Topic Ten

We wouldn't give our credit card to a stranger on the street so why do we give it to strangers online?

1) What does this meant by the following statements?

Trust is not associative (non-symmetric)
Trust is not always equal on both sides, one party can be trusting but the other party may be deceiving.

Trust is not transitive
This means that just because someone else trusts someone doesn't mean other people will trust them. For Example: If i trust Bill and i trust Bob that doesn't mean Bill and Bob trust each other.

Trust is always between exactly 2 parties
Trust needs to involve to parties, it can not be one sided. If there is not trust from both parties then trust does not exist.

Trust will involve either direct trust or recommender trust

Direct trust is learning if you trust someone from your own experience

Recommender trust is trusting someone on the recommendation of someone else. 

2a) Have a look at the following websites. What are some of the elements that have been incorporated to increase your trust in the sites? If there are also some aspects which decrease your level of trust describe them as well.

eBay
What eBay has going for them in terms of been trusting is a strong well established brand name which is already trusted by many. What also works in eBay's favour is they work as a third party, to their clients. Therefore is a trust issue occurs it would most likely be between the two individuals rather than between eBay and a individual. eBay does offer many ways individuals can gauge how trustworthy the sellers and buyers are such as feedback history and star ratings which is easily accessible to the buyer or seller to gauge what kind of person they are buying from. eBay also uses paypal as their preferred check out system to provide extra protection to the user.

ANZ
ANZ is a well known Bank. Their website is easy to use and navigate around offering easy access to needed information. Just by looking at the website, it looks trustworthy and doesn't look at all 'dodgy'. Out of all the websites i use the one i expect full trust from is my banking website as it involves some of the most private and confidential information.

Thinkgeek

Until searching it i had never seen or heard of 'thinkgeek' nor had any family or friends which to me already meant that i didn't trust this site. Once i started having a look around the site it was very easy to navigate and i easily found what i was looking for the Privacy Statement. This offered information about how the site keeps information and ensures that there is no breach of trust such as: 

• 128-bit encryption to and from the servers and web browser.
• Credit card numbers are not stored in our database. We keep on file only the last 4 digits to verify the card that was used.

They also offered a link to biz rate (which i have never heard of) that gives a rating of what customers think of the site. After reading through some feedback majority of it was positive. Personally i don't think i would purchase from this site but i believe that it would be trustworthy enough if i was interested in their products.

PayPal

Paypal eliminates fraud by offering buyer protection, therefore paypal needs to appear as a trustworthy website. Elements on the website such as Verisign Identity Protection, Australian Financial Services Licence number and ABN been freely available on the first page immediately gains trust. It shows they have nothing to hide.

2b) Find a web site yourself that you think looks untrustworthy.

I've been looking for cheap flights over the past 4 weeks, one site i have come across is cheapflights although this site is offering the best prices i am reluctant to purchase as it seems a little to good to be true. After navigating through the page i found the privacy policy. Which states the site isn't 100% secure and they they 'try there best not to pass on your details' i don't think ill be buying from this site as they have no affiliation with large airlines, nor do they have anything that suggests they are a trustworthy site.

Topic Nine

Channel Conflict

Channel conflict is when organisations sell their products through multiple channels. Such as selling their products directly and selling them through eCommerce. This means that 2 different marketing or distribution channels are competing for the same sale.

There are three main types of channel conflict:

Horizontal conflict

Vertical conflict

Multiple conflict

Topic Eight - Online Auctions

eBay is one a site i visit often. you can buy or sell almost anythings from brand new to used goods.  

Q1: eBay is one of the only major Internet “pure plays” to consistently make a profit from its inception. What is eBay’s business model? Why has it been so successful?

eBay use a Auction Brokerage business model this model:

• Brings the buyer and seller together
• charge a fee for advertising/listing
• They act as third party providers to the buyer and seller.

You could claim that is success has come from multiple aspects of the business/website

Its simple, easy and well organised which makes it quick and easy for users, they have a good strong reputation, safe payment options like pay pal etc.

Q2: Other major web sites, like Amazon.com and Yahoo!, have entered the auction marketplace with far less success than eBay. How has eBay been able to maintain its dominant position?

eBay is a strong well positioned organisation, which is the leader in online auctions. 
I believe it has a lot to do with the fact that eBay only operate as a third party broker and don't ever handle the products themselves, where as amazon tried to sell there own stock in a auction setting. As they are the leader in the market and are always improving there site, it would be hard for another organisation to match them.

Q3: What method does eBay use to reduce the potential for fraud among traders on its site? What kinds of fraud, if any, are eBay users most susceptible?

eBay prides itself on been a safe place to buy and sell, and keeps track (to a certain degree) that goods are what they say they are. With the feedback system you can see if the person you are buying from has a good or bad feedback score, but the main tool they use to reduce fraud is by encouraging the use of PayPal which reduces the risk of been scammed.

For Example a few months ago i was bidding to purchase a LV wallet on eBay when i checked to see if i had won the item had been removed and i had a message explaining that eBay removed the item as they believed it was a fraudulent/counterfeiter item.

Q4: eBay makes every effort to conceptualize its users as a community (as opposed to, say “customers” or “clients”). What is the purpose of this conceptual twist and does eBay gain something by doing it?

eBay does this so customers feel like they are more involved in the company, that the community all work together in a mutual agreement to buy and sell goods, they bypass the fact that they are a customer of eBay and are more appealed to the thought of dealing directly with people just like them. This is a classic conceptual twist, and in the long run they gain more business and members of the community(customers).

Q5: eBay has long been a marketplace for used goods and collectibles. Today, it is increasingly a place where major businesses come to auction their wares. Why would a brand name vendor set-up shop on eBay?

I can understand why more and more business' are selling through eBay and i have purchased goods through some of my favourite brand through their eBay store. I believe this trend is coming from the popularity of online shopping, but they may not have the budget to set-up and maintain a full personalised website. eBay allows them to sell on line but only pay a small commission to list the goods.

My favourite feature about eBay is you can search for the one thing and have multiple of that item come up and you can compare prices etc.

Q6. I have a few businesses, and I have used eBay for about 12 years on and off. Currently I have about 600 books listed on eBay (seller name ozrural). I stopped selling on eBay for a few years but they changed the rules this July and it is viable again (for me). What do you think changed?

Since July 2013 is yet to come i did some research on changes made in July 2012 and could find very little that i though would have changed your mind so I'm going to pretend that the question asked about the changes in April 2013.

This April eBay introduced the seller protection program which now means sellers are offered more protection than ever before.
The new policy covers:

• Unpaid item protections
• Protections on seller feedback and ratings
• Actions sellers can take to help eBay with buyer protection case
• When and how sellers can report incidents that violate eBay policies