Interactive and Internet Marketing - Research Paper Example

Executive summary This report provides a comprehensive literature on e-commerce websites which includes; B2B, B2C, C2C and B2E. One example of B2B websites and B2C are chosen as Tradekey and L.L. bean. This report assesses the functions of these two websites in their target market in order to provide recommendations that will help to increase the sites functionality. The major findings of the report include the fact that the two chosen websites perform uniquely in their target markets. Tradekey is famous in its B2B business and serves thousands of global suppliers and buyers. L.L. Bean on the other hand is a global retailer with effective mechanism of enhancing customer experience. The major recommendations made to improve the functionality of these two websites include improving search engine optimization (SEO) of the two websites in order to improve their rankings in famous search engine. Increasing the use of keywords that are relevant to the product being sold by the company is critical in increasing the audience to the website. Taking advantage of social media such as facebook, twitter and Myspace will also be essential in promoting the brand image of the company. Using blogs as a means to capture visitors’ attention is also another way of increasing website functionality. Blogging also improves search engine optimization and thus resulting in high ranking of the website. Table of contents Literature Review iii Analysis and Evaluation of the 2 websites v Similarities of the two websites vi Differences of the two websites vi References ix Introduction The growth of e-commerce has provided many platforms for conducting business and also enabling businesses and consumers converge in one place. The development of the internet with its protocols like the TCP/IP and HTTP has provided a major breakthrough in creating the World Wide Web which converge people globally and hence creating what is commonly referred to as global village. Many companies are currently departing from their traditional ways of doing business and incorporating technology as a way of improving their service delivery. This is because of the fact that the internet is not borderless and cheaper that traditional ways of conducting business. This analysis focuses on four e-commerce websites which are; B2B, B2C, C2C and B2E web sites. B2B is a business-to-business website that links buyers and suppliers; B2C is a business -to-customers’ website that links retailers with end users. C2C is a customer-to-customer website that links consumers without interference of suppliers. B2E is a business-to-employees website which provides platform for companies to address the needs of their employees. This report thus analyses two chosen e-commerce websites, describe their purposes, target customers, and describe their similarities and their differences. A discussion on how the companies are progressing is also highlighted in order to provide recommendations that will be necessary in improving the websites. The recommendations are thus based on current literature which considers importance aspects of websites that should be improved in order to increase the functionality of a website. Literature Review There are different types of e-commerce websites, some common websites are B2B, B2C, C2C and B2E web sites. A business-to-business (B2B) website connects global buyers with global suppliers, the reverse is also possible. The main goal of a B2B is to enable trading between different businesses (Rowley 2008). The main elements of a B2B is to show all the details about relevant suppliers of a given product like tires to an automobile company located in another region (Zhivago 2011, p.12). It therefore provides the interface which will allow communication between the automobile company and the tire suppliers; a B2B interface eliminates the need to travel to other regions looking for business partners. An example of a B2B website is http://www.tradekey.com/. A business to consumer B2C website on the other hand is a website that conducts direct sales to the end users customers. The major goal of a B2C is thus to enhance an easy online sales to end users in a flexible and convenient manner (Khalifa & Shen 2008). In order to achieve this, the major elements of a B2C is to allow customers access to product information and its availability, be able to order, view history and also their account information without any inconvenience (Muthitacharoen & Palvia 2002). An effective B2C should therefore control product management, content, shipping, sales information and inventory, an example of a B2C is http://www.llbean.com/ (Martin 2004). As stated by Pathak (2009, p.34) a consumer to consumer C2C is a website that provides consumers with a platform that allows them to directly conduct transaction with one another without the interference of a service provider. The main goal of a C2C is to provide a solution through its platform for buyers and sellers to interact. Unlike a B2C, it does not handle management of inventory and order processing and thus simpler to manage. A C2C earns income through commissions (Pathak 2009). The main element of a C2C website is its ability to develop platform for seller and buyer interaction and also allowing them to create communities. For an effective C2C, other solutions such as instant messaging, internal messaging forums, blogs and wikis can be of great value to the site (Zhang & von Dran 2000). An example of a C2C website is e-bay. A business to employee B2E is an e-commerce website that allows for intra-business network which enables companies to provide unique products and services to employees. The main goal of a B2E is to provide automation of employee details or corporate processes such as announcements, supply request and online insurance and policy management among others (Singh & Dalal 1999). The major element of a B2E is its ability to create an interface for optimum provision of service to employees. A B2E can be improved by enabling provision of more services; an example of a B2E is http://www.b2e-resourcing.com/. Analysis and Evaluation of the 2 websites The first selected website is http://www.llbean.com/ which is a B2C website because it is targets end users of products directly; it is mainly a retailing websites with variety of products targeting a wider market scope. Some of its products include cloths for men, women and kids; it also has footwear, outdoor gear and other items such as hunting and fishing tools. L.L. Bean Company aims at reaching its clientele in different ways including email, phone and live chat. The company also aims at ensuring quality services to its clientele by providing details such as shipping information, easy return order tracking and history. Consumers easily get what they are looking for in the website because it provides catalog number for different products, by browsing multiple categories it allows the ability to narrow down choices based on different types of information. The website also allows users to save their information for later use, they can also zoom the product in order to see more details about the product. http://www.llbean.com The second website chosen is http://www.tradekey.com/ which is a B2B because it connects global buyers with global sellers. The name of the company is Tradekey and it is well known for its ability to connect businesses globally, it therefore targets both buyers and sellers globally by providing them with updated and easy to access platform as shown in the screenshot below. By offering unlimited access to unlimited access to buyers and allowing advertising at homepage of the website, Tradekey ensures that its members enjoy a wider access to product information with high level of security and trust. Tradekey also has a wide range of products based on different categories such as Agriculture, Apparel and clothing, Automobiles, business services, chemicals and construction and real estate among others. Tradekey aims at ensuring search engine optimization which allows high priority listing of its products in search engines. Major suppliers are also listed; some of the premium suppliers listed in the website home page is Apollo International Trade Co., Ltd, and Sano Bruno's Enterprises Ltd. Providing a wide range of services from suppliers and also giving buyers help plays a critical role in ensuring the sustainability of the website. http://www.tradekey.com/ Similarities of the two websites Tradekey a B2B website and L.L. Bean a B2C website both use website feature of good content to attract traffic to their websites. The two websites also carry out their business with an aim of making a profit, while B2B Tradekey gets commission from transactions, L.L. Bean a B2C get profits from the sales of its products directly to consumers. Another important similarity between these two websites is the fact that the two of them enables transaction either with an individual or a business by creating an enabling platform (Rowley 2008). Differences of the two websites L.L. Bean a B2C company deals directly with customers while Tradekey a B2B company deals with other companies and thus creating a platform where these companies can interact and perform transactions. The transactions of Tradekey are thus more complex as compared to L.L. Bean because the former deals with companies which may require establishing an account with and storing details of transactions. L.L. Bean on the other hand does not require any complex transaction process because it deals with an individual company. Sales process takes much longer in Tradekey as compared to L.L. Bean because of the complex nature of a B2B website. Tradekey also has shopping cat which L.L. Bean lacks because in B2B website there is presale negotiation of prices and customization before the product is sold. On the other hand, L.L. Bean a B2C has no shopping cat because of the direct nature of the shopping process which does not have a pre-sale price negotiation (Zhivago 2011). Tradekey because of its B2B nature requires that companies establish an account with it in order to enable smooth processing while in L.L. Bean, a B2C website; there is no such requirement because there is no need for business and customer integration. The other significant difference between Tradekey a B2B website and L.L. Bean a B2C website is that Tradekey sells items and services of big value which are also specialized while L.L. Bean only sells small items like cloths. Recommendations for improvement to the websites Based on the analysis of the two websites, it is evident that they have been successful in their business. L.L. Bean is particularly liked by its users because of its ability to provide consumers what they want and also providing them with contact information that visitors can use to inquire about the service or product of the company. On the other hand, Tradekey provides a platform of global suppliers and global buyers through its easy platform for joining the website. Tradekey also provides updated news about suppliers and buyers and thus making it one of the world’s top B2B website (Martin 2004). There are a number of recommendations that can be implemented in order to foster the functionality of the two websites. Tradekey can implement a faster, user friendly and secure purchase transaction; this will improve on its customer service and hence increasing users experience which will then translate to increased number of transactions. More both of the websites can implement a more effective search engine optimization. Tradekey has an effective search engine optimization which can be updated and more research done in order to allow consistent ranking of its products in common search engines like Google. L.L. Bean on the other hand needs to improve its search engine optimization in order to attract more customers to its websites. Another important consideration that the two websites should make is driving traffic to the website through the existing and leading sources of web traffic and not concentrating too much on sources that do not generate traffic (Singh & Dalal 1999). Installing an effective traffic monitoring mechanism is therefore an essential part of ensuring that web traffic is maximized. Optimizing on famous social networking Medias such as Myspace, facebook and twitter will be an effective step towards promoting the brand name of these companies. Because a brand is developed over a period of time, promoting it as it develops will be essential and hence the importance of using a social media comes into play. Blogging is another ways of improving traffic to a website, it is therefore recommended for Tradekey and L.L. Bean to take advantage by creating their own blogging sites. As stated by Zhang & von Dran (2000) the rationale for this recommendation is because of the fact that blogging increases search engine functionality and thus creating high rankings in search engine. Increasing keywords is also an essential part of search engine optimization which is relevant to both of these two companies. These keywords should be on the products that the company is selling or retailing. References Khalifa, M & Shen, KN 2008, Explaining the adoption of transactional B2C mobile commerce , Journal of Enterprise Information Management, vol.21 no.1,pp.110-124. Martin, KM 2004, Barriers To B2C Segment Of E-Business, Journal of Business & Economics Research, vol. 2, no. 6, pp. 4-9. Muthitacharoen, A & Palvia, P 2002, B2C Internet Commerce: A Tale of two Nations, Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, vol.3, no.4, pp.1-12. Pathak, B 2009, C2C Business Models: Beyond Online Marketplaces, International Journal of Virtual Communities and Social Networking (IJVCSN), vol.1, no.2, pp. 23-43. Rowley, J 2008, ‘Understanding digital content marketing’, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 24(5/6), pp. 517-540. Singh, SN, & Dalal, NP 1999, ‘Web home pages as advertisements’, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 42(8), pp. 91-98. Zhang, P, & von Dran, GM 2000, ‘Satisfiers and dissatisfiers: A two-factor model for website design and evaluation’, Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Vol. 51(14), pp. 1253-1268. Zhivago, K 2011, Social Media: B2B and B2C are NOT the same, Revenue Journal, vol.2 no.3,pp.11-17. Tradekey accessed from http://www.tradekey.com/ L.L. Bean http://www.llbean.com Read More