Week Six

Question 1

 

a) What experiences have you had with shopping online?

My online shopping experience includes buy some mobile phone accessories and some apple accssories, PC Game on Ebay.com .au.

 

b) Describe a good experience.
My experiences have been good. I buy a few items because of the online shoping cheaper than the phsycial shop. And the fast delivery, you don't need go outside can get your purchase items. Also the goods quality is same with the shops.

 

c) What did you like about the online store you used?
The things I liked about the online store I used were that I could look at the items and see what for example special features that the DVD comes with. The last item I purchased from Jb was One Tree Hill season 5 which I looked at the online store before purchase. I looked at the price and to see when the DVD was coming out. The online store allows you to see different editions of movies such as Twilight I was looking at which DVD was better. To whether the special edition was better than the original version or not.


d) Describe a bad experience.

I don't have any bad experience about the online shopping. Because i am not often do the shopping online.

e) What problems did you have with the online store? There were no real problems which I have encountered when looking online or ordering. The only issue that I have come across is the store not having the item when I wanted it. For example the store did not have the movie which I wanted at the time and I decided not to purchase until I have the item.


f) What features make an online store more appealing?
Personally when looking at an online store I prefer to look at the items. The items have to say how much the item costs whether in stores have the items and what are on the item such as movies features.


g) What features make an online store less appealing?
In my opinion online stores which have little information about what they are seeing is very unappealing. I want to know exactly what I am purchasing. The appearance of the online store is very important. It has to look professional. If the website looks dodgy I won’t look or even order from it. Such websites as the banks have to have a professional feel since if they did not many people would not bank online.


h) Should we expect to see the prices of goods and services rise or fall due to the migration of consumers online?In my opinion I think it depends. There are a lot of consumers who still do not shop online. The introduction of eBay has increased people in using the internet to shop and purchase online. In my opinion it depends on the product or service. Such things as CD’s have significantly changed. Buying music online is cheaper than buying physical CD’s. Overall prices change depending on the product.


Question 2
a) The dispersion of prices (that is, the spread between the lowest and highest price for a particular product) will narrow.
In this case I agree. Consumers generally always look for products and compare the prices. Most of the time consumers look at products from different stores not necessarily just in store but online also and decide which to buy through the price. If an online store has a product cheaper than a physical store then the consumer will be more incline to buy from the online store to save money.


b) The importance of brand names will decrease.The importance of brand names in my opinion will not decrease. A lot of consumers are very brand loyal. Some consumers will buy a certain product because of the brand no matter the cost. For example consumers will buy Ford cars even though there might be a cheaper car will the same features and just as good quality.


c) Price competition will make all products cheaper.I agree that when stores compete on price that the product becomes cheaper. Such items as iPods when people purchase them they look around at the price since the product is the same in each store.


d) Digital markets will become dominated by a handful of mega-sites, like Amazon.com.I agree that digital markets are dominated by mega sites. Sites such as Amazon, eBay and other sites dominate since are well known so consumers turn to them first.


e) How do you think the balance of power between buyers and sellers will change?I think that the balance of power will change between buyers and sellers are that people will be looking online for things. The buyers have to make sure that their prices are competing with other stores. If other stores are cheaper than consumers are more incline to go elsewhere. Sellers have more opportunity now since they can go online and see where they can get a product for a cheaper price.


f) Prices are cluster online.
This statement I am unsure about. I believe that the prices online vary. If products can be purchased online this does not mean that the prices are all the same.


g) Online prices are elastic. (I.e. immune to change up and down with demand).
I think this depends. Most prices would most likely stay the same due to demand always varies. Such items go through waves of popularity. If the items continually change through demand then the prices will change throughout the seasons. The price for a product might reduce for a certain amount of time but I do not think that prices online are elastic.


h) Online prices are generally transparent (the extent to which prices for a given product or service are known by buyers in the marketplace.).
I agree that online prices are transparent. Online prices would be close to the marketplace prices. Certain products are known for their value so if the online price is more expensive than other prices then consumers would purchase elsewhere.



Question 3
a) What types of m-commerce services does your cell phone provider offer?My mobile provider which is Optus provides such m-commerce as:
· paying bills online,
· emailing
· Bluetooth
· Games
· Internet


b) Which of these services do you use?
The only service that I use when it comes to my mobile phone is games and entertainment. I tend to use Bluetooth to send photos to my laptop and send files but I do not bank through my phone and generally do not use the internet on my phone.


c) What types of transactions do you perform through your cell phone or other wireless device? I generally do not make transactions on my phone. I send messages and call people but apart from that I hardly use it for much else. Many people I know use their phone to do many things. Some people use their phone to go onto the internet such as facebook and bank using their phone to know their bank balance.


d) What types of transactions would you like to perform, but are currently unable to?
Personally I don’t really want to make transactions on my phone since I have the internet at home which allows me to check things which need to be checked. On my phone I can go on the internet and download ringtones and download games.


e) What is your opinion of wireless advertising/mobile marketing?
In my opinion wireless advertising is a smart idea such as more people has a mobile then has the internet at their home. With people always on their phones it makes sense that marketers would tap into this trend. By making it easier for people to make transactions using their phone this helps people do things faster. With the introduction of iphones people have seen this as the latest craze since it allows consumers to go onto the internet to do normal things they would do on their computer. The iphone is bigger and easier to take anywhere.

Week Five

1) What is the Mobile phone use /100 population - compare Australia, USA, China, India, Your Country
The mobile use per 100 population is for the above countries, is:

1. Australia – 101.0
2. USA – 89.9
3. China – 64.0
4. India – 61.4

turkey is 92


2) Internet use / 100 population - compare Australia, USA, China, India, Your Country
The internet usage per 100 population for the above countries, is:

1. Australia – 76.0
2. USA – 74.0
3. China – 34.3
4. India – 7.5

turkey is 44

3) Compare main strengths and weaknesses of Australia or your home country in the survey
The main strengths of Australia in the survey are that overall Australia is fairly technology ready. The weakness of Australia in the survey is that the individual and government Information Technology usage is ranked higher than Australian businesses as well as their readiness.


4) What does the survey suggest to you about the Information Technology readiness of Australian business compared to Australian consumers?
Information Technology readiness of Australian business is ranked lower in the world at 22 compared with Information Technology readiness of Australian consumers who rank 13 in the world. This suggests that Australian businesses are not as Information Technology ready as Australian consumers

Week Four

1) Looking at the site usage, what does the terms visits, page views and pages/visit mean? What does the bounce rate mean and does it vary
much from day to day?
By looking at the Analytical website the term visit means how many people have visited the website. There were how many people who visited the my blog website. The page views mean how many times the page has been viewed. In this case the page had been viewed 88 times. (As from May 29, 2012) This will vary.


Bounce rate is generally when the user/viewer goes to a different page or site from that site. The bounce rate does vary from day to day such as the average rate was 70.69%. On Monday the 2nd of March the bounce rate was 53.85% whereas on Wednesday the 1st of April the bounce rate of OZRURAL was 83.33% according to the Google Analytic website. (Google, 2009).


Google.(2009). Google Analytics. Retrieved April 21, 2012 from: https://www.google.com/analytics/reporting/bounce_rate?id=2683968&pdr=20090302-20090401&cmp=average&trows=10&gdfmt=nth_day&lp=%2Fanalytics%2Freporting%2Fvisitors#lts=1238648578739

2) Now look at the traffic sources report. What are the three sources of traffic and where has most of the traffic come from?

The most popular web browser is Internet explorer. 240 people used Internet Explorer, 75 used Fire Fox, 19 Safari, 13 used Chrome and 1 used Mozilla. Internet explorer is the most popular web browser because it is the most used and common. (Google, 2009).

Google(2009). Visitors Overview. Retrieved April 21, 2012 from: https://www.google.com/analytics/reporting/visitors?id=2683968&pdr=20090302-20090401&cmp=average&lp=%2Fanalytics%2Freporting%2F&trows=10&gdfmt=nth_day&rpt=VisitorsOverviewReport&tab=0&tchcol=0&tst=0&tscol=v0&tsdir=0&mdet=WORLD&midx=0&gidx=0&glcnt=1#lts=1238648521170

3) What was the most popular web browser used to access the site?

Internet Explorer   Safari  Chrome and  Firefox

The most popular browser used to access the site is Internet Explorer. Accounting for 239 visits (68.29%).

4) How many countries did visitors to Foliospaces come from and what were the top four countries?

When I was doing this question, there were 7922 visitors from 71 countries. And the top four were Australia (3078 visitors), United States (2152 visitors), United Kingdom (729), and Pakistan (515 visitors).

5) Having clicked every possible link on my analytics, make a few comments on (a) What you can track, (b) What you can track over time and (c) What you can’t track.

(a) What you can track, On the website you can track:· Visits
· Page views
· Time on site
· Bounce rate
· Traffic source
· List of countries that the user comes from
· User overview
(b) What you can track over time
· Number of visits
· Number of times pages have been visited
· How long people spend on a page
· Number of countries which visit the website
· Bounce rate(c) What you can’t track.· The gender of the user
· The direct location of the user
· Age of the user

6) What do the following terms mean? These are just a few; you may like to add some more yourself.

High bounce rate means generally indicates that site entrance pages aren't relevant to your visitors.

Key words are words used by visitors to search relevant information.

Average Page Depth presents the average number of pages on a site that visitors view during a single session.

Click through rate calculates the number of times an ad is clicked on, divided by the number of impressions it receives.

Click is an action of clicking links on the website.

Cookie is a message given to a web browser by web server. The browser stores the message in a text file. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.
(Retrieved from http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/cookie.html)

Impression is a display of a referral link or advertisement on a web page.
(Retrieved from http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer)

Hyperlink is a text reference in a web page that, when clicked, directs the user's browser to another page or document. Hyperlinks are integral to the World Wide Web, allowing every page to be linked to any other page.
(Retrieved from http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=57246)

Navigation is visitor click on a link or button on one website which leads to another website.

Pageview stats number of time a certain page was loaded by visitors.

Session is a period of interaction between a visitor's browser and a particular website, ending when the browser is closed or shut down, or when the user has been inactive on that site for a specified period of time. For the purpose of Google Analytics reports, a session is considered to have ended if the user has been inactive on the site for 30 minutes.
(Retrieved from http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=33073)

Unique Visitors (or Absolute Unique Visitors) represent the number of visitors who were only counted once to the website over a specified time of period.

URL is Abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator, which is the is the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web.

Visitor is someone browsing website.

Visitor Session is a defined period of interaction between a Visitor (both unique and untraceable visitor types) and a website.
(Retrieved From http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=33095)


Comparison shopping is what provided by website to let consumers compare prices, quality and etc before purchasing, which give consumers the chance to save money.

Week Three

1. In two paragraphs explain why a customer centric Web site design is so important, yet so difficult to accomplish

"Customer-centric" means creating a Web site that is centered around customer wants and needs. Savvy businesses are realizing that focusing their site on customer benefits and ensuring its visitors a unique experience are key drivers of sales, loyalty, and much-desired word-of-mouth advertising.

By proactively considering the needs, wants, and beneficial preferences of your customers, you can make more effective decisions about the content, offerings, design, and processes available on your site.


2. Define the term 'presence'. Write an additional paragraph that describes why firms that do business on the Web should be more concerned about presence than firms that operate in the physical world

The term 'presence' refers to an individual or business having an established existence on the World Wide Web, through a Web site, e-mail, Internet advertising, blog, or a collection of Web files. Web presence is also called Internet presence.
(http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/presence.html)

Online firms need to be concerned about building a strong and effective web presence than firms that operate in the physical world . For one online firms do not have the advantage of having a store or business location that the regular and occasional customers visits to avail of the services or products of the company . Then , they do not have the advantage of advertising wherein they can be identified and have tangible interactions between the costumers and the proprietors Moreover , what the consumer remembers about doing business with the online firm is how convenient it is , how easy it is to and pay for the merchandise , how secure is the payment facilities and whether the firm did deliver what was purchased . Thus , all of these functions should be incorporated in a web site and is constantly updated and maintained Building a strong web presence means a stronger following and a larger market share , where the principles of branding and customer loyalty also apply

(http://www.mightystudents.com/essay/Selling.Web.essay.6708#)

3. Write three paragraphs to briefly describe the things that Real Estate Agents can best accomplish through (1) their web sites (2) Mass media advertising (3) Personal contact 

Websites:Real estate agents use websites since most people use the internet to find out information. With people using the internet more real estate agents have caught onto the idea and used it to advertise property, houses, land and other things so consumers can see the product and not have to leave their home or work. This is easier for the customer since they can look at the website anytime and see if there is anything they are interested in, instead of physically going to a house or property which does not interest them. Such websites as Netlab show real estate agents/companies what should be on a website to increase sales. Such suggestions as having virtual tours, pictures and information about the house/property allows the agents to cater for the needs of the consumers by given them such information which lets the consumer a) see the house through tours and b) know what the house has to offer (Netlab, 2012). This allows busy work people look at the websites and homes in their own time and not have to worry about office times and looking through houses they would not want.

Netlab. (2012). Website Design Services for Real Estate Agents. Retrieved April 20, 2012 from the Netlab website: http://www.netlab.com.au/real-estate-website-design.htm


Mass media advertising:
In my opinion Real estate agents use mass media to advertise not only their business to receive recognition but to show potential buyers houses which might interest them. The best way agents can use mass media is to advertise their company on television, the radio, the newspaper and catalogues. In most local newspapers there are pictures of houses for sale in the newspaper which give the consumer a description of the house and a price. Potential clients can look at these pictures and see if they are interested in what the agents/business is offering. Although by using mass media such as television this give the business recognition because consumers physically see the business and can put an image into the consumers mind about the business. This can cause the consumer to look further into the business and what they are offering.

Personal contact:
In my opinion real estate agents use person contact to create a relationship with the client to make the client feel comfortable. Personal contact allows the real estate agent to be able to see what the client is looking for and is able to give help in the way of searching for things in their clients’ price range. Personal contact is in a way allows the agent to have a personal one on one contact with the client and are able to try and cater for their needs and wants.

Week Two

1) Listen to the podcast on Navigation which can be found on the Digital Enterprise Page

a) What are the four (4) main points Michael Rappa makes about search? Please write them on your blog page

Michael spoke of search as an ever growing vast storehouse of information.
He explained the effects that paid placement advertising has on our searches as well as how
in experienced we are when searching the internet.
The four main search components of search are:

1. Database
2. Collection mechanism for adding data to the database.
3. Search protocol which enables users to query database.
4. Ranking algorithm that determines how results are represented to the user.

If you would like to learn more about the four components of search please visit

http://digitalenterprise.org./index.html

b) Watch or read the Marissa Mayer interview. Marissa says 'search is in its infancy'.
Do you agree or disagree with this statement?
What is your personal experience with search?
There are no right or wrong answers here, I just want your opinion.

I do agree. I can remember as a teenager having to ask my parents for permission to use the

land line house phone if I wanted to call a friend, but today teenagers view having a phone as
a human right!
Technology has changed significantly very quickly which only leaves me with the

question 'I wonder what's next? Marissa spoke of voice break through happening
in 5-10 years and vision break through in 10-15 years and I do not doubt her.
When Marissa spoke of being able to GPS where your friends are, i thought 'that's a little bit
creepy'....but, as a parent I thought 'Excellent!!!!'

My personal experience reflects what Michael said about inexperienced users.
When searching the net, I type in one word and expect Google to find me the right answer!
If I took Michael's advice and learnt 'the syntax or logical expressions to target search
for more accurate results', then I probably wouldn't get as frustrated.

Part 2 - History of the Internet

2) Please watch the Bill Joy video, and it will give you a good background
to the Internet and particularly to the emergence of the World Wide Web.

From the video - answer (on your blog page) -
a) So what are the 6 webs?

1. Here Web- which is the internet that is always with you like your mobile phone.
2. Far Web-is when you are sitting back from the screen and using a remote control like when you are watching tv.
3. Near Web-is when you are sitting at a screen like your laptop
4. Weird Web-is voice recognition which can occur in your car or with an intelligent system on your phone.
5. B2B: Business to Business- where business machines talk to other business machines with no consumer interface.
6. D2D: Device to Device- is an internet of sensors displayed in meshes network.

b) Could there be more?

Yes, as Marissa stated in her interview, 'Nothings impossible'


c) What does it mean for business?

Never ending opportunities of growth.

Need to be up to date with new technologies.

Ability to improve communication internally and externally

Save time, money and resources

Access at a distance