Question

Electronic Commerce - Airbnb

The focus of chapter 10 is on the topic of electronic commerce. E-commerce can be defined as using the Internet and the web to transact business. Global business to consumer e-commerce is soon expected to surpass $3 trillion dollars in sales. Needless to say, electronic commerce is revolutionizing the way we do business. By doing a search of the Internet or by other research methods, find how Airbnb has adopted an e-commerce business model.

Ponder the following questions (answer as many as you can):

1) What was the main driving force or strategy behind Airbnb decision to deploy e-commerce?

2) Has the adoption of e-commerce changed their traditional business model? In what ways?

3) Does their e-commerce business conflict with their traditional bricks and mortar business or does it enhance the traditional offering? Explain.

4) From table 10-5 on page 384 of the Laudon text, identify which Internet business model closely resembles the e-commerce model of this organization?

5) What role does social networking play in the marketing strategy of Airbnb?

6) Who are the organization's main competitors? How does this organization differentiate their e-commerce web site / offerings from their competitors?

7) Has the e-commerce aspect of their business been successful?

8) What recommendations would you make, if any, to improve the Airbnb web site or e-commerce features?

Answer 1

1) The strategy behind Airbnb is to attract more customers, basically provides an E-commerce platform in which diverse people across the globe can do business transaction of their interest like lease, rent, charge for lodging and boarding through which many people can get benefits and earn more and more.

2) E-commerce enable customer to purchase product and to get more information about various products very fast as compared to traditional business model. E-commerce is very convenience for the user to get to know details available product online irrespective of their location .e.g i) Purchase ii) Payment iii) Collection /refund of various items and iv) Personalisation, etc, etc.In online marketing, most of companies can minimizes costs and give bigger offer like discounts or free shipping or gifts, etc.

3) Brick and mortar businesses would have physical designated locations which comprises of single outlet or may be a chain of stores.  However, in the present scenario, Most of the brick and mortar businesses are adopting e-commerce platforms in order to create a seamless shopping for their valued targeted audiences across the globe.

4) i) E-tailer: Sell physical product(directly) to the customer . Examples i)  Amazon ii) Blue Nile

5) Provides a platforms where people of similar interest can communicate and exchange information in an efficient way. Example Facebook, Twitter, Google++

6) 1. Tripping.com, 2. HomeToGo, 3. FlipKey, 4. HomeAway,  5. VRBO

7) Certainly

8)

• Self-report as well as categorize their support messages to their valued customer
• Ability to do advanced (pricing) by definite days of the weeks/months.
• Enable hosts to require some criteria for their guest to submit request of reservation very quickly