Essay on Electronic Commerce

Section A: Online Advertisement

a) Return on Investment(ROI) is the additional margin produced by marketing databases divided by the budget of the marketing platform at a specific risk level. Return on Investment (ROI) provides great promise for every organization since the feature acts as a measure to increase the accountability for spending on marketing (Pauwels and Reibstein, 2015). ROMI also helps companies compare various alternatives to decide on the most effective action, a process that improves cross-functional teamwork and learning in an organization. Unfortunately, many organizations face a challenge in fulfilling the pleasing task of measuring returns on marketing investment and also in using it to facilitate higher performance and better marketing decisions. The hardest of this task for many managers is calculating the returns outside promotion bargains.

Surveys reveal that eighty percent of marketing executives are discontented with their inability to calculate or measure the performance of online marketing programs. One challenge is the return on investment invented for predictable timing of returns. Spending on online market campaigns may cause an extension across long periods and lead to brand building or value of consumer assets with less predictable durations (Pauwels and Reibstein, 2015). Thus, the result is a wear-in and wear-out pattern on customer assets and brands that become very hard for organizations to measure, especially keeping track of the effect of many activities. Mapping becomes hard to establish on such occasions, even on marketing investments not directed on attracting customers or the brand. The difficulty ensues because such investment programs also have different degrees of permanence and unpredictable impacts on the company’s return.

The other challenge in calculating return on investment lies in how to change predictable returns for uncertainty. Marketing is grounded in transformation and risk, but most managers are hesitant or unable to establish risk-changed return on investment due to a professed necessity to be cheerleaders for marketing activities and statistic fears. Marketers tend to treat each marketing program as one with similar levels of risks and thus end up focusing and selecting those with high projected returns (Pauwels and Reibstein, 2015). What they miss is that different degrees of uncertainty for the same predictable returns should result in risk opposed managers selecting actions with low risks. Such a step, depending on the type of properties made by specific programs, may help reduce the company’s liability in the future.

Many organizations have a challenge in capturing decision perspectives in Return on Investment approach. Since the return on investment is meant for comparing capital projects, each change in spending requires a new assessment in return on investment and the expected profits of the venture. The action thus implies that the expected returns get adjusted as new information flows in. Unfortunately, many organizations fail to deal with the continuous updating of return on investment assessments (Pauwels and Reibstein, 2015). The final challenge lies in the ability to realize that return on investment for any company depends on market players such as retailers, the feedback of competitors, and the company decision-makers. Therefore, for useful calculation of return on investment, managers should consider net long term effect decisions made, such as the dynamic response of the market players and others.

b) Google Analytics tool by Google that offers free Web analytics services that, in turn, provide essential analytical devices and data for marketing purposes and search engine optimization. The service is available for everyone with a Google account. The tool helps organizations keep track of social networks and Web traffic, view the spending performance of their adverts, and take corrective actions Mokalis and Davis, 2018). The fact that the device is free makes it convenient for small businesses, so they get considerable amounts of returns on online advertisements. The tool has critical features that make it possible to enjoy the full advantage and services of this fantastic tool.

The first tool is the Google Analytics Traffic that allows traffic reporting. The service helps companies know how many customers have visited their site every day. The feature also enables one to track trends over time, which helps in making marketing decisions online. The second feature is the Google Analytics Goals. The feature allows businesses to track when customers convert, the traffic source of reference, and many more (Mokalis and Davis, 2018). The feature helps companies track goals that are the most vital metric conversions, that is, behaviors or activities that the business wants its visitors to do. The goals can get characterized into the destination, duration, Screens per session, and event. The feature allows companies to assign monetary values to each goal, a way that helps in evaluating gains, losses, and disseminate the results across the business.

The audience Reports feature, the third one offers an advanced picture to the business from consumer demographics, geo-locations, interests, and main browsing behaviors. The audience reports allow the company to give direct and actionable perceptions that the business can collect from their server data (Mokalis and Davis, 2018). The insights act as invaluable advantages to online advertisers since they know what consumers are interested in, product categories the customers prefer. The feature helps attract new users and ultimately attracting purchases from the users.

Flow Visualization is the fourth feature that allows the business to view every step that site visitors have taken while exploring the site, such as backtracks. The feature offers fast snapshots of the way visitors are engaging with the content and where the business may lose them along with the exploration (Mokalis and Davis, 2018). The feature provides flow visualization reports such as the Behavior flow report that portrays how visitors shifted from one page or event to another. The reports act as the responsibility on the channel versus content.

The fifth feature is the Custom reports that provide order for analytic data by allowing the businesses to slice their data the way the marketer needs. Therefore, the feature enables the company to carve their reports in unique ways that fit their business goals. The function saves the business time with reports made for insights on page timing, mobile performance, keyword analysis, and many others (Mokalis and Davis, 2018). The step-by-step guide in the feature’s customization tab allows coverage for report formats and metrics. Therefore, small and big businesses can experience the full benefits of Google Analytics by utilizing the tool’s features to maximize their business operation.

Section B: Online Customer Relationship Management

a) Online customer relationship management (E-CRM) is a unified marketing, service, and online sales strategy used to identify, retain, and attract business customers. The system possesses improved and increased interaction between a company and its clientele by creating and enhancing customer contact via innovative technology. The system has proved to be more effective than the previous offline customer relationship management (Nemati et al, 2016). The efficiency is because the online CRM software provides histories and profiles of each communication the company has had with its clients, thus making it an essential tool for both small and big businesses. Offline customer relationship management involves ways of identification, creation, and retaining of the business’s most significant and valuable assets (Pan and Lee, 2015). The software only aims at maximizing each customer’s value without a core concentration of contact between the company and its customers.

Online CRM better treats the customer like the King they are through the systems that allow the customers to conduct business with the organization the way they please. Online CRM also allows the customers to do transactions during their convenient time, in whatever language and currency (Nemati et al, 2016). The time of interactions makes customers enjoy the feeling of dealing with a unified organization that knows and appreciates their presence every step of the business. Customer satisfaction in terms of convenience and product preferences mean increased revenues for the company in question.

Online CRM ensures decreased costs by emphasizing on retaining clients and using communicative service methods to sell additional products. The software also provides service level improvements whereby the software enables the use of a combined database to deliver improved and consistent responses (Nemati et al, 2016). The use of automatic customer detection and tracking via the integrated database thus ensures that the customer’s need is met and managed accordingly (Pan and Lee, 2015). The software also helps in improving the client’s overall knowledge in dealing with the business or organization.

Online CRM is simple compared to offline CRM since it is based on the Web. Such simplicity enables the system to operate without the requirement of a Pc client (Pan and Lee, 2015). The system instead uses a browser as the client’s portal to the client. The system’s efficiency compared to offline CRM lies in its reduces cost since the system can get implemented and managed and expanded in a central location on one server (Nemati et al, 2016). Offline CRM does not allow for personalized views for different audiences, whereas Online CRM allows for customized views and advanced individualized dynamics on preferences and purchases. With Online CRM, every customer and audience customize their look individually.

b) Enterprise Resource Planning Systems(ERP) is a software used for the management of daily activities such as project management, accounting, risk management, procurement, and supply chain operations (Hendricks et al, 2017). A whole range of ERP software also has enterprise performance management software that assists in budgeting, predicting, planning, and reporting a company’s financial results (Aljawarneh and Al-Omari, 2018). ERP systems link together numerous business processes and facilitate the flow of data amongst them. Since the system allows the collecting of shared transactional information from many sources, the system prevents duplication of data from providing data integrity with one source of truth.

Using ERP systems to implement Online customer relationship management has increased efficacy in data systems allowing businesses to manage Online CRM efficiently (Hendricks et al, 2017). Through ERP, companies can unify their processes since the systems provide a computerized field that involves a collective database for cooperative and systematized data across all the organization’s functions (Aljawarneh and Al-Omari, 2018). The ERP developments help companies to develop advanced strategies fitting the new and improved interactive era.

The result is the provision of sustainable competitive benefits from information collected from clients via online customer relationship management. ERP systems, when used to implement online CRM, provide a transformational strategy that allows organizations to focus on new sales and manufacture to the clients resulting in increased profits one long and current terms (Aljawarneh and Al-Omari, 2018). ERP systems make it possible for businesses to communicate with their customers form a range of means, thus developing and maintaining effective customer services that attract and retain them. Organizations using ERP systems to implement Online CRM, therefore, are likely to be successful because the system excellently helps the business in achieving a makeover like its relationship with its customers (Aljawarneh and Al-Omari, 2018). ERP systems provide sales data, customer demands, services, management, and stock levels that, in turn, help CRM to identify the newest prospects about sales by harmonizing the business in multiple databases.

Section C: Building Electronic Commerce Businesses

a) Sears was a departmental store corporation with one of the tallest and most prominent towers in the world in the year nineteen seventy-three and was in overall victory. However, the company’s success was short-lived after the emergence of new generation retailers such as Walmart came into existence (Aaslaid, 2018). Sears made life better in America since the stores offered a wide range of products from clothing and sewing machines.

Emerging retailer competitors introduce a change from the model of a general store, a model that Sears found difficult. Sears, therefore, was unable to adapt and meet the changing customer tastes and preferences. The company to date continues to decline in both sales and in-store foot traffic since shifting to digital for them is hard and tough (Aaslaid, 2018). The result is a company that continues to lose profits resulting from cutting in hours, headcount, and salary for their retail staff, further worsening the business and customer experience.

JCPenney is another store that has failed in the online business since what they collect form it is too little and from trying too hard. The store was once the best catalog retail store in the United States. The stores offered work, church, and children’s clothing. A change in the market changed, and the company suffered an identity crisis since the company could not identify its innovative niche (Aaslaid, 2018). The result was the loss of millions of cash as the company tried to venture into the online business hastily. The store ended up closing more than one hundred stores and many employees, that also saw the mass loss of their loyal customers.

JCPenney, like many other businesses due to the panic resulting from previous losses, the store needed to keep up with the changing trends and went online without consecutive goals. The result is the inability to have clear directions for the store activities to make profits (Aaslaid, 2018). The fact that the store started big and was not realistic is the reason why the store experienced another loss of sixty-two million dollars in 2017 and permanently closed one hundred and twenty-seven of its stores.

Macy’s, a department store also failed in the online business after doing well in the in-store business for years. The company started a television cable channel to sell their merchandises in Nineteen Eighty but maintained the traditional store concept. The idea for this maintenance was based on the assumption that Macy’s knew its customers very well (Aaslaid, 2018). The idea took too long to implement and got snatched by the QVC company that Macy’s today struggle to compete with via the QVC channel. The store failed in the online business because it was unable to meet the emerging trends and customer’s convenience resulting in drastic falls in revenue to date.

b) Walmart is one of the companies that is doing great in the US, having recorded a forty-one percent rise in is e-commerce sales in 2019. One of the contributors to the store’s E-commerce success if the Online Grocery platform whose orders have grown tremendously over the years (Bustillo and Talley, 2016). The store marketed the online ordering platform and picking in stores via the Super Bowl advert. Walmart continues to experiment with new and modern ways to build loyalty in its customers, such as the membership program for free deliveries on groceries and a service that supplies grocery products to the client’s refrigerators.

The multiple delivery pickup locations that exceed three thousand and more than 1500 same-day delivery locations in different cities have significantly impacted Walmart’s online business success. The store’s focus on innovation and developing Grocery shopping, as what their do best is admirable (Bustillo and Talley, 2016). The store has all its at hand and is aiming at achieving nothing less than that and carving its niche as the store experiments other varieties of products. Walmart’s online campaigns and advertisements about their online programs and new products are also on a high level, thus making sure that their customers are aware of appetizing deals meeting their tastes and preferences.

Amazon is the second successful company in E-commerce thanks to the company’s innovative practices and technologies such as Echo. Echo allows playing of music, research for sport teams and weather updates. The Echo invention stands as Amazon’s e-commerce giant where the company sold more than twenty-two million Echo units in the year 2017. Amazon’s customer service is only committed to developing the best relationship with its customers (Kotha, 2018). Amazon has package tracking and return and exchange platforms for ordered products that provide convenience and simplicity to a great online shopping experience. The company also takes advantage of social media to address consumer concerns for loyal and passionate customers that end up advocating the company’s brand to other people.

The company’s diversification in offering a variety of products from books to soups and nuts has also played a role in the company’s online business success. The company deals with music, electronics, clothing, books, and health and beauty products (Kotha, 2018). The company’s networks offer furniture assembly, IT support, and A/V services mean that the company is always driving for relevance. The company’s execution is excellent since Amazon still gets it right in executing its customer orders. Merging design with content, and a winning mindset favors the company’s success.

Apple, the third guru of E-commerce employs the use of online marketing strategies, that get their customers lining for hours just be the first among those receiving the company’s first iteration of any new products. The latest products get released online. Apple knows its niche and thus creates innovations from its niche, releasing more advanced and developed features of the previous product (Johnson et al., 2018). Apple always gives its customers features and products to keep with up with while maintaining relevance for the company. The company has no time for price wars but focuses on emphasizing the company’s value proposition, a pricing strategy that the company has never wavered from in the business.

The company has a fantastic customer care service and also designs their online shopping experience. For instance, their customers often record videos of themselves unwrapping their new devices and upload them on YouTube (Johnson et al., 2018). Such love and pride from fans are all due to the significant elements from the purchasing process; different versions of products, installation, and setup of the products give the fans the Apple experience. The company thus invests in innovation, customer experience, customer service, and advertisement.

References

Aaslaid, K. (2018, November 22). 50 Examples of Corporations That Failed to Innovate. Retrieved from https://www.valuer.ai/blog/50-examples-of-corporations-that-failed-to-innovate-and-missed-their-chance

Aljawarneh, N., & Al-Omari, Z. (2018). The role of enterprise resource planning systems ERP in improving customer relationship management CRM: An empirical study of safeway company of Jordan. International Journal of Business and Management, 13(8), 86-100.

Bustillo, M., & Talley, K. (2016). For Walmart, a Rare Online Success. The Wall Street Journal, B1.

Hendricks, K. B., Singhal, V. R., & Stratman, J. K. (2017). The impact of enterprise systems on corporate performance: A study of ERP, SCM, and CRM system implementations. Journal of operations management, 25(1), 65-82.

Johnson, K., Li, Y., Phan, H., Singer, J., & Trinh, H. (2018). The Innovative Success that is Apple, Inc.

Kotha, S. (2018). Competing on the Internet:: The case of Amazon. com. European Management Journal, 16(2), 212-222.

Mokalis, A. L., & Davis, J. J. (2018). Google Analytics Demystified. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Nemati, H. R., Barko, C. D., & Moosa, A. (2016). E-CRM analytics: the role of data integration. Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations (JECO), 1(3), 73-89.

Pan, S. L., & Lee, J. N. (2015). Using e-CRM for a unified view of the customer. Communications of the ACM, 46(4), 95-99.

Pauwels, K., & Reibstein, D. (2015). Challenges in measuring return on marketing investment. Review of Marketing Research, 6, 107-24.