Introduction

Electronic commerce or E-commerce is a term for any type of business, or commercial transaction, that
involves the transfer of information across the Internet. It covers a range of different types of businesses,
from consumer based retail sites, through auction or music sites, to business exchanges trading goods and
services between corporations. It is currently one of the most important aspects of the Internet to emerge.
E-commerce is conducted using a variety of applications, such as email, online catalogues and shopping
carts, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), File Transfer Protocol, and web services. This includes
business-to-business activities and outreach such as using email for unsolicited ads (usually viewed as
spam) to consumers and other business prospects, as well as to send out e-newsletters to subscribers.
More companies now try to entice consumers directly online, using tools such as digital coupons, social
media marketing and targeted advertisements. Electronic commerce (E-commerce), therefore, can be
considered as a sophisticated IT process that supports achieving the holistic customer/client experience
from aspects of design, communication, delivery, fulfillment, and evaluation (Hua et al., 2015), with the
underlying structural vehicle evolving from computer reservation systems (1970s), to global distribution
systems (1980s), to Internet (1990s), and to today’s organization-facilitated C2C virtual network social
activities (Buhalis, 2003; eBusiness W@tch, 2006; Emmer et al., 1993; Morosan et al., 2014; O’Connor,
1999).
Meanwhile, mobile commerce or m-commerce is mean using mobile to do every transaction to
gain products or services. Nowadays, smart phone play an important role in human life. Smart phone is a
mobile phone that built on a mobile operating system with more advanced computing capability and
connectivity. It can help us to settle all the transaction we need and not only focus on banking. This is one
of the reasons that the subscribers m-commerce increase dramatically in the recent year. Liao et al. (1999)
state that mobile commerce involves providing products and services using wireless technologies to
facilitate electronic business activities without constraints of time and place. Clarke (2001) describes
mobile commerce as the ability to purchase products anywhere through a device which enables wireless
internet use. Terziyan (2002) defines it as a business transaction with an economic value conducted using
a mobile terminal allowing communication through telecommunications or a personal area network with
an electronic commerce infrastructure. As a result, according to Tarasewich (2002, p. 42) mobile
commerce “is defined as all activities related to a (potential) commercial transaction conducted through
communications networks that interface with wireless (or mobile) devices”.

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 Garena (Global Arena) is a consumer Internet platform provider based in Asia. It was founded
in Singapore in 2009, by current Chairman and Group CEO, Forrest Li. Its first product, launched in 2010
was Garena+, an online game and social platform for people to discover, download and play online
games. Garena exclusively distributes game titles on Garena+ in various countries across Southeast Asia
and Taiwan, such as the multiplayer online battle arena games League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth,
the online soccer game FIFA Online 3 and the first-person shooter games, Point Blank and Alliance of
Valiant Arms. In 2014, Garena was valued at $1 billion until the investment of the Ontario Teachers
Pension Plan in the company on March 2015 increased its value to $2.5 billion. In May 2017, Garena
rebranded to Sea Ltd, although the Garena name remains attached to its digital entertainment platform.

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Difference between E-commerce and mobile commerce in Garena

The term E-commerce, an abbreviation for electronic commerce, is the process of buying and selling
goods, products and services over electronic systems such as internet, telephone and e-mail. M-
Commerce or mobile commerce is process of buying and selling products and services through wireless
handheld devices such as smartphone.

1. Evolution of Garena in E-commerce and mobile commerce

Garena provided an online purchasing games and transaction such as credit topup for gaming neither in
web nor mobile application. Garena has lauch the Garena+ which is multiplayer gamer platform across
Asian countries. Being the most successful gaming platform, Garena had gain more demand from
consumer through the online gaming such as Fifa online 3 which onile soccer multiplayer game. Garena
had provided mobile application that can be download from Playstore or Appstore as to facilate customer
by checking their game account easily and quickly.

2. Device used

E-commerce stands for Electronic Commerce wherein business transactions are done over the Internet.
Usually transactions on purchasing online game are done using a computer or a laptop. This has become
very popular now because computers with Internet capability have become very accessible to people. M-
commerce is very portable because mobile phones are very easy to carry. You can do your transactions
such us gaming topup anywhere you go if you can access the Internet on your phone. Unlike E-
commerce, you must do your transactions on the computer and have internet connection. Laptops are also

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portable but not as light as mobile phones. Then you still must look for a place to do your transactions
because it would be uncomfortable using your laptop anywhere or while you are standing.

3. Usage
E-commerce is less simple because of a more complicated user interface and more functions. In Garena
website, we can see many option of transaction. For m-commerce, the usage of this smartphone makes the
option of money transaction (game credit topup), chatting, prize spin and live online game has been
simplified. Besides, user commonly use mobile apps to check balance of their account credit and game
promotions

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E-commerce website

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 Mobile commerce

4. Service available

According to Garena official web site, (Garena Malaysia, available at: https://www.garena.my/) E-
commerce in Garena provide information and online game services comprising of online topup, online
gaming download and online chatting. Garena also provide Garena+ as an speciality game platform for
gamer. Garena+ provided as easy to chatting with other gamers, checking account credit and download
game. While mobile commerce for Garena is provided to check the live game online, chatting and gaming
topup to be more easy and quick. Garena mobile is light and easy to carry to always check the game
promotion and chatting everywhere.

5. Security information
In Garena website, the security is very high. They provide protection such as:

a) Authentication:
To prevent unauthorised access to our online gaming services as offered through Garena+, every
user is required to select a username ("Username") and an alphanumeric password ("Password"), which
are the Access Keys to your gaming information and private chatiing. The Username must be between 6
to 16 characters and the Password must be between 8 to 12 characters. In both cases, special characters
and spaces should not be used, with the exception of underscore.

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b) System security and information system:
Garena provided the security while purchasing the topup for game credit. Purchasing will be
make into two ways which is card topup and telecommunication credit. With both of this way, they
provided the password and security code. So, it is secure while purchasing at this game platform as it has
two confirmations while purchase game credit at Garena.

Garena mobile provided a SMS verification code while purchasing at Garena mobile. Garena mobile has
two password which is while purchasing credit and while log in to the game. In fact, mobile commerce in
Garena has their speciality security with the TAC passcode while purchasing in Garena if using the bank
account.

Conclusion
In conclusion, E-commerce and M-commerce has its advantages and disadvantages. In this report, we use
the characteristic such as evolution, device used, usage, and safety information to make comparative
between website and mobile apps for Garena. In this report, we found that the device that used in M-
commerce is more portable and many users use it to check quick balance credit and game overview in
their garena account. Besides, the website of Garena is more safety compared to mobile apps. Garena
website is more safety as because we can do some purchasing without any rushing that prevent us from
do some mistake while making payment. In fact, Garena website is more suitable and comfortable
according to option making, game view and wide looking for gamer than using mobile Garena
application.

Recommendation

Garena is one of the game platform that gain more demand than others. Garena has facilitate customer
with the good game platform especially in Garena+ as well as in Garena mobile that provide news
quickly. The customer satisfaction is very important when they using the services provided. In the Garena
cases, many features in website is not available in mobile apps. To make customer satisfy with the
services, Garena should add on the same features to mobile apps from the website. Besides, the safety
information in mobile apps should be improve by make some improvement to make sure all user private
information is secure.

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Reference

 What is e-commerce (electronic commerce or EC)? - Definition from WhatIs.com. (n.d.).

Retrieved April 04, 2018, from https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/e-commerce

 What is m-commerce (mobile commerce)? - Definition from WhatIs.com. (n.d.).

Retrieved April 04, 2018, from http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/m-
commerce

 Tarasewich, P. (2002), “Issues in mobile e-commerce”, Communications of the

Association for Information Systems, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 41-64.

 Terziyan, V. (2002), “Ontological modeling of e-services to ensure appropriate mobile

transactions”, International Journal of Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 159-
72.

 Clarke, I.I. (2001), “Emerging value propositions for m-commerce”, Journal of Business
Strategies, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 133-49.

 Liao, S., Shao, Y.P., Wang, H. and Chen, A. (1999), “The adoption of virtual banking: an
empirical study”, International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 63-74.

 Hua, N., Morosan, C., and DeFranco, A. (2015). “The other side of technology adoption:
Examining the relationships between E-commerce expenses and hotel performance”,
International Journal of Hospitality Management, Vol. 45, pp. 109-120.

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