M1- How organisations use e-commerce to promote their business

Search engine optimization, meta tags, search results listing-  Search engine optimization is all about getting in the top listing on search results using Google, Bing or Yahoo. Organizations can pay for this option and a company will work out all the algorithms for each search engine and how they calculate your place in the result listings, by optimizing these factors the rank of the company will increase over time. An organization would use this e-commerce in order to promote their business because more people will use the link to the website if it is on the first page of results as a lot of people don’t want to go looking any further than the first page. Meta Tags are also used for Search engine optimization they are key words that are used within a HTML or URL and it is what the search engine will look for when you have typed in.  These tags also help to categorize the information that the website includes. These Meta Tags would be used by a company to promote their business by using words in there URLs that they know most people search for most when looking for an e-commerce business. This will promote their business by getting them on the first few pages of the results. Search results listing is where the results of a search are shown. If a company is low down in this listing then people won’t go looking that far down the listings therefore they won’t be as successful as some of the business’ that are higher up in the listings. So basically the higher up in the listings a company is then the more views and the more success they will get. They use this to improve the chances of people looking at their website. To relate this to a chocolate company then one of the Meta tags for the company would probably be ‘Chocolate’ so there for if the searcher typed in ‘Chocolate Company’ then the company with either of them words in the URL or HTML would come up at some stage in the first page or so of listings. The picture above shows that when somebody types in google "Cadburys" then because this is in the URL then it is used as a Meta Tag.

 

Pop ups- Pop ups are windows that open up when you access a certain website. When these pop up they are usually advertisements. A company will have to pay a website for them to be able to allow them to show a pop up. A company will use these pop ups to show maybe a preview of their websites or maybe showing their special offers at a time. The prime place a company would place a Pop up would be on a bigger, more visited website; this will widen the range of people looking at the Pop up. This would help promote their business because it will give people a chance to see some of the things they actually have to offer. To relate this to a chocolate company then they if they were to make a pop up they would probably put on it the special different types of chocolates they sell and then if they have any offers on at the time the pop up was active then they would probably include information on them, this will promote its products bringing it more customers and making the company more income.

Banners and Advertising- Sometimes websites leave spaces on their web design in order to allow space for companies wanting to advertise something. If asked the website will allow a certain section of the website to be filled with a company’s web banner or advertisement, but the company wanting the space will have to pay to be able to be allocated the space. The more money you pay the more room you will be given to advertise your business. Some of the banners that the company decides to include use Meta tags and advertisements will come up which relate to recently visited websites. Companies will use this type of e-commerce to promote their company by using it to show what their offers are and the link to their website and contact details so if people are interested they can click on the banner and have a look at the website, therefore widening the range of customers they will be getting. In relation to a chocolate company they could put in their banner the latest offers or deals and they could link the banner to their website, which will then make people want to visit it and it will then promote it and get more business. This picture shows a banner that is used to adveritise on websites. This uses the name of the company so people know what it is being advertised.

 

Spam- Spam mail is a type of main a company will just send out to nobody in particular in order to get people visiting their website. When sending the Spam mail there is no target reader intended. The companies will pay another e-mail company a certain amount of money and in exchange the company will get a list of several e-mail address’ and these address’ will then be used to send the spam mail. Not all spam mail is rubbish mail and sometimes may actually be something that you are looking for. So companies use this to promote themselves because people will hopefully look at them and go on their website and have a closer look and might then use the company for whatever need they may have. A chocolate company could send around a Spam e-mail with the latest offers and deals and also things that they think would be more of a selling point.

Websites being accessible­- Websites have to be easily accessible by all different types of people with different abilities. If a website isn’t accessible then people won’t be able to get on it or won’t be able to navigate it so they won’t be able to find what they are trying to and they won’t be able to see what the website actually has to offer. A company will promote their business by making it more accessible because the people will be able to get around the website finding what they want to and also see what the company has to offer, increasing its income. This would relate to a chocolate company because by making their website accessible and easy to get around then people will spend more time on it widening their chances of making sales and also the customer would maybe recommend it to a friend which is then giving the website more of a fan base, therefore promoting it. This picture shows how easy it actually is to be able to access the Cadburys website and how to navigate it.

P2 - Impact of E-Commerce

Advantages

24/7 Opening- Because an E-Commerce business is all online it can be open all the time. This is because they don’t constantly need people working to sell the products and maintain the website. This is an advantage to a chocolate company because then the company can have more time to make money. Compared to a shop, websites don’t have business hours. So, overall it is an advantage to the company as they make more money than what they would if they were just a normal high-street store.

Global business opportunities-This is an advantage to a chocolate company because it widens the range of people that they can sell things too. They aren’t confined to one section of a country. This again will make them more money as they can have more people accessing the website and then buying their products. With the company going global this also may mean that other companies that are interested in what they are selling can show their interest and maybe take shares out in the company which will make it expand and again, bring in more money.

Starting up and running costs are low- The reason starting up costs are so low is because all the business would have to pay for is the domain name and also pay for someone that can help with the design of the website. After that they don’t really have to pay for anything else, where as a shop would have to pay massive amounts of rent and massive amounts of money for other things. Another reason why the running costs are low is because the company won’t have to pay labour costs to their employees because a business on the internet can be run by one or two people. Again this helps with the amount of income and the amount of profit they are making.  So this is an advantage to a chocolate company because it increases profit and also prevents massive amounts of loss in profit.

Ease of access by customers- Most people in the world now will have a computer with internet connection. This makes it a lot more convenient for people to access a website and buy what they need rather than going to the shop and getting it. If it is easy to access the website it will make the customers want to keep coming back and buying things of the company therefore again making the business more money. So the advantage for a chocolate company because it’s  for customers to access is that it will make the company more and more money.

Increased Income- This is a big advantage to a company because this is what every company will aim for. The whole point of a company being a company is to earn money and increase the amount of money they make per year. This is an advantage because the more money you make the better. All the advantages above help the chocolate company increase income because they make the whole process of shopping online easier and more convenient.

Disadvantages

Customers aren’t able to see the products­-All the customers are able to see a picture of the products but they sometimes might not be the exact same as the actual product. Also if there aren’t any sizes put on the webpage then the customer won’t be able to see the size of the product just by looking at the picture. This is a disadvantage to a chocolate company because the customer may be fussy on like the type of chocolate there getting and the quality and they also wouldn’t know what size the bar is, so this might make people think twice about buying it.

Delivery Costs- As well as paying for the actual product people that buy online have to pay the postage and packaging and the delivery costs. Therefore this is a disadvantage as they have to pay a bit more for them to be able to actually get the product. Unlike when you go to the shop you only have to pay for the actual product. This would be a disadvantage to a chocolate company because people won’t want to buy the product if there is a high delivery cost therefore reducing how much money the company would make.

Customers are unsure whether to trust the business- Because on a website a lot of people can’t tell whether or not they trust a business then they just have to go with what they think is best. This is a disadvantage to a chocolate company because if their website doesn’t look trust-worthy enough then people won’t want to purchase anything from the business therefore it will lower the income that the business usually receives.

Security-There are big security risks with buying products off a website, people don’t like doing it because they feel like someone will be able to get their bank details and hack their bank accounts taking all their money. This means companies most of the time use PayPal to ensure people that the payments they make will be safe. This is a disadvantage to a chocolate company because if people don’t think the website is secure then again they won’t buy from the company losing the company money. 

Lack of personal attention- People don’t spend as much time paying attention to buying things online because they think everything’s there for you. This means they might make a mistake and it is a disadvantage to the chocolate company because they might lose their money and also the company could be blamed for fraud which then gives the company a bad reputation.