Comparison-Shopping Agents and Online Small Business

2011 ◽  
pp. 738-745
Author(s):  
Yun Wan
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Customer Base ◽  
Comparison Shopping ◽  
Online Shoppers ◽  
Important Trend ◽  
Total Sales ◽  
The Web ◽  
Web Visibility

Since the commercialization of the Internet in the 1990s, online retailing has increased steadily. According to the most recent Department of Commerce Census Bureau report,1 retail e-commerce sales in the first quarter of 2004 were $15.5 billion, up 28.1% from the first quarter of 2003. E-commerce sales in the first quarter of 2004 accounted for 1.9% of total sales, compared with 1.6% of total sales for the first quarter of 2003. An important trend in this growth in B2C (business-to-consumer) e-commerce is the participation of small business on the Web. Considering that in the United States small business comprises more than 99% of employer firms,2 this trend is significant. Though the Web offers huge potential to these small businesses for growth and prosperity, and also offers them a very low entry cost, Web visibility becomes the major barrier for them. Small businesses often have difficulty putting up enough funding to compete with brand-name businesses in promotion. So small businesses are desperately in need of a less costly channel for increasing their Web visibility. In the past 4 years and especially since the economic slowdown in 2000, comparison shopping has become more and more popular among online shoppers. Because of the low cost of being listed on comparison-shopping Web sites and the relatively high conversion rate for online shoppers who use comparison shopping, many small businesses found this an ideal channel to increase their Web visibility. As a result, many early participating small businesses gained a customer base in the competition by displaying their products and service prices on comparison-shopping Web sites. Now, it is more and more clear that comparison shopping provides a unique opportunity for small businesses to reach a large customer population with relatively little cost. To help readers better understand this phenomenon, we give a comprehensive introduction to comparison-shopping agents and summarize recent research on their impact in e-commerce.

Comparison-Shopping Agents and Online Small Business

2011 ◽  
pp. 129-134
Author(s):  
Yun Wan
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Customer Base ◽  
Comparison Shopping ◽  
Online Shoppers ◽  
Important Trend ◽  
Total Sales ◽  
The Web ◽  
Web Visibility

Since the commercialization of the Internet in the 1990s, online retailing has increased steadily. According to the most recent Department of Commerce Census Bureau report,1 retail e-commerce sales in the first quarter of 2004 were $15.5 billion, up 28.1% from the first quarter of 2003. E-commerce sales in the first quarter of 2004 accounted for 1.9% of total sales, compared with 1.6% of total sales for the first quarter of 2003. An important trend in this growth in B2C (business-to-consumer) e-commerce is the participation of small business on the Web. Considering that in the United States small business comprises more than 99% of employer firms,2 this trend is significant. Though the Web offers huge potential to these small businesses for growth and prosperity, and also offers them a very low entry cost, Web visibility becomes the major barrier for them. Small businesses often have difficulty putting up enough funding to compete with brand-name businesses in promotion. So small businesses are desperately in need of a less costly channel for increasing their Web visibility. In the past 4 years and especially since the economic slowdown in 2000, comparison shopping has become more and more popular among online shoppers. Because of the low cost of being listed on comparison-shopping Web sites and the relatively high conversion rate for online shoppers who use comparison shopping, many small businesses found this an ideal channel to increase their Web visibility. As a result, many early participating small businesses gained a customer base in the competition by displaying their products and service prices on comparison-shopping Web sites. Now, it is more and more clear that comparison shopping provides a unique opportunity for small businesses to reach a large customer population with relatively little cost. To help readers better understand this phenomenon, we give a comprehensive introduction to comparison-shopping agents and summarize recent research on their impact in e-commerce.

Shopping Agent Web Sites

2011 ◽  
pp. 222-231
Author(s):  
Ming Wang
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Internet Marketing ◽  
Agent Technology ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Price Information ◽  
Comparison Shopping ◽  
Online Shoppers ◽  
Software Programs ◽  
The Web

This chapter introduces the shopping agent technology as a new Internet marketing trend. The recent development of shopping agent Web sites has offered online shoppers an excellent comparative shopping environment. Shopping agent Web sites, also called shopping agents or shopping bots, are software programs that search the Internet stores on the Web and find products that meet a buyer’s specifications. Not only do these agent Web sites bring comparative product and price information from individual merchants’ Web sites, but also provide the online merchant ratings to customers. In summary, these agent Web sites take a query, search the Web sites of individual merchants that may have the product sought, bring back the results, and present them in a consolidated and compact format that allows comparison shopping at a glance.

scholarly journals Influence of language and file type on the web visibility of top European universities

2014 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrique Orduña-Malea ◽  
Jose Luis Ortega ◽  
Isidro F. Aguillo
Keyword(s):  
Search Engine ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Content Type ◽  
European Universities ◽  
File Formats ◽  
Google Search ◽  
European University ◽  
The Web ◽  
Web Visibility

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to detect whether both file type (a set of rich and web files) and language (English, Spanish, German, French and Italian) influence the web visibility of European universities. Design/methodology/approach – A webometrics analysis of the top 200 European universities (as ranked in the Ranking web of World Universities) was carried out by a manual query for each official URL identified by using the Google search engine (April 2012). A correlation analysis between visibility and file format page count is offered according to language. Finally, a prediction of visibility is shown by using the SMOreg function. Findings – The results indicate that Spanish and English are the languages that correlate most highly with web visibility. This correlation becomes greater – though moderate – when considering only PDF files. Research limitations/implications – The results are limited due to the low correlation between overall page count and visibility. The lack of an accurate search engine that would assist in link counting procedures makes this process difficult. Originality/value – An observed increase in correlation – although moderate – while analysing PDF files (in English and Spanish) is considered to be meaningful. This may indirectly confirm that specific file formats and languages generate different web visibility behaviour on European university web sites.

Readiness for a Web Presence

2009 ◽  
pp. 52-77
Author(s):  
Stephen Burgess ◽  
Carmine Carmine Sellitto ◽  
Stan Karanasios
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Business Strategy ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
Web Presence ◽  
Customer Base ◽  
Ict Adoption ◽  
Set Up

The new global economy has resulted in the availability of unprecedented opportunities for small business. ICTs in particular have contributed to the underpinning of a revolutionary era of trade and commerce. The Internet in particular, and the ability to use the Web as a virtual shop front (having an online shop without physical premises) has not only allowed new forms of small businesses to emerge, but created an environment where they can compete with their larger counterparts. In what has been commonly become known as the new economy, one of the most fundamental tasks for small businesses is to investigate the usefulness and relevance of ICTs for their business. Furthermore, all small businesses need to assess their capacity to adopt ICTs allowing them to leverage the technology so that they are well positioned to expand their customer base, rationalize business processes and enter new markets. Porter (2001) observed at the height of the dot-com boom that it should be evident for many businesses that it was not whether to deploy ICTs, but how to use them as a competitive part of business strategy. In this chapter we first look at some of the main barriers and drivers of ICT adoption. We then move on to examine the notion of the “readiness” of small businesses to set up a Web presence. We will also examine previous studies that have examined adoption of ICTs in small businesses, for the purpose of identifying those drivers and barriers that can affect small business wishing to go down that path.

Auto-Personalization Web Pages

2009 ◽  
pp. 807-815
Author(s):  
Jon T.S. Quah ◽  
Winnie C.H. Leow ◽  
K. L. Yong
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Web Pages ◽  
Direct Information ◽  
Large Pool ◽  
Web Contents ◽  
Online Shoppers ◽  
The Web

This project experiments with the designing of a Web site that has the self-adaptive feature of generating and adapting the site contents dynamically to match visitors’ tastes based on their activities on the site. No explicit inputs are required from visitors. Instead a visitor’s clickstream on the site will be implicitly monitored, logged, and analyzed. Based on the information gathered, the Web site would then generate Web contents that contain items that have certain relatedness to items that were previously browsed by the visitor. The relatedness rules will have multidimensional aspects in order to produce cross-mapping between items. The Internet has become a place where a vast amount of information can be deposited and also retrieved by hundreds of millions of people scattered around the globe. With such an ability to reach out to this large pool of people, we have seen the expulsion of companies plunging into conducting business over the Internet (e-commerce). This has made the competition for consumers’ dollars fiercely stiff. It is now insufficient to just place information of products onto the Internet and expect customers to browse through the Web pages. Instead, e-commerce Web site designing is undergoing a significant revolution. It has become an important strategy to design Web sites that are able to generate contents that are matched to the customer’s taste or preference. In fact a survey done in 1998 (GVU, 1998) shows that around 23% of online shoppers actually reported a dissatisfying experience with Web sites that are confusing or disorganized. Personalization features on the Web would likely reverse this dissatisfaction and increase the likelihood of attracting and retaining visitors. bring the following benefits: 1. Attract and maintain visitors with adaptive contents that are tailored to their taste. 2. Target Web contents correspondingly to their respective audience, thus reducing information that is of no interest to the audience. 3. Advertise and promote products through marketing campaigns targeting the correct audience. 4. Enable the site to intelligently direct information to a selective or respective audience.

EXPORTING BY SMALL BUSINESSES: START-UP EFFECTIVENESS ISSUES

1997 ◽  
Vol 05 (04) ◽  
pp. 341-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
PHILIP D. OLSON ◽  
NEWELL GOUGH ◽  
DONALD W. BOKOR
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Small Firms ◽  
Growth Strategy ◽  
First Year ◽  
Export Intensity ◽  
Effectiveness Measure ◽  
Start Up ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
Total Sales

As a growth strategy, small businesses are increasingly seeking customers in foreign countries. Our knowledge about certain small business export concepts and relationships, however, is still fragmented. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine export start-up effectiveness issues for a set of small firms. Results indicate that sales measures, such as export intensity (export sales as a percent of total sales), were the most frequently used effectiveness criteria for the first year of exporting. This finding is important because in the literature export intensity has been criticised as an export effectiveness measure.

Funding Small Businesses: Business Angels and Venture Capitalists

2005 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-124 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Venture Capitalists ◽  
Business Angels ◽  
Critical Commentary ◽  
The Web

‘Internet Review’ provides critical commentary on entrepreneurship, small business and innovation information on the Web. This issue's review covers national and international sources of funding for small businesses.

Eliminating Invisible Barriers: Health Web Site Accessibility

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-86
Author(s):  
Christine Rzepka
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Web Site ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Accessibility Issues ◽  
Accessibility Guidelines ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
Simple Evaluation ◽  
The Web

One of the top reasons given for use of the internet is the ability to search for health information. However, much of the planning for web-based health information often fails to consider accessibility issues. If health care organizations and community agencies’ web sites have the latest, most wellresearched information on the health topics of the day, it is useless to those who cannot access it because of invisible technological barriers. Many flashy, high-tech sites were designed only to appeal to the needs of the mainstream population, with no consideration given to how people with disabilities must adapt their use of the web in order to access information. This article addresses issues of access specific to web site development, and will explore barriers to accessibility frequently experienced by web users with disabilities, requirements for ADA compliance, and how people with disabilities use the web. Web site accessibility guidelines, as well as simple evaluation tools, will be discussed. A thorough review of the article will enable even the least tech-savvy of health educators to enhance their skills in planning and evaluating web sites to promote access for people with disabilities.

Assessment of small businesses activities in Ukraine

2019 ◽  
pp. 40-47
Author(s):  
Igor Ponomarenko ◽  
Kateryna Volovnenko
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Small Business ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Small Enterprises ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Business Entities ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Micro Enterprises

The subject of the research is a set of approaches to the statistical analysis ofthe activities of small business entities in Ukraine, including micro-enterprises. The purpose of writing this article is to study of the features of functioningof small business entities in Ukraine. Methodology. The research methodology isto use a system-structural and comparative analysis (to study the change in thenumber of small enterprises by major components); monographic (when studyingmethods of statistical analysis of small businesses); economic analysis (when assessing the impact of small business entities on socio-economic phenomena andprocesses in Ukraine). The scientific novelty consists to determine the features ofthe functioning of small businesses in Ukraine in modern conditions. The influenceof the activities of the main socio-economic and political indicators on the activities of small enterprises in recent periods of time has been identified. It has beenestablished that there is flexibility in the development of strategies by small businesses in conditions of significant competition, which makes it possible to quicklyrespond to changing situations in specific markets. Conclusions. The use of acomprehensive statistical analysis of small businesses functioning in Ukraine willallow government agencies to develop a set of measures to optimize the activitiesof these enterprises, which ultimately will positively affect the strengthening oftheir competitiveness and will contribute to the growth of the national economicsystem.

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