The question came up the other day on why is e-learning considered EC? How does EC facilitate customization of products and services?
Electronic Commerce (EC); aka, eCommerce, is so diverse that it is more than just commerce. EC has expanded to include classroom training at Universities, in the military, elementary schools as well as online. American Military University is a prime example of how far EC has come. The organization I work for maintains a protocol that is utilized in all different aspects of EC including controlling the landing of jet flights, traffic signals, utility control, medical devices, satellites and stock transactions. All of this is considered EC because it utilizes Web 2.0 technology. It is B2B, B2C, C2B, and everything in between (Turban, 2012)
Craigslist is a business-oriented social network that helps its users by providing a service based on trust and ease of use so they can find just about anything from a job to selling that old sofa to finding a tenant for an apartment. The company isn’t interested in maximizing profit, but it makes money by selling ad space for those help wanted ads or apartments in various cities such as San Francisco and Chicago. The site draws in over 60 million users in the US serving up over 50 billion pages per month ranking it tenth amongst all websites overall in the United States (craigslist, 2016). Craig Newmark envisioned craigslist.org to be a community-based model rather than a for-profit business with a site that offered basic no frill look similar to the classified ads in the newspaper (Wikipedia, 2016).
Craigslist changed the world because it offered a no-frills, plain, simple, socially oriented, trusted and useful free website to its users. It literally destroyed the classified ad section of newspapers by offering free ad space to sell whatever it was you wanted to sell (Turban, 2012).
What I dislike about the site is that it’s too plain which makes it unattractive to the eye. Its cluttered would seem to make it hard to find what you’re looking for at first glance; fortunately, its search functionality is top notch. What I find interesting is that this site is so successful in spite of its simplicity. It reminds me a distributor of shipping supplies, Uline, in which they still use a traditional printed catalog that is sent out twice a year to over a million customers and publish a catalog look to their eCommerce website. What amazes me is that it works.
Some of the risks in using craigslist.org is inherent to doing business in general. Because craigslist.org doesn’t monitor everything going on, on the website, the old phrase caveat emptor comes to mind (let the buyer beware). Common complaints concerning the site involve fraud, illegal advertising can be rampant on the site due to craigslist staff inability to monitor the site. Some case in which sellers are asked to accept checks from the buyers only to find out the check is worthless.
References:
Craigslist – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.). Retrieved February 5, 2016, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CraigslistSubramanian, V., & Ramachandran, R. (2010).
craigslist | about > factsheet. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.craigslist.org/about/factsheet
Turban, E. (2012). Electronic commerce 2012: A managerial and social networks perspective. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
