bc501 - web page report
TRANSCRIPT
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School Of Business2007
BC501E-Business Fundamentals
WEB SITE REPORT
Name: Ashley Hughes
Student #: 2352463Tutorial: Thursday 11.30-12.30
Due Date: 05.04.2007
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Executive Summary
This report analyses the effects that the internet has had on businesses attempting
to sell their products on a global tool, with millions more potential customers than what a
local business with a physical location would be accustomed to. The approach that this
report takes looks at 3 completely different companies, not only selling to different
markets, but also using the internet exposure in a variety of ways to advertise and sell
their products. The first company that is discussed in the report solely uses the internet
for advertising their product as well as selling it, with no physical store locations. The
second company uses the internet in conjunction with physical stores to sell their
products, and finally the third company doesn’t actually sell anything on the internet, but
advertises their products on their website and provides information about their business to
their clients.
The report covers how the sites appeal to clients or viewers, and whether this is
effective in actually making income for the company. It discusses how easy it is for a
client to navigate around the particular website, as well as how readily available help and
assistance is for those in need, and finally what sort of trust the community places in not
only these sites for purchasing their products, but the internet in general.
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Table of ContentsExecutive Summary .............................................................................................................2Table of Contents .................................................................................................................3
Report – Web Site Analysis .................................................................................................3
Introduction ......................................................................................................................3
EBay Australia .................................................................................................................4Flight Centre ....................................................................................................................6
Figure 2 – Flight Centre’s Search Tool (www.flightcentre.com.au) ............................7
Myer .................................................................................................................................8Conclusion .......................................................................................................................8
References ..........................................................................................................................10
Appendices .........................................................................................................................12Appendix 1.2 – Flight Centre Australia’s Homepage (www.flightcentre.com.au) ....13
Appendix 1.3 – Myer’s Homepage (www.myer.com.au) ..........................................13
Report – Web Site Analysis
Introduction
As many businesses have now found the internet poses as a very healthy way of
making their business known to a greater audience, which can also be a lot cheaper and
easier than the traditional ways of advertising. It can be almost guaranteed that any of the
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larger companies in Australia will have a webpage with information about themselves,
with some even selling their products on these sites. This report explores three different
websites of some of the larger Australian companies. It will analyse how each of these
company’s websites differ, what they actually use their site for and how user friendly
these sites are for their clients. It will firstly explore the Australian branch of EBay, which
solely uses the internet to sell its products. Then the report will look at Australia’s leading
travel agency’s website, Flight Centre, which uses its site in conjunction with its stores
across Australia to sell their travel related products to their clients. And finally the last of
the three websites looks at Myer, Australia’s largest department store chain, which uses
its website solely for advertising and provides information for its clients, without actually
using transactions across the internet.
EBay Australia
As one of the largest companies on the internet, and now one of the world’s most
recognisable logos, EBay has different branches for the different countries that it operates
in. They are all set up fairly similarly, but this report will focus on EBay Australia
(www.ebay.com.au). Being that EBay only operates and sells its products on the net, with
no stores or physical locations, the site itself needs to be extremely good at attracting new
customers, and also keeping their old. Some would probably say that EBay is so large
now that it will operate itself, but as is the case when something successful comes along,
others try to copy or imitate their ideas, which is why EBay need to stay ahead of their
competitors.
The website itself, seen in appendix 1.1, has all the information and links to direct
the user to their intended location, whilst also being very simple and not over-crowded
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with information that will confuse the reader. The APIS Design website rates its top 7
most important features that make a good website, where they talk about the message that
the site is trying to get across to its audience (www.apis.ca). They describe a site as
having to know their target audience, which for EBay will come in all ages, shapes and
sizes; therefore the creators have kept it as simple as possible. It is amazing easy to sell
an item on EBay, and even easier to purchase one. All you need to do is follow the correct
links (as seen below in Figure 1), register an account and start selling or buying. It is
almost foolproof and is one of the main reasons that it has had such success over the
years and continues to grow.
A website like EBay Australia is doing an amazing job to continue to have the site
functioning efficiently. At the time of this report being written EBay Australia had
1,024,768 items for sale. With a website that is so large, with hundreds of thousands of
links the company would need to continually monitor the bandwidth sizes and makes sure
everything is running smoothly. Although they cannot be contacted via phone, the site
does have a very extensive help or support feature where their client’s can be assisted if
they need be.
Figure 1 – Simple Steps to EBay
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Flight Centre
As well as the creation of companies such as EBay who rely solely on the internet
for their income, there are also companies such as Flight Centre Australia who use both
the internet, as well as the traditional way of selling a product such a store in which you
can physically walk into. Flight Centre’s website (www.flightcentre.com.au), which the
screen capture in appendix 1.2 displays, is made up in the famous red and white colours
of Flight Centre which customers have become familiar with. Once again with the set up
of the website, it is very simple, and has links and tabs enabling the client to be directed
to their intended destination.
Although many clients would prefer to visit one of the 100’s of Flight Centre’s
stores around Australia to have a one on one experience with a travel agent, and hear
more about their intended holiday, the website offers the chance for clients to be able to
easily book flights, holidays, accommodation or even transport if they feel as though they
don’t need this one on one advice from a travel agent. This allows the transaction to be
very efficient, and can be done from the company’s homepage search tool (seen in figure
2). Flight times and different carriers can be then chosen, as well as room types in the
accommodation section. If then the client still needs information from a consultant, they
can make a call and quote a reference number that has been provided and recorded by the
site.
Once against like EBay, Flight Centre’s website is very easy to navigate around.
The homepage displays most of the valuable information that a client would expect from
a travel website, and remains the number one travel website of Australia
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(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Centre) for the time being, with many predicting a
decline in using travel agencies as booking directly with the airliners gathers speed.
Flight Centre has a much smaller role on the internet compared to EBay. Their
target audience is a lot smaller as their product is more specific than EBay who sells
almost anything and everything. With this is mind, the site is still quite large, with many
different areas of travel resources. The advantage with Flight Centre is that in a world
where the internet is still quite a way off being the primary resource for buying products,
is that they also have physical store locations. This means that if a customer isn’t sure of
how to purchase over the internet, or simply doesn’t trust the internet, as many people
still don’t, they can still gain income through these stores. With this being said the help
feature on the Flight Centre’s website, is as simply as picking up the phone and speaking
with an actual travel agent, who can assist in making a booking over the internet, or
provide further information through their store.
Figure 2 – Flight Centre’s Search Tool (www.flightcentre.com.au)
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Myer
The final website in discussion of this report is Australia’s major department
store, Myer. The Myer Department Store started way back in 1900 by a Russian
immigrant, Sidney Myer, who was in Australia less than a year before he opened his first
store (http://www.myer.com.au/about/history.asp ). Even though the company has been
around before the Federation of Australia, Myer does not sell or participate in any
transactions over the internet like the other two companies in this report. Their website’s
homepage, shown in the screen shot of appendix 1.3, is extremely basic and provides
clients with links to information such as where stores are located around Australia,
careers with the Myer chain and the history of the successful company. They also
maintain the site so they have the latest catalogue available to download and view items
in which the stores are selling, which wouldn’t actually open at the time of this report
being written using Mozilla Firefox.
All in all though the site does not actually sell any products, therefore it doesn’t
have to be as appealing to viewers as much as the other two sites discussed in this report,
however, for a leading company of Australia, some may even call it a Landmark
company of our country, the site is very bland and almost to bare. It has been created
professionally, however it doesn’t have the appeal of many other leading companies, and
doesn’t sell the brand of Myer.
Conclusion
With this report commenting on the make-up of three of Australia’s leading
companies in their respected markets, it displays where the trends are moving towards in
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society, with people becoming more and more busy, they need to be able to browse, shop
and purchase products a lot more simply. With the internet and technology growing at
rapid speeds the amount of users is also growing. The three websites are highly ranked in
Google and Yahoo, with them all appearing at spot number one when typing in the names
of the three companies, which is extremely important for selling your product as it’s the
first site a viewer will see when using a search tool. However as mentioned before when
reporting on Flight Centre, much of society still do not trust the internet enough to
purchase goods over it. Both EBay and the Flight Centre have a high reputation of being
honest and most importantly secure, with EBay actually having to be found to have the
most trusted site for consumer privacy
(http://www.truste.org/about/press_release/06_10_04.php). However it seems as though
society still doesn’t believe there are enough sanctions on preventing the internet theft
and fraudulent behaviour, which comes back to the question of who actually controls the
internet? If this question has a definitive answer then these people should be placing
higher restrictions and laws on these crimes to promote buying from the net, as it is a cost
effective way for both buyers and sellers.
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References
EBay Australia Webpage. Retrieved between March 28th & April 2nd 2007 from the EBAY
AUSTRALIA Website: (http://www.ebay.com.au)
Flight Centre Webpage. Retrieved between March 28 th & April 2nd 2007 from the
FLIGHT CENTRE Website: (http://www.flightcentre.com.au)
Flight Centre. Retrieved April 2nd 2007 from the WIKIPEDIA Website:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Centre).
History of Myer Department Store. Retrieved April 2nd 2007 from the MYER Website:(http://www.myer.com.au/about/history.asp ).
Internet Companies, Banks and Healthcare Organizations Cited as Most Trustworthy
Industry Sectors. (2004, June 10). Retrieved April 2nd 2007 from the TRUSTe Website:
(http://www.truste.org/about/press_release/06_10_04.php).
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Myer Webpage. Retrieved between March 28 th & April 2nd 2007 from the MYER
Website: (http://www.myer.com.au)
What Makes a Good Website? Retrieved April 2nd 2007 from the APIS Website:
(http://www.apis.ca/Understanding_Websites/Good_Sites_Bad_Sites/What_makes_a_good_website.htm).
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Appendices
Appendix 1.1 – EBay Australia’s Homepage (www.ebay.com.au)
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Appendix 1.2 – Flight Centre Australia’s Homepage(www.flightcentre.com.au)
Appendix 1.3 – Myer’s Homepage (www.myer.com.au)
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