Week 9

Although social media is a low-cost and a quite popular choice for many startups such as e-commerce, many people do not realize the danger of sharing any information on the web.  Facebook, for example, is the #1 choice for many people who wish to market and promote their businesses.  They do not realize that their personal information is actually sold off the moment they have completed their facebook account.  Facebook earned their revenue through people’s personal information, and even though facebook claims that they do not share their users’ information with third party agencies, this is exactly how they make profits.  Facebook have recently released a new privacy policy for their users, it is actually more in length and quite in depth, almost seems like they are purposely aiming to confuse their users.  Their users’ privacy settings are very difficult to navigate through; users can spend up to hours just trying to make changes of their current setting.  Now that I know exactly how facebook’s privacy policy for their users work, I will continue to use them to market and promote my business, but, I will use extra step of precaution when sharing the least personal information through facebook.

Week 8

Amazon is constantly achieving results through their effective marketing and promotional strategies.  Their marketing strategy was designed to fortify Amazon’s reputation, its brand name.  They come up with advertisement of sales and discounts to increase the volume of traffic through Amazon.com website, and they learned how to retain customers, building customer loyalty.  They encourage repeated purchases from customers successfully through comments from other consumers.  Consumers use the comment board to give reviews and ratings of each products that they purchases through Amazon, and the review and ratings help potential consumers make purchasing decisions.

Amazon.com is by far one of the most successful e-commerce retailer in U.S.  The company uses technology to carry out customized programs and services for each potential buyer.  Its inventory, which carries a great selection of products from A to Z, gives consumers a sense of flexible merchandising.  Amazon.com takes advantage of social medias, business development and promotional methods to attain the best results.  Amazon.com also uses online advertising, radio and television media to promote their business. 

Week 6

WeWork, Inc.

A staffing agency specializing in recruiting professionals in areas such as administration, accounting, management, marketing and human resource.

I am currently pursuing a degree in human resource management, and fifteen years from now, I hope to start my own staffing agency with several professional recruiters working under me.

I would consider the brokerage model as the business model of my staffing agency.  I bring employers and job seekers together and facilitate a contract.  Although the service is an absolute free cost to each job seeker, the employers will be charged an undisclosed fee for direct hires.  As for temporary hires, employers will be charged a percentage of  each  pay hour of employees.

E-commerce marketing will definitely be an important tool to facilitate the operation of my staffing agency.  I would have to create an efficient website for both employers and job seekers to register an account.  In addition, job listings can also be found online and as well as resume submission. 

Week 5

For this week, I choose to analyze Facebook. I have always wondered how facebook became so successful and most profitable than any other social network sites that also offers free subscription. I've always wondered how a website like facebook generate revenues while its subscribers received free service. If you go to Facebook's press room, you can see how facebook currently has over 300 million users and 50% of their users log on to facebook at any given time of the day. It's statistics are true since I do surf on facebook periodically through out the day. While conducting some online research about facebook, I learned how they generate their revenues. I had came across some key factors; portal, advertisement and user registration. Facebook uses the advertising model to general large revenues through online advertisements and most importantly, the subscribers data. By registering with facebook, you provide key information to the advertisers, your age, gender, (city or town) demographics and interests. Advertisers use your data to generate advertisements based on your profile. Web advertising model works extremely well when the volume of viewer traffic is large or highly specialized. Although facebook claims that they firmly respects the privacy of facebook users, its hard to believe how else they would generate such extraordinary revenue each year.

Week 4

If I were to have an e-commerce site, I would choose paypal as my payment service provider.  Personally, I already have a paypal account because I purchase from ebay from time to time.  It seems that almost all of the ebay sellers choose paypal as their payment service provider, its secure, it’s fast and easy for both sellers and buyers.  Paypal’s logo is very popular among e-commerce, most buyers are very familiar with paypal, and new online buyers would trust paypal because of its logo and reputation. 

It’s very easy to set up a paypal business account, and its rates are very competitive against other payment service providers. There is no credit application to set up, no monthly fees, and sellers only pay for each online transaction.  Pay pal also works with most major credit cards, bank payments, and even third party shopping cart providers.  Paypal partners with hundreds of popular shopping cart providers to make online transactions easy and smooth for either experienced or non-experienced online buyers.  

Financial reports are part of your paypal business account, it is very easy to track every one of your online transactions, you can download logs easily onto excel spreadsheet and QuickBooks. One of the key features of paypal is fraud reduction, paypal has automatic fraud screening for each transaction, this greatly reduces the stress of online sellers against identity theft and so on. In conclusion, I would trust paypal more than other payment service providers. 

Week 3

For this week's assignment, I have decided to contact Verizon for an estimate on the internet service package for an office of 12 people. While I was browsing on Verizon's small business page, a pop up window had asked if I would like to join a live chat, and so I decided to share this conversation on the blog.

09/25/2011 - 5:28PM

Thank you for choosing Verizon Small Business.
A representative will be with you shortly. For quality control and training purposes, your session may be monitored or reviewed.

You are now chatting with Pau.

Pau: Hello!  Welcome to Verizon's Small Business Chat Service. How can I help you today?

Chin Hsin: Hi

Pau: Hi, there how may I help you?

Chin Hsin: What would you recommend for an office of 12 people

Chin Hsin: I am interested in the internet service package

Pau: May I ask are you only need Internet service?

Chin Hsin: I'm sorry, if you could include the phone as well that would be great.

Chin Hsin: We currently have comcast and looking to switch

Chin Hsin: we would like to know what verizon would offer for a small office

Pau: I see, I can check for the bundle services available.

Pau: Would that be alright?

Chin Hsin: yes thank you.

Pau: Thank you, I may need to your business address Zip code please?

Chin Hsin: 01854

Pau: One moment please.

Chin Hsin: ok

Pau: Thank you for waiting, let me send you the link for the available bundle services on your area.

Pau: Please cl;ick this link for Bundle Services.

Chin Hsin: ok

Pau: Please let me know if you can access the link.

Chin Hsin: Yes I can

Chin Hsin: this is great, it lets me compare

Chin Hsin: Thank you Pau.

Customize and Compare Bundles for Small Business 

Personally I really enjoyed this live chat, any information can be shared within seconds. Once I clicked on the link above, it gave me instant access to three different rates that Verizon offers for small businesses. It also allows me to customize my options as to what I need vs. what I want.

Week 2 assignment

Amazon:

Revenue:  up 42%

Profit:  up 71% in 2009

Forecast:  30-40% increase in 2010.