- A division of trade or production dealing with the exchange of goods and services from producer to final consumer. - Comprises the trading of something of economic value goods, services, information or money between two or more entities.
How about e-commerce??
E means electronic. Thus, e-commerce consists of buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems, such as Internet or other computer networks. It focuses on the use of ICT to enable the external activities and relationships of the business with individuals, groups and other businesses.
Wide variety of commerce is conducted electronically, spurring and drawing on innovations in - Electronics Funds Transfer (EFT) - Supply Chain Management (SCM) - Internet Marketing - Online Transaction Processing - Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) - Inventory Management Systems (IMS) - Automated Data Collection Systems Common applications related to E-Commerce: - Email & messaging - Content management systems - Documents, spreadsheets, database - Accounting & finance systems - Orders & shipment information - Enterprise & client information reporting - Domestic & international payment systems - Newsgroup - On-line Shopping - Conferencing
E-commerce is conducted under 3 categories:
- Business to Business (B2B) - Business to Consumers (B2C) - Consumers to Consumers (C2C)
The volume of B2B transactions is much higher than the volume of B2C transactions. Reason is that in a typical SCM, there are many B2B transactions involving sub component or raw materials, but where sale of the finished product to the end customer, this is the only single transaction. e.g an automobile manufacturer needs to buy tyres.. glass for windows and windscreen, steel for vehicle's body, paint, acrylic for the vehicle registration plates etc. All these are B2B transactions. After the manufacturing process is completed, the finished vehicle is being sold to a customer together with COE, Insurance, Warranty etc in a SINGLE transaction. This will be a B2C transaction.
How about C2C? C2C in E-Commerce involves the electronically-facilitated transactions between consumers through some third party. e.g. online auction, in which a consumer posts an item for sale and other consumers bid to purchase it; the third party generally charges a flat fee or commission. The sites are only intermediaries, just there to match consumers. They do not have to check quality of the products being offered.
Business Models used
Defined as the organization of product, service and information flows, and the source of revenues and benefits for suppliers and customers. - E-shops - E-procurement - E-malls - E-auctions - Virtual Communities - Collaboration Platforms - Third-party Marketplaces - Value-chain Integrators - Value-chain Service Providers - Information Brokerage Mini Research On sgCarMart E-Commerce Website sgCarMart is one E-commerce website where car lovers would hang around there to check out information on new or second-hand cars as well as the car prices, and car owners are able to sell their cars by posting ads there!! (Click the pictures for enlarged)
This is the home page for sgCarMart. As you can see, the navigation pages are designed in a tabbed way so that users can browse easily by clicking on them, just that simple. The red circles are those popular features that most car users will definitely browse through. For car buyers, depending on whether one wants to get a brand new car or a secondhand, one is able to search for the brands and models as well as their prices. For car sellers, you can simply advertise your cars here. You are able to read up on articles on anything related to cars, be it motors, gadgets, accessories, races (e.g F1 Singapore) etc. Also one is able to check out on the services provided by some other organisations.
sgCarMart has stated their core competencies in their websites. It's up to one to decide whether sgCarMart has shown their competence and to us, they have achieved doing so. Checking out their statistics, it boasts an enormous number of visitors or car lovers browsing through their websites, earning themselves 3 Hitwise Awards for 3 consecutive years!
sgCarMart is the number one car site for providing a B2C platform for information exchange in buying Singapore cars, including new cars, parallel import cars & used cars. Also, it has authorised distributors comprising parallel importers and authorised car dealers. One can simply search for their desired car models as well as new car price lists, photos, promotions, reviews and latest cars, so convenient just in this navigation page!
This is the navigation page for used cars buyers. One can easy search for used cars model by keying the data like model, price, type as well as the used cars dealers where one could even print out the price lists for comparison, or whether it is a COE or Parf car etc.. (top part), very convenient and this saves a lot of time for the buyer.
How about the budget calculator?? This is a very important application for all car buyers so as to help them calculate their budget! By keying their comfortable amount for monthly installment, down-payment, interest rates and repayment, they are able to calculate their budget and then the search engine will list down the vehicles that cost close to the budgeted amount. This helps out in one's decision making on adjusting their own incomes or whether they require a loan to finance the car. In the lowest part also, one can view the information on the latest used cars added, including the price, specifications and descriptions so on. Note the icon 'Direct Owner'. One can get the car sellers contact and thus able to meet him for a glance of the car's condition, take a test drive, as well as negotiating price with the seller, saving the trouble of going through a dealer and any transaction costs incurred, bypassing any intermediaries.
Selling cars?? Easily done through this website! Car sellers can simply post an ad and leave their contact information and wait for buyers to contact them. If not, simply go through car dealers but of course they will have to pay a transaction fee for that service. The below video shows the steps taken for sellers to sell their car through Quotz.
The "Articles" tab shows mostly many links regarding car advices in any aspects, car reviews for almost every cars, and also the latest car news all around the world, providing critical purchase informations! the perfect site for any information about cars for car lovers! Also, there is a very interactive car forum where car lovers will bitch and comment about car related stuffs, or may hold gatherings for a race, car exhibition etc.
On the last tab "Motor Directory", sgCarMart has provided other services relating to car services, gadgets, accessories etc, simply by keying the data into the search engine, and a list of companies will appear for reference.
Our Views sgCarMart is certainly a very good E-commerce website, pertaining to the needs of businesses as well as consumers. Generally as the name suggests, it is specialised in car and car-related information. It's platform is basically a business-to-consumer: a provider of related information to any interested visitors/consumers (be it individuals, business associates, business man, sell direct, through a salesman, or trade assist). Application softwares are applied throughout the website. Consumers will need to key in data to check out information on cars or calculate their budget (Data Model). Quite a number of Decision Making Design Model eg budget calculator, installment calculator, car reviews etc all these influence car buyers' decisions. Last but not least, there's the Transaction-Cost Design Model where buyers are able to check for large variety of car informations like car oarking rates, car prices and specifications, without having the trouble of going down to dealers. This saves lots of time and any other costs incurred.
The 4 Ps, namely placement, promotion, price, product are also geared towards an integrated marketing system which incorporates various company's sales efforts. E-commerce does not work alone, it has to be accompanied by effective all-round marketing effort. sgCarMart has been doing so, as seen. Also, by subscribing to News Alerts, car lovers will receive alerts via email to latest news articles updates in sgCarMart. Marketing efforts can then be directed to these potential buyers more effectively.
Of course, some users might think that it's hard to find navigate and find links as there are too many links around the website. Some advertisements are put up sporadically along the webpages may seem to distract users. Perhaps sgCarMart may try to update oil prices in their websites too!
Overall, sgCarMart has successfully incorporated E-commerce into their business model. They have certainly assisted consumers in reducing their transaction costs, particularly in the areas of search, regulation and contracting cost, as well as maintenance and review costs, thanks to their high quality website so as to bring to car lovers a convenient and comfortable information website.
This is the home page for sgCarMart. As you can see, the navigation pages are designed in a tabbed way so that users can browse easily by clicking on them, just that simple. The red circles are those popular features that most car users will definitely browse through. For car buyers, depending on whether one wants to get a brand new car or a secondhand, one is able to search for the brands and models as well as their prices. For car sellers, you can simply advertise your cars here. You are able to read up on articles on anything related to cars, be it motors, gadgets, accessories, races (e.g F1 Singapore) etc. Also one is able to check out on the services provided by some other organisations.
sgCarMart has stated their core competencies in their websites. It's up to one to decide whether sgCarMart has shown their competence and to us, they have achieved doing so. Checking out their statistics, it boasts an enormous number of visitors or car lovers browsing through their websites, earning themselves 3 Hitwise Awards for 3 consecutive years! 
sgCarMart is the number one car site for providing a B2C platform for information exchange in buying Singapore cars, including new cars, parallel import cars & used cars. Also, it has authorised distributors comprising parallel importers and authorised car dealers. One can simply search for their desired car models as well as new car price lists, photos, promotions, reviews and latest cars, so convenient just in this navigation page!
This is the navigation page for used cars buyers. One can easy search for used cars model by keying the data like model, price, type as well as the used cars dealers where one could even print out the price lists for comparison, or whether it is a COE or Parf car etc.. (top part), very convenient and this saves a lot of time for the buyer.
On the last tab "Motor Directory", sgCarMart has provided other services relating to car services, gadgets, accessories etc, simply by keying the data into the search engine, and a list of companies will appear for reference.