Phishing: Examples and prevention methods

To the point, phishing refers to the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft such as usernames, passwords and credit card details. Before mid-2003, most phishing scams arrived in text-heavy e-mails. They were widespread with spelling errors and poor grammar that tipped recipients off. In September 2003, an e-mail fraudster registers dozens of lookalike domain names, such as yahoo-billing.com and ebay-fulfillment.com. They also create Web sites that contain the names of well-known companies and brands like microsoft.checkinfo.com.

For example:
1. Amcore Bank

2. Pay Pal

3. Amazon.com


4. Citizen Bank
There are some methods to prevent Phishing:
1. Never open an email link, if it claims to be from a bank, or credit card company. Visit the website by logging on to it yourself or simply call to see if indeed the email was sent by the company.

2. Be cautious about opening any attachment or downloading any files from emails you received, regardless of who sent them.

3. Don’t provide any answer if you get calls over the telephone claiming that its from your bank or some other agency and they are trying to get your information. Don't give it out even if you have caller id.

4. Protect your computer from spyware and viruses. Spyware programs can collect many different types of personal information about you like passwords and credit card numbers. Always use firewall, virus and spyware protection software and must update regularly.

5. Change your passwords monthly. It is advise to change your password at least once a month and try to select passwords that will not be obvious to potential hackers.

6. If you get an email or pop-up message that asks for personal or financial information, do not reply or click on the link in the message.

7. Don’t email personal or financial information. Email is not a secure method of transmitting personal information.

8. Review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them to determine whether there are any unauthorized charges. If your statement is late by more than a couple of days, call your credit card company or bank to confirm your billing address and account balances

References:

1. http://www.fairwinds.org/security/Types/fraud_phish.asp

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing

3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59350-2004Nov18.html

How e-commerce reduce Cycle Time, improve Employees' Empowerment and facilitate Customer Support

E-commerce may not revolutionize the petroleum industry. But it's already changing the way the industry does busines.....

Cycle Time

My fellow friends, just want to let u know that cycle time is the amount of time between customer placing an order and receiving the goods and for a business to complete a productivity activity from the beginning to end or in short, it reduce time-to-market.

A properly enabled eCommerce system will reduce labour time and cost in document preparation, error detection and correction, mail preparation, telephone calling, data entry, overtime, and supervision expenses. For examples, documents such as invoices are processed electronically and error-free, minimizing processing time and the number of staff required. Indirectly, e-commerce will decreae carrying costs and shrinkage costs, improve cash flow and increase competitive advantage.

E-commerce also cut down the normal sourcing cycle. I heard one of my friends said Alibaba.com has become the number one destination for sourcing professionals and entrepreneurs because it cut the sourcing cycle the by 75 percent, according to a new survey released at MAGIC 2006.

Customer support

Customer Support is one of the parameters of customer satisfaction. Having this type of feedback is essential to continuously improving operations as customer loyalty is a high priority for a firm.

One example of application of e-commerce that can increase customer support is supply chain management (SCM).SCM has been popular operations strategy focuses on the integration of suppliers and customers to achieve an integrated value chain with the help of information technologies and systems. It provides superb customer services by facilitating customization where customizes products/services are produced with virtual organizations and exchanged using e-commerce. The aim of the supply chain management is to reduce order cycle time, reduce cost and expedite the fulfilment process to the satisfaction of the customer.

Recently, I have visited a website which started with core products, Storebox, customized to meet the specific business requirements of the respective companies such as Telus mobility and Card Island. E-Commerce enables your firm to penetrate new markets or find new suppliers and favourably affect your payment terms and agreements with customers and suppliers. It eliminates the time taken to process between supplier, intermediaries and customers.

Employees’ empowerment

With the changing nature and increasing challenges of retailing in the millennium and onslaught of e-commerce, management takes on an entirely new facet, that is employees’ empowerment.

Employees’ empowerment means giving employees responsibility and authority to make decisions regarding all aspects of product development or customer service.It eliminates the need of supervision and top-down management ideas. With the speed of e commerce business, managers will delegate employees who can meet the creative, technological and strategic demands of customers which can creates a positive retail experience for the consumer especially in business-to-business sales. The use of employee empowerment shifts the focus away from technical skills toward general cognitive and interpersonal skills.

References:
1. http://www.alibaba.com/
2. http://www.storeboxecommerce.com/ecommerce_support.php
3. http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/08/15/xml-ecom.html
4. http://203.210.126.185/dsdweb/v4/apps/web/secure/docs/2285.pdf
5. http://www.telusmobility.com/

History and Evolution of E-Commerce

Before the term electronic commerce (or e-commerce) comes into picture, people including firms are engaged in buying and selling activities manually. For example, the seller of a product must identify customer demand for a product; promote their products and some other basic activities. These activities are known as traditional commerce.

Nonetheless, due to the advancement of technology nowadays, E-commerce becomes common and successfully replaces the activities found in traditional commerce. To many people, the term e-commerce means shopping on the part of the Internet or World Wide Web (www). However, the meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the last 30 years. Originally, electronic commerce means the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). EDI is a set of standards developed in the 1960’s to exchange business information and to do electronic transactions. These were both introduced in the late 1970s, allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. Firms such as General Electric and Wal-Mart have been pioneers in using EDI to improve their purchasing processes and their relationships with suppliers. E-commerce development is an efficient way of promoting businesses, bringing in profits and delivering better services.

In additions, E-Commerce provides a rich online transaction experience. There are varieties type of electronic commerce conducted over web. But the largest electronic commerce today is Business-to-Business (B2B). Businesses involved in B2B sell their goods to other businesses. In 2001, this form of e-commerce had around $700 billion in transactions. The other type includes Business-to-consumer (B2C) and Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C). In year 2000, the term e-commerce was defined as a process of purchasing of available goods and services over the internet using secure connection and electronic payment services to overcome the security problem.

As a conclusion, e-commerce became so crucial neither to firms nor to public at large. Nevertheless, e-commerce still need to undergo certain improvement in order to enhance web users confidence and security of data.

References:
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-commerce
2.http://www.flysyk02.netfirms.com/Ecommerce/History.htm
3.http://www.mapsofworld.com/referrals/internet/internet-history/history-of-e-%20commerce.html
4.http://www.ecommerce-land.com/web_development.html

An E-Commerce success: eBay

The trend to offer goods and services over the Internet has made the greatest change to businesses throughout the world. Most businesses want to transform their Web site into a profit centre. This is because of the many success stories about the Internet and e-commerce. For an example, Amazon,eBay,and Dell. However, I will only narrow down my discussion about the success of eBay.

EBay Inc. was born over in September of 1995 by Pierre Omidyar. Nowadays, eBay has become the world's largest online marketplace that connects hundreds of millions of people around the world every day. According to a Compete.com study, the domain ebay.com attracted at least 902 million visitors annually by 2008.With a presence of 39 markets, approximately 84 million active users worldwide eBay has changed the face of Internet commerce. In 2007, the total value of sold items on eBay's trading platforms was approaching $60 billion. This means that eBay users worldwide trade more than $1,900 worth of goods on the site every second!

Now, let us discover what the strategies behind this amazing success of eBay are. EBay provides sellers an internet platform for pursuing entrepreneurialism on a global scale, based on the idea “where practically anyone can sell practically anything at any time”. To enhance the values of the marketplace, eBay's policies aimed at offering a level of playing field, encouraging open, honest, and accountable transactions, and creating economic opportunities for everyone. Furthermore, anything can be sold as long as it is not illegal and does not violate the eBay Prohibited and Restricted Items policy.In addition, eBay allows people to pursue their interests and their passions in the areas of their hobbies and their collectibles. Besides, eBay has formed Trust and Safety team which is responsible for keeping the marketplace safe. All such policies are to increases the consumer confidence to eBay.

Since its inception, eBay Inc. has expanded its market to take in some of the strongest brands in the world, including PayPal, Skype, Rent.com, Shopping.com, Prostores, and others.

Reference:
1. eBay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay
2. eBay Inc.: A Short History
http://news.ebay.com/about.cfm

--an failure E-commerce company

With the changing trends of globalization and the advancement of modern technology, the development of e-commerce has boomed in the past few years. However, not all companies are succeeded in this business world handles by the advanced technology. Due to their unimpressive and non-persuaded marketing capacity as well as other weaknesses they either became bankrupt or met failure. For example, Webvan.com.

Louis H. Borders founded Webvan in 1996. It became a dot.com company on June 2, 1999. Webvan let you order groceries and fresh foods like meat, produce and milk over the Internet and have them delivered right to your home the same day. The failure of webvan.com was due to the inability to make high volume and low priced purchases. Webvan.com failed to meet customer requirements. Besides, it has also made bad management decisions like spending $850 million on ads and campaigns. The failure of Webvan raises troubling questions for e-commerce companies trying to establish brand identity and profits chiefly through customer service.
Although Webvan was popular with people who could afford its delivery fees or who did not have a means of shopping in a traditional store, but it was never able to attract enough customers to justify its spending spree.
The company was closed on July, 2001, putting 2000 out of work and leaving San Francisco’s new ballpark with a Webvan cup holder at every seat.

Globalization has changed the marketing and business trends. Now one can do a market survey and also do retail purchase via electronic media by just sitting on a seat with just a click away. Though the company failed to bring e-commerce into success, it is growing faster and gaining more and more recognition with the effective of team management strategies and strong organizational despite the fact that it still at its infant stage.