#oitmis225

[t-rist20]

Throughout these seven weeks in MIS 225, I have realized how complicated websites can be. The marketing and management behind the site is extremely important. It’s proven in the analytics, websites that are user friendly, relevant, and easy to find gain more traffic and often produce more sales or conversions.

 I find that most franchises, national, and global organizations have great websites that meet the criteria, and gain competitive advantage through their websites. There are whole departments dedicated to the content, imaging, production, and upkeep of these sites. All of which are critical to the website’s success. I find that local businesses can struggle with developing and maintaining a good website because it does take time, energy, patience, and tons of research to produce a great website.

 Today, I searched through some sites of local businesses in town. I directly searched for the Periwinkle resale stores to see if the site had changed in the last year. I have known the owner for many years and have been so impressed by her business that she has maintained and opened in this town. This assignment calls for me to examine the areas of improvement. Here they are:

  Þ   Some of the images need changing, or retouched. They are fuzzy. For example, on the homepage, the big logo to the right is blurry and makes the site less attractive.

 Þ   The events page needs to be updated. They are missing a calendar of events. Even if there are no events happening, they could feature past events, or simply show that there are no events available at this time.  It could confuse users.

 Þ   The contact information and store hours are below the fold. Most of the time when people search sites, especially customers or co-signers, they want to know if the store is open or would like to contact someone. Moving that information above the fold line could lead to more conversions. A great interactive feature would be to have the phone number and e-mail hyperlinked to make the site more convenient.

 Þ   There is no “home” or back to homepage button. I knew to click on the little logo but other customers may not be aware of that.

Overall, I was impressed with the improvements of the site from the last time I visited about a year ago.  

[chavaelpato-blog]

Blog#2

About 3 years ago I bought an amplifier for my car audio system through e-bay. The amplifier was about $300 it was a really good brand and it now that I think about it was too much of a good price to be true.  The seller had thousands of sales before mine and although it seemed fishy I went ahead and bid for the item. After a couple moths of not receiving the amplifier I contacted the seller and never received a response. I don’t know why but the transaction has been completed already. I guess all the new precautions Ebay takes now did not exist back then. So I had lost over $300 already just like that. After months of not receiving a response from the seller I decided to report it to Ebay. I thought I had lost the money already and there was nothing I could do but to my surprise I was wrong. They made the seller return the money although it took about a year. They gave me $200 in credit to spend on Ebay for all the troubles which was pretty good. The thing that really stood out for me was that a customer service representative from Ebay would personally call me to check if I had received the money already. To me it is nice to see when a large company like Ebay can take the time and personally check if their customer’s satisfaction is being fulfilled or not.  That should be an example for many companies who you can only contact them through email and take a long time to get back at you. This si one of the reason I continue using ebay to buy and sell things. Based on experience they have made it harder for people who commit fraud to get away with it. #OITMIS225

[jessiemurrell5]

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[t-rist20]

Personal Info and Internet Purchasing

Advancements in technology and analytic systems have made internet purchasing increasingly easier and more convenient. I have grown to become a frequent internet purchaser. Not only do I use the internet for specific things, but I often shop the internet for apparel as well. There is very little to offer as far as shopping goes in my hometown, so I often refer to the internet for specific items or check out the clothing sales on my favorite sites. As an internet purchaser with many good and bad experiences, I have grown to expect certain things from websites.

I have been fortunate enough to not have my identity compromised. However, many aren’t as lucky. The increase of technology has made identity theft much easier to commit, and businesses often have their information compromised by hackers with bas motives. I worry about my security and the sharing of my personal information on the internet. I do understand that coding and securing personal information is a widely-used practice. I have learned to buy from sites that ensure my information is confidential. I also check to see that the business is accredited, either by a security system, or the BBB. I care about this because I care about my own security and my funds being drained.

I also understand that the information I share is being used to data mine, and in return, give me personalized results for my searches. Personally, I think data mining is useful, and it has made my shopping experiences more convenient. I am willing to trade some information in order to have a better shopping experience. However, I do not support sales of my information to any other company or third party. As a frequent shopper, and marketing student, I understand the importance of studying personas and analyzing the paths taken by customers. I do not think this information should necessarily be confidential. However, information that can be detrimental if another party was top access that is a different story. I expect my shopping sites to hold my personal information for shipping, and payment purposes. I do not support the sharing of my personal information for sale to gain more revenue.

[dsmelly44-blog]

Customer Service

The best customer service I have ever had was when I had first purchased the Playstation 3. Well my parents purchased it for me because of the deal that I made with my Step-Dad. The deal was if I can hit an over the fence homerun by the end of my last season in Little League, he would buy me the Playstation 3. This was back when I was 12 years old. So when playoffs came around I still had not hit one over the fence. I was having a great season though and we made playoffs. It came down to my second to last game in Little League when I hit my homerun. It was against the Dodgers in a game to determine seeding for the city championship round. We went on to lose the game but I was beyond excited because I was going to be receiving the newest Playstation. Anyways after a few months of owning and loving the Playstation, my little brother broke it. I was letting him play a game and he decided to shove a PSP (Playstation Portable) game into the disc slot. So my parents decided to take the Playstation back to the Costco it was purchased from and we got our full money back. This was a great customer service experience because it was such a pain free process. Well disregarding the Playstation breaking that is. I never would have thought they would still accept that product to be returned and refund us our full money back. The original purchase was done back when the original Playstation 3 cost about 600 dollars and we had purchased the combo pack with the extra controller and a game so mine was around 700. Costco still decided to give us a full refund which was amazing.

[themacole2]

The Worst Customer Service Experience

I would say the Worst customer experience I have had is ordering textbooks off of Amazon. Now it was the separate student trade in site that they had so when the books were ordered it was up to whoever the individual was to send them. But I ordered the books off the site because they were cheap but it took six weeks to receive the textbooks. turns out whoever had the books never got around to sending them until much later. I tried to get a refund for the order because I had to purchase the books from the school bookstore anyway because I needed the books to pass my classes. Amazon pretty much told me that they are not responsible for the individual not sending the books and because I did finally receive them they would not refund me the books. 

[jessiemurrell5]

Large Online Purchase

The last large purchase that I made on the internet was when I had my computer built through a computer building site called ibuypower. Over the course of a few weeks I compiled general information in regards to chip sets, RAM, and graphics capabilities. The computer I was looking for needed to be optimized to play highly graphical games; therefore, it was paramount that I had powerful specifications. I spent about a day on each component doing exhausting research to determine the best fit for my needs, as well as, my wallet. I would peruse several different review sites and come up with a comprehensive overview of each component. Once I made a decision the site allowed me to save changes to my build. Over the course of a couple weeks I was constantly going in and updating the requirements as I researched reviews and product information.

In this decision facts played a much larger role than emotion. The prerequisites were simply that the computer was made with quality and performed the necessary functions of playing graphical video games. The only real emotions I can think of were the fact that it was really upsetting to play games on my current computer because it would crash or not perform well causing me to get my ass kicked due to old hardware.

All factors of sales complexity played a role in my purchasing decision. First, the need was certainly there because my old computer would make me a handicapped player on the battlefield. Therefore, it was extremely necessary to upgrade my system so that I could actually play games in the fashion they were designed. Conversely, there was a huge amount of risk from initiation, delivery, and end user support. Buying a personalized computer strictly online garners huge risk and irritation if the product is not what is expected. Knowledge is certainly an important dimension of the sales complexity because the amount of knowledge that I had to gain (scientific information and product information) was extremely large. Furthermore, I wanted different knowledge from first-hand users of said components; therefore, I not only had to read one set of reviews, but I also would compare them to another set of reviews to determine certain correlations. If I found one site had all good reviews, yet on another site many bad reviews, I would look into a different brand or component. Finally, consensus was searching for relevant and useful feedback from first-hand users of different graphics cards and chipsets. I would certainly value user’s feedback who could confirm they bought the product and I would omit other reviews that could be company generated or didn’t show an actual purchase of the component I was reviewing. Consensus and knowledge raised my confidence to purchase a personalized computer strictly online.

[jessiemurrell5]

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