Page 104 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

3.7 On-Demand Delivery of Products, Digital Items, Entertainment, and Gaming 83

SECTION 3.6 REVIEW QUESTIONS faster than “overnight,” but slower than the 30–60 min
expected with on-demand delivery of pizzas, fresh flowers,
1. List the capabilities of online banking. Which of these or auto repair parts. E-grocers often deliver using the same-
capabilities would be most beneficial to you? day delivery model.
2. How are banks protecting customer data and tran sac tions?
3. Define a P2P loan system. Speed of Delivery
4. How are banking transactions protected?
5. What is mobile banking? Speed of delivery is critical not only for groceries and perish-
able items but also for other on-demand and large items. For
example, uber.com is an on-demand travelers delivery ser-
3.7 ON-DEMAND DELIVERY vice. In 2013, they partnered with Home Depot to deliver
OF PRODUCTS, DIGITAL ITEMS, Christmas trees (Rodriguez 2013). See also blog.uber.com/
ENTERTAINMENT, AND GAMING UberTREE.
The fastest delivery in the future may be by drones (see
This section examines B2C delivery issues related to on- Chapter 12). Amazon.com, UPS, and Google are exploring
demand items, such as perishable products, as well as the this phenomenon. In 2014, Facebook decided to “jump on
delivery of digitizable items, entertainment, and games. the bandwagon” with the purchase of drone maker Titan
Aerospace for $60 million (see forbes.com/sites/briansolo-
mon/2014/03/04/facebook-follows-amazon-google-into-
On-Demand Delivery of Products drones-with- 60- million-purchase).

Most e-tailers use third-party logistics carriers to deliver
products to customers. They might use the postal system Online Delivery of Digital Products,
within their country or they might use private shippers such Entertainment, and Media
as UPS, FedEx, or DHL. Deliveries can be made within days
or overnight. Customers are frequently asked to pay for expe- Certain goods, such as software, music, or news stories, can
dited shipments (unless they have a “premium” subscription, be distributed in physical format (such as hard copy, CD-ROM,
such as Amazon.com Prime; amazon.com/Prime). DVD, and newsprint), or they can be digitized and delivered
Some e-tailers and direct marketing manufacturers own a over the Internet. Online delivery is much cheaper and saves
fleet of delivery vehicles in order to provide faster service or sellers storage room, handling, and distribution costs.
cut delivery costs to the consumer. According to Mark Sebba,
CEO of Net-a-Porter (net-a-porter.com), the company pre- Online Entertainment
fers “to do as much as possible in-house, which includes
operating their own delivery vans for customers in London Online entertainment is growing rapidly and is now the most
and Manhattan” (see net-a-porter-brand.blogspot.com/ popular medium in the United States among young people
2013/05/some-more-current-content.html). Such firms between the ages of 8 and 17. There are many kinds of
provide either regular deliveries or will deliver items on Internet entertainment. It is difficult to categorize them pre-
demand (e.g., auto parts). They might also provide additional cisely because there is a mixture of entertainment types,
services to increase the value proposition for the buyers. An delivery modes, and personal taste. All these must be consid-
example in this category is an online grocer, or e-grocer. An ered when deciding whether something is entertainment or
e-grocer is a grocer that takes orders online and provides not, and what kind of entertainment it is. Some online enter-
deliveries on a daily or other regular schedule or within a tainment is interactive, in that the user is engaged in it.
very short period of time, sometimes within an hour. Home PricewaterhouseCoopers (2013) predicts that the global
delivery of food from restaurants or pizza parlors is another entertainment and media industry spending will reach $2.2
example. In addition, office supply stores, repair parts dis- trillion in 2017. This includes online gaming, streaming vid-
tributors (e.g., for cars), and pharmaceutical suppliers prom- eos, and audio (streaming media refers to multimedia that is
ise speedy, same-day delivery. constantly presented to users in real time).
An express delivery option is referred to as an on-demand All forms of traditional entertainment are now available
delivery service. In such a case, the delivery must be done over the Internet. However, some have become much more
quickly after an order is received. A variation of this model is popular in the new environment due to the capabilities of
same-day delivery. According to this model, delivery is done technology. For example, Facebook’s online games attract