Q.15

The personalisation of web sites has been going for a long time. It is where the designer of the site customises the site to suit a certain user and there needs. They are basically trying to dictate what they want the user to see. The diagram bellow shows the three main steps that are taken in personalisation:

My personal option on personalisation varies as there are advantages as well as disadvantages. One of the main benefits is that the webpage knows who you are for example if a customer is shopping on Apple and they close the page by accident, when they return to the page the items that they have in the shopping basket are still there and also if you have logged in you will still be. Bellow is an example if this:

Although this is a good point there are also bad parts to this, being that if you do not log out of your facebook account it will keep you logged in and your friends think that you are still logged in and try and talk to you when you aren’t there.

The main disadvantage of personalisation is that you are looking at the same thing over and over again. After time of searching for certain products and seeing the same information and layout over and over you begin to see that personalisation is a bad idea. You want to see more of a variation instead of the same thing. Also you want to see they way others think about the different products and such.

Over all I have decided that personalisation is not a good idea after all as it is very repetitive and boring. It is also a bad idea as most people do not feel safe on the internet as it is and entering a site and seeing your name and address on it will not help them become more at ease with using the net.

The first thing that I proceeded to do was to type the web address of the site into the adwords page. This would then give me a list of associated words and phrases of Apple. The results are as follows:

There were a lot of results were overwhelming and it was hard to pick out 12 that best describe the company. Although I narrowed it down to the following:

• Digital Camera
• Service centre
• Laptop
• Computer
• Mac Book
• I-Pod
• Gifts
• Macintosh
• Note Book
• Software
• I-Tunes
• I-Phone

These are the words that in my option think are what best describes www.apple.com/uk. I will now write a short paragraph on each of my chosen words.

Digital Camera- The reason that I have chosen this is because it is a new feature to the apple company they have recently entered the Phototherapy market. They sell cameras of all different types and for many differing types of customer.

Service Centre- The site sells a lot of differing service Centre programs for all types of software that they have on there system.

Laptop- Laptops are one of the biggest sellers of the site and are very popular with students and business men and women. There are very large ranges to choose from. It is one of apples most famous products.

Computer- as most people know computers are what started apple and they are also one of of the best selling products.

Mac Book- this is a type of laptop that is created by apple it was ground breaking technology as it was the thinnest and smallest laptop in the world. It is also very popular although it is very expensive.

I-Pod- this is clearly the most associated product with the company and is without a doubt the most famous of all mp3 and mp4 players.

Gifts- this was a strange one that I found when reading threw, although it is very relevant as most of the products are very good gifts and also you can get gift cards if you cant make your mind up what to get.

Macintosh- this is original name for the apple computers and I was not surprised to see it appear some where down the line.

Note-book- these are a type of laptop that a lot of people would be interested in purchasing as they are small and compact.

Software- apple sell a lot of differing software products and they are one of the leaders in this market.

I-Tunes- this is the most used music player in the world and it is entirely free of charge.

I-Phone- possibly the greatest phone of our time it is like a computer in your hand that you can ring, play music, take pictures and play games.

Q.13

Apple is a very well known company that has developed over the years into a multi billion dollar organization. It is also very popular in terms of advertisement, on many of the different search engines and even on social networking sites. I have decided to use google.com for this assignment. Bellow is a screen shot of “Apple” typed into the search engine. There was 351,000,000 results returned, the majority of these results are not relevant and may only have “Apple” in there title. From this result you can clearly see that apple is a huge company that is very popular. The first five results will take you straight to the apple site.

Next I have decided to type one of apples most famous products into Google to see the result. There was 283,000,000 results returned for this search, again most of the results will not be relevant to iPod’s although this is a lot of results and this also proves that it is a popular product. The first couple of links take you to the apple site although after there are some sites that sell the product. Below is the screen shot that shows the search.

Finally I have decided to search for “MP3 players” to see if apple comes into the equation. Although the IPod arguably the most popular of the Mp3 players it did not appear on the first page of the search. There were 72,300,000 results given back from this search. As apple was not on the first sites it was given in the related search feature at the bottom of the page, the screen shot of this is below.

Q.12

Cloud computing is the term that is given to anything that delivers a hosted service over the World Wide Web. There are three types of cloud computing public, hybrid and private. The central purpose of cloud computing is to supply easy, scalable access to computing resources and IT services.  Cloud computing got its name from the symbol that is used within diagrams such as spider diagrams and flow charts.

Cloud computing is a type of computing that uses the Internet to carryout different IT services to a lot of end users, which includes:

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): A service delivery model, which enables an organization to outsource the equipment used to support its operations. These include storage, hardware, servers and networking components etc. This service allows a company or organisation to let customers to use the equipment that the IaaS is holding and in return they pay the company for the usage.

• Platform as a Service (PaaS): This service delivery model offers computing platforms and solution stack (a set of software subsystems) as a service, without the need of buying or managing the underlying hardware and software layer. this service relocates resources from privately owned computers into the Internet.

• Software as a Service (SaaS): Users can use this service delivery model to access software such as operating systems and other applications without necessarily downloading or installing them on their systems. This is a great way of accessing your software from work at home.

Cloud computing helps companies to create products that without it can not be even dreamed of. The use of cloud computing helps to make ground breaking improvements in the world of e-commerce.

The pull strategy is widely used within www.apple.com/uk, the reason that I know this is because the items that you wish to buy can be customised to your specific needs and also engraved. The push strategy is also used with the site as the majority of the customers do not wish to customise there items and just want the standard version.

Apple Inc is a mainly horizontal integration, the reason for this is that it is a company that wants to expand the market that they are in and sell more products. They use horizontal expansion to expand there share in the market of a particular product or service. As they are there own suppliers they do not use vertical integration and do not depend on another company for there products.

Value networks are very important and apple Inc realise this, they allow the customer to acquire all of there products including software online. The site is easily accessed and easily navigated.

Within the apple supply chain there are not very many efficiencies apart from they let you have an option to get a same-as-cash finance on selected products. Also the site is very user friendly and easily navigated as I have stated previously. The interface is also very flashy and would attract users to purchase items. Although there is no real communication between the user and the company apart from contact details being passed for the purchase of an order.

The threat of substitute products and services

The first point of Porter’s 5 forces analysis is extremely relevant to Apple Inc. There are many differing companies in the market with products like the I-pod, these companies are finding it hard to compete with Apple and therefore drop there prices. Apple Inc is leading the market in mp3 players, mp4 players and music software and it is hard for other companies to compete with them. Apple Inc is behind in the market for Pc’s and laptops this is due to the price of the products and the poor advertising.

The threat of the entry of new competitors (barriers to entry)

This is the second point of Porter’s 5 forces and it is about how easy it is for new competitors to enter the market. Apple Inc is in many differing markets but mainly electronics, such as their trademark I-pod brand. As it is such a wide market it is easy for new competitors to enter the market. They also can try and compete with the price of the products although they cannot compete in terms of quality of the products.

The intensity of competitive rivalry

There are a lot of rivals in the market that Apple Inc is in, but their clear rivals are Microsoft and some people even see these two companies as bitter enemies. Microsoft and Apple have never liked each other from the begging. They are both trying to beat each other at every aspect of their companies. All over the world it is well known that the both of these companies despise each other.

The bargaining power of customers/buyers

For the customer there is not much of a chance to bargain as the majority of the prices on the site are fixed and you cannot negotiate on them. Although it is hard to lose your business to the competitors apple will do so as there prices are high compared to the other sites.

Q.7

The majority of the Terms and conditions of Apple are very reasonable. One small thing that I noticed that I find to be a bit unreasonable is that when you are paying for your item(s) the money is not taking from your account until it has been shipped to you. This is not good for students as the money that you have for this you might now spend as you think that it has be taking from your account. Another terms and conditions that I was not happy with was the returns policy, there is a list of things that can’t be returned and there are three that I disagree with:

Personalized iPods

Electronic Software Downloads

Apple Gift Cards

Q.8

In registering for the site all of your data is secure and all of your data is encrypted. Encryption can be thought of as the masking, or the scrambling of original human readable information. On the site its self in the bottom right hand corner there is a small lock which helps to tell the user that the information that they are sharing is safe.

Below is a screen shot of the page being secure:

Q.9

A cookie is something that remembers you when you access a site, it remembers this like usernames, passwords and products in your shopping basket. Apple use cookies on all aspects of their site. Cookies are a very useful they help to save time remembering passwords and usernames, they can also be a bad thing as this means that if someone access the site and you have saved your password they can access your details and even purchase items.

Below is an example of cookies on the site:

Q.4

AAPL DELL HPQ MSFT Industry Market Cap: 169.55B 30.94B 110.16B 228.74B 30.04B Employ­ees: 32,000 76,500 321,000 93,000 32.00K Qtrly Rev Growth (yoy): 11.70% -22.30% -2.10% -17.30% 6.50% Revenue (ttm): 34.56B 53.70B 117.21B 58.44B 34.56B Gross Margin (ttm): 35.49% 18.38% 23.21% 79.20% 18.38% EBITDA (ttm): 7.52B 3.73B 15.44B 23.27B 3.73B Oper Margins (ttm): 19.98% 5.47% 9.22% 35.90% 5.83% Net Income (ttm): 5.18B 1.84B 7.32B 14.57B N/A EPS (ttm): 5.720 0.941 2.970 1.619 0.94 P/E (ttm): 33.09 16.81 15.64 15.86 33.26 PEG (5 yr expected): 1.8 1.54 1.21 2.19 1.80 P/S (ttm): 4.91 0.58 0.94 3.91 4.93

DELL = Dell Inc.

HPQ = Hewlett-Packard Company

MSFT = Microsoft Corporation

Industry = Personal Computers Above are the direct competitors of Apple inc and it also shows all of the different aspects of finance in comparison to Apple inc.

Q.5

Step 1: Accessing the site

The first step in the process is to access the site, you do this by opening a wed browser for example fire fox or windows explore and then you would type www.apple.com into the address bar.

Step 2: Accessing the Apple store

As you are now onto the site it self you know have to access the Apple store you do this by selecting the store button on the navigation bar at the top of the page.

Step 3: Browsing Products

The next step is to do with making a decision on what you would like to purchase. The role over effect is used to highlight the products.

Step 4: Information on Products

Once you have selected your product you are given more information on it and also the option to select the spec for example colour and memory size.

Step 5: Additional features

The next screen gives you the opportunity to add an inscription onto the back of your i-pod or phone or any other feathers that come with it.

Step 6: Checkout

This is where you make sure that you are not buying any unwanted items.

Step 7: Log In to your Apple Account

If you have an Apple account it makes it easier to purchase an item although you are also given the opportunity to create on at this stage. All of your details such as address and shipping address are listed on your Apple account.

Step 8: Payment

The payment stage is where you verify your card details and items that you are purchasing.

Q6.

Apple Inc are extremely up to date with technology and you can currently purchase items from there online store via your mobile phone, I-pod touch and through there I-Tunes software. Although there is still some room for improvement as there is a good advertisement campaign but there is no real way of purchasing Apple products via the television. As it is such a large company with a variety of products it would be a probable move to set up a interactive shopping channel.

E-Commerce Fundamentals

Q1

The website that I have chosen is www.apple.com/uk it is the main site for the online sales of I-pods, Apple Mac PC’s, I phones and all other products associated with the Apple brand. This site is used also for the download of one of the world’s most frequently used music players I-tunes. The site is used by a wide range of people from students to business persons. The site can accommodate for all different types of users needs, for example there is a business store for that aspect of the site and there is also an education store for schools and collages. The site also has also 35 different countries that the user can chose from with corresponding languages.

Bellow is a screenshot of the website:

Q.2

Bellow is a table of the profit made by the Apple Company from Sept 2006 – Sept 2008:

As you can see over these 3 years there was a huge increase in the gross profit. Therefore the turnover was 5,547,000.

Below are facts on the employees of the company:

Q.3  

Apple Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiaries design, manufacture, and market personal computers, portable digital music players, and mobile communication devices, and sell various related software, services, peripherals, and networking solutions. The company sells its products worldwide through its online stores, its retail stores, its direct sales force, and third-party wholesalers, resellers, and value-added resellers. In addition, it sells various third-party Macintosh, iPod, and iPhone compatible products, including application software, printers, storage devices, speakers, headphones, and various other accessories and peripherals through its online and retail stores, and digital content through the iTunes Store. The company sells its products to consumer, small and mid-sized business, education, enterprise, government, and creative customers.

Above is an overview of the apple company. They are a very successful business and have many differing channels of selling there products although there main channel is via there website. They sell music, laptops, PC’s, Mobile Phones, Printers, I-pods and much more. They sell there products worldwide and are the most popular music software provider in the world.

• Cheap and affordable broadband Internet
• The standard of living in the UK has increased
• More people are living in the UK

In 2006 a total of 13.9 million people could use and where connected to the Internet. This is over half the population of the UK 57% to be precise. Although there are still 43% of the population that are not using the internet. This could be for a number of reasons including that they are not computer literate or that they are of a older generation and are not familiar to technology. Another more common reason for the huge number of people not using the internet is the cost factor. Many people in the UK are unemployed and can’t afford to pay the internet bills.