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E-Commerce market trends: A case study in leveraging Web 2.0 technologies

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DOI: 10.1504/IJBIS.2017.10005086

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Int. J. Business Information Systems, Vol. x, No. x, xxxx 1

Copyright © 200x Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

E-Commerce market trends: A case study in leveraging Web 2.0 technologies to gain and

improve competitive advantage

Ching-Chieh Kiu *

School of Computing and IT

Taylor's University,

47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

E-mail: ChingChieh.Kiu@taylors.edu.my

*Corresponding author

Chien-Sing Lee

Faculty of Science and Technology

Sunway University

47500 Sunway City,

Selangor, Malaysia E-mail: chiensingl@sunway.edu.my

Abstract: The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies have changed the way e-commerce can be sustained and improved to enhance competitive advantage. Integrating Web 2.0 technologies into e-commerce websites not only improves customer shopping experience but also enhances customer engagement. These evolutions in organizational and technological development require categorization in order to be understood holistically and consequently, to be exploited fully. This paper evaluates the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in Malaysian E-commerce. The paper also examines Malaysian E-Commerce engagement on Web 2.0 technology platforms to improve customer shopping experience and customer engagement at their online retail store. Findings on Web 2.0 technologies’ usage in 10 top e-commerce websites in Malaysia shows that most of the e-commerce websites have substantially integrated Web 2.0 technologies in their online retail store to gain and improve their competitive advantage. Furthermore, increased frequency of engagement in social mediums such as Facebook increases impact in terms of effect on customer shopping experience and customer engagement at online retail stores. In summary, Web 2.0 technologies influence changes in customer purchase behavior, shopping experience and ultimately, the dramatic change in top 10 ranking in the Malaysian e-commerce landscape. Keywords: Competitive Advantage, E-Commerce, Online Shopping, Web 2.0 Technologies

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: XXX Biographical notes: Ching-Chieh Kiu received her Bachelor of Business Administration and Master in Information Technology from National University

Author

Malaysia, and Doctor of Philosophy from Multimedia University. Her research interests are semantic web, ontology, web 2.0 technologies, data mining, machine learning, natural language processing, e-learning, e-commerce and knowledge management. She has published several journal and conference papers in ISI-rated and SCOPUS-rated. Chien-Sing Lee is a Professor in the Faculty of Science and Technology at Sunway University. Her research interests revolve around creativity and creativity tools, personalized learning (self-directed, lifelong learning, learning analytics), visual analytics, design research, games-based learning, mobile learning, Semantic Web and E-commerce. She is an IEEE Senior member since 2007.

1 Introduction

The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies has immensely changed the implementation of

online commerce or e-commerce websites and the way e-commerce is sustained

competitively. Web 2.0-based e-commerce, also known as social commerce, involves blogs, podcasts, tagging, mash-ups, social networks, and etc. (Nowshade 2006; Zhang &

Wang 2006; Zhu et. al, 2006). These Web 2.0 technologies enable customers to share

information, experiences and opinions on products (Jascanu et. al. 2007). Customers have

more information for decision making not only from a company but also from other customers to build their e-commerce business.

Web 2.0 is important for e-commerce. With the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in

e-commerce (Figure 1), large data that are highly relevant to the users can be dynamically

collected, analyzed and synthesized for strategic benefits. Understanding end user perceptions, companies and marketplaces can shape their Web 2.0 initiatives for successful

adoption and integration into their online stores (Kosalge, 2015). For example, to create

competitive advantage, Linda (2009) and Jonathan and Chrysta (2011) suggest that e-

commerce companies can: 1. build websites that can provide

a) easier, cheaper and faster ways to reach customers; b) the ability to create richer user experiences;

2. create greater price transparency across firms; 3. create more effective interaction and communication between customers and

company, and also among customers.

As such, online retailers need to assess Web 2.0 technologies and incorporate the

functionality of the technologies into their e-commerce websites in order to help them to improve their competitive advantage in marketplaces. Through engineering management,

appropriate Web 2.0 technologies can be identified and leveraged into e-commerce

websites based on the intensity of products or services in order to provide intense consumer

engagement and to enhance sustainable competitive advantage of the company.

With the identified Web 2.0 technologies and implementation on e-commerce, it

creates an interactive community platform for customers to share, review and discuss

products or services (Zhou, 2015; Kucukcay & Benyoucef, 2014). The information can be

used by customers and other potential customers to support decision making on their purchases. In addition, the information can be used to support company decision making

to deliver the right promotion, news, products or services to the online marketplace. Hence,

the potential of Web 2.0 to companies is undeniable. The significance of social media

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influence on e-commerce adoption by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is also

supported by Abed et al. (2015).

E-commerce has moved towards the Semantic Web, which enables intense personalization and relevancy-drivers (Kiu et. al. 2010), to provide greater impact on brand

building, peripheral experiences and purchase interactions. The Semantic Web thus

provides great potential in enhancing e-commerce competitive advantage (Alor-Hernández

et al., 2014; Turban et al., 2015; Lu et al., 2015). Combining Web 2.0 technologies with Semantic Web technologies can subsequently positively contribute to the way customers

perform product data sharing and product searching, and also the way companies perform

decision making.

These Web 2.0 technologies and evolutionary trends to Semantic Web-based e-commerce are illustrated by Jonathan et. al.’s (2011) framework illustrated in Figure 1.

Zwass (2003) further finds that categorization of e-commerce is needed in order for it to

be understood as an ecosystem and exploited fully. He suggests that we should look at

these aspects of e-commerce: commerce, collaboration, communication, connection, and computation.

Figure 1 The Evolution of Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0

Source: Jonathan et. al. (2011)

Meanwhile, Zioupou et al.’s (2014) study on Business Information Systems (BIS) adoption in the Greece agri-food sector leads us to another factor affecting global e-

commerce. Interested in determinants of ‘transaction climate’, they build on Patterson et

al.’s (2003) theoretical model, which consists of seven BIS adoption determinants. After

factor analysis, their findings indicate that ‘transaction climate’, which constitutes the social component within business relations and business organizations, can be measured

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by commitment, satisfaction and reliability. These three criteria will determine the success

of exchanges in data systems and the level of cooperation between the business and its

partners. These also determine organizational change, a prerequisite for effective BIS adoption.

In view of the above frameworks, our research objectives are to:

1. examine the Malaysian e-commerce scenario changes between 2014 and 2015;

2. evaluate the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies among top 10 e-commerce companies in Malaysia;

3. identify which Web 2.0 technologies have contribute towards the success of the current top e-commerce in Malaysia;

4. examine Malaysia E-Commerce engagement on Web 2.0 technologies to improve customer shopping experience and customer engagement on their online retail store

In Section 2 of this paper, the literature review comprising of e-commerce market

trends and the role and impact of Web 2.0 technologies in E-commerce are discussed.

Research methodology is presented in Section 3. Meanwhile research findings and discussion on Web 2.0 technology usage among the top 10 Malaysian E-commerce are

explicated in Section 4. The final section provides our paper’s conclusions with research

limitation and future work.

2 Literature review

2.1 E-Commerce market trends

E-commerce is a model for trading products or services via the Internet. E-commerce has

a great impact in our lives. Without e-commerce, life seems unfathomable, complicated and inconvenient (Miva 2011). In 1995, some successful and large online retails were

launched, namely Amazon, E-Bay and Zappos. With the success of Web directories by

Yahoo in 1995 and Google in 1998, Google Shopping and Yahoo! Auction were launched

too. E-commerce is evolving and expanding exponentially with the emergence of mobile

commerce or m-commerce, in line with the growth of Internet users and with the increment

of smart phones and tablet device users (Xu et al., 2010). Mobile commerce, a subset of e-

commerce, delivers e-commerce capabilities to customers via wireless technology. “The market for mobile payments is expected to quadruple by 2014, reaching $630 billion in

value. Total sales in ecommerce have grown from $27.6 billion in 2000 to $143.4 billion

in 2009 and are expected to continue its growth for the foreseeable future (Miva 2011)”.

By 2017, purchases made on mobile devices will make up 25% of the market (Enright 2017). By 2012, Asian countries has captured nearly half of the US$230 billion in revenue

of global m-commerce. It is also predicted that global m-commerce will be able to capture

US$700 billion in revenue by 2017 (Leighton 2014).

The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies have positively contributed and played a significant role in e-commerce activities. With these technologies, the conversation

between businesses and customers has become more responsive, making it easier for

transactional exchanges to occur online. Internet retailers can create better content and a

realistic shopping experience for their customers. Commonly, there are four e-commerce models. They are B2B (Ariba, SAP), B2C

(Yahoo, Webvan, Amazon), C2B (Priceline), C2C (E-Bay, lelong.com.my). The evolution

of the information technologies and infrastructures has resulted in a new E-Commerce

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model, namely B2B2C (Rakuten). E-commerce is important commodities for business

organizations to perform transaction over the internet. E-commerce has revolutionized

business implementations, change B2B operations and B2C operations especially in the process of buying, selling and exchanging products and services, (Velmurugan, 2012; Pan

et al., 2014; Lee, 2013).

In Malaysia, there were 17 million Internet users in Malaysia in 2011, and it was

projected that it will increase to 21 million in 2015 which was 66% of the Malaysian population. According to Nielsen-PayPal, the Malaysian e-commerce market size was

RM1.97 billion in 2011 as depicted in Figure 2. Given that 24% (RM467 million) of the e-

commerce market size was contributed by m-commerce, 72% (RM337 million) was spent

on smartphones while 23% (RM108 million) spent on tablets (Wong 2014). The Malaysian e-commerce market size is forecasted to be RM5.76 billion in 2015 and of this, 60%

(RM3.43 billion) is in m-commerce. The mobile commerce market size is forecasted to

increase from 5.49% in 2010 to 59.55% in 2015. Meanwhile the e-commerce market size

is estimated to increase from 216% in 2010 to RM 5.76 billion in 2015. Hence, e-commerce in Malaysia has increased tremendously from 2010 to 2015.

Figure 2 E-commerce market size in Malaysia.

The Malaysian e-commerce landscape can be classified into 11 categories as presented

in Figure 3. Lelong.my launched in 1998 and is featured as the first local e-commerce in Malaysia, followed by AirAsia online website launched in 2001, and Ebay Malaysia

(ebay.com.my) in 2004 as outlined in Figure 4. iPay88 featured as the first Malaysian local

payment gateway established in 2005, while PayPal accepted Ringgit Malaysia (RM) to

support online transactions in 2009. Korean e-commerce, namely Gmarket entered Malaysia in 2011 and has renamed Qoo10 in 2012. Meanwhile Japan e-commerce, Rakuten

launched its online marketplace in Malaysia in 2012. In the same year, Rocket Internet

launched Lazada and Zalora in the Malaysian e-commerce marketplace. 11Street, an e-

commerce site based in South Korea, officially launched its online marketplace in Malaysia in April 2015.

Malaysian online shoppers not only purchased online from local e-commerce websites

but also actively made online purchases via international e-commerce such as

Amazon.com, Ebay.com, Taobao.com, Tmall.com and Alibaba.com. Tesco was the first Malaysian hypermarket and retail chain that went online in 2013. On top on these, online

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ticketing, online food delivery, luxury shopping and lifestyle shopping are other well-

established e-commerce categories in Malaysia as presented in Figure 4.

Figure 3 E-commerce classification in Malaysia

Source: Wong (2014)

Figure 4 E-commerce milestone in Malaysia

Source: Wong (2014)

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2.2 Roles and impacts of web 2.0 technologies in e-commerce

Web 2.0 technologies “allow users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content in a virtual community. Examples of

Web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, folksonomies, video sharing sites,

hosted services, Web applications, and mashups” as described by Wikipedia (Wikipedia

2014). Web 2.0 is a platform that provides a rich user experiences, users control their online experience and influence the experiences of others through social networks (Funk, 2008).

Web 2.0 technologies such as blogging/podcasting and participating in social networks

such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter enable customers to engage, create and share contents

(Zhang 2012; Zhu et. al. 2006; Kosalge, 2015; Abed et al., 2015) and provide product reviews. Customer reviews can move customers from consideration to purchase. E-

commerce websites with an absence of customer community activity may feel "empty"

compared to those that feel "alive" with activity and communication.

Tagging provides users with a better method of finding products by incorporating user-added keywords or “tags”. If a user likes a product and wants buy it now, or keep reference

of it for future use, he or she can add one or several informal keywords as tags and save.

These tags are visible to others and can be displayed in two ways: in tag clouds, where the

most popular tags have bigger fonts and most recent tags, and a list of newly added tags (David 2007).

Through Mashups, customers can now look for ways to pair up similar items, even

those that are from different brands or sites. Meanwhile, RSS can be used as notification

ability instead of email to enhance product information request service (David 2007). RSS can also serve as an alternative way to share deals and coupons, promote contests or

promotion.

In Web 2.0 e-commerce, customers decide what to buy and whether the e-commerce

website is reliable and reputable. Customers will pick the best e-commerce store based on their trust in it. A survey from (Nowshade 2006) revealed that online sales increased for

83% of respondents with the adoption of new interactive functionalities, innovative product

catalogue and better communication with users on e-commerce websites. The impact of

Web 2.0 technologies to e-commerce is summarized in Table 1 (Errol 2006). Table 1 Impact of Web 2.0 Technologies in E-Commerce

Impact Web 1.0 Web 2.0

Demand

generation

Demand is pushed to the

customer by retailer ads

“Word-of-mouth” demand is

generated by the community

Personalized

experience

Non-differentiated services such

as address book, shopping lists

Personalized user desktop

tailored to individual needs

Browse and

research

Retailer-defined catalog and navigation

Rich interactive tools to browse and compare, augmented by

peer reviews

Configure

and select

Related items selected separately without visual

clue for the overall look

Engaging experience with visualization and product

selections

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Shop and

transact

Significant dropout due to

lengthy multipage checkout

Sales conversion through

intuitive single-page checkout

Service and

support

Retailers provide answers to

common problems

Community helps to solve

all problems

Remarket Focus on retaining the individual customer

Use the customer as an advocate to attract new

customers

The top 10 Web 2.0 applications (Linda 2009) that provide immense impact on E-commerce websites and contribute to competitive advantage are illustrated in Figure 5.

1. Customer Reviews: Review is a customer feedback made by a customer who has purchased the product from E-commerce websites. It is the most effective Web 2.0

technology to circumvent competitors and build online reputation of the e-commerce website. Commonly, customers will do a research on e-commerce websites before they

decide to deal with them, hence a positive customer review on the e-commerce website

will give a positive influence on customer decision to purchase from them. Meanwhile,

a positive customer review on a product may boost its sale. Reviews attract new customers to e-commerce website, and it help to retain existing customers. In addition,

reviews build customers trust and confidence about purchases. According to

Shopatron (2013), approximately 75% of reviews are positive and 82% of user-

generated reviews are valuable. User reviews lead to a 74% in conversion rate. 2. Shopping Widgets: Shopping widgets also known as ecommerce widgets are portable

content that can be displayed anywhere on the websites or blogs. This allows retailers

to push an interactive experience to affiliate sites, customer sites, social networks and

more. Visitors or customers are brought in to e-commerce websites via shopping widgets. It also reduces friction for the customers between product discovery and

product purchase by allowing them to browse retailer products and make a purchase

right from websites or blogs.

3. Question and Answer: The tools bring the conversation right onto the product page, and open up questions of the product to online retailer. Online shopper post questions

to seek more information on the products. Questions and answers improve product

information.

4. Twitter: Another medium for customers to get connected with e-retailers to ask and answer questions on products and services. Customers can get nearly instant answers

to questions directed.

5. User- Generated Cross Sells and Photos: In e-commerce, cross selling simply observes that “customers who buy X will also buy Y”. Other related products or suggested products are shown or listed on the product page to customers. This can help

customers to discover new items. User-submitted photos can definitely improve

customer shopping experience and increase sales at the e-commerce websites.

6. Facebook Pages: It creates a social network for their most raving fans who live where they play, not on the retailer’s website. This makes it much easier to share and invite

other friends to participate, rather than forwarding emails or product pages to friends

to drive people to the retailer’s website.

7. Co-Browsing: This technology adds a social component to a retail site by offering the ability to invite a friend to co-browse an online store in real-time.

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8. Social Widgets: Facebook share widget, Twitter widget, and Google Friend Connect on the website’s home page or product pages. A study discovered that a Facebook user

aged 18-24 has 510 friends and 65% of users claimed they considered information shared on social networks when it comes to making a purchase decision (Shopatron

2013). Providing and associating social widgets on the products page with the ability

to like and share products via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or other social

network platforms are the best marketing reach with minimal effort. 9. Retail Blogging: Establish connection with customers, talk about new products, share

interviews, videos, podcasts, news and photos. They can be a branding or loyalty

vehicle. They can attract links and search engine traffic to e-commerce websites.

10. Video Sharing: Videos are potent ways to add a sense of glossy touch to the online store. Videos are able to boost the conversion rate and SEO rankings of e-commerce

websites. Customers not only want to see pictures of the products, but they want to

know more about the features and functionalities of the products. This can be presented

using videos. Customer engagement via videos are more promising compared to long pages of reviews and a few images to describe the products. Video sharing via

Facebook or Pinterest, can virally help to improve competitive advantage of e-

commerce.

Figure 5 Impact ranking of Web 2.0 technologies

3 Methodology

The top 10 e-commerce websites in Malaysia were captured within two different periods.

The first dataset was collected on 22 May 2014 and the latest dataset was collected on 31

July 2015 from alexa.com as presented in Table 2. As can be seen from Table 2, local e-commerce websites (lelong.com.my, lazada.com.my, ebay.com.my, zalora.com.my and

11street.my) are low in global ranking as their online marketplaces are locally focused. E-

commerce from China namely, Taobao, Aliexpress, Alibaba and Tmall have dominated

Malaysian marketplaces as evidenced by the traffic ranking. International e-commerce which are highly participated by online shoppers are Amazon, Apple and Ebay.

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In May 2014, Zalora was not ranked as the top 10 e-commerce in Malaysia while

11street was without ranking statistic as it was only launched in the Malaysian marketplace

in April 2015. However, the statistic in July 2015 showed that Zalora ranked top and 11th street top five. Furthermore, Tmall and Ebay Malaysia fell out from the top 10 e-commerce

listing.

We next evaluated the E-commerce websites based on their adoption of top 10 Web

2.0 technologies as discussed in Section 2.2 (Linda 2009). In addition, due to the popularity of social media activities in Malaysia as shown in Figure 6, e-commerce adoption on

Facebook and Twitter were collected. Findings are presented in Section 4. As can be seen

in Figure 6, Facebook is the top social media followed by Youtube, blogspots and Twitter.

The later emerging Web 2.0 technologies such as Instagram and Pinterest also impacted the daily social media activities of Malaysia online users.

Table 2 Top 10 E-Commerce Websites in Malaysia (May 2014 vs. July 2015)

Alexa as of 22 May 2014 Alexa as of 31 July 2015

E-Commerce Website Global

Ranking

Malaysian

Ranking

E-Commerce

Website

Global

Ranking

Malaysian

Ranking

Lelong.com.my 2992 12 Lazada.com.my 2187 10

Taobao.com 9 19 Amazon.com 6 15

Amazon.com 12 20 Lelong.com.my 4080 23

Lazada.com.my 5453 28 Taobao.com 10 35

Ebay.com 23 32 11street.my 10124 40

Alibaba.com 72 40 Alibaba.com 62 41

Apple.com 48 50 Apple.com 49 53

Aliexpress.com 69 68 Zalora.com.my 9945 61

Ebay.com.my 13993 81 Ebay.com 18 63

Tmall.com 22 82 Aliexpress.com 35 68

Zalora.com.my 13782 99 Tmall.com 24 117

11street.my - - Ebay.com.my 19146 159

82

81

68

50

40

32

28

20

19

12

Tmall.com

Ebay.com.my

Aliexpress.com

Apple.com

Alibaba.com

Ebay.com

Lazada.com.my

Amazon.com

Taobao.com

Lelong.com.my

68

63

61

53

41

40

35

23

15

10

Aliexpress.com

Ebay.com

Zalora.com.my

Apple.com

Alibaba.com

11street.my

Taobao.com

Lelong.com.my

Amazon.com

Lazada.com.my

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/lelong.com.myhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/lazada.com.myhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/taobao.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/amazon.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/amazon.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/lelong.com.myhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/lazada.com.myhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/taobao.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ebay.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/11street.myhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/alibaba.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/alibaba.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/apple.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/apple.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/aliexpress.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/zalora.com.myhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ebay.com.myhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ebay.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tmall.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/aliexpress.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/zalora.com.myhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tmall.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/11street.myhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ebay.com.my

Title

Figure 6 Social Media Popularity

4 Research findings and discussion

4.1 E-commerce trend in Malaysia

As can be seen from Table 2 and Figure 7, there is an immense change of e-commerce

ranking in global ranking and Malaysia ranking within 14 months (May 2014 - July 2015).

Lazada traffic was ranked 28 and made it as top fourth e-commerce website in May 2014 in Malaysia. However, in July 2015, Lazada traffic has tremendously improved its social

marketing activities and turned out to be top in e-commerce. Zalora was not classified as a

top 10 e-commerce in May 2014. However it ranked as top eighth in July 2015. 11street

was launched in April 2015 and has become top fifth e-commerce in Malaysia even though it ranked low in global traffic.

The popularity of these e-commerce websites can be articulated from Google search

terms as illustrated in Figure 8. Lelong.com.my is the most favourable e-commerce website

followed by lazada.com.my in Malaysia in May 2014. However from Jun 2014 onward, search term outcomes from Lazada has overtaken Lelong.com.my and made it the most

favourable e-commerce website in Malaysia. E-commerce websites from China such as

Taoboa.com, Alibaba.com, Aliexpress.com and Tmall.com have significant global ranking

and also favourable e-commerce stores for online shoppers in Malaysia. However their search terms are relatively low in Malaysia due to customers searching their products

directly through their e-commerce websites instead of via Google search engines as shown

in Figure 8.

Access from Google page to e-commerce websites can be via Google AdSense instead of through Google search terms. This explains why although the e-commerce websites such

as Zalora, Ebay and 11street have relatively low search terms, their Google click stream

(Figure 9) data are relatively high. 11street was a favoured e-commerce website as depicted

in Figure 7 although its Google search term was relatively low as shown in Figure 8. However, its click stream data indicated 11street’s visitors were mostly from Facebook

(9.1%) and Google (19.20%). As can be seen in Figure 9, local e-commerce Lazada, Zalora,

Lelong and 11street have actively participated in Facebook to improve their customers’

shopping experience and also to enhance competitive advantage among their competitors.

Author

Apple was a favoured e-commerce website among the online shoppers due to their unique

products. This was supported by notable search terms and Google click stream data.

Figure 7 E-Commerce Traffic Ranking

Figure 8 Search Term on the Malaysian Top 10 E-Commerce Websites (Jun – July 2015)

1015

23

3540 41

5361 63

68

117

159

2820

1219

0

4050

99

32

68

82 81

Lazada.co

m.m

y

Am

azon

.com

Lelon

g.com

.my

Taob

ao.co

m

11

street.my

Alib

aba.co

m

Ap

ple.co

m

Zalora.co

m.m

y

Ebay.co

m

Aliexp

ress.com

Tmall.co

m

Ebay.co

m.m

y

Jul-15 Jun-14

Title

Figure 9 E-Commerce Websites Click Stream Traffic from Facebook and Google

4.2 Web 2.0 adoption and impact on e-commerce

We evaluated the E-commerce websites on their adoption of the top 10 Web 2.0

technologies identified by Linda (2009) and as discussed in Section Error! Reference source not found. below. To recap, these technologies are:

1. Customer reviews 2. Shopping Widgets 3. Question and Answer 4. Twitter 5. User Generated Cross Sells and Photos 6. Facebook Pages 7. Co-Browsing 8. Social Share Widgets (email, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Circle, etc.) 9. Retail Blogging 10. Video Sharing (YouTube) The adoption of the defined Web 2.0 technologies is summarized in Table 3. All e-

commerce websites are well-linked and integrated with social media. Social media

activities in Malaysia are popular given that Facebook, YouTube and Twitter popularity

are ranked no. 2, 3 and 17 respectively as shown in Figure 6 (Alexa, 2015). Hence,

integrating these social media in E-commerce websites contribute positively to improving consumer shopping experience, which made these e-commerce websites sustain better

against their competitors. Through these Web 2.0 technologies, customer engagement on

e-commerce websites can be more interactive and also improve customer decision making

on product purchases. As presented in Table 3, Facebook and Twitter are the main social media integrated in

E-commerce websites. Facebook and Twitter engagement of e-commerce websites are

summarized in Table 4 and Table 5 respectively. Most of the E-commerce websites have

well-established Facebook pages for interacting with their customers. Facebook and Twitter serve as platforms to:

1. increase the intensity of the focus on the customer relationship and improve customer shopping experience;

2. provide and share the latest product information and promotion in real-time with their customers;

Author

3. improve customer engagement and loyalty; 4. build discussion around products, to enable customers to make better decisions on

purchase.

Customer reviews and social sharing widgets components are integrated into the

products page by a majority of the e-commerce websites as shown in Table 3. The adoption

of social sharing widgets by e-commerce websites are summarized in Table 5. Meanwhile, co-browsing and retail blogging are missing from the E-commerce websites due to their

unpopularity, high cost and effort in implementation and maintenance.

Table 3 Web 2.0 Adoption in E-Commerce Websites

E-Commerce

Cu

stom

er R

evie

ws

Sh

op

pin

g W

idgets

Qu

est

ion

& A

nsw

er

Tw

itte

r

Use

r G

en

erate

d C

ross

Sel

ls

an

d P

hoto

s

Faceb

ook

Pa

ges

Co

-Brow

sin

g

Socia

l S

hare W

idget

s

Reta

il B

loggin

g

Vid

eo S

harin

g

Lazada.com.my - - -

Amazon.com - - -

Lelong.com.my - - -

Taobao.com - - - - - -

11street.my - - - -

Alibaba.com - - - - -

Apple.com - - - - - -

Zalora.com.my - - -

Ebay.com - - - -

Aliexpress.com - - - -

Tmall.com - - - - - - - -

Ebay.com.my - - - - - -

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/lazada.com.myhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/amazon.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/lelong.com.myhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/taobao.comhttps://www.facebook.com/11street.my/likeshttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/alibaba.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/apple.comhttps://www.facebook.com/ZaloraMalaysia/likeshttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ebay.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/aliexpress.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tmall.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ebay.com.my

Title

Table 4 Facebook Engagement Activities of E-Commerce Websites

E-Commerce Date of

Created

FB Like

May 2014

Increment

of FB

Like

July 2015

FB Like Total Page

Likes

Frequency of

Engagement

Lazada.com.my 27/2/2012 916.1K 1209.90% 12M 12,244,121 Everyday

5 – 9 Postings

Amazon.com 7/3/2008 23.9M 4.60% 25M 25,872,389 Everyday

2-4 postings

Lelong.com.my 6/12/2009 170.7K 17.75% 201K 201,619 Everyday

2-3 postings

Taobao.com 10/9/2013 152.1K 29.52% 197K 190,807 Everyday

1-2 postings

11street.my 5/2/2015 - - 274K 275,265 Everyday

3 – 5 Postings

Alibaba.com 27/1/2008 126.1K 87.15% 236K 236,401 Weekly

2-3 posting

Apple.com 26/7/2011 11.4M 110.53% 24M - Everyday

6 - 20 Postings

Zalora.com.my 11/1/2012 870K 624.14% 6.3M 6,306,555 Everyday

4 – 8 Postings

Ebay.com

30/8/2012 3.1M 125.81% 7.7M 7,740,805

Everyday

1 - 3 Postings

Aliexpress.com 24/2/2010 141.6K 1029.94% 1.6M 1,694,910 Everyday

1-2 postings

Tmall.com - - - - - -

Ebay.com.my 12/7/2010 308K 20.45% 371K 371,323 Weekly

1-2 posting

Table 5 Twitter Engagement Activities and Social Sharing Widgets of E-Commerce Websites

E-Commerce Twitter Social Share Widgets

Date of

Created

Tweets Followers Frequency of

Engagement

Website

Share

Widgets

Product

Share

Widgets

Lazada.com.my February

2012

916.1K 5700 Everyday

10 – 13 tweets

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Google+

Youtube

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

Pinterest

tumblr

Amazon.com February

2009

14.2K 2M Everyday

10 – 13 tweets

- Email

Fcaebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Lelong.com.my August

2011

922 234 Everyday

8 – 12 tweets

Facebook Facebook

Google+

Twitter

Taobao.com June 2009 3 - not active

- -

11street.my - 996 864 Everyday

5 – 10 tweets

Facebook

Twitter

Facebook

Twitter

https://www.facebook.com/LazadaMalaysia/likeshttps://www.facebook.com/Amazon/likeshttps://www.facebook.com/lelong.com.my/likeshttps://www.facebook.com/taobaosea/likeshttps://www.facebook.com/11street.my/likeshttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/alibaba.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/apple.comhttps://www.facebook.com/ZaloraMalaysia/likeshttps://www.facebook.com/eBay/likeshttps://www.facebook.com/AliExpress/likeshttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tmall.comhttps://www.facebook.com/eBay.Malaysia/likeshttps://www.facebook.com/LazadaMalaysia/likeshttps://www.facebook.com/Amazon/likeshttps://www.facebook.com/lelong.com.my/likeshttps://www.facebook.com/taobaosea/likeshttps://www.facebook.com/11street.my/likes

Author

Instagram

Alibaba.com April 2009 4133 33.7K Weekly

1 – 3 tweets

Facebook

Twitter

Youtube

Linkedin

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Google+

Apple.com March

2011

5317 964 Everyday

1 – 6 tweets

- -

Zalora.com.my December

2011

22.3K 18.7K Everyday

8 – 10 tweets

Facebook

Instagram

Youtube

Twitter

Pinterest

Blogs

Google+

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

Email

Ebay.com

January

2009

19.9K 517K Everyday

3 – 10 tweets

Blogs

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

Email

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Aliexpress.com - 754 1593 Not active

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

Email

Tmall.com - - - -

- -

Ebay.com.my July 2012 185 128 Not active

Facebook

Twitter

Email,

Facebook,

Twitter,

Pinterest

5 Conclusions

In this paper, our findings indicate that most e-commerce websites in Malaysia are integrated with Web 2.0 technologies and are actively engaged on various Web 2.0

technologies to provide product information and promotion deals to customers. This

indicate companies themselves have to determine and utilize these technologies to sustain

their competitive advantage. They need to evaluate new Web 2.0 technologies from time to time and also need to identify how these new technologies can contribute positively to

improving their competitive advantage.

The study also indicates that Web 2.0 technologies provide great potential in

improving customers’ shopping experiences. Customers can obtain information and seek response from e-commerce retailers more effectively and faster; saving time, reducing

shopper frustration and shopping cart abandonment. In order to gain sustainable

competitive advantage, companies need to evaluate future innovations of Web 2.0

technologies based on customer needs. However, the characteristic of the product or service and the brand determine the type of innovation and technology adoption in E-

commerce websites. Not all products or services and not all brands require or desire

engagement and interaction between company and customers.

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/alibaba.comhttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/apple.comhttps://www.facebook.com/ZaloraMalaysia/likeshttps://www.facebook.com/eBay/likeshttps://www.facebook.com/AliExpress/likeshttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tmall.comhttps://www.facebook.com/eBay.Malaysia/likes

Title

5.1 Limitation of the research

The findings of this research is only for a specific period of time, i.e., from 2014 to 2015. Since e-commerce and Web 2.0 technologies are very dynamic, the trend may

change again. However, the findings can be applied to similar e-commerce contexts.

5.2 Future work

The research sampling is limited to top 10 Malaysian e-commerce only, namely

Lazada.com.my, Amazon.com, Lelong.com.my, Taobao.com, 11street.my, Alibaba.com,

Apple.com, Zalora.com.my, Ebay.com and Aliexpress.com. There are other popular E-commerce retail stores in Malaysia which are excluded in this study as their popularity has

dropped from top 10 ranked by Alexa.com, such as Groupon.my, Qoo10.my,

Ensogo.com.my and Goshop.com.my (Wong, 2015). Including them to the study might

provide better findings on how these companies utilize Web 2.0 technologies and activities to improve competitive advantage and customer engagement on their E-commerce in

Malaysia due to their localness.

This research has also discussed the top ten Web 2.0 technologies in gaining and

improving competitive advantage in E-commerce. Facebook advertisement, AdWords, on-site merchandising and promotion and Website user experience (both desktop and mobile),

are Web 2.0 technologies. Their impacts and roles on customer engagement and

competitive advantage on e-commerce online stores can be further explored.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to take this opportunity to express deepest gratitude to the reviewers for their invaluable input throughout the reviewing process.

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