MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

E COMMERCE

STUDENT NAME : KARTHIKEYAN SHANIKA DILINI

STUDENT ID : 1261192002
MODULE : E COMMERECE
SUBJECT CODE : MBA6043
SUBMISSION DATE : 12TH JUNE 2019
SUBMITTED TO : PROF. DR. NURHIZAM SAFIE
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. E-commerce emerge and history and development.
1.2. Twitter emerge and history and development.

2. TRENDS AND CHALLENGES OF ECOMMERCE IN TWITTER

2.1. Trends of Ecommerce in Twitter
2.2. Challenges of E commerce in Twitter

3. SWOT ANALYSIS OF TWITTER

4. CONCLUSION

5. REFERENCES

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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 E-commerce emerge, history and development.
ECommerce is a form of doing business that is performed online or over the internet. In e-
commerce (electronic commerce) the trading business is done through the internet and it
involves commercial transactions that include transfer of information. It covers a range of
different type of businesses, from consumer-based retail sites to business exchange
trading goods and services between corporations.
The timeline of the history of eCommerce and its evolution is as follows.
1969: CompuServe, the first significant eCommerce company is established by Dr John
R. Goltz and Jeffrey Wilkins by utilizing a dial-up connection.
1979: Michael Aldrich invented electronic shopping by connecting a transaction-
processing computer with a modified TV through a telephone connection for transmission
of secure data.
1982: Launched the first eCommerce platforms by Boston Computer Exchange.
1992: Introduced Book Stacks Unlimited as an online bookstore by Charles M. Stack. It
was one of the first online shopping site created at that time.
1994: Web browser tool introduced by Netscape Navigator by Marc Andreessen and Jim
Clark. It was used on the Windows platform.
1995: Amazon and eBay were launched. Amazon was started by Jeff Bezos, while Pierre
Omidyar launched eBay.
1998: PayPal launched the first eCommerce payment system as a tool to make money
transfers.
1999: Alibaba started its online shopping platform.
2000: Google launched the first online advertising tool named Google AdWords.
2005: Amazon Prime membership was launched by Amazon to help customers get free
two-day shipping at an annual fee.
Etsy was launched in 2005 to enable small and medium scale retailers to sell goods online.
In 2009, Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey started.
2005: Square, Inc as an app-based service is launched.
2005: Eddie Machaalani and Mitchell Harper launched BigCommerce as an online
storefront platform.
2011: Google launched its online wallet payment app.

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2011: Facebook launched sponsored stories for advertisements.
2014: Apple launched Apply Pay, an online payment application.
2014: Jet.com was launched in 2014 as an online shopping portal.
2017: Instagram introduces shoppable tags- enabling people to sell directly from the social
media platform.
2017 to present
• Large retailers are pushed to sell online.
• Small businesses have seen a rise, with local sellers now doing business on social
media platforms.
• Operational costs have lowered down in the B2B sector.
• Parcel delivery costs have seen a significant rise with growing eCommerce industry.
• Several eCommerce marketplaces have emerged enabling more sellers to sell online.
• Logistics has evolved with the introduction of automation tools and artificial intelligence.
• Social media has become a tool to increase sales and market brand.
• The buying habits of customers have significantly changed.

1.2 Twitter emerge, history and development.

Twitter is an American online news and social networking service on which users post and
interact with messages known as "tweets”. Tweets were originally restricted to
140 characters, but on November 7, 2017, this limit was doubled to 280 for all languages
except Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Twitter milestones are summarised as follows.

March 2006

Founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams. Jack Dorsey set up the first ever
Twitter profile and sent out the first Tweet saying: “just set up my twttr”.

July 2006

Twitter’s microblogging service is officially available to the public.

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August 2007

The hashtag (#) is proposed by Chris Messina.

October 2008

Jack Dorsey decided to step down as CEO of Twitter to become Chairman of the Board.
Co-founder Evan Williams replaced Jack as CEO.

November 2008

Twitter reached 1 billion Tweets.

October 2009

Reached the 1 billion tweet milestone, they reached 5 billion Tweets!

February 2010

Over 50 million Tweets are sent out every single day!

April 2010

Launched its advertising platform, Promoted Tweets!

March 2011

Announces that over 1 billion Tweets are sent out every single week!

May 2011

Launches the ‘TweetDeck’ feature. TweetDeck organises all of the world’s news in real
time and delivers it to Marketer Twitter feed.

June 2012

Releases the first glimpse of the new Twitter bird design.

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November 2012

Barack Obama is the first president to announce his success in the election on Twitter
with this Tweet. President Obama’s Tweet was the most retweeted Tweet of 2012!

January 2013

Announces the launch of their new video-sharing app, Vine. Vine is very similar to the
Instagram app in terms of functionality and interface, except its sole purpose is to share
videos as opposed to images.

August 2013

Introduced an update that allowed users to follow conversations easier. This newfound
ease came in the form of blue and grey lines, linking up conversations in chronological
order.

August 2014

Launches its promoted video service. The promoted video allows users to view the video
straight from their Twitter feed.

January 2015

Group direct messages are now available, so users are able to chat to more than one
person at a time.

May 2015

Google and Twitter team up to ensure that relevant Twitter posts, images and videos
appear in SERPs.

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2.TRENDS AND CHALLENGES OF ECOMMERCE IN TWITTER.
2.1 TRENDS OF ECOMMERCE IN TWITTER.

Social media holds value for businesses of any size. It spans multiple demographics and
spreads Marketer company's message. As a business owner, Marketer should carefully
consider how Twitter will fit into Marketer overall marketing plan. Here are some trends of
Ecommerce in Twitter.

1. Use hashtags (#)

Hashtags are a great way to increase the visibility of the content beyond own followers.
Marketers can also create their own hashtags to draw attention to their brand or to events
they are holding, though it's possible it may not catch on.

2. Handle problems through direct messages. (DM)

It’s smart to handle customers through DMs. Because, Marketer don't want other users to
see the problem and think less of Marketer company. Also, there is no character limit on
DMs, which gives Marketer the freedom to properly help customers without being limited
to a certain number of characters.

3. Use photos, GIFs and polls

Using photos and GIFs with tweets is a great way to connect with followers. By Built-in GIF
keyboard in Twitter, the marketers can search a keyword and choose a clip that best suits
the tweet. Engaging with followers is imperative on Twitter to keep consumers interested
in Marketer brand. One fun way to involve followers is to create a poll.

4. Live tweet

When brands throw events and want their attendees to live tweet while they're there, the
brand often creates its own individual hashtag to use and share with the invite list so that
others can follow.

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5. Participate in Twitter chats

Engage followers or get a topic trending by hosting a Twitter chat. Twitter chats are
straightforward, but they require a relatively large and active follower base to be
successful.

6. Interact with influencers and customers.

It's important to interact with the right people on Twitter. It's always smart to engage with
Marketer’s customers to keep them happy and potential customers to help them learn
about Marketer’s business.

7. Advertise on Twitter.

Using Twitter is free, but if Marketers like to pay to promote Marketer’s account on the
platform, there are plenty of advertising options.

• Promoted Tweets: Ads just like regular tweets, and they appear in a user's Twitter
feed along with posts from people the user follows.
• Promoted Accounts: Help brands to become more discoverable and grow their
number of followers.
• Promoted Trends: Appear at the top of the trending topics list in the trends box on
Twitter.

In addition to these options, Twitter has a host of other marketing tools designed to help
advertisers improve their campaigns like Twitter Amplify, Promoted Video and mobile App
promotion.

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 2.2 CHALLENGES OF ECOMMERCE IN TWITTER.
Twitter also presents challenges for marketers. It’s important be aware of the downsides
or challenges of Twitter for ecommerce.
• Resources: Maintaining a presence on Twitter requires a time commitment. It’s also
important that the staff looking after the account have the right skills and training.
• Negative criticism: A Twitter presence creates the possibility of customers complaining
publicly about product or services. Negative comments can reflect badly on Marketer
business, however dealing with complaints well can have a positive impact on Marketer
reputation.
• Time sensitive: Unless Marketer tweet at the right time, when Marketer followers are
online, Marketer tweets could easily be missed.
• Spam: Be wary of spam accounts on Twitter. In particular, it is recommended not to click
on suspicious links from users you don’t know.
• Limitations: Restricted by Twitter’s 280-character limit. It can take time to learn how to
communicate effectively with brevity.

3. SWOT ANALYSIS OF TWITTER.

As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Twitter has numerous strengths that
help it to thrive in the marketplace. These strengths not only help it to protect the market
share in existing markets but also help in penetrating new markets.
Strengths

Good brand image for credible celebrity accounts – Fairly successful in maintaining
the authenticity of celebrity accounts.

An Early entry in social media business – Entered the market in 2006 when almost no
one was there.

Use of best technology – Because of the best technology that is being used in the
functioning of the platform, there hasn’t been any major outage which makes it highly
popular.

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The preferred channel of communication for celebrities and businesses – One of the
preferred channels of communication by most famous people and organizations.

Strong brand name and popular mascot the bluebird – Brand of Twitter has become
very strong in the last decade and has a well-known logo of the bluebird.

Real-time in nature with huge reach – This makes it one of the most efficient channels
of communication which over a period.

Effective integration with other platforms – Integrated itself with a whole lot of other
platforms as a login method which again strengthens its data science.

The parameter of market value and popularity – Twitter following has become one of
the important factors that people look at to identify the popularity and market value of an
organization.

Data strength – More than 300 million active users making it one of the biggest data
repository which has gradually become its core strength.

Simple and free – Twitter is free even being ad-free. The UI is pretty simple and easy to
use which makes it even more attractive for people to join.

It connects a common man to celebrities and organizations directly – It gives the

power to people to directly talk to their favourite celebrities, organizations, and places. This
is the feature and strength which makes Twitter unique.

Weaknesses :

Low retention rate – The retention rate of users is only 40% which shows the inability of
the company to keep people interested in the platform.

Unequal distribution of tweets – Though there are more than 300 million active users on
Twitter yet not all the users participate in tweeting.

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No new innovative features – The company has failed in devising any new interesting
feature in the platform.

No solid revenue model – Being ad-free with no subscription fee, it seems like there is
no consistent solid revenue model which may prove fatal in the long run.

Data safety issues – The platform is people’s data heavy and data safety is at risk at such
a public forum.

Opportunities

Customers service offering for organizations – It can explore the opportunity of being
an effective tool for organizations to become a communication tool in a structured way.

Integration with other platforms – Though Twitter has integrated itself with some
platforms yet there is a lot of gaps. This is an opportunity for them to integrate as many
relevant platforms as possible to attract increased traffic on their platform.

Increase the usefulness of Twitter Moments – Twitter and Moments look like two
separate platforms; they can use it as an opportunity to integrate it seamlessly and attract
more traffic.

Continuous improvement in user experience – Twitter looks like it stopped innovating

ad this is an area where they can really focus on improving the user experience which
ultimately will lead to more active users.

Search engine business – The kind of data and information Twitter already opens up an
opportunity for entering into the search engine business at some point in time.

Support activities for businesses – Since the outreach is huge, they can offer some
marketing or communication solutions to the businesses which can become another way
to boost up the revenues.

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Threats

The no-profit model even after 10 years - They have not yet come up with a profit model
which may someday prove deadly for the company.

Fake accounts and hacking incidents – This is the problem that is really alarming since
data is what Twitter has and if it is fake or hacked, there is no value for the company.

Competitors like Facebook, Tumble – Though Twitter has its unique identity in social
media market likes of Facebook are innovating daily which makes the existence of Twitter
vulnerable.

Innovative upcoming social media companies – Not only the existing competitor but
new and different exciting platforms are getting launched regularly because of low-entry
barriers. Twitter needs to make sure that it sustains by improving, innovating on a
continuous basis.

4. CONCLUSION
Although Twitter is a widely used channel for monitoring customer engagement and
promoting sales, its effectiveness is limited not only by a business’s understanding of the
platform, but its adopted strategies and tactics as well. Marketing a huge, complex platform
like Twitter is not without big rewards, but it takes an incredible amount of research, time
and dedication to reap a large following and an even larger number of conversions.

If the Marketer is attempting to tackle this platform for the very first time, or are simply
looking to refine Marketer marketing approach, the following tips help Marketer to
successfully leverage one of eCommerce’s most powerful platforms.

▪ Create an Awesome Profile that Reflects Marketer Brand

▪ Understand Marketer Platform
▪ Reply to All Tweets
▪ Tweet Wisely and Often
▪ Offer Exclusive Deals
▪ Retweet Content
▪ Promote the Twitter Page
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Twitter is an ever-growing social platform that can yield big numbers for online store. And
while undertaking this unique social platform can seem a bit intimidating, its rewards are
well worth the risk and investment. The above tips are just a few basic critical tactics that
can help Marketer grow Marketer following. If Marketer is interested in taking his Twitter
presence to the next level, reference Marketer Twitter Analytics for detailed information
that can help Marketer improve and refine Marketer Twitter marketing approach.

5. REFERENCES
• https://www.mbaskool.com
• https://www.slideshare.net
• E-Commerce 2018, Global Edition, 14th Edition - Kenneth C. Laudon
• https://www.semrush.com
• http://fernfortuniversity.com
• www.searchenginejournal.com

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