Sunday, 28 April 2013

Week 6 - Digital Markets


Read or listen to the podcast on Managing the Digital Enterprise on digital markets, then answer the questions about an online shopping experience you have had. There are three questions to answer.

Question 1

a) What experiences have you had with shopping online?
I have had many experiences with shopping online, I have purchased clothing, DVDs, phone accessories and much more.



b) Describe a good experience.
I recently went to purchase a present for a work mate through an Australian seller on eBay, only to find that I did not have enough money in my PayPal at the time and would have to wait 3 - 5 business days for the payment to clear. This was a problem because I needed the product within two days, I contacted the seller and told them my issue. The seller expressed posted the product for me and was trusting enough to do so prior to my payment clearing.

c) What did you like about the online store you used?
eBay is always a really good site for online shopping as it has many products from around the world, includes customer feed back and has many options when it comes to finding and paying for products.

d) Describe a bad experience.
Two weeks ago I purchased a jumper online from Dotti, the purchase was simple however when I checked out I had the option of standard post or express post. It showed that express post was a cost of $9.95 and did not show a price for standard post I selected standard post then continued to make my purchase, upon payment I found that standard post was $7.95, so I ended choosing express post.

e) What problems did you have with the online store?
The price of standard post was not specified when asking what post type you would like.

f) What features make an online store more appealing?
Professional look, appealing design and easy to access and use.

g) What features make an online store less appealing?
Pop-up ads, messy/ unprofessional design and difficult to use.

h) Should we expect to see the prices of goods and services rise or fall due to the migration of consumers online?
To accommodate for the shift to online shopping I think the prices of goods and services will have to drop to stay competitive.

Question 2

I have included an additional reading from MIT (Understanding Digital Markets). After reading it please discuss the following statements and indicate if you agree with them or not. Please note there may not be a right or wrong answer.

a) The dispersion of prices (that is, the spread between the lowest and highest price for a particular product) will narrow.
I believe this statement to be true, because information is so easy to access people will be able to compare prices quickly and without any trouble.

b) The importance of brand names will decrease.
I believe that the importance of brand names will decrease, because access to brand name products will become so easy that the significance of brand names will diminish. 

c) Price competition will make all products cheaper.
Yes, I believe all markets will become more competitive and as a result products will become cheaper.

d) Digital markets will become dominated by a handful 
of mega-sites, like Amazon.com.
I believe this to be untrue, digital markets will become so common that it will be hard to dominate.


e) How do you think the balance of power between buyer’s and seller’s will change?
I think buyers will have all the power because they have so much choice.

f) Prices are clustered online.
All prices will be similar for similar products, so they can be competitive.

g) Online prices are elastic. ( i.e. immune to change up and down with demand)
Online prices are inelastic because the demand and supply effects the prices.

h) Online prices are generally transparent (the extent to which prices for a given product or service are known by buyers in the marketplace.).
This is true, because prices are easily compared.

Question 3

a) What types of m-commerce services does your cell phone provider offer?
  • Internet Banking
  • Apps
  • Internet
  • Mobile Ticketing
  • Mobile Entertainment
  • Mobile Sales
  • Mobile Marketing
  • Mobile Payments



b) Which of these services do you use?
All of the above

c) What types of transactions do you perform through your cell phone or other wireless device?
  • Banking
  • Music/ App Download
  • Online Shopping


d) What types of transactions would you like to perform, but are currently unable to?
I am currently happy with all the transaction I am able to perform on my mobile device.

e) What is your opinion of wireless advertising/mobile marketing?
It is inconvenient when it appears whilst I am using an app.

Reference:
Business Driven Information Systems 2nd Edition (Baltzan, Lynch and Blakey)

No comments:

Post a Comment