Review a local e-commerce site

E-commerce had been practicing in Malaysia for years. During the mind nineties, many industries in Malaysia had been trying to apply E-commerce however the limited broadband and outdated technology calls the trial off. Try Imagine how long it will take to load a picture of your products on internet browser with a 55K dial up at that time.

Many fields are practicing E-commerce and improvement on the operating system had shown great changes especially in the banking business. Maybank as well as Public Bank, which is two of the largest bank operating in Malaysia had computerized their operating system and enable their customers to access to their account through internet for fund transfer, paying bills and many other services. These E-commerce form of business not only time saving, but also reduce the traffic inside the banks.

Peoples nowadays enjoy shopping online and participating in auction had become very common. Some companies set up forums and websites to help peoples that want to sell off their goods and belongings. “www.lelong.com.my” and “forum.lowyat.net” are two popular forums for auction while a lot of people enjoy shopping at eBay. MOL Access Portal said on Nov 11 the MOL Safe Pay enabled consumers in Malaysia to securely transmit funds to one another using MOL Access’s payment infrastructure that includes MOL e Points and MOL MasterCard prepaid. MOL e Points are avai lable at most 7-11 outlets.

Reference:

http://www.pbebank.com/

http://www.maybank2u.com/

http://www.lelong.com.my/

http://www.lowyat.net/

The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers.

Mobile payments are becoming more popular, especially in the advanced countries. Mobile payment is the core of Obopay and it offers the first comprehensive mobile payment service in the United States. Obopay was found in 2005 by successful serial entrepreneurs, funded by top venture capitalists, and is based in Silicon Valley, CA. Obopay is an exciting startup with
a great company culture and aims for serving the country better
and bring more comforts to citizens.

With Obopay’s consumer service allow mobile phone subscribers to send money, instantly pay back to friends, split a dinner bill, get money from your parents, get quick cash, give gift, pay up or collect on a friendly wager, track purchases, check your balance, and a lot more benefits and ease through the mobile phone. And, you can do it all from your phone; anywhere, anytime with anyone. Paying car parking fees can now be completed using Obopay. Paying through mobile phone has minimized the headache of bringing not enough coins to feed the meter. Paying car parking fees at Bay Area is being so common nowadays and one Obopay’s customer even curious that one day, users will just need to wipe their mobile phones over the sensors when they passing through a subway.

The service, targeted at mobile subscribers ages 18-25, is fast, convenient, and fun. Obopay also enables point of sale purchases through a companion debit card.

Reference:

https://www.obopay.com/

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

As Internet users display more of their personal information on social networking Web sites, and office workers upload more sensitive data to online software programs, computer hackers are employing increasingly sophisticated methods to pry that information loose. In many cases, they're devising small attacks that can fly under the radar of traditional security software, while exploiting the trust users place in popular business and consumer Web sites.

In September, the names and contact information for tens of thousands of customers of Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and SunTrust Banks (STI) were stolen from Salesforce.com (CRM), which provides online customer management software for those two companies. The incident occurred after a hacker tricked a Sales force employee into disclosing a password.

The assaults on consumer sites are getting more unnerving as well. A security researcher reported Nov. 8 that hackers had hijacked pages on News Corp.'s (NWS) social networking site MySpace, including the home page of singer Alicia Keys. Clicking nearly anywhere on the page would lead viewers to a Web site in China that tries to trick them into downloading software that can take over their PCs.

Revenue model for Google, Amazon.com and eBay

Revenue models analysis and customer adoption trends is essential in order to plan a portal venture successfully. The five basic portal revenue models are access revenues, advertising revenues, subscription revenues, transaction revenues, and micro-transaction revenues.

In the face of slowing subscriber growth, mobile operators are concentrating on data services. Revenue for network operators will increasingly be derived from data access.
The major operators such as NTT DoCoMo are attempting to maintain their control over the data services customers will access. The network operators developing their own versions of these services with other firms to acquire them. Thus, the operators are positioning themselves as gatekeepers, charging customers an access fee to connect with their service and content providers.

Advertising revenues are derived from companies paying a fee to advertise their products on a portal site. In the web portal space, Google, Amazon and eBay are advertising or direct marketing funded. On the surface, the content appears to come at a bargain price, but deeper analysis reveals that the price is sustained by advertising. Internet advertising is more than the selling of visual-impact ads; it is also the sale of direct links from highly used portals to transactional sites.

Subscription Revenues models are designed to obtain up-front payments from customers for access to specific services or content. Subscription fees are usually billed monthly. Delinquent accounts can be canceled immediately. However, a customer who wants to cancel an online subscription often finds that the process takes considerable effort. Many subscription services consider the monthly payment more important than a simplified cancellation process, since cancellations mean churn. Adding new subscribers is more expensive and time-consuming than retaining current ones. The subscription model attracts customers with services that enable them to maintain continuous contact with the company.

Transaction revenue models included a match-maker and distribution. In the match-maker model, the supplier, not the intermediary, owns the product. The portal revenues are based on the net revenue or the commission it receives from the product's sale. In some cases, the fee is levied to both supplier and the buyer, and is typically .05-3.0 percent. Commercial transaction-based sites range from eBay to priceline.com. In the distributor model, the intermediary takes ownership of the product, it realizes the total revenues it gets off the product's sale. For example, a supplier purchases a product for $1.00 and resells it for $2.00. The $1.00 is the supplier's margin before costs. Once cost is factored in, however, the gross margin can be substantially less. Amazon.com is a typical example of this model. Micro-transaction revenues are based on a simple pay-as-you-go service and are essentially one-time pay-per-use transactions ranging from a few cents to several dollars. The Finland-based company Sonera is the leader in experimenting with many micro-transaction scenarios. The micro-transaction's cost is added to the customer's phone bill. A flexible billing system is essential to making micro-transaction point-of-sale services feasible. However, some web survivors are finally realizing profits, e.g., Autobytel, MarketWatch.com, and Amazon.com, to name a few.