What is a Business Model?
-Method of doing business by which a company can generate revenue.
-How a company makes money by specifying where it is positioned in the value chain.
Types of Brokerage models
-Marketplace Exchange
-Auction Broker(ebay)
-Virtual Marketplace(Amazon.com)
-Transaction broker e-business model
Goal of Transaction Broker
-Ensure that customer perceive some added advantage (eg. convenience, cheaper prices)from conducting transaction via the site.
-Community of transaction facilitates not only the buying and selling of products and services, but also the information delivery related to the transactions
- TBs reduce information asymmetry where consumers (e.g.looking for hotel rooms of Hotel-A) can get more information (e.g. locations, terms of contract) and compare prices.
-Transaction related information could be the added advantage offered by the transaction broker. For example, a travel agent can sell not only air tickets, but also distribute information about air ticket promotions, hotel promotions and so forth to its members.
-Not as useful to provide communities of transaction with C2C mode of interaction.
WHY?
1. When customer visit a transaction broker site,their purpose is to conveniently purchase something from an 'expert'and not to 'waste' time interacting with other customers.
2. Communities of discussion may not fit with the transaction broker's business model because these types of communities typically do not involve monetary transactions that can generate transaction fees for the broker.
WEBSITE OF STUDY: WWW.CHANBROTHERS.COM
Purposes
To maintain a strong marketing and communications link with customers, prospects, business partners and the general buying public, attain top-of-mind recall as a reliable travel agency providing quality packages at value-for-money prices.
First to set up a sophisticated online travel infrastructure and a call centre as part of our continuous efforts to offer seamless travel experiences from the first touch point to utilisation of service.
Features
Interactive. Good mix and choice of media types. Eg. video clips, sound effects, coloured images, interesting animation.
Designs
Strength
One-stop guide for travellers. Including air fares, hotels, destination guide and even insurance. Also provide links to other useful website. Interactive layout. Information is rich. Short footage of destinations available. Able to download videos and photos of selected tours--> increase richness
Weaknesses-
Did not specify where to seek help. Not able to do online booking- Not comprehensive for urgent travels. Did not provide the rough estimate of various airport tax that customers are liable for.Security- Not an issue since online booking and payment is not enabled.
Privacy Statement
-Committed to protecting visitors' privacy = The information collect is used for processing requests and to better personalise broadcasts of information on travel products that may be of interest to visitors.
-Listed compulsory data fields(enables efficient processing of data)= name, e-mail address, mailing address, and passport expiration date. This allows us to process your booking and to notify you of its status.
-Monitor visitor traffic patterns and site usage= help develop the design and layout of our site. We may also use the information we collect to occasionally notify you about important functionality changes to the Web site, new products and services, and special offers.
- Able to change preferences= If you would rather not receive this information, visit the My Account page to change your preferences. Make sure to change your preferences for each account or e-mail address you have left with us.
- Gives assurance = The company does not sell, trade, or rent personal information to others. Even when providing statisitcs to third-party reputable vendors, statistics will include no personally identifying information. The company may release account information when we believe, in good faith, that such release is reasonably necessary to (i) comply with law, (ii) enforce or apply the terms of any of our user agreements or (iii) protect the rights, property or safety of the company, our users, or others.
- Gives warning and state limitation = This site contains links to other sites. The company is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such Web sites.