Commerce

Online Stores
for this section I will be doing the activity on looking at an online store and explaining what happens and the advantages and disadvantages of online shopping. This is mainly when business' set up websites to sell their product with special payment processes, for example eBay uses paypal. The webpage is usually filled with pictures and descriptions of the products that are available in store. Most online stores have a processing unit where the shopper transfers the product they wish to purchase to a virtual shopping basket or trolley, which is then transferred to the payment area of the website when the customer has finished shopping this, will manage payment and delivery. The activity I shall be doing for this will be Activity 12. I am going to investigate eBay and how it works and talk about the benefits and limitations of people shopping on eBay. The main purpose of eBay is to buy and sell products using auctioning to try and buy retail products for cheaper than what you can buy them for on the high street. the selling aspect is targeted at people who want to make money but also is advertised at people who want to sell quality products at quality prices, I wouldn't recommend eBay for persons under the age of 12/13 as younger children aren't really interested in buying or selling products at that age as they have parents. The auction process off eBay; As a member of eBay you would set up a product to sell for example a pair of shoes, you will work out a minimum price you want to sell the shoes for and input this into the auction so that if by the time the deadline has been met the minimum price hasn’t the shoes won't be sold, you will set a date for the action to end i.e. auction starts 22/09/06 and ends 29/09/06 so that the buyer knows when to how long they have got to keep bidding and then the buyer who ends with the highest bid will win the product. The seller will also give a brief description of the product to explain what it does and give a condition it is in so the buyer knows whether it is worth buying or not. The benefits of using eBay are that you can buy brand new in store products for cheaper than RRP on eBay and it is easier to get a good description of the product and you can email and ask the seller about the products before being sure that you want to buy the product. The limitations of using eBay are you my get ripped off is someone is good at lying which is why the buyer must always check the feedback that has been given to the seller from previous buyers.

Online banking

online banking services are a logical extension of the automated branch systems that banks brought in from the 1970's to the 1990's, they now use the internet to allow customers to access their account from home rather than having to go out of your home to get to a bank to talk to the bank clerk himself. The only other major technology that was required was internet access with encrypted security. It was very important that only the bank and the customer could access their own account and nobody else's by accident. Further more banks are finding it a lot easier now to access their bank balance now because of the high rate of technology and so they can also make a payment at any time of day and night. The use of technology has also opened services such as offset mortgages, credit card links to accounts so that money can be made immediately. clearly this is so overheads can be reduced where fewer assistants are required and also if high street branches are not required.