Name : Abdullah Alabdullah

Professor: Howard Ellison

Class: IT Inaugural

EBusiness is any business that uses the internet technology to spread and be known to others to increase its profits and improve its productivity.

Ecommerce is the process of selling and buying products and services by the use of the internet which enables reaching a huge number of customers that can never be reached by the use of physical stores.

Eprocurement is reaching suppliers by the use of the internet to purchase wholesale products or supplies for in-house production. Eprocurement is also used to monitor and track purchases on the internet.

Electronic chat is a very advanced way for customer support to help customers make their purchases and solve any problem they would face.

Companies use the internet especially email to distribute the necessary information to its customers and employees saving the time and money to make physical copies.

Private Websites enable customers to seek information and make orders in no time and with the least effort.

Most businesses, if not all, have presence on the internet through its various channels.

EBusiness continue to prosper with the advancement of new technologies such as iPhone and smartphones that are internet-based cell phones.

Internet marketing is the use of the internet to market products and services by finding the ways to attract people to reach a certain website and increase customers.

Strategies of internet marketing can make a difference in eBusiness and contribute to a successful business. From these strategies:

A strategy to make an exclusive web design and a promotion and innovating plan.

It needs an effort to be at the top of the search engine by using optimization techniques.

Email is a good way to promote internet marketing.

Get assistance from an internet marketing consultant and use his analysis.

Communicate with business website visitors and customers to better serve them.

Social media applications such as Twitter and Facebook have opened the door to many businesses to interact with their customers, employees and suppliers and take advantage to acquire new customers and new ways to promote their products and services.

A study was conducted on the 1,700 executives of companies worldwide who use Web 2.0 social media applications including the use of You Tube, Twitter, and Facebook to get in contact with their partners, suppliers and customers.

The study showed that about 65% of these companies internally use Web 2.0 platforms, about 55% use them to get in contact with their customers and 40% use them to get in touch with their suppliers and partners.

The value that social media applications provide is its ability to form online customer communities which is known as virtual customer environments (VCEs) so it can distribute content, support brands and customer service and allows development.

Companies now focus on VCEs due to the great popularity of Facebook and Twitter which enables customers to regularly communicate with these companies.

Such customers are the company’s loyal customers who buy its products, try its new ones and spread positive information about the company.

A business has to attract a mass of participants who are willing to communicate with the business and other community members on regular basis.

A business has to benefit from the content created by the customer community by making developments.

Fortune 500 interacts with its customers through four social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and client-hosted forums.

These four social platforms are different from any other sites such as You Tube as they depend on sharing content and they encourage the participation of the customers with the company.

At least one social media platform is adopted by each of the Fortune 500.

To create value from the presence on social media platforms, three elements are necessary for effective implementation:

Making a “mindful adoption decision” by adopting five elements:

- Taking the right decision to choose the adopted platforms.

- Assigning responsibilities

- Measuring values

- Ensuring accessibility of applications.

- Managing risks

Building community to benefit from social media.

Developing absorptive capacity to benefit from the content.

Their customers generate.

Web 2.0 is the second generation of World Wide Web that enables people to communicate, collaborate and share information online and it includes participating in social media like Facebookand Twitter where companies can share content with their customers.

Customer Reviews attract other customers to the website, build their trust and encourage them to make purchases. They also reduce complaints and make a company better understand its customers’ needs.

Shopping widgets are portable content displayed on the Web and allowing retailers to affiliate customer sites, social networks and more such as Zazzle MySpace widget.

The tool of ask and answer allows conversation into the product page to get a better answer.

Twitter is a good way to ask and answer questions and get instant answers and a way to share deals putting a human face to the company.

Helping customers to discover new items by user created lists and submitted photos.

Facebook is a good way for companies to take advantage of the platform and reach fans where they are and not on the company’s website which enables sharing and inviting friends to participate.

Co-Browsing offers the ability for the customer to invite a friend to co-browse online store.

Social widgets on the company’s site present a good advantage for some industries to add such as Twitter widget and FacebookConnect and a good way to collect comments.

Retail blogs is a good way for a business to get in contact with its customers, present new products and share with them interviews, photos, videos and sometimes jokes. These blogs can drive search engine traffic and links and support their customers’ engagement on a hope that this leads to more sales.

Using You Tube to post videos and using video sharing sites can attract people to upload videos and gives more benefit.

There are many advantages of eBusiness such as:

Expanding global reach by having access to information.

Opening new markets and increasing niche-product sales.

Reducing costs as using eBusiness can save the cost of having a physical store and other costs needed to communicate with people.

Improving operations by giving customers a faster, more effective and convenient service.

Improving effectiveness by being innovative and by adding more useful information and more value to the customer.

How can internet marketing make a difference in eBusiness?

What is the effect of social media on eBusiness?

What are the advantages of eBusiness?

Baltzan, Paige. (2009).Business Driven Information Systems. 3rd e. McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 94-96.

Bustos, Linda. (2009). Top 10 Web 2.0 Activities for Ecommerce. Get Elastic.com. Retrieved from http://www.getelastic.com/top-ten-2-dot-0/

Culnan, Mary J.; McHugh, Patrick J.; Zubillaga, Jesus I. (2010). How Large U.S. Companies Can Use Twitter and Other Social Media to Gain Business Value. MIS Quarterly Executive. 9 (4), 243-259.

Lake, Laura. (2011). Top 10 Internet Marketing Strategies. About.com Guide. Retrieved from http://marketing.about.com/od/internetmarketingstrategy/a/internettips.htm

McGuigan, Brendan. (2011). What is eBusiness? Wisegeek.com. Retrieved from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-ts-ebusiness.htm