Topic 6 - Digital Markets

Question 1

A)  What experiences have you had with shopping online?

I have had mostly positive online shopping experiences, to be honest I have only had 1 negative online shopping experience.

B)  Describe a good experience.

I have had many good experiences shopping online, one such experience was while shopping in a site called All the Deals, I purchased a family holiday.

C) What did you like about the online store you used? 

The site's response was fast and efficient. I received an email confirmation within an hour of purchasing the holiday. The product was presented in a realistic and honest way, and all information was shared prior to purchase.

D) Describe a bad experience.

Unfortunately I cant remember the website name, but it was an American based shop that offers Japanese products. I ordered a Japanese scroll with Kanji writing on it.

E) What problems did you have with the online store?

The scroll I ordered never reached me, I sent an email to the store asking if I can get an update on my purchase and I never received a reply. I sent another email a month after the first requesting a refund and again I did not receive a reply.

F) What features make an online store more appealing?

I prefer a clean look, I dont want to struggle to understand what I need to do to go from one page to another. No music or videos should start playing when the webpage load. Security is a big part of making a website appealing. Contact details need to be listed as well as a physical address. I prefer sites that offers purchase through PayPal, I am not a fan of entering credit card details.

G) What features make an online store less appealing? 

Cluttered design, does not follow IEEE security standards, misrepresentation of products.

H) Should we expect to see the prices of goods and services rise or fall due to the migration of consumers online?

Yes I believe prices will rise. More and more shopping will be done online but businesses will still need to have a physical shop. Since more revenue will be created online it might need to cover losses incurred offline.

Question 2

A) The dispersion of prices (that is, the spread between the lowest and highest price for a particular product) will narrow.

I believe this to be true, companies will become more competitive and therefore the spread between the highest and lowest prices will narrow.

B) The importance of brand names will decrease.

I am not sure this is true, I think that brand names to the average population have already decreased. Brand names like Armani, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Ferrari, etc. will not become more or less popular because of its availability but more because of it is not easily obtainable and online shopping will not make it more obtainable.

C) Price competition will make all products cheaper.

Yes I agree increased competition will lower prices.

D) Digital markets will become dominated by a handful of mega-sites, like Amazon.com. 

No I dont agree, it is easier to set up an online business, you need less capital to start off. I believe a lot of smaller online shops will start up.

E) How do you think the balance of power between buyer’s and seller’s will change?

If I am correct in the point made above (question 2  D) the power will be in the seller's hands. Since there will be so many online options available to choose from sellers will have to drop prices in order to stay competitive.

F) Prices are clustered online.

G) Online prices are elastic. ( i.e. immune to change up and down with demand)

No I don't agree, I think agree with an article in the Business Insider prices will fluctuate more often in order to compete with websites like eBay and Amazon.

H) Online prices are generally transparent (the extent to which prices for a given product or service are known by buyers in the marketplace.).

Yes I agree, although this might change in the future because of expected growth of online shopping. The shipping charges might not be included in the displayed price but I believe most shoppers will be aware of this.

Question 3

A) What types of m-commerce services does your cell phone provider offer?

The only m-commerce service I use is internet banking. My service provider does not offer any extra services but there are many applications available for my phone. My service provider does provide me with one gigabyte of internet usage, which I use for internet banking.

B) Which of these services do you use?

I use internet banking.

C) What types of transactions do you perform through your cell phone or other wireless device?

Phone:

Internet Banking

Other:

eBay
Audible

Amazon

D) What types of transactions would you like to perform, but are currently unable to?

None

E) What is your opinion of wireless advertising/mobile marketing

I think it allows you to reach a much wider audience.