Innovation in E-commerce: Operation and Logistics

Innovation in E-commerce: Operation and Logistics Innovation in E-commerce with New Trial Service Rohit Meena Introduction An e-commerce is the facility or service, which provide customers the service to buy products online on the Internet. Today In India and other countries e-commerce is being used for getting products online easier and faster. In the 21th century e-commerce comes with the new revolutionary concept-people can get their products online from many brands. Purchasing and selling of products has become very easier due to e-commerce. Communication from one seller to other seller provides different product and varieties in the market. One of the biggest challenges faced by the e-commerce industry is that most of the people are often unsure of their sizes and how their online purchase clothes will fit in real life. I’m trying to solve this problem by providing actual physical trial service for people trying to buy apparel online. This service helps customers to make purchasing decisions. Many people can get confused about their sizes or color choice and they prefer to buy products in the store. Trial Concept is a strategy of marketing which increases consumer satisfaction for online shopping. When consumer orders their product from the online site and gets size problem or other product visualization problem, this type of problem decreases the online sales because people do not want to buy again those stuff which comes with size problems. Trial Concept will make high demand in the market because it comes with the market demand calculation according to the trial demand. Basically, it will also help to consumer for getting their product to be available in the store. High demand of products in the market creates unavailability of products. Product quality and sizing problems will be solved by the trial option. In the future this feature will increase retail sales. The trial system will encourage people who have never shopped online before to try out online shopping by removing the restriction of size and fit confusion. Secondary Literature In the 21th Century People more and more are shopping online. Studies have shown that e-commerce sales grew 15 percent in 2012, which is several times more than average retail industrys spending growth. 80 percent of the sales in this industry are still taking place within the four walls. Even though a majority of apparel shoppers visit the retailers website, research the product online, or read reviews before making purchase, only a few actually buy the product online. Most people who do buy clothes online are likely to buy an item only after they have already tried it on in a store or seen someone else wear it before. This is especially true among women. Not knowing the quality of the product and having to wait for the product to arrive may affect the shoppers decision to buy clothes online, but the biggest problem I see preventing a shopper from buying clothes online is not being able to visualize how the product will look on her/him body. If the retailers can address this issue, the concerns like the quality of the product and the shipping time can easily be fixed. I agree that people want to feel, see, and try the product before they buy; and e-commerce sites can not provide that real experience of touching the product, but with improved technology and larger, better quality pictures, shoppers can get a pretty good idea of the quality. Plus the free shipping and free returns already being offered by many e-commerce retailers will give shoppers the option to experience the products without leaving their house. Retailers could not be able to solve fit issues on the Internet. Fit issues are the main reasons of customers that create d o not feel excited about buying clothes online. E-commerce retailers can attract people if they can address their practical issues that are keeping many probable customers from shopping for clothes. Advanced digital technologies like the virtual fitting room software that provide the shopper better fit experience than the two dimensional pictures. But not every retailer can afford those expensive technology and not every shopper is willing to spend the time it takes for them to upload the picture (or whatever else is required to let the software know their bodys dimensions or size) and drag/select each product they want to try on and wait for the results. It is easier and time saving for the shopper to just clicks the size she/he wants to see on picture and get done. It may not give her/him the enhanced experience of three-dimensional virtual fitting, but it will give her/him a pretty good idea of how she/he can expect to look on those products. But a virtual fitting room is the lack of uniformity in apparel sizing. It is the biggest problem of the apparel industry right now. Each manufacturer has its own sizing standard. And, within each manufacturer, there are size variation d epending on the fabric, style, and so many other factors. It is simply impossible for those software to accommodate all manufacturers sizing standards, which means majority of new and smaller brands can not be represented. To conclude, with help of general sizing guides posted by the retailers on their e-commerce site, the shopper may know what size of any particular item she/he should buy; but she/he can not visualize the product on her/him body if the model is not representative of her/him size. Fabrics behave differently depending on how they are woven, knitted, treated and finished. That means the products stretch ability; molding and yielding property varies depending on many factors. The same shirt can look totally different on women or men of different sizes. Women or men want to see if the product is going to fir or not. Therefore, many people prefer to try the item on their body before they buy it. Working of the concept The process of trial service includes all shops of specific brand. This trial feature distributes the goods from one place to other place according to the consumer demand or request when a consumer browses his/her product online. It will work faster compare to taking trial or finding shops of product. Trial service modifies the design of transportation for better service. When consumer rejects their product on the store, the retailer will sell the product; but in many situations consumers demand are different so trial service has to connect with all stores or warehouses. Cost factor for the transfer of goods matter a lot for the product cost. I am not sure that this idea will be accepted by every industry because many times it will not be possible to deliver every goods on the location, but my concept connects store to store. If consumer bought some product and he won’t be able to get this product within the deliver time, my service will deliver goods to the nearest the store. Consumers time will be saved by this feature: the consumer will get his/her product from the nearest store. Explanation of the concept Trial Concept clears many issues for the online shopping. Some times retailers complain that customers come in their shop for only trying clothes and retailers cannot charge for trying clothes in their shops so the idea of trial shopping solved the retailer’s problem. My concept for the online shopping related to customer satisfaction secures more online shopping. This idea will work with the official site of brands and chains. Users can easily go online and shop for items. If people want to see or check that product will fit or not, trial option works as a feature. This option takes four sizes and color of the product or consumer can order multiple choices at the one time but the multiple choice products will be limited. A consumer will be able to give five products for the trial at the one time. Some time retailers may not have stock all collection in the store so consumer faces problem for their choice product so the trial option will only provide the product available in t he store. If consumer wants that product to get home delivered because at the trial time consumer wasn’t able to purchase that product, he can do so. Consumer will get only one-day time period for the trial and trial-purchase. Trial date and time will be sent by the customer care department to customers cell or email. Basically this idea gives opportunity to customer if he/she is not getting product on store in some areas. Communication of the one store to other store from the storage warehouse makes transfer of goods easier but the trial facility create some changes in the transfer of goods because suppose in one area there are two-three shops which do not have stock of high demand goods. Trial system will calculate the product demand from the consumers according to the same product’s trial demand. So the trial system will help to the company for the area’s product demand. Example: in Lucknow, winter season is going on so people definitely buy cold clothes in t he winter weather. If there are five shops of Tommy Hilfiger in the city and they have limited stock of sweaters. But the city people demand of Tommy products is high so the trial system will calculate the demand and provide stocks to these city shops. Trial system maintains the transportation cost because every week stores get their products from the warehouse anyway, so the trial will send by the warehouse. Conclusion E-commerce platform has increased every year with new techniques of customer service. It’s necessary to catch consumer attraction for online shopping. In this competitive market every company should provide the latest techniques for high sales growth. The supply chain system should cover high demand or supply facility in minimum time. Customer survey for e-commerce can show that how online shopping can recover the unsatisfied customer with the newer services. Online issues related to payment, product specification, unavailability of the product, etc. create many unsatisfied customers. Trial service will be able to get more satisfaction and give advantage to online shoppers with regard to ordering high price products with the secure belief.

Bush’s Hydrogen Fuel Cells Research Plan: A Step into the Future or a Fallacy :: Argumentative Persuasive Gas Essays

Cars running on hydrogen fuel instead of gasoline may seem like something that is seen in a science fiction movie, but they may be much closer than many people realize. President Bush announced in his State of the Union address that he has plans to take large steps forward â€Å"to advance into the 21st century† (quoted by Porteus ). This advancement is to come in the form of a $1.2 billion plan to help fund research into hydrogen fuel. By doing this Bush plans to lessen America’s reliance on foreign oil, and help to protect the environment. The Bush administration believes that this program will someday â€Å"boost American’s economy and national security† (quoted by Porteus). The new plan replaces an old one that was originally started during the Clinton administration. Clinton spent money funding research to create more fuel efficient cars instead of spending money on hydrogen fuel cell research. Bush intends to change this plan so that instead of using less oil, we will someday need none. The Bush administration has divided the funding into two major projects. Over five years, the FreedomCar project is designed to research ways to use hydrogen power in automobiles. In addition, the FreedomFuel project is designed to research ways to produce, store, and distribute the fuel to the public (Hakim 17). Although Bush’s plan seems as though it is a very good idea, there is a major argument as to whether or not such a large amount of money should be spent on funding hydrogen fuel cells. Many opposing hydrogen fuel cell research believe that it is too far into the future to spend so much money on. One of the biggest concerns with this idea is that we are not lowering fuel standards while research is being done on hydrogen fuel. They argue that money is being wasted on an idea that may never work when it is possible to lower fuel usage if Clinton’s plan is followed. Unlike many political arguments this one is not split totally between liberals and conservatives; there is a pro-Bush side and an anti-Bush side. This does not mean that either side is for or against Bush; they are simply against his hydrogen fuel cell funding. The pro-Bush side tends to be more liberal and the anti-Bush side leans to the conservative side, but because there is no clear separation of sides, you cannot say all liberals are pro-Bush and all conservatives are anti-Bush.

Brand Recognition and Brand Loyalty

Brand Recognition in relation to Brand Loyalty Introduction â€Å"Brands are the most valuable intangible asset for companies† claims Bayu Sutikno of the University of Gadjah Mada in Indonesia (2011, p. 319). The world is filled with brands and everyone is trying to portray a message. It is the job of the consumer to decide what brand they prefer and what brand they do not care for. Likewise it is the job of the marketer to persuade the behavior of the 7 billion consumers in the world everyday.Out of that persuasion, marketers create a following of such brands, which results in brand loyalty in the end resulting in profitability for the producers and satisfaction for the consumer. The Design The design of the brand is the first aspect a consumer will recognize. Consumers are trained to look for details in brands and the products produced and consciously, and more often unconsciously, make inferences about a brand and/or product presented (Karjalainen and Snelders, 2010, p. 7). There are two main ideas behind the design of a brand, the values it portrays and the physical layout that is presented.The values portion is most important because it creates connection with the consumer but physical looks can attract new consumers before they can infer said values of a brand. Values can be noticeable as simply as in the brand logo or more difficult what a brand stands for on an emotional level. One example of values represented in the brand slogan is that of Caterpillar, the heavy equipment manufacturer and their newly developed clothing and apparel line. Karjalainen and Snelders, authors of â€Å"Designing Visual Recognition for the Brand,† explain Caterpillar’s slogan, â€Å"Industry leading comfort and performance† (2010, p. ). From their boots to t-shirts to trucks and loaders, they focus on creating comfort for the consumer. For example, in the boots, they add soft insoles and added insulation and then to the equipment, they created soft interiors with noise and dust preventative measures (2010, p. 6). Just through their slogan, they communicate with people that their brand is going to be the most comfortable and then they back it up by taking measures to incorporate those values into their products. Communication of such values is best done the physical layout and representation of the brand.The Volvo and Nokia case, described by Karjalainen and Snelders, highlights the importance of implicit and explicit features of brands and products. Implicit features are the features that are subtle and not always stand out to the consumer but can have an unconscious effect of delight or disgust. While on the other hand, explicit features are the major features that are visually appealing or unappealing to the consumer. They emphasize the importance that lead products that are going to be the representation of your brand must focus on the features and the features must to tied to the values you aim to achieve (2010, p. ). Tin a Lowrey’s article, â€Å"The Relationship between Script Complexity and Commercial Memorability,† concurs and differs with the same ideas as Karjalainen and Snelders. Lowrey states that if a message is too complex the consumer will not be able to recall all the features and thus most likely forget the product. But if the message is simple then consumers can recall products easier (Lowrey 2006, p. 8). . Also she states that the use of single/limited words then consumer can better associate brands and images (Lowrey 2006, p. 8).The Self Cornwall’s, et al. , article, â€Å"Sponsorship-Linked Marketing: The Role of Articulation in Memory† mentions the role of sponsorship in NASCAR and how they use brands such as â€Å"Texaco† who would be closely associated with racing, but they also use brands such as â€Å"Cheerios,† who has nothing to do with racing cars (2006, p. 312). But through sponsoship, many people see these brands and the imagery cre ates links in the consumers mind. As Corwall, et al. , goes on to explains that it is the role of the marketer to create connections

Understanding the Significance of Pandoras Box

A Pandoras box is a metaphor in our modern languages, and the proverbial phrase refers to a source of endless complications or trouble arising from a single, simple miscalculation. Pandoras story comes to us from ancient Greek mythology, specifically a set of epic poems by Hesiod, called the Theogony and Works and Days. Written during the 7th century BC, these poems relate how the gods came to create Pandora and how the  gift Zeus gave her ultimately ends the Golden Age of humankind. The Story of Pandoras Box According to Hesiod, Pandora was a curse on mankind as retribution after the Titan Prometheus stole fire and gave it to humans. Zeus had Hermes hammer the first human woman—Pandora—out of the earth. Hermes made her lovely as a goddess, with the gift of speech to tell lies, and the mind and nature of a treacherous dog. Athena dressed her in silvery clothing and taught her weaving; Hephaestus crowned her with a marvelous golden diadem of animals and sea creatures; Aphrodite poured grace on her head and desire and cares to weaken her limbs. Pandora was to be the first of a race of women, the first bride and a great misery who would live with mortal men as companions only in times of plenty, and desert them when times became difficult. Her name means both she who gives all gifts and she who was given all gifts. Never let it be said that Greeks had any use for women in general. All the Ills of the World Then Zeus sent this beautiful treachery as a gift to Prometheus brother Epimetheus, who ignored Prometheuss advice to never accept gifts from Zeus. In the house of Epimetheus, there was a jar—in some versions, it too was a gift from Zeus—and because of her insatiable greedy womans curiosity, Pandora lifted the lid on it. Out from the jar flew every trouble known to humanity. Strife, sickness, toil  and myriad other ills escaped from the jar to afflict men and women forever more. Pandora managed to keep one spirit in the jar as she shut the lid, a timid sprite named Elpis, usually translated as hope. Box, Casket or Jar? But our modern phrase says Pandoras box: how did that happen? Hesiod said the evils of the world were kept in a pithos, and that was uniformly employed by all Greek writers in telling the myth until the 16th century AD. Pithoi are huge storage jars that are typically partly buried in the ground. The first reference to something other than a pithos comes from the 16th-century writer Lilius Giraldus of Ferrara, who in 1580 used the word pyxis (or casket) to refer to the holder of evils opened by Pandora. Although the translation was not exact, it is a meaningful error, because a pyxis is a whited sepulcher, a beautiful fraud. Eventually, the casket became simplified as box.   Harrison (1900) argued that this mistranslation explicitly removed the Pandora myth from its association with All Souls Day, or rather the Athenian version, the festival of Anthesteria. The two-day drinking festival involves opening wine casks on the first day (the Pithoigia), releasing the souls of the dead; on the second day, men anointed their doors with pitch and chewed blackthorn to keep the newly released souls of the departed away. Then the casks were sealed again. Harrisons argument is bolstered by the fact that Pandora is a cult name of the great goddess Gaia. Pandora is not just any willful creature, she is the personification of Earth itself; both Kore and Persephone, made from the earth and rising from the underworld. The pithos connects her to the earth, the box or casket minimizes her importance. The Meaning of the Myth Hurwit (1995) says that the myth explains why humans must work to survive, that Pandora represents the beautiful figure of dread, something for which men can find no device or remedy. The quintessential woman was created to beguile men with her beauty and uncontrollable sexuality, to introduce falsehood and treachery and disobedience into their lives. Her task was to let loose all the evils upon the world  while trapping hope, unavailable to mortal men. Pandora is a trick gift, a punishment for the good of Promethean fire, she is, in fact, Zeuss price of fire. Brown points out that Hesiods story of Pandora is the icon of archaic Greek ideas of sexuality and economics. Hesiod didnt invent Pandora, but he did adapt the story to show that Zeus was the supreme being who shaped the world and caused the misery of the human lot, and how that caused human descent from the original bliss of a carefree existence. Pandora and Eve At this point, you may recognize in Pandora the story of the Biblical Eve. She too was the first woman, and she too was responsible for destroying an innocent, all-male Paradise and unleashing suffering ever after. Are the two related? Several scholars including Brown and Kirk argue that the Theogony was based on Mesopotamian tales, although blaming a woman for all the evils of the world is definitely more Greek than Mesopotamian. Both Pandora and Eve may well share a similar source. Sources Edited and updated by K. Kris Hirst Brown AS. 1997. Aphrodite and the Pandora Complex. The Classical Quarterly 47(1):26-47.Harrison JE. 1900. Pandoras Box. The Journal of Hellenic Studies 20:99-114.Hurwit JM. 1995. Beautiful Evil: Pandora and the Athena Parthenos. American Journal of Archaeology 99(2):171-186.Kirk GS. 1972. Greek Mythology: Some New Perspectives. The Journal of Hellenic Studies 92:74-85.Wolkow BM. 2007. The Mind of a Bitch: Pandoras Motive and Intent in the Erga. Hermes 135(3):247-262.