to address this existing opportunity. The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Telecommunications Working Group study of E-Commerce focused on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in all 21 APEC member countries (TEL05/97T, 1999). Noting the importance of SMEs for the economic growth and productivity in APEC economies, this study emphasised the role and opportunities for smaller firms E-business presents one of the greatest opportunities and challenges in retaChanges in technology, the rise of the Internet and the critical need to attract, train and retain talent, make the job one of the most challenging in retail today. The nature of retailing is changing. Years of fierce competition on the high street mean that to be successful, retailers have to examine every aspect of their business to ensure a profitable return on investment. The new battleground is electronic retailing. New technology means that unified, online supply chains are becoming the norm, together with home shopping either on the Internet or Digital TV. To compete effectively retailers must invest aggressively, and at speed, to exploit the staggering growth potential of these new channels, yet the routes to
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profitability remain unclear. To succeed in electronic retail requires an effective strategy for both B2C and B2B operations, seamlessly integrating existing channels to market with new complementary channels, and whatever the future holds. The cost effective and well managed integration of existing systems with new systems and new technologies is one of the major challenges that retailers face today in moving towards the future. Retailers have made e-retailing a strategic priority and are pursuing B2C initiatives like ever before. The retailers currently use their web sites to provide information to their customers and offer online retailing.Channel convergence is forcing retailers to implement integrated in store systems. System integration efforts are a priority for retailers in the next two years. Customers shopping multiple channels-catalogue, kiosk, store, web site expect consistent levels of services and a more uniform shopping experience. Retailers that are able to provide the highest level of integration and information access will be able to leverage their investments to enhance the customer shopping experience. They will become more valuable to customers in the long-term.

EVOLUTION OF E-BUSINESS:
As we all know that in this ever changing world only thing that remains constant is change. Companies need to adjust their business models constantly to changes in their environment. However, they also need to do so in a controlled manner. An approach to evolving business models needs to strike a balance between capitalizing on new opportunities, and entering uncharted territories by mitigating the risks involved with such a change. The approach must be lightweight in order to quickly evaluate alternative models, but also be reliable models. The requirement of new technologies, much wider, faster mode of doing business led to the evolution of e-business. Traditional transaction processing systems have evolved from simple interactive or message processing programs into sophisticated distributed processing systems that are repeatable, robust, and responsive. The system designs make several assumptions about the run-time environment synchronous connection between endpoints of conversations or pseudo-conversations, user authentication, management of the presentation space, and, for the databases, the balance between update and read-only messages. None or very few of these assumptions hold in the current ebusiness environment. As a result, the transaction flows are run-time environments for browserbased transactions.

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CHAPTER IV
CATEGORIES OF E-BUSINESS

E-business can be divided into the following categories. Business to Consumer(B2C) Business to Government(B2G) Consumer to Government(C2G) Business to Business(B2B)

Business to consumer (B2C): During the first wave of e-business much of the media attention was focused on the B2C market. At the time it appeared logical, as consumers were using applications such as email and bulletin boards, and performing research. Despite the success of B2C firms, the actual and projected growth of B2B dwarfs B2C markets.

Business to Government (B2G): In most of the countries government has embedded a program aiming at the prosperous up-liftment of the country to become a world leader in the knowledge economy revolution. The e-commerce group is tasked with enabling e-commerce for the as a whole by developing an e-commerce framework that is conducive to developing a confident and skilled population. It is expected that this will be achieved by helping businesses get the skills and the technologies they need and by closely monitoring ecommerce activity.

Consumer to Government (C2G): The government has developed a policy for the taxation of e-commerce and is hoping to resolve and clarify particular technical issues. The Government recognises that e-commerce presents both challenges and huge opportunities for taxation and tax administration for the public.

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Business to Business (B2B):

The broad definition of B2B e-business helps explain why the marketplace is expected to continue to grow so quickly. According to Cunningham the B2B definition can include: 'Transactions conducted over public or private networks, including public and private transactions that use the Internet as a delivery vehicle. The transactions include financial transfers, online exchanges, auctions, delivery of products and services, supply-chain activities and integrated business networks.

Two of the most commonly used categories are: Business to business and Business to consumer. Business to business e-business is nothing but experiencing an explosive growth rate on the internet. The original first stage of commerce on the Internet was that of E-Commerce, which is business to consumer activities. Business to business goes well beyond that popular form of consumer purchasing. It is intended to bring "Just in Time" concept to a greater height which allows business to coordinate with its business associate for real time transaction and improving efficiency and productivity for both organizations. Because Time is money; people are money, good management of both means more money for the business and less expenditure on others. B2C (Business-to-Consumer) is basically a concept of online marketing and distributing of products and services over the Internet. It is a natural progression for many retailers or marketer who sells directly to the consumer. The general idea is, if you could reach more customers, service them better, make more sales while spending less to do it, that would the formula of success for implementing a B2C e-commerce infrastructure. The B2C category is most widely used by manufactures, publishers, distributors, direct sales firms, specialty retailers, insurance providers etc.

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CHAPTER V MODELS OF E-BUSINESS

After the first wave of e-business, 'bricks and clicks' businesses those with both a traditional and ecommerce approach find that, while they already have sound financial resources, they, too, must find the right e-business model(s) for generating profitable revenue streams from the Internet. In terms of operationalising the e-business strategy a variety of e-business models are now in use. New business models that modify the nature of company interactions with outside entities have appeared in electronic markets. From one industry to another, these new business models have dramatically altered management techniques. It is important, therefore, to acknowledge the importance of e-business models. They are the conduit to increasing a company's competitiveness in the e-marketplace by improving core business processes. The following are a few e-business models currently in use:

Portals model During the initial days of the Internet, e-commerce was the bull's eye and portals were the arrows. websites such as Yahoo, were the first stop for users going online. Analysts projected revenues based on banner advertising being strategically placed on websites. It was anticipated that users would click through to electronic stores. Venture capitalists were happy to provide cash for portals with entrepreneurs impressing ventures capitalists with their 'elevator' pitches. E-tailer model The e-tailer model is a popular model utilised by retail organizations for transactions. Organisations can act as intermediaries between producers and potential buyers to create added value. They manage the platforms where their virtual brochures are presented. E-business enables good effective management practices since managers can use technology to make faster business decisions, such as the selection and realisation of products and rates. In this type of model, prices are determined by the e-business but variations are allowed according to predefined criteria.

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Auction model The auction model plays an intermediary role between buyers and sellers. This type of one seller to one broker to many buyers model is more concerned with filling a gap in the marketplace than with content. Communication is faster and made easier as it takes place in real time between buyers and sellers. This model eliminates both distance and time, and allows a continual updating of catalogues without expensive printing costs. Access is provided to a wide variety of goods and services grouped together by areas of commercial activity or personal interest.

Value chain model This business model groups together partner companies that consult each other in the making of a product with very high added value, through an organised process. The main objective is to maximise the creation of added value through an efficient operational process. These partnerships meet the specific needs of third parties by offering customized products. These types of firm do not use online intermediaries such as content aggregators in their e-commerce processes. Instead they attempt to build and maintain their own ecommerce infrastructure.

Barter model The barter model allows goods and services to be exchanged without money. Here the Internet enables a business owner to barter tangible or intangible products with another company. For example, a company can make its warehouse space profitable by offering another company the possibility of storing its products temporarily. Or a company that manufactures wooden furniture can barter sawdust and old wood with a company that produces plywood. The second variation of this model is the most virtual. In this case, the companies or people with access to this e-business model are members of different associations or companies. This type of site favours shared expertise and knowledge.

Buying groups model This model is a buying group for several business owners, and thus allows greater negotiating power. The model is especially useful for the smaller business unable to get the benefits provided by economies of scale. When joined together into a buying group, the new entity plays the role of intermediary for research and negotiation with suppliers. It can also provide the distribution of product catalogues as well as the management of commercial and financial transactions and the delivery of merchandise. 17

CHAPTER VI STEPS FOR THE SUCCESS IN E-BUSINESS Self-Motivation

Most people wait until someone else tells them what to do. That's the way our society is organized. You go to school and the teacher tells you what to do. You study at university and the professors tell you what to do. Your parents tell you what is right and wrong. You get a job and there you will have a boss and colleagues who tell you what to do. Now, we all have to learn from others clearly but we do have a choice about where we get advice. If you want to know how to establish your own business, would you ask your colleague who has been working in a regular 9 -5 job for 15 years or so? Think about your teachers at school or your University professors. Do you think they know how to set up a business and become an entrepreneur? If we examine truly successful people we will find that they have a high level of self-motivation. This applies to any calling in life.

Consistency, the ability to follow through

Many people who do have self-motivation, quickly get enthused and inspired by a new idea. Getting excited or even thrilled by an idea might be great for the moment. A business, however, requires constant activity. If you want to establish and develop a company you need a high level of consistency also known as stickability. Once you have made the decision to set up your business, you must follow through this decision with consistency. Think about your life can you come up with an example where you have proved your consistency, your stickability? Did you ever want to learn to play an instrument or a sport or a learn a foreign language? How long did you stick to your plan? How much time did you spend on your project and what have you accomplished? Chances are that you started a lot of projects and half way through the course you quit because things got tough and you lacked stickability. If this is the case fear not. You are not alone. The truth is that most people quit as soon as things get more difficult. Making a long-term commitment is not easy for most people. This applies to personal relationships too

Self-Discipline
Are you the sort of person who tends to raise your voice when something doesn't go your way? Or do you even have A tendency to shout at your spouse, children or colleagues when you are under pressure? Whenever you start shouting, swearing or using negative language you are wasting your energy energy better put to use on your business venture. Swearing and grumbling kills your creativity and blocks your

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mind. You must be strong enough to withstand any tendency to get angry or upset or else you will never succeed in your business.

Courage
It takes great courage to make decisions and set goals because this means you have to prove to yourself that you can follow your own words through to a conclusion. Look at your friends, family and colleagues. How often do you hear somebody make a promise like I'll call you next week. or I'll look this information up for you. or Sure I'll help you when you move house, just let me know when you need me. Those are statements, offers, promises all based on words. Yet, how often are they followed by deeds? Do you make New Year's Resolutions such as Next year I'll quit smoking, Next year I'll start this business course at night school, and Next year I'll go on a trip to Paris or Egypt with you? How many of those resolutions and promises have you kept? How many of them did you simply forget two weeks into the New Year? It takes courage to make a real decision, as you will have to make a sacrifice to follow it through. Also, when you start up a business you will be alone, at least to begin with. There will be no-one to tell you what to do, nobody at first to motivate and support you. You will have to take responsibility for yourself and to a certain degree, for any possible partners and you can only lead others if you have your own fears under control and are willing to take risks. Many people do not set themselves goals because they are afraid of failing of admitting defeat and they think the best way to avoid defeat is to simply not set goals.

Willingness to learn and the ability to change habits

When you decide to start your own Internet business you are also deciding to go back to school again. Not in a real physical sense but mentally. You will have to trawl for every single bit of information that will get you closer to your goal. To learn means you'll need to change your habits and habits are established patterns of behaviour and thinking that everyone acquires throughout their lives. However, most people are not aware of the fact that they have to learn something new every day and that in order to learn, in order to obtain new knowledge and new skills they have to change some of these habits. If you want to learn a foreign language you have to change your daily routine. For example the habit of listening to your favourite music on the radio. Instead you could be listening to audio recordings in the language you want to learn. We all have a tendency to get used to things that are not only comfortable but also do not require much activity on our part. We get used to watching TV in the evening and eating convenience food at the same time because this is comfortable and doesn't require any mental activity. IF you want to establish your business, you won't have much time to watch TV for entertainment. You have to change your habit of absorbing information passively into one of actively searching for information in order to analyze, filter and reorganize it.

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Creativity
Establishing a business means creating a product, service or system that solves a specific problem or enhances a person's life in one way or another. You can achieve this purpose when you create something new This doesn't mean that you have to re-invent the wheel though. Examine any new product development that enters the market and you will see that this new creation is not entirely new but has been made up by combining existing elements in a novel way. This action of rethinking existing elements is the formula of creativity. So, in order to create something new you have first to analyze an existing product to find out how it can be improved, developed or enhanced in any way so it will do a better job. Take Google its founders examined and analyzed existing search portals, in particular Yahoo and MSN. Based on their exhaustive studies they came up with an indexing and searching system that provides a higher search term relevancy. Study people's behaviour identify their latent needs and desires and you will tap into a never-ending supply of product ideas.

Vision
Vision is the ability to see things not as they are right now, but what they will be like in the future. Most people are so stuck in the moment, so preoccupied with their personal daily problems that they don't have the time or energy to think about how a particular market can develop in the future. Look at any successful business venture and you will find that its founder was able to project into the future, to estimate how people's behaviour will change. Your success in business is directly related to your vision capacity and your vision capacity is determined by two factors: How far ahead are you able to see into the future and how precise are your predictions? When Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in 1998, they could see well beyond the year 2003, in which they yielded A revenue of almost $ 1 billion. By 1998 Yahoo and MSN were operating worldwide known search services and no one would have thought that two students could take the lead in the industry within 5 years. Yet, Brin and Page had become excellent analysts of the web search market and they collected and recorded the necessary data to recognize a pattern in human behaviour. Based on their observations they then drew conclusions and made a prognosis. If you want to build your own business, you must be able to see into the future. You can develop vision capability just like you can develop any other skill. Your first step is to study and analyze human behaviour. Ask yourself this question: What are people looking for when they use the Internet?

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CHAPTER VII ESSENTIALS OF E-BUSINESS

You cant just open an online store and expect customers to flock to it. Find out if your niche market is one that you can reach through a website. How? Does your niche market have an identifiable need for your web offering? Do they have the wherewithal to pay for it? Is the niche group sizeable, i.e., will it provide enough business to produce the income you need? If the answers are yes, you have found a good niche. Now dig deep within that niche to understand the consumer behaviors that drive it. Every e-commerce operator should assume that his or her customers are sophisticated shoppers who demand prompt delivery of a product that is exactly as portrayed on their website. The most common mistake made by inexperienced web operators is to fail to be responsive to their customers order processing and fulfillment needs. But those services are the very underpinnings of all successful e-commerce ventures neglect those areas and you have a business catastrophe. To help in the follow-through, you and your customers must be able to track the status of each purchase. Most new e-commerce businesses, however, fail to integrate this necessary backend support. Another must is to make certain that your customers know that your web-based business will not only deliver a value online that cannot be found offline, but that it is just as responsive with customer service issues as the most well-regarded offline business. By keeping customer service and product fulfillment as an immediate priority you can build a valuable relationship with your customer. In doing so, you earn that customers loyalty. That helps to stem the natural flow of attrition as customers who pursue the lowest price find that the trade-off is a void in the cut-rate businesss customer service department. Another common problem for new e-commerce businesses is misinterpreting the power of the Web. Yes, a website with the right infrastructure can economically automate transactions. However, the real power of the Web is its role as a relationship-building magnet through its ability to provide numerous opportunities for interactivity. If you are careless with automated processes this very real advantage will vanish. Use your website to provide not only useful and interesting information about your products/services, but also about your entire niche market. The group that makes up a niche market always yearns for more information. They will return time and again to your website if they are appealed to on the basis of their special interests detailed articles and content-rich advertising specifically targeted to them. The dot-com bust of 2000 was a failure of business plans; the concept itself has not failed. And while numerous news articles over the last few years detail how various websites lost sales and customer confidence due to inadequate prelaunch planning, there have also been many successes, especially in the small business arena.

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WHAT MAKES E-BUSINESS DIFFERENT

All e-business is potentially worldwide in scope. There are no national or territorial boundaries on the internet. The jurisdictional exposure to uncertain and possibly conflicting laws is great. The ease of access to e-business businesses through the internet coupled with their 24x7 availability presents a strong likelihood that customers from around the world will visit sites. This global exposure and related legal risks associated with the absence of territorial boundaries as well as business hour limitations need to be kept in mind. E-business websites are private property. They may be thought of as a piece of virtual real estate in cyberspace. Because they are positioned in cyberspace there is an implied invitation to visit them. They are intended to be visited. Visitation is encouraged further by advertising. This is one reason why websites need to implement applicable Terms of Use so that customers and visitors are on notice as to the house rules applicable to the websites, their content, services and use. Website Terms of Use have become the principal legal strategy for managing the legal risks associated with e-business or virtual business websites. Another major characteristic of e-commerce business applications is to recognize their dependence on information technology. The risks of computer errors, hackers, computer viruses, denial of service attacks, power outages, computer malfunctions and unplanned downtime need to be appreciated. Security, reliability and scalability are thus very important to e-commerce businesses and promise to become increasingly more important in the years ahead. Cyber security has become increasingly more important as the risks become increasingly more threatening. Another factor is the anonymous nature of the relationship between e-buyers and esellers. Fraud is much more of a risk in e-business transactions because of the anonymous character of the relationship. There are concerns over possible export control violations, customers being children or other persons who are not competent to enter into a contract with the seller, or being someone using another partys identity or account number. Identity theft has become a major concern. These concerns are more problematic because of the anonymous, virtual relationship that exists in e-business transactions. It is also important to recognize that brand names and branding strategies are much more important in e-business. E-business companies need to recognize the importance of a trust relationship with their customers. Trust has emerged as a critical success factor. It is important to recognize that most e-business applications involve intellectual property considerations. Linking, framing, caching and downloading, for example, all implicate the copyright laws. Access to and use of most of website content also may require copyright analysis. Patent, trademark, domain name and trade secret issues may also need to be considered. The intellectual property analysis should be an integral part of the early planning and design for new e-business applications. E-commerce business models are usually based on the network effect. Network effects arise when the value of the e-business application increases with the addition of each participant. Supply and demand do not have the traditional economic relationship. E-business agreements tend to be short in duration with due regard to rapidly changing market conditions and advances
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in technology. Exponential improvements in technology keep occurring year after year. These differences need to be appreciated.

E-business transaction data and site usage data are becoming increasingly more valuable. Click-histories and customer data are considered to be very valuable commercially. Likewise, privacy policies and procedures are given more heightened concern in e-business transactions compared to other brick and mortar transactions. The internet is a communications medium. First Amendment issues may arise. Much of e-business is carried out through electronic agreements and electronic communications which implicate some specific legal issues and requirements. Electronic communication and transactions are being carried out at internet speed. The speed of these communications and transactions also needs to be appreciated. There is less time for reflection and more potential for mistakes. Computer software errors and data input errors, for example, may cause serious problems.

ARE INDIANS BUYING ONLINE?

Are Indians buying online? As per IOAI forecasted estimates, e-commerce transactions will cross the Rs 2000 mark (2006-2007) which translates into an increase of over 300% from financial year 2004-05. The relationship between the Internet and commerce has passed its nascence. According to the estimates by IOAI, online shopping crossed Rs 430 crores to Rs 570 crores in 2004-05. The turnover is further expected to increase to Rs 1180 crores in 2005-06.

The Internet offers an audience that will grow to a 100 million users by 2007-08, unlimited shelf space and isnt bound by operational timings and geographical boundaries; with an opportunity to cater to country wide city markets (for consumers and suppliers alike) at a comparative miniscule cost. This four fold population increase raises a pertinent question to many a business and enterprise How should you embrace this medium? This research reports deals specifically with that premise and arms any reader with an arsenal of information to start/improve his online shop / enterprise in his core competitive area.

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 The E-Commerce Industry:570 crores worth of E-commerce conducted online in 2004-2005 to grow to Rs 2300 crores by 2006-2007, an estimated 300%+ growth.

The E-Commerce Site Visitor:55% of visitors to ecommerce sites have adopted the Internet as a shopping medium.

The Regular Online Shopper:Of the 55% of online shoppers [Base 1716] 87% [1493] of shoppers have shopped more than once and have been termed as regular shoppers. They form the base for this report of users who have transacted online to buy products & services more than once.

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CHAPTER VIII WEBSITE MODELS OF E BUSINESS

There are eight basic website models ranging from the simple static pages of a brochureware site to richly interactive online gaming sites, to online stores chock full of products, to online auctions. Many websites combine several of these basic models. However, each model has unique characteristics that distinguish it from the other models and it is important to understand these differences.

Brochureware Site
A brochureware site is a marketing site that electronically aids in the buying and selling process. A traditional business often will build and maintain a brochureware site as a marketing tool with the objective of promoting the business and its products/services. A brochureware site is sometimes an adjunct to a business technical support division providing online documentation, software downloads and a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) section. Such a website can provide detailed information about the businesss products/services, contact information including the businesss address, telephone numbers, and email addresses. It can also be a tool to provide the public copies of a companys annual reports, press releases, and employment opportunities. Revenue from this kind of site is generated indirectly by creating an awareness of the business products/services. All transactions occur offline. Savvion develops business process management software that improves business performance and reduces costs within and across functional business units. Its website, www.savvion.com, is a good example of a high-quality brochureware site. It is clean, fast loading, and has all of the elements of a good website. To demonstrate the variety of businesses that take advantage of the Web to expand their business opportunities visit the following brochureware websites: Rolledsteel.com, Cohenhighley.com, Hayproperty.com.au, and Paulcato.com. As you can see, you dont need to be a corporate giant to benefit from a brochureware site.

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Online Store
An online store is a website where consumers buy products or services. This type of site is most commonly referred to as an e-commerce site or a B2C (Business to Consumer) site. In addition to most, if not all, of the content found in a brochureware site, an online store displays products/services along with detailed information (e.g. specifications and pricing) usually from a database with search features, and a method for online purchase. An online store must also provide extensive information about the products/services offered that not only aids in attracting consumers, but gives them enough confidence in the seller and the products/services to take the next step making an online purchase. One question the author is often asked is what should an e-commerce site offer online order processing, just a toll free number, or both? The answer is: Offer both. If you choose to take online payments, you must provide a secure, reliable, cost-effective system for authorizing payment and managing transactions. The best systems are based on the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and/or Secure Electronic Transactions (SET) encryption technology, which provide the encryption of data and generate and display a results page to the customer following the transaction. Further, a successful online store must be designed with the ability to store orders in a database or as tab-delimited text files so the data can be imported into an invoicing system. Then the website must be able to intelligently route encrypted email to the order fulfillment division. A good example of a large online store is Healthtex.com. This is a great site in every respect. To see how a small brick-and-mortar business uses a web presence to enhance its bottom line, visit Parkaveliquor.com, where you will find an attractive, well-designed and fully functional ecommerce site that benefits both the storeowner and the customer. Other good online stores you might want to use as guides when designing your website include the Treliske Organic (www.nzsouth.co.nz/treliske), which offers Certified Organic Wool, Knitwear, Beef and Lamb; Badcataviation.com, a great toy airplane store; and Soccer Books Limited (www.soccerbooks.co.uk) where you can find a huge selection of books, video and DVDs relating to the sport of soccer.

Another avenue that an entrepreneur might want to consider is to team with a large e-commerce site such as Amazon.com or e-bay.com to provide the e-commerce end while the entrepreneur provides the sites content. Good examples of such a site are www.dolls-for-sale.com and www.politinfo.com.
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Subscription Site:
A subscription site can process payments offline and provide via email a users name and password for access, or it can provide a secure, reliable, cost-effective online system for authorizing payment and managing transactions. Again, the best systems are based on Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and/or Secure Electronic Transactions (SET) technology to encrypt the data, and generate and display a results page to the customer following the transaction. E-commerce technology continues to become more sophisticated, and with every advance the financial prognosis for a subscription site should improve. A good example of a subscription site is iEntertainment Network (www.iencentral.com). This worldwide game and entertainment site offers both free ad-supported and fee-based online game channels. The site also offers a variety of monthly subscription plans. The website Content-wire.com offers another example of a good subscription site that uses both banner ads and subscriptions for its revenue stream. This website offers a niche editorial product that covers a narrow vertical technology sector web-based commerce. As such, it provides upto-date news articles, produces features on a variety of subjects, and offers a good bit of research material. Although this website could be better designed, it is functional and the average surfer will find it easy to use. Because the site does derive some of its revenue from banner ads, some information offered is free (use it!). Note that surfers who pony up $100 or $200 for a subscription, there is much more data available for your perusal. A sub-model that increasingly is finding favor is the website that offers downloadable content via a subscription account, a la carte basis, or a combination of both. The most popular website within this sub-model is the new Napster.com. Although this digital music destination bears the same name as the famous, but defunct, peer-to-peer file sharing website, that business model is in its past. The current Napster.com is a digital music catalog site that also offers many rich community features for its customers. The new Napster.com allows consumers to choose how they want to experience music, offering both an a la carte store and a premium subscription service. Not all digital music sites follow the subscription model, however. Apples iTunes.com website, which at this writing offers more than 400,000 songs from a wide variety of musicians for less than a dollar per song, states that its iTune website offers music without the need to agree to complicated rules. There are no clubs to join, and no monthly fees if you like a song, you just buy a downloadable copy of it for 99.
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Check these sites out; they might give you some ideas on how you can make money from your own website.

Advertising Site
An advertising site is a content laden site, whose revenue base is the dollar amount derived from banners, sponsorships, ads, and other advertising methods. The traffic the site draws is the measure of its value. Recognized rating firms measure its value and then advertising rates are based upon that value. Important note: Very few sites can be supported entirely through advertising dollars. Two good advertising sites are Cnet.com and Howstuffworks.com. Both are wonderful content laden advertising websites that every reader should bookmark. You should especially read the Howstuffworks websites explanation of how a web server works, which can be found at http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-server.htm. Another great advertising site is Thekidzpage.com. Although this colorful sites use of pop-up ads can be irritating, those ads allow this site to provide all of its great content for free. Children love to visit this site to play games and parents appreciate the more than 250 printable coloring books and learning activities. But an advertising site neednt be graphic intensive nor host a variety of pop-up ads to be successful. Cases in point are the low-tech websites HomePCnetwork.com and Hrmguide.co.uk. Although these text-driven sites dont offer a lot of bells and whistles, they make up for their lack of eye-appeal by their informative, easy-to-use content.

Online or Cyber Mall

A simple and easy way to sell products/services online is to open a shop in one of the many cyber malls on the Web. Online malls generally offer turnkey solutions for store creation, payment processing, and site management. For example, most cyber malls offer a template for implementing a catalog of products, a shopping cart application, and a form generator allowing small businesses to quickly set up shop on the Web. The templated applications employed to set up a businesss catalog and the ease of payment processing are tempting to a novice. These cyber malls also provide a high level of click traffic. If you are new to the Web and would prefer to first dip your toe in the water, a cyber mall may be the answer.
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A cyber malls biggest promise is to deliver more traffic to your front door than you would be able to do if you go it alone. Since you will be relying on the cyber malls marketing savvy, make sure you verify that it can deliver. But note that the only front door which is advertised is the cyber malls address, not your online stores address. Most cyber malls offer a purchasing system, which enables a web start-up to avoid up-front shopping cart software costs, but a fee is accessed on each purchase that fee will eventually exceed the cost of the software. You need to ensure that the cyber mall you choose is one in which your online store can flourish. Consider the pros and cons of establishing your online store in a cyber mall including the

restrictions and costs that some cyber malls impose. Then consider the option of setting up your own purchasing system and independent identity. For, in reality, a cyber mall is just a list of links categorized by store and product type. Any number of cyber malls can help you get your website up and running in record time. Yahoo! Store, probably the most popular cyber mall on the Web, includes an easy tool that lets you register your own domain name (http://www.ourname.com) or, if you already have a domain name, they will help you transfer it. You are also given the option of using stores.yahoo.com/yourname, which does not require an up front registration fee. Freemerchants.com offers an easy and inexpensive way to set up an e-commerce site. Of course, like many cyber malls, with Freemerchants.com you are required to design your new website using free servers.

Business-to-Business Site
All of the website models discussed in this book are built to serve either the individual consumer or the consumer and business customers. But a business-to-business site is built to serve other businesses; if the business also wants to serve its individual consumers, it usually builds a separate retail site to serve those customers. This book doesnt deal with the minutiae of B2B sites, since B2B sites, while using some of the technology discussed in this book, often also need other technology to further their goals of providing products/services to other businesses rather than individual consumers. The growth of B2B e-commerce is explosive. For some businesses, B2B e-commerce already influences value chains, distribution channels, customer service, and pricing strategies. Others look

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to B2B for ways to leverage this new technology to increase sales, profits, customer loyalty, and brand preference.

Auction Site
Auctions have been around for thousands of years. Traditionally, a person offers an item for sale and potential buyers bid on the item. The bidder willing to pay the highest price for the item wins the bid and takes the item home the same with online auctions. The main difference between traditional auctions and web-based auctions is that the actual bidding and selling takes place over the Internet with interested buyers submitting bids electronically. The person with the highest bid at the timed close of the auction wins the bid and arranges to receive the item. The auction site acts as the middleman in the buying and selling transaction process. There are a number of ways you can use the auction model. First, you could build an auction website and let that be your business model. Or you could add an auction component to another ecommerce model. Many auction sites are built or sponsored by major vendors who have an established website, and use their auction site either to attract customers, or to offer merchandise that is surplus, outdated, and/or seconds.

Many readers, however, will find established online auctions such as those offered by eBay, Ubid, Amazon auctions, and Yahoo auctions a way to build a credible e-commerce business. Using an established auction website to build a web-based business is inexpensive and allows you to begin making a profit immediately: There are none of the expenses of the typical e-commerce model no advertising costs, no hosting costs, etc. Auction sites receive billions (yes billions) of visits daily.

If you use one of the online auction sites as a means to enter the world of e-commerce, understand that you are responsible for listing your items on the auction site, and you assume responsibility for all aspects of your auction listings, including product descriptions, identification of quantities, establishment of starting and maximum bid prices, and shipping. Once the auction closes, it is up to you and the buyer to make arrangements for payment and shipping.

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As online auctions continue to grow in popularity, more and more, entrepreneurs, retailers, manufacturers, and other businesses see them as a beneficial way to sell surplus goods, while consumers see them as a great way to save money and get great deals. The largest and best known auction site is eBay.com. For sellers, the ability to market your product to millions of daily visitors makes using eBay one of the most efficient ways to sell just about anything. Potential buyers search for items and place bids on those they are interested in

purchasing. At the close of an auction the highest bidder is the winner. At that point, the buyer and seller make arrangements for payment and shipping. All you need to become an eBay seller is to register, which is free and only takes a few moments. However, eBay requires sellers to provide a credit or debit card, as well as enough details for eBay to check their bonafides, i.e. the potential seller provides eBay with enough information for the auction site to establish his or her proof of identity by cross-checking against consumer and business databases. If everything is kosher, the seller obtains an ID Verified designation, which enables them to place items for sale on the auction site. Yahoo! also offers an auction service. Its seller requirements are similar to eBays, i.e. there is a registration (free) and all sellers must provide credit or debit card information. If you have products that are more niche oriented, you might want to use an auction site that caters to that niche crowd,

Weblog
Its difficult to define this type of website, mainly due to diversity of models adopted for individual weblogs (also known as blogs). But perhaps the Internet Librarian 2001 describes this interesting web-based genre the best: A web page containing brief, chronologically arranged items of information. A weblog can take the form of a diary, journal, whats new page, or links to other websites. Weblogs are to words what [the original] Napster was to music. (Andrew Sullivan, Wired Magazine, May 2002). In that same issue Sullivan says, Twenty-one months ago, I rashly decided to set up a web page myself and used Blogger.com to publish some daily musings to a
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readership of a few hundred. Sure, Im lucky to be an established writer [he also writes of The New Republic and The New York Times] in the first place. And I worked hard at the blog for months for free. But the upshot is that Im now reaching almost a quarter million readers a month and making a profit. That kind of exposure rivals the audiences of traditional news and opinion magazines. To give you some ideas on how you can turn a profit with your blog, visit Sullivans weblog Andrewsullivan.com. Also click on the Info button on the left side of the page and check out his Media Kit.

The key to the popularity of a weblog is the person or people producing it. Since weblog readers often develop relationships with the weblog author(s), interaction between reader and author is inevitable. Good weblog examples include Eatonweb.com, Scripting.com, Gizmodo.com, and Angst-identprone.org. But you dont necessarily need to establish a new website to attract a niche audience of readers. Since weblogs are ideally suited to interaction between people sharing special interests, some ecommerce businesses may want to consider adding a weblog to their website.

Peer-to-Peer Site
Some readers may be toying with the idea of sitting up a peer-to-peer (P2P) site. The way the Web was originally set up, the website owner posts content on a server (referred to as web server), and the audience connects to that server via a web browser to view the content. To interact live with other users, everyone connects to the same server at the same time. With P2P, however, the computers of individual users are connected together directly no central server is necessary. Still, a website is often used as an adjunct to a file sharing network to promote the network and to provide customer service. Peer-to-peer file sharing opens a whole new range of business opportunities. The original Napster (versus the new subscription-based Napster) brought P2P to the forefront, although the original Napster wasnt a true P2P business model it operated around a central server. However, it is noted that the old Napsters central server concept also was the cause of the businesss eventual downfall. (At its peak, the old Napster was perhaps the most popular website ever created in less than a year, it went from zero to 60 million visitors per month.)

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There are many alternatives to the Napster P2P model. One of the more interesting of these alternatives is Gnutella. Unlike Napster, Gnutella and its variants arent software at all; rather they are communication protocols similar to the common gateway interface (CGI) used by most web servers. Any software that implements a Gnutella-like communication protocol can communicate with other Gnutella-enabled software applications.It may be difficult to come up with a viable, profit-making business model for this type of P2P network. However, visit sites such as Bearshare.com, Livewire.com and Swapper.com, for examples of how current P2P file-sharing networks use websites to produce income.

AGREEMENTS FOR E-BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS

Most e-business behaves as a network economy and obeys different laws from traditional commerce. The network economy rests on communications, not commodities. Success on the internet requires a large presence. In network economies supply creates demand. New business practices need to recognize the differences in conduct in business in a network economy and the network effects. The whole field of e-business is relatively new. The business and legal models for e-commerce business relationships are evolving very quickly. It is difficult to sustain a

competitive advantage with most of these models because they can be easily replicated or 199 rendered obsolete. Some of these models are proving not to be sustainable over the long term. These e-commerce business relationships require an appreciation of the technology, the network economy, unique intellectual property issues, and business models applicable to web development agreements, web hosting agreements, web linking agreements, web affiliation agreements, content provider agreements, Web advertising, co-branding and co-marketing agreements, fulfillment agreements, merchandising agreements, channel partner agreements, electronic distribution agreements, and other forms of e-commerce relationships. One issue that is often heavily negotiated is the ownership, control and use of information pertaining to customers and site visitors. In the e-commerce world it is possible to track every 200

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click by a visitor. Web marketing is being based on individual click histories. he rights n and to this usage information pertaining to customers and visitors are becoming extremely valuable. It needs to be considered in many e-commerce relationships. The focus of e- commerce is to use this user information to build a unique marketing profile for each customer so that e-customers can be marketed to individually. Advances in data mining and customer profiling technologies are making this click stream information increasingly more valuable. One-to-one marketing is a goal shared by many e-commerce purveyors. Permission marketing is becoming increasingly more prevalent. Successful e-commerce businesses are listening to their customers and recognizing the closed-loop advantages arising from an e-commerce customer relationship to conduct focus groups online, get customer feedback, get user ideas and input and quickly adjust to customer needs and preferences. eBay has built a strong brand and personal one-to-one relationships with 201 many of its customers by keeping in close touch with its customers.

Adoptation and implementation of E business:

Electronic business is a major force in the global economy. According to the Gartner Group, worldwide business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce reached US$145 billion in 1999 and was projected to reach US$7.29 trillion by 2004, with a 155% growth rate in the Asia/Pacific region. The Boston Consulting Group estimated that B2B E-Commerce in Australasia would increase from A$17 billion in 2000 to A$235 billion in 2005, however New Zealand businesses would only contribute 9% ($21 billion) of this volume (Wetenhall, Sutherland & Boven, 2000). Such phenomenal growth rates signal major changes in the way business is conducted, accompanied by challenges from new types of electronic markets and electronic businesses. There is a need for research to describe and explain the impacts of these changes for managers and to develop theories incorporating the new E-Business practices. Several major descriptive studies have been conducted on the nature of E-Business and its impacts. PriceWaterhouseCoopers (2000) polled Conference Board executives in 78 leading multinational companies from many industries around the globe. Their recommendations for successful E-Business initiatives stressed the importance of planning and flexibility, the need for integrated solutions, and taking full advantage of business partner and alliance relationships. Commenting on E-Business growth opportunities, they noted: The E-Business growth of the past year has raised the stakes so dramatically that it is more important now than ever that companies act proactively to address this existing opportunity. The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Telecommunications Working Group study of E-Commerce focused on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in all 21 APEC member countries (TEL05/97T, 1999). Noting the importance of SMEs for the economic growth and productivity in APEC economies, this study emphasised the role and opportunities for smaller firms
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E-Business

Adoption Computer use for business activities was found to be almost universal with over 92% of the respondents indicating involvement with computers in their organisations. As illustrated in Figure 1, the proportion of New Zealand organisations with a website was much lower - approximately half of this sample (54%). Using functionality of the website to gauge the level of E-Business capabilities (Berryman, 2000; PriceWaterhouseCoopers, 1999), only 21% of the organisations have websites capable of taking orders and 8% can also handle payments on-line. However, 231 organisations reported involvement with B2B sales and 224 were doing B2C sales. Looking at the other types of electronic activities and website features. External email was a key feature for all organisations with computers and it was an hourly activity for 62% of the respondents. Approximately half of the organisations were purchasing supplies on-line and one third (345 companies) were involved in electronic financial transactions on a daily basis. Electronic links to partners via an extranet was reported by 29% of the computer users and 114 of these companies used these links on a daily basis. Although half of the companies reported doing market research on-line, only 36% used electronic media for advertising and promotion. After- sales service was provided online by 27% of the computer-using organisations and 23% were doing staff recruitment on-line.

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CHAPTER IX SYNONYMOUS OF E-COMMERCE AND E-BUSINESS

The Internet economy is a broader concept than e-commerce and e-business. It includes e-commerce and e-business.

The Internet economy pertains to all economic activities using electronic networks as a medium for commerce or those activities involved in both building the networks linked to the Internet and the purchase of application services7 such as the provision of enabling hardware and software and network equipment for Web-based/ online retail and shopping malls (or e-malls). It is made up of three major segments: physical (ICT) infrastructure, business infrastructure, and commerce.

The CREC (Center for Research and Electronic Commerce) at the University of Texas has developed a conceptual framework for how the Internet economy works. The framework shows four layers of the Internet economy-the three mentioned above and a fourth called intermediaries

Based on Center for Research in Electronic Commerce, University of Texas, Measuring the Internet Economy, June 6, 2000.

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Layer 1 - Internet Infrastructure: Companies that provide the enabling hardware, software, and networking equipment for Internet and for the World Wide Web

Layer 2 Internet Applications Infrastructure: Companies that make software products that facilitate Web transactions; companies Internet that provide Commerce Web Applications development Web design and Development consulting Software services Internet Consultants Online Training Adobe Search *Microsoft Engine *IBM Software Oracle Web-Enabled Databases Multimedia Applications

Layer 3 Internet Intermediaries: Companies that link ecommerce buyers and sellers; companies that provide Web content; Market Makers companies that in Vertical provide Industries marketplaces Online Travel in which eAgents commerce Online transactions Brokerages can occur Content Aggregators e-STEEL Online Travelocity eAdvertisers Trade Ad Internet Yahoo! Brokers ZDNet Portals/Content Providers

Layer 4 - Internet Commerce: Companies that sell products or services directly to consumers or businesses.

ypes of Networking mpHardware/Software Companies Line Acceleration Hardware Manufacturers PC and Server Manufacturers Layer Internet Backbone Cisco Providers AOL Internet Service AT&T Providers (ISPs) Qwest Security Vendors Fiber Optics Makers

E-Tailers Online Entertainment and Professional Services Manufacturers Selling Online Airlines Selling Online Tickets Fee/SubscriptionAmazon.com Based Dell Companies

Examples

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HOW MUCH MONEY DO WEBSITES MAKE FROM ADSENSE & BLOGGING

Andrew Leyden of PodcastDirectory.com receives nearly a million hits and makes around $30,000 to $40,000.

Freeweblayouts.net owners make $100,000 a month from a site that provides readymade web design templates for MySpace.com

SeatGuru sites gets 700,000 visitors a month and makes about $10,000 to $20,000 a month from Adsense alone.

OK, back to my numbers. I am not very comfortable revealing the exact earnings data in public but still I will try to share whatever possible:

Digital Inspiration blog gets around 1.25 million hits per month with a majority originating from Google followed by direct traffic (like bookmarks, rss feeds, etc)

The maximum site traffic comes from four countries - US, India, UK and Australia (in the same order)

A majority of monthly income is from Adsense but I do make some extra money from Chitika, Feedburner Ads, Direct Advertising and Blog Consulting [via paypal].

Firefox referrals have also been a good source of revenue though I did not have much success with Picasa software. I never tried Adsense or Adwords referrals.

While it may be tough for me to write down the actual Adsense earnings data here, you can make 38

some good guesses from the WashingtonPost story mentioned above.

Alexa Traffic Rank for this blog is 7,637.

Google Blogger Team added Digital Inspiration to Blogs of Note on July 25, 2006.

Technorati, which tracks 50 million blogs, rank this site at number 936 while the BlogPulse Rank is 233. Also, ~4500 users have subscribed to the XML Feeds [Feedburner+Atom].

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TOP INTERNET GAINERS FOR THE YEAR 2007 E-Matrimony:

When it comes to matrimony sites, Bharatmatrimony and Shaadi have the highest preference among consumers and fight it out for the top position in that category. Shaadi.com and Bharatmatrimony.com are the two biggest websites in the online matrimonial space, each with 33 per cent user preference. They command an almost equal share of this classifieds vertical. Some 16 per cent of those who search for their significant others on the web head to Jeevansaathi.com. Interestingly, Jeevansaathi has entered the top three rung this year; last year, it did not even make it to the top five slots. How big is the Online Matrimony market? 100 crores?According to Murugavel Janankiraman, Founder & CEO, BharatMatrimony.com, matrimonial websites are continuing on the path of high trajectory growth garnering Rs. 58 crores in 2005-06 and expecting to cross Rs. 98 crores in 2006-07.

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Marriage portals still in knots despite wedding boom, says Financial Express. According to industry insiders, of the 100-odd matrimonial websites in the country, only some are making money. The rest are either just able to break even or are running in losses. But promoters of marriage portals feel the present scenario may be tense, but the future is perfect. Well let us take a closer look at the online matrimonial businessHow does a prospective customer behave once he decides it is the time to get married!How does he choose the best matrimonial site? Or does he simply put up his profile on all available sites? Does he pay for the service on all sites?What else is he looking out for in a matrimonial website?Do these websites remove a listing after the person gets married? Do they even care about that? Is there a term of Active marriage-able profiles?Are matrimonial websites safe? Are youngsters using it for dating?So how does one compare such sites? Does one use Alexa? But Alexa is all skewed up and can be manipulated! Is that the thought running through your head? But Alexa does even out things while comparing sites to an extent, doesnt it?Alexa ratings are just a small piece of the bigger pictureI decided to carry out a little study and compared the four of the biggest matrimonial players in the country. Ie put myself in the shoes of the prospective customer of a matrimonial site 1.) Let us start with Shaadi.com Reasons any other user will also start with Shaadi.com:

The name is short and simple and most relevant. They are considered as Market Leaders, though some might disagree.

Who considers Shaadi as market leaders? We took a small sample of 20 people (Between the ages of 23-32) asked them the first site which comes to their mind when we mention Online Matrimony websites? 13 mentioned Shaadi.com. The sample might be small, but these are the real people who are looking to get married soon. Once you position yourself in the minds of the prospective customer that is enough reason to be considered as a leader to some extent.

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First thing I notice on their site: Search: Pretty simple. Without registering on their site I was able to view 50 pages of profiles. Dynamic testimonials: i.e Asok Mehta in the above screen-shot changes to Nausheen Wadia on refreshing the page. A simple registration link. They want me to know that they are No. 1! I might not click on the link but it does make an impression. They got a number displaying the number of matches theyve made (Not seen in above screenshot). Nice big number. The user obviously doesnt know what number to expect or what would be a great number a six digit number has a nice feel to it An array of regional options. Paid Membership: In your first visit to Shaadi.com you might not be able to find the Paid Membership page. Youll be able to find the link once you spend some more time on the site or register a free profile. 12 months (Platinum) for Rs. 4250 6 months (Diamond) for Rs. 2655 3 months (Gold) for Rs.1595 Bold Listing - for only Rs. 459 Is getting married a year long procedure? Buying a 3 months premium pack would definitely make more sense.
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Registration is pretty detailed but doesnt go to the level of depths which some of the other sites do. They take around 24 hours to upload a profile. This might not go well with the impatient users, but the reason they do it is to supposedly screen a profile and check if it carries enough information to be listed. They also run Shaaditimes.com A Wedding Portal of sorts.

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Next we move to BharatMatrimony:

Recently Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) asked Bharat Matrimony to stop its success ads. Which means they have either been highly successful in match fixing or at least in advertising about their success! I had the pleasure of interacting with Mr. Murugavel Janankiraman (Founder) during the DMC (Mumbai March) surprisingly we spoke more about their Real Estate and Job Portal. An interesting fact is that Mr. Murugavel supposedly found his better half at BharatMatrimony! Did ask him about them going offline like Shaadi Point to which I didnt really get a satisfactory reply. One of the elementary reasons why a prospect might visit Shaadi before BM is the name. The name is pretty long. Longer the name = More the chances of a mistake while keying the site in + Online Laziness Factor (The laziness factor which creeps into the net surfer while keying in a really long URL. It is not the usual laziness, but more a mental sort of thing) A reason why someone would visit BM before Shaadi is: - Good advertising by BM - Word of Mouth

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Lets get to their site: What do I see? An attractive girl! What are the chances that shes going to be my soul mate? Even SimplyMarry has an attractive girl on the first page, but at least theyve mentioned age, height, profession etc to make it a little believable that she has her profile uploaded. The Search is again simple and efficient. Displays results without having to register registration mandatory if Id like to contact my prospective bride though (This is a common feature in all sites). I see a banner of an offline meet Mega Swayamvaram. This drives the point through that users are more comfortable with offline activities and Im sure offline activities by all the matrimonial players will increase over the next year. And then BM tries to convince me that they are #1. They talk about their Limca Book of Records entry and also being the most trusted and most visited matrimony portal! Interesting thing is that they too quote Alexa statistics and say they are way ahead of competition! But Alexa has a completely different story to say

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Shaadi, BM and SimplyMarry all three of them quote JuxtConsult and JuxtConsults User Friendliness Report and how well each of them fared. Shaadi and BM are clients of JuxtConsult too. [Well the above report has received a fair share of criticism. Quoting from the post The 6 usability aspects are branding, navigation structure and added features, website design company and contact info, contact responsiveness and technical parameters. The top item on their list of usability features is branding! Would anyone please tell me just how can branding be a part of website usability? Sure, branding can play a huge role in building website popularity and thus the user base, but surely not usability.]

How important is it to me as prospective customer of BM to know that they are number 1? Would I shift to Shaadi if I realized BM was #2? The same 20 people whom we asked about the first matrimonial website which came to their mind (By the way, 5 of them had said BharatMatrimony) the same people said it didnt matter much to them who was No. 1, because they knew that a site being #1 or #2 does not guarantee the perfect groom or bride. What about parents who do the spouse hunting for their sons and daughters? On asking few parents the same question, the unanimous reply was what matters to us is the site with the largest number of profiles and the amount of replies we get. Back to BM. They give a detailed section dedicated to interests and hobbies, making it a little more personalized and gives added information about the members, which in this case shall be quite valuable. The registration process is highly detailed. It can be looked at from 2 sides, either as tedious or extensive. Since this is a marriage portal, more the information, better are the chances of getting a good match, hence, the extra information is welcome. It may take a little longer to register here, but should be worth it. Also noticed their ISO 9001:2000 certification. Paid Membership:

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Far too many options Classic Super Package: 3 months Rs 2290 6 months Rs 3890 9 months Rs 4990 Classic Plus Package: 3 months Rs 1990 6 months Rs 3390 9 months Rs 4340 Classic Package: 3 months Rs 1590 6 months Rs 2690 9 months Rs 3440 Far too many options for comfort. A user wants to get married and wants to see value. Classic Plus just doesnt make sense and I would be surprised if it gets many sales. Matrimony Xpress: Their blogging platform. This acts as a gateway to share information on various topics ranging from marriage, anger management, family budgeting to love, and personal issues. This is not an open blog, one must be registered to be able to blog on the site. The posters dont appear to be users though. Its more like competition for Shaaditimes.com

Next is JeevanSathi:

JeevanSathi comes from the stable of InfoEdge, i.e. it is a Naukri.com group company. They are definitely not a distant 3rd in the Matrimonial race and in fact have really been pushing Shaadi and BharatMatrimony. Surprisingly JeevanSathi doesnt command a strong brand-recall factor. Im not sure if this could be because of the name?
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A little off-topic - I feel sathi should be spelt with a double-a and Im glad they know this too, JeevanSaathi.com auto forwards you to JeevanSathi.com.

Lets take a look at their site.. I was greeted with a pop-up. Which shows a snapshot of their TVC and asks me to register? Why would they do such a thing? They too have a search spread right across the page. Because of the colour scheme used in the top half of the page the Live Help really stands out. This is a feature provided by all the sites but you might miss it in the other sites, unless you are specifically looking out for it. They are concentrating heavily on testimonials. In fact this is the first thing which catches the eye of the user. There were 6 Marriage success stories on the first page. Do people actually read these? We got interesting responses from people when we asked them how important are testimonials on a matrimonial site? 10 of the 20 said a simple NO. One of them actually took the pains of explaining the reason to us. No, I dont read the testimonials but the visual presence of such testimonials have a psychologically comforting impact in the mind of the user and are therefore necessary. Other answers varied from Yes I read them to Might go through them when Im rather bored.

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Paid Memberships: eRishta Membership, eClassifieds Membership, eValue Pack Membership 18 options! That is insane.

18 options! They actually want the customer to say no to 17 options! How is a user to know, what is best for him? A better method would be an interactive medium Ask the user what he wants? Do you want to write instant messages and initiate chat? Do you want to let other members view your contact details etc etc How many months are you looking at? (Or have this in a checkbox list with all options) And then display the closest eRishta or eValue offering or suggest him some other.

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Next comes SimplyMarry.com:

Last December TimesMatri switched to its current avatar of SimplyMarry.com. They started off with a nice bang full paged ads almost everyday in all of Times Groups publications. Striking ads with takes on Veerapan, a rockstar, a bhajan singer etc Well it surely has gotten SimplyMarry more visitors than TimesMatri used to get. Well Times of India is still the leading off-line matrimonial service and if they start listing these on their website for free (Im not sure if they already do this), theyll definitely never be short of fresh profiles. Simple tactic show the benefit of a free listing on SimplyMarry.com when a person buys a listing for the matrimonial classified in the newspaper and later on try to convert him into a paid online customer. Let us have a look at their site:

Take the top half of Shaadi.com and the bottom half of JeevanSathi.com and you have SimplyMarry.com
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Not saying that this is a bad thing. Study your competition and copy their best moves is an age old practice. I love the whole simplicity factor though. The simple search has just 3 categories to start off with. Silver Membership- 3 months Rs 500 Gold Membership- 6 months Rs 1000 Diamond Membership- 12 months Rs 2500 Platinum Membership- 12 months Rs 3500 I dont quite understand the funda of limiting Diamond/Platinum to 12 months. I guess its a nice sales tactic even though a customer might not need the product for such a long time. Well enough of reviewing, let us start with some hardcore comparisons: Let us start off with some Alexa statistics: The Top 100 rankings of India lists: JeevanSathi - 27 Shaadi - 30 BharatMatrimony - 96 SimplyMarry - 240 Well, apparently JeevanSathi is the site which gets the most traffic from India.

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Let us now look at the global reach over the last 6 months:

Shaadi leads currently and has been quite consistent. JeevanSathi and BharatMatrimony are almost on par. BharatMatrimony did see a sudden surge in Mid January. Now let us use the parameter of Pageviews:

Now heres a surprise! JeevanSathi seems to be the site receiving the most Pageviews. I feel this is because of extensive Testimonial readership. BharatMatrimony does have a bit of Ajax, but they should still be commanding higher pageviews! Especially the sudden surge in reach wasnt complimented at all with any rise in pageviews.

How popular are these sites internationally and amidst NRIs?

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Percentage Traffic From Various Countries India USA UK UAE 53.1 11.5 6.2 3.5 72.5 4.6 4.0 80.5 3.1 2.4 63.2 4.5 2.9 10.6

Traffic Rank in Various Countries India USA UAE 31 1646 276 28 11,108 693 94 28734 1,287 241 51,292 1,260

Well Shaadi seems to be the clear winner and they prove it via Compete.com statistics too where they simply annihilate the competition:
No of People Visiting the Sites Criteria & Change People 695,190 34,824 31,339 21,782 Shaadi.com Jeevansathi.com Bharatmatrimony.com Simplymarry.com

Average Stay (Average no. of mins. On the Site per Visit) Avg Stay 6:31 5:23 2:19 4:14

So what does Ranking.com have to say about these sites? Shaadi.com 477 JeevanSathi.com 1317 BharatMatrimony 2215 SimplyMarry - 11701 (The lesser the rank - the better of course)

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Some other comparisons:

Google PageRank - A rank awarded by Google. A score out of 10. The higher the better. Alexa Rank - The lesser the better Compete Rank - The lesser the better Quantcast Rank (Quantcast provides US base site visitor demographic statistics) - The lesser the better Technorati Links - The more the number of links, the better for a site.

Pricing Comparison:
Duration 3 months 6 months 9 months 12 months Shaadi.com 1595 2655 4250 JeevanSathi.com 1350 1900 1900- 2750 4100 BharatMatrimony.com 1590 2290 2690 3890 3440 - 4990 SimplyMarry.com 500 1000 2500 - 3500

Note: All figures mentioned are in Indian Rupees (INR) Conclusion: Shaadi.com seems to be the site I would put my profile on. Theyve got the largest NRI audience. The site has a nice secure feel about it, but of course there is scope for improvement. Would be nice to track the performance of off-line Shaadi Points.

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BharatMatrimony.com is extremely popular amidst South Indians and for other regional services too. Rather too aggressive while Marketing themselves - which might not be that good a tactic. A lot to work on to be No. 1. JeevanSathi.com has been doing really well and according to statistics they get the most traffic at least in India. After speaking to a couple of parents (who were spouse hunting for their children) - they said they were most comfortable on JeevanSathi. They need to reduce the no. of paid membership options asap! SimplyMarry.com started off with a bang - only because it belonged to the TimesGroup. The name of the website has received a lot of criticism. But I did like their advertising campaign. They are in a great position to be eventual leaders if they can utilise the newspaper matrimonial classifieds.

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HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH EBAY AUCTIONS

How do those people earn full-time incomes selling on eBay?

Professional eBay Power Seller Jason James has put together a great website that reveals the exact step-by-step methods he uses to make over $11,000 in profit per month right from his kitchen. If you are tired of all the "Get rich on eBay" hype and simply want the facts about staring an eBay business, then this site is exactly what you're looking for. Jason shows you where to find hot products to sell, exactly how to sell these products, tips to maximize your profits and more (great for beginners). Jason has been selling products on eBay for over 4 years and is a respected eBay Power Seller. His website, "The Auction Resource Network" is a no holds barred look at the inner workings of a his very successful eBay business from the inside out.

Step 1: Register as an eBay seller for free If you've never used eBay before, you'll soon find that it is very easy (and fun) to use. It can even get addicting! eBay shows you the basics of making money with their user-friendly system. In just a few minutes, you'll be ready to start Making Money on eBay Register Free as an eBay Seller

Step 2: Make More Money with Step-by-Step eBay Guides

How to Start a Business on eBay

These 2 guides tell you everything you need to know to start and grow your eBay business:

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See How to Make Money Faster with Entrepreneur's Start-Up Guide All about the different types of online auctions The most profitable items to sell online How to use eBay tools to sell more on eBay Inside secrets from successful eBay entrepreneurs Learn how to make money on eBay

Step 3: Find Hot eBay Products at Wholesale

Sell Products on eBay Without Purchasing Products Up Front

If you want to sell products on eBay without buying them first, use a wholesale supply & drop shipping company like Doba.

It's simple: you can list hot-selling products on eBay (from Sony, Apple, Nautica, KitchenAid & more!), get paid on sales and have the items shipped to your customers directly from Doba.

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CHAPTER X CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS

The feeding frenzy surrounding e-business may be new to this generation, but the same patterns of behavior occurred in the development of earlier technologies, including the steam engine, telegraphy, automobiles, airplanes, and radio. Similar to those culture-changing technologies, many lessons were learned during the e-commerce gold rush. Surely, its confusing, too many thought everything e was a magic bullet. But the technology that fueled that initial Internet bubble is what fuels the successful businesses of today. So, in the long term, e-business changed how business is conducted and it is here to stay. We are looking at the future business of the world.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
www.google.com
ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/ijitdm/v06y2007i04p649-669.html, as downloaded on 5 th april 2011 www.springerlink.com/index/p5wj8fj5g6vxafxf.pd as downloaded on 5 th april 2011 www.ebusinessindia.com/ as downloaded on 5 th april 2011 www.eindiabusiness.com/ as downloaded on 6th april 2011 domino.research.ibm.com/tchjr/.../59dd0f60fc9ce20585256d6a007cd64a?... as downloaded on 5 th april 2011 www.economywatch.com/business/e-business-strategy.html as downloaded on 9 th april 2011

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