E-commerce Security - Assignment Example

E-commerce websites have become an essential thing for many businesses in their successful operation online. Online stores business management have become a prodigious task for entrepreneurs who are now inventing brand technologies in order to make their online stores a success. Online business value their website appearances, navigation, content placements, ease of search for their products and services, frequent editing flexibility, payment gateways, and the feasibility to have their products shared in social networks with other people. These factors make them easily accessible to their target customers and should therefore be taken into consideration for the success of online business. However, there have been multiple challenges associated with e-businesses. This paper seeks to analyze GAP company, which is an online store company transacting and selling its products online. Executive Summary The product of GAP is majorly the GAP image. Apart from just selling accessories and clothes, GAP makes huge sales of their own image as well as a trendy upper class environment of shopping. The company has branched out to many other markets like GAP outlet and Baby GAP. The company deals in various clothes of which some are in the stage of maturity with other brand new lines in the stage of introduction. GAP can keep up with the stiff competition online as it continually rolls out varying products to its clients. GAP is influenced by many factors just like other online retail centers. These can be both external and internal factors. They are hence considered when marketing strategy is being created. Today, GAP is trading towards being a driven by brand marketing rather than by creative marketing. GAP as a company experiences various strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The strengths of the company include: effective customer service; quality products; reliable services; and branching out to the internet. On the other hand, its weaknesses include: the price point; competition from other available stores; and the stuffiness image of the company. GAP Company enjoys varying opportunities from the internet ranging from the stock market prices, and development of the new plan of marketing. However, the threats that are in store for GAP include: the industrial expansion; increasing competition; and high competition in internet shopping. The primary target of GAP is a Caucasian female ranging between 21 and 35 years of age. The male Caucasians of between 24 and 35 years and females lying between 15 to 20 years makes the secondary target market of the company. There are other targets in the online market but those two forms its major targets. The product of the GAP Company include: Baby GAP, GAP outlet, and SKU’s such as Old Navy and banana republic. The company is influenced by internal and external factors such as; competitive forces, economic forces, political forces, legal forces, regulatory forces, technological forces, and socio cultural forces (Holmes, 2011). Company history and background The first GAP store was opened by Doris and Donald Fisher on August 21, 1969 in San Francisco, Ocean Avenue. The merchandise of the store was composed of LPs and Levi’s. The Fishers raised about 63,000 US dollars in order to open the store. In about a year, the sales of GAP had grown to 2 million US dollars. A second GAP store was opened in 1970 in California, San Jose, with its headquarters established in Burlingame, California with mere four employees. The company grew rapidly. It had more than 25 stores by 1973 covering up to outskirts of California and entered the market of East Coast with a new online store in New Jersey, Voorhees. GAP began selling private label merchandise in 1974. Drexler Millard led GAP to its phenomenal growth in 1990s due to the transformation of the humble jeans discount emporium. In 2002, Drexler was ousted after an over expansion and slump sales. There was a strong rebound in GAP’s sales with the exit of Drexler. There have been a series of managers hired to improve the company sales which have seen the company grow tremendously. Today, GAP plans to expand in China and other areas in the world (Cartner, 2011). The needs the company addresses and customers it pursues GAP Company majors in clothing needs. It serves a wide range of customers ranging from the Caucasian female ranging between 21 and 35 years of age, male Caucasians of between 24 and 35 years and females lying between 15 to 20 years which makes the secondary customers of the company. However, the GAP Company’s major customers are infant boys, infant girls, toddler boy, toddler girl, boys, girls, men, and women. The role of the Internet in strategy The internet has improved the marketing strategies of the GAP company mostly with the introduction of IS Strategy, EC Strategy, ICT Strategy, and business strategy. The knowledge management strategies that are used by the company include adverts in the social media and customer care service interaction with the clients able to chat live with the company directors to make inquiries as well as place orders (Erics, 2008). EC Metrics employed by the GAP the company The GAP Company employs various EC metrics in improving its product and services to their clients. GAP Company has policies that put customers first before the company. It therefore introduced EC metrics to help in accomplishing its objectives and serving its customers. The GAP Company uses the following EC metrics: Financial performance management Product and service quality Customer satisfaction Supplier performance management Employee satisfaction Operational performance management The online user types for the GAP Company and the e-commerce considerations The online user types of GAP Company include all its customers. As mentioned above, GAP Company focuses on Caucasian female ranging between 21 and 35 years of age, male Caucasians of between 24 and 35 years and females lying between 15 to 20 years which makes the secondary customers of the company. These groups make a better part of the company’s user types. These are groups who are interested in new designs in the introductory stage. Other competing online stores also make a smaller part of the user type of the GAP Company. Some of the online stores shop from GAP Company for resale. There are various e-commerce considerations made in an online company like GAP. The considerations made in an e-business that can enable an entrepreneur run his or her business successfully include: budget planning when purchasing new technology; making future considerations when implementing new technology; the feasibility of integration considering the possibility of integrating the application, with the platform of e-commerce, of the company; an effective e-commerce application informing the company about the demands of its customers; a committed project team to ensure effective management of promotional, ads, and marketing of products and services of the company; portal branding considering effective marketing techniques;and the ultimate goal of the company which considers the possibility of achieving the company goals successfully (Meryl, 2009). The impact of Internet regulation The internet regulations on e-commerce advocate for business honesty and loyalty to the users of the internet. The regulations dictate that no record, document, communication, information or transaction shall have a denial of legal admissibility, recognition, validity, effect, enforceability or proof on the ground that it is electronic and has no attestation of a witness. This has helped the company make sales and payments easily to its suppliers and customers respectively. EC Security used by the GAP Company Due to the common internet security vulnerabilities, GAP Company uses various internet security systems to curb challenges and problems in its sales and payments. Some of the security used by GAP Company includes: SQL injection blocker, price manipulation detectors, buffer overflows, cross-site scripting, and execution of remote command (Qember, 2009). The vulnerabilities can be taken care of at the design phase by configuration of user transaction details, credit card numbers, and session identities among other customer information to avoid information manipulation. The security measures taken by the company include a 3-tier modular architecture, validation routines, open source cryptographic standards usage as well as practices of secure coding (Nick, 2010). Competitive advantage the technology gives the GAP Company The competitive advantage that GAP Company gets from technology include; access to massive market, marketing sales online, easy processing of transactions, and ease of handling and shipping services and products. These will ensure the company makes good sales and treats their customers well. Barriers in global e-commerce facing GAP Company Some of the barriers of global e-commerce that face GAP Company include: lack of trust from customers, infrastructural concerns, different language and culture, and decree of electronic transactions. References Cartner, M. (2011). GAP sacks Patrick Robinson as chief designer. The Guardian Erics, J. (2008). Fundamentals of e-commerce. London: Springer Holmes, E. (2011). Revolving Door Spins at GAP. Wall Street Journal Meryl, G. (2009). Marketing e-commerce. New York: Prentice Hall Nick, P. (2010). Online Business Management. Boston: McGraw Hill. Qember, K. (2009). E-commerce security. New York. Prentice Hall. Read More