Question

Dirt Bikes’s management believes that the company could benefit from e-commerce. The company has sold motorcycles and parts primarily through authorized dealers. Dirt Bikes advertises in various magazines catering to dirt bike enthusiasts and maintains booths at important off-road motorcycle racing events. You have been asked to explore how Dirt Bikes could benefit from e-commerce and a Dirt Bikes Web site. Prepare a report for management that answers the following questions:

How could Dirt Bikes benefit from e-commerce? Should it sell motorcycles or parts over the Web? Should it use its Web site primarily to advertise its products and services? Should it use the Web for customer service?

How would a Web site provide value to Dirt Bikes? Use the Web to research the cost of an e-commerce site for a small to medium-sized company. How much revenue or cost savings would the Web site have to produce to make it a worthwhile investment for Dirt Bikes?

Prepare specifications describing the functions that should be performed by Dirt Bikes’s Web site. Include links to other Web sites or other systems in your specifications.

Answer 1

In today's world going e-commerce in any kind of business is a good idea, but in case og Dirt Bike business it can b a great oppertunity for expanding the business reach and overall processing, but before explaining the benefits of e-commerce in Dirt Bike business let us first know what e-commerce is:

E-commerce is the activity of buying or selling of products and services online or over the internet. Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems.

1) How could Dirt Bikes benefit from e-commerce? Should it sell motorcycles or parts over the Web? Should it use its Web site primarily to advertise its products and services? Should it use the Web for customer service?

A business like Dirt Bike can benefit alot from e-commerce in comparison with doing business old style. Most of the customers of the Dirt Bike comes to know about new products and information through magazines, but a website attracts more cutromers then a magazine. A magazine that comes once a month can not hold a candle to a 24/7 fully functional website.

Dirt Bike business should consider selling motorcycle and part online, that way more customers will be able to see and purchase Dirt Bikes.

They should not limite the web site to services and Advertisement only, indeed it is right that the web site can provide services and advertise that no other medium can but thats no reason to limit it to the basic function only.

Apart from selling products online on web site and providing services, Dirt Bike web site should also rovide customer services to make the customer happy and feel cared. A business with good customer service pulls cutomers. Customers are forgiving by nature, if a business reactedon the feedback and make curtomer eel cared the customer will easily ignore the faultsin the product that they might have faced, but that is only possible when the service is fast and the fastest way of receiving complaints, feedback or request for assitance is Web site.

2) How would a Web site provide value to Dirt Bikes? Use the Web to research the cost of an e-commerce site for a small to medium-sized company. How much revenue or cost savings would the Web site have to produce to make it a worthwhile investment for Dirt Bikes?

A web site is not just a mode of doing business, in today's market the web site of the firm or business represents the image and the capacity of the business in whole, customers dont take a brand or a business seriously that does not have a impresive web site.

When a small or a midium-size business thinks of going e-commerce first thought that comes to there mind is is it worthwhile investment and how much will it cost, below is a Traditional e-commerce medium size business web site expense.

Licensing	$4,000-$5,000
Hosting (monthly)	$350-$500
Design	$5,000-$10,000
Custom Development	$2,000-$5,000
Setup	$2,000-$5,000
Training	$500-$2,00
Total Setup*	$15,500-$29,000
Total Annual*	$18,000-$30,000

* this cost is a rough idea, all developers cost diffrently and cost also depends on the nature of site and business.

3) Prepare specifications describing the functions that should be performed by Dirt Bikes’s Web site. Include links to other Web sites or other systems in your specifications.

Functions that should be performed by Dirt Bike web site includes:

• Crucial business information: Depending on Dirt Bike business, they should have a few thing on their website that fall into realm of "information". Some business history, product infromation, images, etc.
• Contact Information: The site must contain the in information related to the contacts, not just in the bottom of the site, contact information should be on the top with other menu.
• Security: If Dirt Bike decides to sell motorcycles and parts online then they must arrange for the security of their cutomers bank details and personal information.
• Social Media Integration: The site should contain all the social media handles and should have easy and fast reconnection to them so that the customer can see Dirt Bike's profile on them.
• A mobile-ready version: THe site should be compatible for mobiles and other devices, and application would be even better.
• FAQs, Feedback and Complains: The site should option of asking quesion, ption of giving feedbacks, and option of linf complaints. Apart from havinf these options, the site should have a quick and user friendly interface so custmers dont get irritated.
• Product and Services Cattegorisation: There should be option for corting products for easily finding the correct product and availing the right service.