Competency 1

Evaluate opportunities to add economic, social, and environmental value to an organization.

Reflection

Choose 3 products you might be interested in purchasing that are sold on the internet. Visit the website for each product and go through the process as if you were going to purchase the product. 

Reflect on the following in a minimum of 500 words.

• Which website did you have the best       buying experience with? Why do you think that is? ‘
• Which website did you have the worst       buying experience with? Why? What economic, social, or environmental       value opportunities does this company have?
• If you could create the perfect website       to sell a product, what features would it have?

 

Opportunity Evaluation and Value Creation

            E-commerce websites have undoubtingly been on the rise within the past few years. This has prompted companies with e-commerce sites to create sites that will provide the buyers with the best experience. The sites that I visited for the purchase of a product were e-bay, Alibaba, and Amazon. I had the best buying experience with Amazon, with the site's most attractive feature being its ease of use. After accessing the website, a search button ensured I got to the product I wanted easily. The products were also easy to compare, given the information provided on the site. Notably, the site also has a section for user reviews, which helped me make the purchase decision easily. I went through the user reviews to identify the specific product that would meet my needs. After making the buying decision, the purchase was also quite easy as I only added it to the cart, confirmed the delivery details, and checked out. Thus, it is easy to conclude that the Amazon e-commerce site is easy to navigate, use and checkout. The other element that contributed to the best buying experience was the high-resolution photos on the site. The high resolution enabled me to feel like I was already interacting with the products through multiple angles. It also helped me in being sure of the exact product that I wanted to purchase.

            From the three websites that I used, the worst buying experience was with e-bay. First, there was limited information on the products for purchase. For instance, one of the products that I wanted for purchase was a Samsung Galaxy Watch 4. There was no information on its features and even a comparison of the watch with the others. I did not have a wealth of information for decision-making like what I experienced on Amazon. It was also quite hard to master the use of the site as there were three options listed, 'Buy Now, 'Make Offer,' and 'Add to Cart. The element of making an offer was quite unclear, and it was only after researching the internet that I understood the site requires the sellers to bid on an item to purchase it. This makes the buying experience quite complicated, given that one may have to wait for days or weeks for the bidding to end before purchasing the item. One of the economic value opportunities that the company has is ergonomics. The company has the opportunity to change its site so that it provides the user with ease of use, safety, and comfort. This would undoubtingly create more traffic for the site. The social value opportunity is to create a network of reliable sellers on the site. Currently, the sellers on the site are quite unreliable. People may purchase products and find a great difference between what they ordered and what they received. However, the company may turn this situation around by vetting sellers to get the best and most reliable. 

            If I could create the perfect website, the first feature would revolve around easing the shopping process. This involves integrating a shopping cart, which is integral to enabling consumers to store their shopped products to check out. It would go hand in hand with the integration of diverse payment interactions (Hassan, 2016). The limitations of payment interactions may cause individuals to hate the sites when their selected mode of payment is not included. The other features will be navigation and links to ease the search functions and move across the site. I would also ensure that the website has mobile compatibility. Many online shoppers want a site, which they can use easily with their mobile devices for convenience. As such, I would ensure that the mobile view of the website is responsive.

Outline: Opportunity Evaluation and Value Creation

• E-commerce websites have undoubtingly been on the rise within the past few years.
• From the three websites that I used, the worst buying experience was with e-bay.
• If I could create the perfect website, the first feature would revolve around easing the shopping process.
• This involves integrating a shopping cart, which is integral to enable the consumers store their shopped products for ease of checking out.
• It would go hand in hand with integration of diverse payment interactions (Hassan, 2016).