1. ELECTRONIC COMMERCE Potential roles of e-commerce Obstacles to growth
Legal issues
Web site design and problems
Consumer cyber behavior

2. Potential Roles of e-commerce
Actual online sales (e.g., Amazon.com)
Promotion/ advertising
Banners, cross-references
reference in print ads
Customer service--info, support
Market research

3. Obstacles to Growth of Electronic Commerce
Limited reach
U.S.
Foreign (per minute access charges)
Concerns about
privacy
security
Reputational issues
Slow entry of firms into actual order processing
Transshipment across countries
Technical
Limitations and “glitches”
Slow access
Costs
Efficiency
Absolute margins
Language
Non-English
U.S. vs. British English
Government regulations
Cultural

4. Cultural Obstacles Preference for face-to-face transactions
Preference for secrecy
Reluctance to use credit cards--80% of Chinese consumers completed the transaction off-line

5. Web Site Problems
Getting traffic to your firm (and not to someone else)
Ownership of domain name
Indexing in search engines
listing of site
deliberate “false positives” for competitors (misleading meta tags)
Incompatibility of browsers
Managing the site
Updating
Response (it is much easier to complain online!)
Implementing electronic shopping

6. Legal Issues Jurisdiction--applying local laws to a global medium
Inter-country sales tax/duty collection
Reach of the Internet: whose laws apply?
Advertising messages
Product assortment
Privacy laws--restrictions on data that can be collected on customers
Tax collection: is the sender or recipient liable? (High shipment volumes allow only for random customs searches)

7. Language Issues
Increasing proportion of non-English speaking Net users
“Drawing” of Asian pictorals--download time
Language variations
Taiwanese vs. mainland Chinese
British vs. American English--is the word “color” an Americanization or misspelling?
Regional variations in word meanings--less opportunity for tuning advertising to local meanings
At least pronoun-
ciation is not so much
of an issue on the Web!

8. Optimal Web Site Design
Speed vs. aesthetics (may be temporary problem)
Keeping customers on your site--beware of links
Cookies--advantages and disadvantages

9. Consumer Cyber Behavior
Easy comparison shopping
Between merchants
Between countries
Low willingness to pay--especially for information
Premature departure from site

10. Search Engine Optimization
“Cat and mouse game” between webmasters and search engines
Some placement strategies
Paid rankings
Massive amounts of text
Reciprocal or paid links