BUS 270

Project #1

Internet Services and

E-commerce

TR 11:00-12:15

Natasha Colby

Rebekah Curtis

Adam Losinski

Sean Jagels

Table of Contents

Executive Summary…………………………………………………………...p. 3-4

Internet Services

Search Engines: Google, Ask, Vivisimo………………………………………..p. 5

News Services: CNN, New York Times, Ens-news…………………………p. 5-6

How will internet services change the future?.....................................................p. 6

E-commerce B2C

Auction sites: Onsale, Liquidation, Ebay…………………………………….p. 7-8

Retail sites: Overstock, Shopping-Bargains, Amazon……………………….p. 8-9

Automotive sites: Edmunds, Cars, Carsmart……………………………….p. 9-10

E-commerce B2B

Covisint……………………………………………………………………p. 11-12

Predictions on B2B E-commerce……………………………………………...p. 12

References ………………………………………………………………………..p. 13

Executive Summary

Online search engines, news services, automobile sites, retail sites and auction sites were all evaluated under several different criteria. Knowing the best site to go to can save considerable time and effort in both people’s personal lives, and in the business world as well. All of the sites were evaluated on the following criteria:

• Ease of use
• Content scope
• Customer service
• Exclusiveness
• Usefulness

Search engines can be enormously helpful to anyone on the internet and they continue to improve every. Google.com, Ask.com, and Visvimo.com were compared according to the criteria listed above. Due to the fact that Google.com was the leader in content scope and customer service they came out on top of the ratings. Google.com’s place at the top of the list was further reinforced because of the wide variety of services they provide, and exclusive products that one can use on the company’s intranet. The three websites were close, but Google.com was the clear leader.

Three news services were evaluated; cnn.com, nytimes.com and ens-news.com. The ratings on the three sites were close, but cnn.com came out as the winner. Cnn.com offers vast links and articles pertaining to many different topics. Their customer service, as well as the websites usefulness rated higher than it’s competitors. Also cnn.com had an option to use the Yahoo.com search engine without having to leave cnn.com’s website. The biggest reason cnn.com came in first was because they offered news articles on many more topics than the other two sites.

Online auction websites have revolutionized the way people buy and sell goods. They have made both common and rare items dramatically easier to find. The three websites Onsale.com, Liquidation.com, and Ebay.com were evaluated. Ebay.com came out as the clear winner over it’s two other competitors. On Ebay.com there is no minimum price for an item up for auction, and one can search the site without actually having an account. Also Ebay.com’s customer service is far better than Onsale.com and Liquidation.com.

Retail websites have made it extremely convenient to purchase products over the internet. All one has to do is navigate through a few web pages and in a day or two that product is on your doorstep. Overstock.com, Shoping-Bargains.com and Amazon.com were compared. Due to their reasonable prices and wide range of products, Overstock.com took the top place. They also have an extremely good privacy statement; one that has the BBBOnline seal of authorization.

Automobile websites has made buying or selling a used car easier than ever before. Anyone who is in the market to buy or sell a car would be wise to research an automobile site before making a purchase decision. Edmunds.com, Cars.com, and Carsmart.com were compared with one another. Edmunds.com came out as the clear winner. Their customer service, privacy policy, and exclusive content all rated very strong. They also have extensive information on any topic one could think of when it comes to buying or selling a car.

The supplier, partners, and customers all being in sync is more important then ever in today’s “on demand” world. When it comes to integrating the information between those three parties, Covisint is the answer. Covisint uses state of the art technologies to send information between the three parties with ease. Using Covisint’s system allows you to send information faster, reduce the overall cost associated with sending information, and allow for greater customer satisfaction.

B2B e-commerce is sure to have a positive future, similar to the way B2C e-commerce has. B2B e-commerce makes things easier for both suppliers and distributors. Using B2B e-commerce is much faster then physically going out and find the products one’s business needs to operate.

Internet Services

Search Engines

Googl.com, Ask.com, Vivisimo.com

After these three search engines were explored and investigated thoroughly, they were graded according to the following criteria from a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best possible score.

All of the websites were very easy to navigate and tied for ease of use. Google was definitely the leader in content scope, and offered a wide variety of services including translating other web pages into different languages and taking requests for information from cell phones. Vivisimo.com and Ask.com came in second, but both offered quite a range of contents such as news, media, and shopping. Google also won first place for customer service with its many help and feedback options. Ask.com and Vivisimo.com also had help and navigating links to their websites, but not as often or as easy to find as Google. Google and Vivisimo.com both offered exclusive products to be used in a company’s intranet that would work as a search engine through that company’s databases, but didn’t offer any other membership perks. Ask.com, on the other hand, offered memberships that included book-marking web pages, allowing uploads of images onto the net, and more storage. All three websites were extremely useful, but Google and Ask rated slightly higher because of the wider variety of sources they provide.

Website	Ease of Use	Content Scope	Customer Service	Exclusiveness	Usefulness
www.google.com	5	5	5	4	5
www.ask.com	5	4	4	4	5
www.vivisimo.com	5	4	4	4	4

News Services

Cnn.com, Nytimes.com, Ens-news.com

When comparing www.cnn.com, www.nytimes.com, and www.ens-news.com, they all seemed relatively simple to use and explore. CNN offers vast links and articles related to a variety of different news interests, such as sports, or international business concerns, and are also affiliated with Yahoo and to allow searches on the web and on CNN's website. The New York Times also contains a broad spectrum of news interests, but also contains many articles and features pertaining to the city and more personal life, for example, wedding listings and obituaries. Ens-news.com is a site that is centered on environmental news and issues. All of the websites gave relatively good customer service with links to contact their staff and help options. CNN and The New York Times also allowed internet users to view their sites in different languages. CNN and New York Times provide full access to their news articles and even videos, and membership just included options such as "CNN to-go", newsletters, and links to sites such as Sports Illustrated and Marketwatch. Ens-news also allowed access to articles but their membership provided exclusive newsletters with topics or your choice, and advertising options for businesses. All of these sites can prove to be extremely useful to any internet user, although they provide different perks and would be more useful to different people, for example, CNN provides more of a global outlook on news, for those who want the big picture, New York Times would be more beneficial to those who actually live in New York, and Ens-news would be extremely useful to those who are concerned with the environment.

Website	Ease of Use	Content Scope	Customer Service	Exclusiveness	Usefulness
www.cnn.com	5	5	5	5	5
www.nytimes.com	5	4	4	4	4
www.ens-news.com	5	3	4	3	3

Prediction:

Internet services have proven to be extremely useful and powerful tools for most people and businesses alike. However, as time goes on, the need to be bigger and better will expand these services to newer and greater heights, with the growing use of media such as video, images, and sound, greater customer service, and more links to vast amounts of information. Internet users can now shop online, pay bills, monitor their banking accounts and investments, saving time and money. Businesses have also turned to the internet and are profiting from applying search engines, such as Google, to their intranets, advertising online, making purchases, and selling their products without the hassle of paperwork or selling time.

According to “The Experts Survey” (2005), provided by Elon University and the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the majority of experts who were surveyed predicted that the internet and its services would provide greater “ease and convenience” for businesses to access information, and that this could lead to greater business and government surveillance. They also believed that the greatest change would occur in the news and publishing world of the internet, as well as in schools and the workplace. Many of these experts believe that the “always-on internet combined with computers talking to computers will be a more profound transformation of society than what we’ve seen so far.”

No matter how the internet progresses, one thing is certain, it is fast becoming essential in any home, school, or business.

E-Commerce B2C

Auction Sites

OnSale.com, Liquidation.com, Ebay.com

OnSale.com is a pretty straight forward website. What you see is what you get. On OnSale.com you can purchase just about anything electronic that you could think of, but that is as far as OnSale.com will get you. They offer nothing that doesn’t involve electricity or batteries. Though you can buy hard to find ink cartridges from OnSale.com. The privacy policy for OnSale.com is pretty thorough. They even have a little index to take you to the issue you may want to read about.

If you make a lot of money you may want to check out Liquidation.com. If you do not – then Liquidation.com is not the website for you. All auctions on Liquidation.com start at $100. Now, you if you are planning on buying an item in bulk or the item you are buying is normally above $100 Liquidation.com is a great site to use. For the most part though, when people buy things online its either little things that you would only need one of, or it is something that would cost below $100. As far as the website itself goes, it is a little confusing to newcomers to navigate. The privacy policy is very good and is reviewed by Trust*e.

Ebay.com is probably the most popular of the three auction sites, and for good reason. On Ebay.com you can find just about anything – common, rare, or just plain odd. There is no set price that Ebay.com automatically starts you off with. Prices are started by the sellers, and then just go up from there depending on how many people bid on that item. As with Liquidation.com, Ebay.com is also reviewed by Trust*e. You can search the site without having an account, but you cannot bid on anything unless you are registered with Ebay.com. It is a little hard to get a hold of Ebay.com, but once you do their customer service is awesome. Many times they get back to you the same day. Overall, Ebay.com is ranked #1 in this research.

Retail Sites

Overstock.com, Shopping-Bargains.com, Amazon.com

Overstock.com has a wide range of products for sale. Their prices tend to be very reasonable as well. Shipping and handling is awesome at Overstock.com. The privacy statement covers just about anything you could ever think of and Overstock.com has the BBBOnline seal of authorization. BBBOnline stands for the Better Business Bureau Online. You really can’t get any better reassurance than the BBB. The only real problem with Overstock.com is that it is very hard to find any way to contact them. Overstock.com ranked #1 in this research, but only by a hair.

Shopping-Bargains.com is an interesting website. It is entirely coupons. It is ways to save money, for example: vacations packages on sale, coupons for JCPenney’s, and links to clearance sites of other businesses. The content of Shopping_Bargains.com is pretty good. The privacy policy is very short at Shopping-Bargains.com. Keep in mind though that you do not actually buy anything from their site. . . They link you to other businesses sites and that is where you would need a good privacy policy. The privacy policy is very adequate for their purpose.

Amazon.com has a little wider variety of items that Overstock.com. The prices are about average (the same as if you went to a store to buy). The privacy policy is pretty good. Nothing special about it, but they promise to protect your information. It is hard to find contact information for Amazon.com also. They offer helpful suggestions, but good luck finding a phone number or address.

Automotive Sites

Edmunds.com, Cars.com, Carsmart.com

Edmunds.com is an awesome site. They have just about anything you could EVER think of when it comes to buying or selling a car. Edmunds.com has a very good privacy policy and is reviewed by Trust*e. There is an awesome customer service section at Edmunds.com, and even a page with helpful tips and advice for selling or buying a car. It is very hard to find any sort of contact information for Edmunds.com though. You also can register with Edmunds.com and get even more benefits from this awesome site. Edmunds.com is rated #1 in the automotive sites research.

Let’s start off with the worst thing about Cars.com – it is not exclusive at all. You cannot register with them; everyone is entitled to the same benefits of the site. There is a good amount of content, but it could be better. They do have a good advice section, and Kelly Blue Book is available from Cars.com. The privacy policy is not great, but it is not bad either. Though, considering the fact that you are not actually buying a car from Cars.com there may not be a need for a great privacy policy.

The best thing about Carsmart.com is the privacy policy. Carsmart.com is reviewed by Trust*e. There is also a very good amount of content at Carsmart.com. You can find most any car that you would want to look for. The exclusiveness of Carsmart.com is very good also. They offer a good variety of other services and features to registered users. The layout of Carsmart.com is kind of boring and bare. It is almost like the page is too big for the content. Lastly, the ease of use of Carsmart.com is not very high. It takes a little bit to get the hang out how to use the site; in other words – it is a bit confusing.

E-Commerce B2B

Covisint

Covisint is the answer when it comes to the integration of business information between the supplier, partner, and customers. They use state of the art technology to send the information between parties with ease. Even if there are different business systems in use Covisint provides the answer by automatically switching formats between each individual system. Using Covisint’s system will allow you to send information faster, reduce the overall cost associated transferring information, and allow for faster customer satisfaction. Covisint’s main system is called the “Industry Operating System”.

The Industry Operating System is constructed of three parts. First is Covisint Identity Management. This provides security when external partners go to access information from you via the Internet, applications, and other systems. This diagram shows an overview of the service.

The next part of the system is called Covisint Connect which allows for easy routing of documents and well as fast delivery services. It is really cost effective because it will transfer any document into any format you choose. It also handles both EDI and XML technologies.

Below is the basic structure of Covisint Connect.

The third and final portion of Covisint System is the Covisint Communicate. This allows for really easy communication between all of the suppliers, partners, and customers. This really makes receiving quotes, ordering parts, accessing any other business information really easy, it provides it all right at your finger tips.

This is the basic structure of Covisint Communicate.

The service provided by Covisint is one which would provide the automobile industry with faster more reliable service. A good example of someone who could really benefit from this product would be an automobile supplier. One who receives many parts and assembles them to make the car and then sends the car to the lot. Any increase in the amount of parts needed for next delivery would arrive almost instantly. If several car lots in the Detroit area needed more cars it would automatically go to the assembly plant, to the parts dealers, and to the material suppliers. Everyone would know instantly. This provides no additional wait for any of the partners. Everyone would get everything they needed exactly when they needed it, whether it be and increase or decrease in production. As competitive as the automobile industry is this would provide a huge advantage for anyone who implemented it.

Predictions on B2B e-commerce

B2B e-commerce is likely to have a positive future. Even though there have been some bumps in the road with the dot com busts some have survived. They survived by tailoring their business to the needs of the customer. In Business Week there was an article called “A Behind the Scenes E-commerce Power”. It was mainly about a company called GSI and how it with stood the bust. Moving away from the Amazon bring people together idea GSI tailored itself to the company it represents. They mentioned the way that a Toys R Us website basically looks like an Amazon website and when you purchase a toy it arrives in an Amazon box. The future lies with being able to represent your clients to the customers without having your name plastered everywhere. With out a doubt business online is the future. It is so much faster and easier then actually having to go out and find the things that you need whether it be for your business or home.

References

 Pew Internet & American Life Project, (2005) The Future of the Internet 
 (Electronic Version) Retrieved September 15, 2005, from 
 http://www.elon.edu/predictions/2004_experts_survey.pdf

Search engines and news services, Internet Service Predictions: Rebekah Curtis
Discount Retail and Auctions and Automobiles: Natasha Colby
Extranets and B2B Predictions: Adam Losinski
Executive Summary, Table of Contents, and Report Assembly: Sean Jagels

Project One Individual Assessments

Overall, I thought that project one was a good project. I enjoy working in teams, and I felt that everyone on my team did their fair share of work, which made things run smoothly. I was responsible for righting the executive summary as well as putting the whole report together. To be honest, my job was much more time consuming than I anticipated it would be. I wouldn’t mind having this job again, but I would plan more time then I allowed myself this time. ~ Sean Jagels

I thought that this project was a really interesting and informative one, and that there was definitely value to doing it. The internet is so closely connected with the future of so many aspects of life and business in general, I feel that a project like this can only be beneficiary to me. Although I’ve used internet services before, I have never really explored or compared them like I did in this project, and it was interesting to me how much more they really have to offer than I originally thought. Overall, I feel that this team project went really well, and know that I learned more about the subjects. ~ Rebekah Curtis

I wrote the B2B e-commerce section dealing with Covisint and the future of B2B e-commerce. It was a good overall learning experience for me because I didn’t really know much about the software and systems used by such businesses. It’s really interesting to know that the systems offered by Covisint can easily switch from one format to another, it makes communicating with other companies really easy, even if they don’t have the same systems. ~ Adam Losinski

I honestly think that Project One was a very good research project. I necessarily did not learn a ton because 2 of the 3 subjects that I covered I already had first hand experience with. I did however learn about car websites. I am actually in the process of looking for a new car and I now know that Edmunds.com is the best car – site to use to find a good car, or get buying advice. I think the whole project was very good. ~ Natasha Colby