Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce , consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet or other computer networks. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown rapidly with the widespread Internet usage all over the world. Modern e-commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although it can encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail as well.
A large proportion of e-commerce is conducted entirely electronically for virtual items such as access to premium content on a website, but most e-commerce involves the transportation of physical items too. Almost all big retailers have e-commerce presence on the World Wide Web. E-commerce that is conducted between businesses is referred to as business-to-business or B2B. B2B can be open to all interested parties (e.g. commodity exchange) or limited to specific, pre-qualified participants (private electronic market). While e-commerce that is conducted between businesses and consumers, is referred to as business-to-consumer or B2C. This is the type of electronic commerce conducted by companies such as Amazon.com, ebay.com, etc.
E-commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of the business transactions.
Purpose
For this mini-research project, we are going to be looking at how an e-commerce transaction broker website (agoda.com) operates.
We will be covering on the introduction of agoda.com, its design, the strengths and weaknesses and finally the security and privacy of agoda.com
Introduction to Agoda.com
Thousands of travel partners and websites have chosen Agoda to provide hotel bookings for their customers because they are always accountable, reachable and connected. They negotiate personally and directly with hotels to ensure the best possible value, and then use the latest technology to deliver these bargains to our customers.
Business to Business Model (B2B)
Agoda uses this model with both hotels (suppliers) and their affiliate partners. Agoda uses extranet system to provide the hotels (suppliers) with real-time access to manage rates, availability and promotions to maximize yield. Through this, Agoda also gain competitve advantage as they're able to communicate with its suppliers more efficiently. Further more, the hotels are advertised on all its affiliate websites, for increased awareness, bookings and traffic via Agoda's powerful global network. As Agoda act as a Transaction Broker, they receive commissions from their existing suppliers for every successful payment made through its website.
In addition, Agoda is further able to reduce cost and maximize their revenue through its Hotel Affiliate Program. The partners will market the Agoda's products and services in return for commissions earned. The partners are to sign an agreement in which the partners will accept all of the pricing, distribution and reservation policies and procedures as carried out by Agoda.
- Business to Customer Model (B2C)
Design
Agoda.com has a very straightfoward website where it makes booking of hotels much easier for consumers. Its simple yet attractive web design is very user-friendly and systematic.
The home page of agoda.com consist of the search section for customers to look for hotels at their choice of country. It also shows the top asia destinations to assist consumers who are unsure of which city to visit. At the bottom of the web, it even shows the different countries' hotels which are catergorized into the different continents. This further reinforces that it is a very organised and systematic website.
Bottom of the web
Homepage of agoda.com
Steps to booking a hotel room
Strengths
1. Rewards program
Agoda has a reward program which started in 2004 where members can save even further. It allows customers to earn points automatically, beginning with their first reservation. These points can be used across the site for thousands of hotels, freeing customers from brand-specific loyalty programs and blackout dates.
2. Customer driven
Agoda provides 24/7 multi-lingual (21 languages) customer service meaning that help is provided quickly to customers.
Also, Agoda negotiates personally and directly with hotels to ensure the best possible value, and then use the latest technology to deliver these bargains to our customers.
3. Reviews
Agoda also provides the reviews of the hotels that are made available for booking to customers to allow an unbiased and factual viewpoint .
The reviews also help Agoda to rank the hotels so that customers are give the best choices.
4. Efficiency
Lastly, Agoda has the ability to respond to customer's booking quicker than its competitors. Usually, its competitors would require at least a few hours or up to a day because of the time zone differences to find out if a room is available. Agoda's reservation systems are always up to date with the latest deals, special prices and of course instant room availability.
Weaknesses
1. Best price NOT guaranteed
Several customers of Agoda have written in online forums that prices which are reflected on Agoda website might not necessary be cheaper than booking through the direct sales of the hotel. Although Agoda did offer refunds in some cases, customers have already lost confidence in the website as the customer's interest was not taken into consideration.
2. Poor Customer Service
Although Agoda promises 24/7 multi-lingual customer service, customers have written in reviews that there was no support for French or Spanish. Furthermore, there were cases where booking had been confirmed by Agoda yet customers were told that the reservation had not gone through at the hotel involved. Customers were not able to contact Agoda directly as their live agent was down or customers had to wait for email replies from Agoda.
Security
Agoda.com 's security is under VeriSign.com where it provides them with secure server software (SSL) which is the industry standard and is one of the best software available today for secure e-commerce transactions.
It encrypts all of customer’s personal information, including credit card number, name, and address so that it cannot be read as the information travels over the Internet.
Agoda.com understand and respect the importance of customer’s privacy. It is their policy that personal information is to be kept private and confidential.
To prevent unauthorized access, Agoda.com maintain reasonable physical, electronic and organizational procedures to protect Personal Data against accidental or unlawful destruction or accidental loss, alteration, or unauthorized disclosure or access. To protect credit card transactions, Agoda.com currently uses Secure Socket Layer technology to encrypt credit card information during transit.
