The advancement in technology over the years has seen business move from the traditional brick and mortar model to E-Commerce. E-Commerce (Electronic commerce or EC) is the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet or online network infrastructure, especially the World Wide Web. It can be broken into four main categories: B2B, B2C, C2B, and C2C.
B2B (Business-to-Business)
Transactions between business partners
B2C (Business-to-Consumer)
Transactions between business organizations and individual shoppers
C2B (Consumer-to-Business)
Transations in which individuals sell products and services to business
C2C (Consumer-to-Consumer)
Transactions between individual consumers
The E-commerce business model aims to use and leverage the unique qualities of the Internet and the World Wide Web. The various E-commerce business models include:
Virtual storefront: Sells goods and services online
Information broker: Provide information on products, pricing, etc
Transaction broker: Processing online sales transactions
Online Marketplace: Digital environment for sellers & buyers to meet, e.g. Auction
Our project will focus on the transaction broker business model for E-Commerce and we have decided to usewww.moneybookers.com as our case study.
Introduction to Moneybookers.com
Moneybookers.com enables any business or consumer with an email address to securely and cost-effectively send and receive payments online – in real-time.
Customers need to set up a moneybooker wallet account and fund that account. After which, customers can use their account to shop (make payments), and do money transfers to other accounts.
Moneybookers.com does not sell any products, but delivers a product ideally suited for small businesses, online merchants, individuals and others currently under-served by traditional payment mechanisms. Moneybookers.com profit through the money transactions of other business dealings. For example, when an individual uses Moneybookers to make any payment for his or her online purchase, the fee charged by Moneybookers will be 1% of the amount paid by the buyer.
Benefits of using Moneybookers.com (Merchants)
Moneybookers.com has a B2B relationship with all sellers using its service. The sellers can advertise on Moneybookers.com and choose to use them as their official transaction broker. In this case, Moneybookers.com earns commission upon any payment made to the seller and the seller is also able to tap on Moneybookers.com’s expertise in making internet transaction payment safe and efficient for them. So what exactly are the benefits of using the Moneybooker.com for Merchants?
Global reach: Using the internet, companies can easily and quickly locate the best suppliers, customers and suitable business partners. There is no border and both buyers and sellers are able to use the services of moneybookers.com to make payment anywhere and at anytime as long as they have internet access!
Extended hours: The business runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year! Transactions can take place at any time in different countries and timezones.
Cost reduction: Moneybookers.com provides a low-cost way to accept credit/debit card and bank account payments for the merchant’s website. There is no integration fee for using Moneybookers.com and hence, there is low transaction cost. Costs of creating, processing, distributing, storing and retrieving of paper-based information are also reduced.
Insurance:
100% fraud and charge-back protection on request
Sell with ease: Convenient HTML interface, simple integration and detailed transaction records.
High payment security: Secure transactions with high security to protect their interests.
Marketing: Registered merchants will be included in Moneybookers.com’s shopping list, thus helping to boost sales!
Benefits of using Moneybooker.com (Consumers/Buyers)
Moneybookers.com has a B2C relationship with all buyers using its services. Buyers can use Moneybookers.com to make any of their online transactions and Moneybookers charges a 1% transaction fee on the amount of funds uploaded. These are the benefits for the consumers:
Ubiquity: Allows consumers to shop 24/7 from almost any location.
More products and services: Buyers can look through the shopping list on Moneybookers.com to find more options and alternatives for their shopping.
Cheaper products and services: Able to find price variety and comparisons for goods and services.
Safer e-shopping through Moneybooker escrow: Using the Moneybooker escrow, buyers are given 14 days of inspection time on goods purchased. During this 14 days, buyers will upload the funds for the payment onto their moneybookers account, which will be held by Moneybookers.com. Once the buyer has certified that there are no defects on the goods purchased, Moneybookers.com will release the payment to the merchant. This service safeguards the interests of the buyer and prevents any fraud.
Disadvantages of Moneybooker.com
Inconvenience with the returns and exchange of products: Despite being able to reject goods upon inspection, buyers are required to ship the goods back to the merchant at their own expense!
Void of responsibilities: As Moneybookers.com only acts as an agent, they are not responsible if anything goes wrong. They only serve as a platform to reach out to customers in transactions. Should there be a need for assistance or enquiries regarding the transactions, consumers will have to contact the respective companies.
Subject to network breakdown and other internet security threats
Distrust from customers: Websites such as this work on 'flow of spaces' instead of 'flow of places'. Operations are very much virtual and consumers have to do sufficient research in order to distinguish if the website is the 'real deal'.
Conclusion
Moneybookers.com is a well established and reputable E-Commerce transaction broker website which is able to safeguard the interests of both the buyers and sellers. The website is easy to navigate and users are able to find answers to almost all their queries from the FAQ section. The privacy policy is also clearly stated and hence, consumers can trust that their private information will not be leaked out for illegal usage.
We feel that Moneybookers.com is indeed a useful tool for both merchants and buyers in E-Commerce and is a very successful model of a transaction broker.
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