A review on a post on Legal from My E-Commerce blog

After I had review from few posts form my e-commerce blog. Surfing internets are part of the life style for the newest generation. All sorts of information and entertainment can be found in the World Wide Web. Some of the web site provide free download of music, movie, software, and many more to internet users. Internet users should aware that download free songs, movies and etc from web site are offending the law. In UK, UK government is proposed new law toward to those use their account to access pirated material. These illegal downloading of music and movies are costing the entertainment industry lose few million of pounds in a year. It happens to Hong Kong most successful drama production company “TVB

There are many ways for us not to get involved in this situation, actually there are some web sites and software program provide such service to internet users with reasonable value for downloading a single track of music, movie, software and more. For example: Apple’s iTunes, Window media and etc. Cd’s key and license’s key were used for gaming’s Design company and software Design Company in order to prevent it products turn into pirated material.

As for our country “Malaysia”, government establishes education program helps to reduce of piracy. Government has recognized a two way approaches:

Enforcement (Ops Tulen) and,
Continuous raiding companies that use illegal software as well the illegal vendors selling the pirated software. A total of RM12.63 million worth of pirated hardware and software has been seized since 2002. A lot of the IT malls in Malaysia has been raided for the past few months.

Education (Sikap Tulen):
To educate the relevant groups on the importance of respecting Intellectual Property and stay away from pirated software. Those targeted groups are professionals, companies, public and IT malls

reference link:

1.http://e-comass.blogspot.com/search/label/Week%203

A local e-commerce site review

Nowadays, along with widely use of e-commerce, lots of merchants more toward to have an attractive web site more than an attractive storefront, regardless to costs or customers, trading via web site seem to be more convenient to people.

The benefits are imaginable. The merchants will have expanded geographical market and customer base; always open for business; reduction of marketing and sales costs and so on. That is why this new created business models are broadly accepted.

For me, the web site that I will visit to be updated periodically is http://www.lb-lebliss.com/.

This is actually a web site that provides online shopping. The site provides key-words-search feature, so that its customer can key in the product’s name directly to get the information which is requested. Besides that, the point that attracted me to visit it repeatedly is the user-friendly web design. When you want to order an item, you can first add it into your shopping cart and continue shopping. Until everything have been done, just click the top button on your right and proceed to checkout. There are many of discounted items or stock clearance which listed at the left of the site. The methods of payment are various such as mobile money maybank 2 u and so on, mentioned at the bottom of the site. Everything is so comprehensive just at the first glance.

An article “7 ways to improve e-commerce sales in your online store” has been posted to remind the e-commerce web site to fulfill all kind of characteristics that a successful site needs to possess. First, it is to simplify shopping cart process. Second, offer a live text chart service. Third, give visitor real reasons to buy from you. Fourth, clearly show online security and hacker safe seals. Fifth, use customer review to influence visitors buying behavior. Sixth, offer related item during browse and checkout. Seventh, improve browse and product search results.
In Lebliss’s site, most of the criteria have been fulfilled. It is all shown on the home page and “about us” page. Only the online security and hacker seals do not be shown clearly. As a whole, the features in site of Lebliss are actually quite complete, just some further improvements are looked forward to be realised.

Reference:
(1) http://www.xantec.com.my/xblog/?p=109
(2) http://www.optima.com.my/solutions_ecommerce.html

Things to take note to prevent e-auction fraud when customer participating e-auction

Auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid,taking bids,and then selling the item to the winning bidder. It may refer to any mechanism or set of trading rules for exchange.

There are some types of auction which divide into primary and secondary type. Primary types include english auction, dutch auction, sealed first-price auction and vickery auction. Secondary types include all-pay auction and combinatorial auction.

Some tips for prevent e-auction fraud as followings:
(1)understand how the auction works
majority online auction will simply list the items that seller want to sell. Actually they don't verify the merchandise whether exists or not and would it described accurately. Sometimes
they can't guaranty the seller will keep their promise.

(2)check out the seller before bid
feedback forums with comments about seller based on customer's experience of auction sites should be aware by other customer.The negative information is a good warning sign,but the clean complaint record doesn't guarantee the transaction will go smoothly.

(3)be careful if seller is private individual
most of the concumer protection law doesn't apply to private sales, through goverment agencies may take action if there are many complaint the same individual or criminal fraud involved.

(4)get the information about seller
such as name,physical street address,email address and phone no are helpful for checking the seller out and following up if there is a problem.

(5)be wary of claims about collectibles and other expensive items
since customer can't examine the merchandise or have it appraised until after the sale,don't assume that claims about its condition or value are true.Save a copy of the description and any information to document claims that were made.

(6)aware about delivery,returns,warranties and service before made payment
ask about the return policy and get teh definite delivery time and insist that the shipment is insured.

(7)look for information on the auction site about insurance
some auction site will provide insurance that covers customers to a certain amount if somethings goes wrong.Read the terms of insurance carefully .Sometimes, there would be a deductible and limitations or requirements that apply.

(8)look for bonded sellers
some seller are bounded through programs that have investigatedd their business background and credit histories and guaranty your money back if they don't fulfill their promises.

(9)using escrow service for expensive purchase that aren't covered by insurance or bonding
it takes customer payment and forward it to seller once customer had confirm satisfactory delivery.If there is dispute, escrow service may act as referee.

(10)inform auction site about suspected fraud
the auction may have policies to remove sellers from the sites if they use"shills" or don't live up to their obligations.

referrence links:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auction
http://www.fraud.org/tips/internet/onlineauctions.htm

Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

Corporate Blog ? What is Corporate blogging? Wikipedia simple define a corporate blog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. Nowadays, many corporate had started to create their own corporate blog, but how a blog help a organization to reach a goal?

A corporate blog is use to publish the information about the organization and the organization goal. It also can publish a news about the organization and also the news on the product. For example, a company can announce the date and some information about a coming new product. It can let a potential customer easy to track a company recent news and event.

Some corporate blog the blogger is only the CEO in the organization. These kind of corporate blog are call CEO blog. CEO can use their personal blog to announce the future planning of the organization. For example The CEOs blog of Jonathan Schwart, CEO of Sun Microsystem - Jonathan's Blog

Another type corporate blog is external blog, external corporate blog have the role to be a new marketing communication tool for a company. It allow the employee, the customer, the spokeperson to publish the post to the blog. It may give a stage to let the employee to tell their job satisfaction on the company, beside customer also can write a post about the feedback on a product. In Malaysia the very famous corporate blog is AirAsia Blog - http://blog.airasia.com/.

From the blog, we can see that many of the AirAsia flight passenger are sharing their trip experience and also some post about event organise by AirAsia. That was why a corporate blog become a new marketing communication tool for a company.

A review on a post e-tailing from My E-Commerce blog

E-tailing is the selling of retail goods in the internet. The most success example of e-tailing of all time are Amazon.com and Dell's computer. After review on My e-commerce blog, malaysia had implemented an e-tailling service to public.


Touch n Go card are commonly use by Malaysian in toll collection and transportation. Now, it had expended the usage and service towards the retail purchases, starting with particularly the fast food industry.

It enable Touch n Go users buy burgers, dougnut or fastfood from particular outlet.




These are the particular outlet that involve in Touch n Go service:


1.A&W SungeiBuloh(PLUS Overhead Bridge)
2.A&W Kota Damansara
3.A&W IkanoPower Centre1.




1.Burger King SungeiBuloh(PLUS Overhead Bridge)
2.Burger King MutiaraDamansara
3.Burger King Mid Valley
4.Burger King MasjidJamek
5.Burger King MRR2 Karak
6.Burger King Sri Hartamas1




1.Dunkin Donuts SungeiBesi
2. Dunkin Donuts Sprint Highway
3. Dunkin Donuts Mutiara Damansara
4. Dunkin Donuts SgBuloh
5. Dunkin Donuts BHP Karak

1.Caltex LDP –HentianSebelahPenchala
2.Caltex LDP –Bandar Sunway
3.Caltex AwanBesar–Shah AlamExpressway
4.Caltex KawasanRehatUSJ(ArahSelatan)
5.Caltex Taman KinraraPuchong








7-Eleven, The Curve, MutiaraDamansara










Cathay Cineplexes, CineleisureMutiaraDamansara






Touch N Go not only the can pay for what we purchase. In some country, mobile phone are use in purchase. Amazon.com have move further, it not only provide online shopping. Amazon had moving further with text-message shopping (SMS Shopping) on 1st April. These is how users using text message-shopping.

• Customertext (SMS) the name of the product with its description/ID to 262966 ("Amazon" on keypad).
• Amazon will return 2 results at a time, if the stock matches the order.
• Customer will be then can choose between the two options by texting 1 or 2.
• They also can request for more option by texting "M" (More).
• The system will call them and walk through the checkout process using an automated voice system.
• Confirmation will be sent through text message and e-mail (entered during the registration process earlier)
• Order status can be checked through the web site of Amazon.com.

With such amazing life style, we need not bring so much cash out with us. In the future, i think Touch N Go and mobile is no longer appicable. With the advance of technology, biology may do the trick.

Mobile Payment system in Malaysia: it's potentials & consumers' adoption strategies

Over the past decade, the introduction of new technologies has transformed the payment industry and consumers’ payment/purchase behavior. Alongside shifts in payment channels, payment instruments are also changing. So, what’s next? Industry experts cite mobile payments—the exchange of financial value between two parties using a mobile device [e.g., mobile phone or personal digital assistant (PDA)]—as the wave of the future.

Malaysians can now enjoy a secure and convenient way to conduct mobile commerce using a GSM cellular phone. TeleMoney, the country's first mobile payment service via multi-channel access for Internet and wireless transactions, was launched Tuesday, and is expected to fully operational in the first quarter of 2002.

It is a service free of banks and telco dependence; a customer with a credit card or debit card with a cellular phone can register for this service.

All one needs is a GSM phone and a TeleMoney personal identification number, connecting it to a credit card, debit card, stored valued card, bank account or even the phone account.

Systems@Work is the mover behind TeleMoney and Hong Leong Bank has picked the former as its master merchant while the bank acts as a settlement, clearing and payment bank for the service in Malaysia.

mailto:Systems@Work chief executive officer Ng Fook Sun said the company is now working with four companies who will offer Internet and mobile commerce services via TeleMoney: Cordoda Corporation, Nanyang Online, Xchange.com.my and HP Mobile e-services Bazaar.

Meanwhile, Celcom, a telco with a 2.1 million active subscriber base in the country, is also collaborating with Systems@Work in a bid to support the growth of mobile commerce in Malaysia.

Celcom's senior vice-president of group corporate planning and product development Zubir A Rasid said he hopes at least 50,000 out of its 800,000 post-paid customers will sign up for TeleMoney.

"It will initially be offered for our post-paid subscribers," he said.
Celcom subscribers signing up for TeleMoney can use the telco's micro-bill mode of payment which allows them to charge transactions below RM50 (US$13.16) to their phone bill.

Reference:
http://www.neowave.com.my/mobilemoney_overview.asp
http://www.mobile-money.com/

Application of Pre-paid Cash Card

Since human life development growth rapidly, pre-paid cash card system has bring much more convience for business transaction, especially for customer. Pre-paid card system enables customers to make purchases,calls and participate in a survey using an authorized card. Such system include four major functional components which include plurality of cards, host computer, plurality of on-site activation terminals and processor. Each component has a security number associated therewith. The card typically formed of cardboard,paper or plastic and may include security number in cleartext under a suitable blackout.

Pre-paid cash card always need a personal identification number to be keyed in for the transaction to be authorized. It also can act as security for card holder to prevent other people use such card unless the personal identification number had informed to other people. If someone steals the card information or physical prapaid cash cards, card holder also no need to worry about them using the money. So pre-paid cash card are considered the most secure and safe financial transaction cards.

Pre-paid cash card are like a portable access point tho card holder checking account. The automated teller machines are evrywhere and card holder can use it to withdrawal, deposit funds from or into checking account in cash or even make account balance inquiry. Such automated teller machine is convience for card holder since they don't have go to the bank anymore. Besides that, the convience fee charged by machine is much smaller than the fee charged by bank.

Although pre-paid cash card has many advantages, but it also has some downside. The card holder can't use them to make"card not present" purchase, such as buying something online. Pre-paid cash card also can't use in"quick pay" terminals that have a card reader but no keypad to enter the personal indentification number.

reference links:https://www.obopay.com/resource/prepaid-cash-card.html
http://www.google.com.my/patents?
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6502745.html

Credit Card Debts: Causes and Prevention

Nowaday, the requirement to apply a credit card is much lower than before. Many of the fresh graduate students can easily to get a credit card after 3month getting the job. With the credit card the purchasing power was increased. It can help the economy in the Country. As a credit cardholder, we need to be smart in using the credit card. If the cardholder using the credit in the wrong way. It can bring him a huge credit card debt. The most common credit card debt was come from the interest charges on the late payment on debt. This interest chardges will compound every month if the debt cannot be clear. Many of the cardholder alway spend the credit to buy the thing they like without any cash on hand. It may also cause the interest charge on debt at the end of the month.

Besides, many of the e-commerce website are using credit cards to make transaction. It may cause the credit card data been theives and use the credit card to buy item on internet. Somestimes, the cardholder only can detect it when the card was embezzled.

To prevent having the huge amout of credit debt. Credit Card Holder should set a limit of spending using the card and also doing record on it. Furthermore, using Debit card was one of the way preventing the credit card debt. Debit card holder can only use the total amount in your card account, it was imposible to let you spend out of the money you have, so it will not bring you a debt in the future. Last but not lease, do not buying item in internet using credit card by using public computer, such as the computer at cyber cafe, University and etc... It will increase the risk the credit card theives and bring you a unrealise debt.

the threat on online security

Nowadays, the threats on online security become so common. Various types of threats make our data no longer safe. Passwords, encryption and other prevention method have been suggested, however, threats still exist to cause harm.

Mainly, threats have been divided into technical attacks and non-technical attacks. Technical attacks mean attacks perpetrated using software and systems knowledge or expertise. They are:

(1) Denial-of-service (Dos) attack
an attack on a web site in which an attacker uses specialized software to send a flood of data packets to the target computer with the aim of overloading its resources;

(2)Distributed denial-of-service (DDos) attack
A denial-of-service attack in which the hacker gains illegal administrative access to as many computers on the Internet as possible and uses these multiple computers to send a flood of data packets to the target computer.

(3)Malware
A generic term for malicious software. The severity of the viruses increased substatially, requiring much more time and money to recover. Malicious code take a variety of forms-both pure and hybrid. There are a lots of it such as virus, worm, macro virus or macro worm and trojan horse (rookit).

For non-technical attacks, they uses trickery to trick people into revealing sensitive information or performing actions that compromise the security of a network.

Another form of non-technical attack, is called social engineering. It is a type of attack that uses social pressures to trick computer user into compromising computer networks to which those individuals have access.


Other than that, phishing is to collect information through fake websites. An email may be sent to unsuspecting customers to trick them into providing or updating their information on the fake web sites. To safeguard against phishing, users should always go to the website directly rather than via links in emails.



In order to prevent both kind of the attacks, education and training needed to be provided in order to make explanation about the techniques used by hackers and others. The policies and procedures needed to be developed for securing confidential information.






References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_computer_security_hacker_history
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_online_security_threats_for_2009.php

Example and Prevention Method of Phishing

Phishing, act of stealing sensitive personal information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details via the internet environment for the purpose of committing financial fraud. It has become a significant criminal activity on the internet, especially the popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors and etc.

Phishing technique was described in detail in 1987, and the first recorded use of the term“phishing” was made in 1996.Phishing largely used in PayPal, banks, credit card and eBay.

In an example PayPal phish, spelling mistakes in the e-mail and presence of IP address in the link are both clues that this is a phishing attempt. As a real email from PayPal would, large warnings about never give password or sensitive information in case of phishing attack. It instead invites users follow a link to “verify” their accounts. It will take users to further phishing website, engineered to look like PayPal’s website and will ask for users’ sensitive information.

Another example, eBay phishing become the most popular example. In eBay, scammer wishes to obtain eBay ID’s which used to sell fake or non-existent goods or accounts which can be sold further in the underground market.

There are some prevention methods which include legislation and technology created specifically to protect against phishing

One method of them is training people to recognize phishing attempts, and deal with them. Through the education,it would have more effective results, especially where the training program provides direct feedback.

Besides that, people can slightly modifying their browsing habits. For an example, when an account needing to be "verified", it's a sensible precaution to contact the company or customer from which the e-mail apparently originates to check that the e-mail is legitimate.

Another way, some bank's website such as Bank of America, that ask users to select a personal image, and display their user-selected image with any forms that request a password. Customer or online users of the bank's online services are instructed to enter password only when they see the image they selected.

Some banks and other organization likely to suffer from phishing scams round-the-clock services to monitor,analyza and assist in shutting down phishing websites.

reference links:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
http://www.uscert.gov/reading_room/phishing_trends0511.pdf

A review on a post internet security from My E-commerce blog

Now a day, with the advancement of technology, E-commerce tends to give us a simple and comfortable life style in our daily life with a single click on the web-site, it slove all the problem in a second by provided our information or biodata. For example; e-billing, we can pay our bills online without going out. E-shopping, thing such as cloths, books, toys, service and many more can get by accessing World Wide Web. But, how our confidential information are protect from third party. After review some of the article in my E-commerce blog. It give me an idea, how our in formation may dispose to third party and the way to prevent it.

Year to year, people accessing online had been increase tremendosly and more that millions of new viruses can be found on web. Trojan horse is one of the most common virus that created and it can be many form. These viruses were spread by one person called "Hacker". How Hacker can gain control on our infromation? Spamming is one of the way that use. Spamming is the the flooding of electronic mail systems with “junk e-mail”. Also known as unsolicited bulk messages sent through the electronic messaging systems. Now, the spammers are coming out with new tactics to outsmart this anti-spam software. These new tactics are PDF Spam, Piggyback Spam and Greeting Card Spam.

In order to prevent this happen, caution step need to be consider before taken. These are the steps that should take to prevent hacker hack in.

• Keep Your Personal Information Private
• Avoid Using One Password For All Accounts You Create
• Use 'Alpha-Numeric' Passwords
• Don't Use a Password That Can be Found on Your Blog
• Avoid Using Public Computers
• Set Your Browser According to Your Preferred Security Level
• Use Anti-Virus Softwares on Your Computer
• Register and Use Your Own Domain Name
• Always Back-up All Your Post / Content

How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

Today privacy data being expose to the public is more easy then before. The innovation of INTERNET usage make every single transaction, every electronic data and so on exchange and flow easily. All the privacy data like credit card, or other data which need to be secure could be flow from user to collector with a single click in the INTERNET. In the phenomena where every transaction could be done easily and conveniently it should be a delighting case for people, however there are some devil advocate which appear to interrupting and creating worries for people when they want to make any secure transaction via the Internet.

These troublesome tries to steal those privacy data from every possible computer in order fulfill its satisfaction, either to misuse the stolen data or to gain fame or having fun from the hacking action. Although there are risk when using Internet for doing any secure transaction but as the advancement of the technology, those vendors who provide these payment gateway are trying to minimize the risk to make sure that transactions in within the service are being secured.

There are risk which can be protected by the vendors itself, but there are also risk which can't protected by the service providers. And there risk possible would be the viruses, worms, Trojan, and so on that had been invade in the particular computer. These malicious would have the possibility to steal all the information in the infected computer and transfer it to those who spread the lethal malicious program. As a normal user, the most basic step which we have to do to protecting our computer from those malicious and Trojan is to install a quality anti virus software in our computer. Besides, make sure that the anti virus software is updated frequently, since malicious and Trojan programs are produced and modified every moments.

Besides on installing anti virus software, try not to visit those web site which is not familiar with you, and those site which been warned by our anti virus. These site contain down loadable malicious programs which hided in the some file which you do not know. In order to minimize the probability of infection, as a user, we should try to aware of these particular issue when surfing the net. For an example, try not to click those link which contain sweepstakes like “Free money”, “Free lottery”, Free porn”, and so on.

As a Internet user, we should have the common knowledge on how to preventing Internet scam. According to the Internet scamming report (You can find it in Google), the fraud and scam cases increasing yearly by yearly. The government should education its citizen on how to prevent those scam before its happened. One of the common example case in scamming people privacy data like credit card would be phishing site. In additional, we should not using public computer like cyber cafe to do financial transaction or others secure transaction, these is to make sure that social engineering would not happened.

History and Evolution of e-commerce

What Is E-Commerce?

E-commerce is the online transaction of business, featuring linked computer systems of the vendor, host, and buyer. Electronic transactions involve the transfer of ownership or rights to use a good or service. Most people are familiar with business-to-consumer electronic business (B2C). Common illustrations include Amazon.com, llbean.com, CompUSA.com, travelocity.com, and hotels.com.

E-commerce can be divided into:
· E-tailing or "virtual storefronts" on Web sites with online catalogs, sometimes gathered into a "virtual mall"
· The gathering and use of demographic data through Web contacts
· Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), the business-to-business exchange of data e-mail and fax and their use as media for reaching prospects and established customers (for example, with newsletters)
· Business-to-business buying and selling (B2B)
E-commerce began before personal computers were prevalent and has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry, but where did it come from? By looking at the evolution of e-commerce, it will be easier to judge its trends for the future.

1984
EDI, or electronic data interchange, was standardized through ASC X12. This guaranteed that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably.

1992
Compuserve offers online retail products to its customers. This gives people the first chance to buy things off their computer.

1994
Netscape arrived. Providing users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.

1995
Two of the biggest names in e-commerce are launched: Amazon.com and eBay.com.

1998
DSL, or Digital Subscriber Line, provides fast, always-on Internet service to subscribers across California. This prompts people to spend more time, and money, online.

1999
Retail spending over the Internet reaches $20 billion, according to Business.com.

2000
The U.S government extended the moratorium on Internet taxes until at least 2005.

Referred links:

(1)http://newmedia.medill.northwestern.edu/courses/nmpspring01/brown/Revstream/

history.htm

(2) http://www.export.gov/sellingonline/whatisecommerce.asp

Identify and compare the revenue model for Google, Amazon.com and eBay

Google is a well-known and common use search engine. The main source of google's revenue came from advertising, an amount of US$10.492 billion was gain by it advertising which reported in year 2006.

Google AdWords is one of the advertising program or known as pay per click.This program designed to allow advertisements to people at instant the people looking for the information . Pay by click is the best way to send an immediate, traffic to website. It is an online advertising payment model in which payment is based on qualifying click through

Google AdSense is an ad serving program. First quarter of 2002, google launched Absence for search, this program serve as distribute relevant ads from it advertiser for display with search result. AdSense for content was launched first quarter of 2003.

Amazon.com was founded by Jeff Bezos in year 1995. Amazon started as online store then it expanded it business by selling other product such as VHS,DVDs, Mp3, Games, computer software, toys, furniture and many more.Each product was given a fix price and will be rated by customer.

eBay is the world well-known auction web-site which bring along between both individual seller and buyer around the world. Millions of collectibles items, computer hardware, books and other cool stuff are listed, sold and boughts in a day.eBay generate revenue by charging fees on the particular item.

1. Insertion fees-Charge when an item listed on eBay, which ranges between 30 cents an $3.30 depending on the seller's opening on the item
   


2. Promote fees- A fees is charged for additional listing promote the item, such like highlighted or bold listing



3. Final value-Fee that charged at the end seller's auction which range form 1.25% to 5% of the final sales price

Reference link:

1. http://www.organicspam.com/google_revenue_model.asp

2.http://ecommercesite.wordpress.com/2008/06/12/identify-and-compare-the-revenue%20model-for-google-amazoncom-and-ebay/

3.http://mansgroup.blogspot.com/2008/06/identify-and-compare-revenue-model-for.html