Wednesday, April 8, 2015

E-commerce Issues - 1. Evaluating Hosted Storefront Software

Yahoo!
Homestead
iPage
o   Free domain
o   Business email accounts
o   1.5% transaction fee
o   mobile storefront
o   30+ Marketing, sales, backoffice apps
o   SEO tools
o   Social media support
o   Yahoo Live Web Insights activity monitoring
o   PayPal support
o   Chat live with customers on your store (web & mobile)
o   24/7 customer support
Unlimited number of products, storage space, bandwidth
o   Bulk product import/export


o                  n


o   Website hosting
o   Award-winning website building software
o   5 web pages
o   Site statistics to track your visitors
o   Toll-free phone support

o   Unlimited disk space, emails, and bandwidth
o   Host unlimited domains
o   Free domain registration
o   Free Sitelock ($100 value)
o   1GB free cloud storage
o   Free domain transfer
o   Free values for supports, design, marketing, and security
o   Free search engine and marketing credits
o   30 day money back


Yahoo! Small business-
1.       Lite- $13 annually
2.       Basic- $26 annually
3.       Professional- $69 annually
4.       Premier $249 annually
·          Summary
o   Each plan offers similar features and is intended for small businesses that need shared web hosting. According to reviews from users of Yahoo!, they say that it does offer web hosting with decent speeds and reliability. Their web hosting rarely goes down and their customer support is amazing. For cons, the first thing I noticed with Yahoo! Customer reviews was that web hosting is the price more expensive then other options and overcharges for simple web hosting features. Yahoo! also limits the amount of bandwidth & disk space on the first 2 plans. With the Basic plan, Yahoo! only allows their website builder to be used, which makes it impossible for customers to transfer their website to any other web host. This can be very frustrating for customers who are displeased with Yahoo! web hosting and want to switch to a different web host.
Homestead
1.       Starter $5.99 monthly
2.       Business $20.99 monthly
·         Business Plus $60.99 monthly
·         Summary
o   Looking at the reviews, out of 22 people, homestead received 20 1 stars and 2 4 stars out of a 5 star ranking.  People state the pros are that it is easy to use, made a visually good looking website, and easy to start up. However, many of the reviewers stated that its pros were “nothing” and cons were “everything”. A majority of the people talked about how horrific the customer service was and that it was more expensive than they had anticipated. Many customers said to avoid Homestead like a plague.

iPage
·         $2.25 a month (special offer 75% off. Usually $8.99)
·         $81 for 3 years
·          $54 for 2 years
·         $30 for 1 year

·         Summary
o   iPage got some of the highest reviews for web hosting companies because of its excellent customer support, cheap prices, and bonuses and specials they give customers. They offer free endless site bulding tools, as well as 24/7 customer support. Some cons are that their control panel is a bit difficult to use, its slow, websites go down often, and since there are many specials they offer customes, many existing customers feel cheated, because the price of what they had signed up for might have be relatively more expensive.


If I had to choose a web hosting site, I would choose iPage because simply, it had the best reviews. Looking at reviews is one of the best ways to figure out which product you should use. Homestead had extremely horrible reviews where about 90% of the people who reviewed it, gave it 1 star. While Yahoo! Is a big name, it did not live up to its potential. When looking for a third web host, iPage made the top 3 on many of the websites I looked at for “top web hosting sites”. Many of the programs offer similar values, but iPage offers an incredible amount of free additions, tallying up to about $500 in savings.

·         Zappos
                            I.     The business model for Zappos is to create a loyal customer base, as well as building a relationship with the customer. This is done by emphasizing customer satisfaction, rather then sales. By doing this, it allows Zappos to keep its customers and even if they make a mistake, they will assist the customer to ensure that they make a mistake turn into a positive outcome. They call their strive for the best customer service the WOW philosophy, and by doing this, it allows Zappos to profit off customers who return because of the good service they received. The ads on the website are links to their social media page, or other types of Zappos information such as gift cards, sweepsteakes, and specials. I did not see many ads for things I have searched or any advertisement in general. Zappos does used interest based ads from Amazon.com. The information you search on amazon become ads on Zappos, known as targeted ads.
·         Rackspace
                            I.     Rackspace has the business model of hosting cloud computing services. With the rise of technology, cloud based IT infrastructure are becoming the norm in businesses. With a focus on customer service, Rackspace will expand along with its open source framework and with an expected 20% increase in cloud computing over the next few years. The ads that came on the screen were Jimmy Johns, which used to be a previous employer of mine, but I am not sure if that connection was made by chance, because I have not searched Jimmy Johns at any point on my computer. Other ads on the page are banking, stock trading, and ad council powered ads.
·         Hometown Favorites
                            I.     Hometown favorites is an ebusiness that focuses on selling candy from different decades from the past. It is a method to make profit on selling retro food. There is no ads on this website, however they do recognize different. They do not mention anything about putting ads on their website.
·         Twitter
                            I.     Twitter is a microblog that allows users to post a status, picture, or replies to people using up to 140 characters per post. They help advertise your company by Reaching the right audience by targeting based on interests, geography, gender, device, or users similar to your followers.
·         Hulu
                            I.     Hulu is a video streaming website where users can watch TV shows or movies for a small monthly fee. Their business method is to captivate and connect people with the stories they love by creating amazing experiences. Hulu using cutting edge technology to target users with ads that they care about based on target marketing.

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