A review on a post on e-tailing from My E-Commerce blog.

Based on a review on a post of “Digital music sales increase 50%” from My E-Commerce blog, the sales of digital music increase by 50% while the sales of physical album has decreased by 15% as compared to prior year.

Technology improvement has been rapid nowadays, and internet provides several conveniences to consumers. Therefore, consumers will rather shift to online purchase as compared to physically going to the retail shop to buy the products. One example is music. Purchasing a whole physical album from retailers may be costly as compared to digital music online. Moreover, consumers have increase the usage of portable digital products such as iPod and MP3 player has increased their motivation to purchase music online since they do not have to convert into the playable format in the portable devices.

There are several e-tailers available in the market, such as Amazon.com and eBay. These online sellers encourage consumers to purchase legal digital music from their websites. However, there are several disadvantages when consumers shift from physical album to digital music. One of the drawbacks is the illegal download of music. Illegal downloads exclude consumers from paying and they can simply click on the link to download the intended music from some websites.

Next, there are some risks when consumers search for music online. For instance, they might be exposed to the threat of viruses when they access to unknown websites hoping to download free music from the unsecured address. On the other hand, purchasing physical album will not cause this problem. However, most of the consumers will rather be risk taker when buying music since the original album may be costly. Also, some music lovers only prefer single song from an album. Therefore, they will choose to purchase singles from internet instead of buying the album as a whole.

As a conclusion, although there are several conveniences purchasing music online, consumers shall access to legal website when they choose to buy from e-tailers. Entering into illegal websites may cause some risks to consumers as compared to purchasing physical album from retail shops. To compete with e-tailers, retail shop owners can promote their products by giving out free gifts along with the album, as this advantage cannot be obtained from online purchasing.

Related link:

http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/e-Tailing

Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: Its potentials and consumers’ adoption strategies.

Mobile payment system is a new alternative payment system which allowed the consumer to do payment by using mobile phone. It is a secure and convenient way to transfer the money electronically at anytime and everywhere. Moreover, mobile payment system let the customers to pay for any services such as transportation fare, books, magazines and even the digital goods such as music, ringtones.

Mobile payment has been adopted by many countries such as Singapore, Australia, and Malaysia. One of the company which has been adopted the mobile payment system in Malaysia is Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd. However, user is required to download the “mobile money ATM” in order to create an effective mobile payment. Mobile money ATM is an application that uses in the mobile phone and helps the user to transfer money to an appropriate person. By using this application, user can pay their bills, bank, and friends, reload prepaid, pay merchants, and remit money. As a result, it helps to make the user’s life more easily.

At this point of time, most of the consumers are more preferred to use cash money rather than mobile money. In order to encourage the consumers to adopt this payment system, awareness of the consumers is one of the important elements. The government should try to introduce the usefulness and way to use the system. This is because most of the consumers have zero knowledge with the mobile payment system. Furthermore, we should improve the security of the mobile payment system in order to prevent any fraud which will be possibly occurred. Others than that, supporting regulatory and legal framework should be provided toward the payment system in order to improve the reliance of consumers. As a consequence, it will increase the trust and confident of the consumers toward the system. Other than that, the infrastructure of the payment should be widened. It will make the consumers to be more convenience in assessing to the system.



Related links:
http://www.liewcf.com/blog/archives/2007/05/m-money-by-maxis-and-maybank/

http://www.mobile-money.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_payment

http://www.bis.org/review/r080605d.pdf

Credit Card Debts: Causes and Prevention

Financial illiteracy
Many people get their first credit card as soon as they are allowed to. They don't understand how money works and grows, how to save and invest for a rainy day, especially teenagers or sometimes even younger. The schools don't teach about it, parents also seldom ask you sit down and explained about it. Many teenagers treat credit cards as "free money" and buy anything that they want without showing any concern of how they are actually going to pay for it.
Prevention:
You are responsible for your life and your money anyway. Get educated and get in control. You will be surprised at how powerful you'll feel when you are making thoughtful decisions about where and when to spend your money.


Emergence of online shopping
Online shopping is become more friendly and convenient to the user. Whenever the users have possessed a credit card, they can just buy the things through online and treat credit card as a useful leaner wallet. This will result in overspending while surfing on those online shopping website. Furthermore, if you are involve in gambling websites. It can be addictive, hard to stop and loans are freely available by using credit card.
Prevention:
Do you really require such a high credit limit on your card? Know your limits and you will automatically spend less. Keep a running tally in writing of your weekly or monthly spending versus you budget, and update it before each purchase. This will help you to eliminate the risk that you overspend during the month.


Lifestyle maintenance
Expensive cars, luxury houses and etc are the big expense along the way. They treat credit card as money from windfall. Furthermore, spending tomorrow's money today is very tempting, especially if you believe that tomorrow will come no matter what. Therefore, people may then rely on credit card to get by.
Prevention:
It is important to communicate with your spouse or significant other and your children about finances. Keep the lines of communication open and discuss financial goals and spending styles. Spending less than you make is what's important.


Encouragement of credit card companies
Even the credit cards have encouraged you to spend money with no worries wherever you go, but the credit card companies have always sent the advertising to assaults you. Credit card companies often tell us that spend more earn more because of the rewards and privileges provided by them. These things are often hamper our ability to save our money.
Prevention:
Actually, spend more earn more doesn’t make sense because spend more sure lose more money that you have, right? Therefore, cut up your cards so that you are not tempted to use them. Save one card for emergencies. Lastly, remember to pay your credit card statement due on time.


Related links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/debt/debt_manage_2004/top-10-causes.asp
http://www.mozdex.com/prevent-credit-card-debt/
http://www.indiastudychannel.com/resources/53476-Credit-Card-Debt-Prevention.aspx

Electronic Currency

Electronic currency is the money which is exchanged through electronically only. It can exchange through computer networks or digital stored value system. It is also known as electronic money, digital money, or digital currency. The examples of electronic currency will be given are electronic fund transfer and direct deposit.

In 2nd June 2005, Firstgate’s Click & Buy was launched by Apple and accepted in European iTunes. It allows customer to purchase music, audiobooks, and gift certificates via debit card, invoice or bank transfer.

Besides that, peppercoin system provides service that can process small payment. It allows the merchants and financial services companies to grow revenue and profits through the sale of low-priced offerings. Peppercoin provides payment solutions for various market and transaction type. Thus, it can help merchants increase revenue and decrease costs at the same time. It also enables profitable small payments by growing both a merchants’ top line and bottom line.

Additionally, paystone technology provides a low price online payment method without the risk of charge back from the fraudulent credit card use. It can efficiently process the micropayments. Therefore, it provides a wider range of market for the businessman or individual. Paystone technology also provides an email money transfer option which allows paystone account holder sends fund to email of anyone globally.

Flooz.com was a company which established a currency unique to internet merchants. The word “flooz” is an Arabic word, means money. Individual can directly purchase from the flooz.com which can be redeemed for merchandise at a variety of online store. In August 26, 2001, this company announced its closure. It may be due to the limited adoption by both merchants and customers.

Related links:

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-132944345.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_currency
http://www2.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/abs/html/mags/co/2004/08/r8019.htm
http://gold-pages.net/Peppercoin.htm
http://gold-pages.net/Paystone.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flooz.com