Individual work Question 1 Visit smallbusiness.yahoo.com, google.com or any other search engine to find out at least four e-commerce companies that are successful and failure. Identify and discuss briefly the factors that contribute for their successfulness and failures. Four (4) types of successful e-commerce companies. Amazon.com At first glance, it appears that this site is very focused on selling (as they should be), but if you notice, there is much more there than simply “Click here to buy this book”. There are: •Excerpts from the books for sale •A list of the 100 “hot” books, updated hourly •The top video and audio sellers for the day •Reviews both by other customers and professional reviewers •Author interviews •Contests

Amazon.com relies heavily on content to promote return visits and sales. They encourage their customers to review the products and provide live testimonials. Some customers will return to this site, simply because of the reviews and other Question 2 Define “social e-commerce” and describe why it is a new form of advertising, search, and potentially commerce. A working definition of “social e-commerce” involves online commercial transactions that take place in an online social milieu involving friends, acquaintances, and others in the consumer’s social network. In many respects this is similar to a traditional village market where consumers search for, evaluate, and purchase products, in the presence of their social network members (families, friends, and neighbors). The social online experience can support search functions: rather than using Google to search for reviews on products, ask your friends instead about their experience with the product. By simply attracting huge audiences (eyeballs), social networks are an excellent venue for display advertising and text ad placement.