7Cs of E-commerce
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The term ‘E-Commerce’
Ecommerce, or electronic commerce, is a term that’s used often in sales
discussions these days. Product sellers and service providers can increase
sales through online commerce and boost revenue with ease. Selling online
is a popular sales method, worldwide.
It conceptualizes commerce or trading using the internet. The simple
convenience of having access to a large number of both physical and
nonphysical resources by using a computer has changed current human life
from a fundamental standpoint, along with the form of how businesses are
managed and accessed. The presence and existence of virtual marketplaces
that have no physical form but which allow customers to purchase a variety
of goods, services and even information from their location of convenience
is an incredible leap from traditional stores.
Bill Gates has described e-commerce as “frictionless” or “friction free
capitalism” – meaning that e-commerce has excellent economic properties
for a ‘perfectly competitive’ industry.
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Classification of E-commerce:
The four main classifications of e-commerce are:
• Business-to-Business (B2B)- These transactions involve multiple
businesses such as wholesaling of goods between manufacturer and store.
• Business-toConsumer (B2C)- These transactions are the most common
and such transactions are generally an online sale of a good or service from a
business to a customer
• Consumer-to-Business (C2B)- It describes the sales or transfer of goods
or services from end users to businesses
• Consumer to Consumer (C2C)- This describes an internet-driven
community of users who trade with each other. These classifications of ecommerce, although different in some ways, all must happen using some
form of communication. The current standard of communication between
parties, especially in a B2C and C2C scenario, happens through an electronic
customer interface which allows communication between interested parties
in a consistent manner.
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The 7C framework:
Before introducing the 7C Framework, it is important to clarify what a
customer interface is and what part it plays in our e-commerce analysis.
With regard to the interaction between humans and computers known as
HCI, “human-computer discipline is concerned with the design, evaluation
and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and
with the study of major phenomena surrounding them.” User interfaces for
e-commerce web sites – also known as “customer interfaces” – represent the
store’s theme and level of appeal to the users of the web store.
The 7C framework includes seven elements, each representing a
component of the interface:
1. Context – website design
Context captures how the Web site is delivered. It consists of
functionality and aesthetics (look and feel). Functionality deals with
two issues: organizing content into sets of pages (layout) and
providing users with a means of navigation (performance). Layout
refers to three aspects: section breakdown, linking structure, and
navigation tools. Section breakdown is concerned with how a piece of
information is partitioned into sets of pages; linking structure with
how each page is linked to the others; and navigation tools with the
means of moving throughout the site. The aesthetic nature of sites is
established by visual characteristics, including colors used throughout
the site (color scheme) and visual themes that help deliver a message.
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1. Content – information on the website
While context focuses on presentation, content focuses on what a site
delivers. It comprises offering mix, appeal mix, multimedia mix, and
content type. Offering mix is the mix of product and service
information on a Web site (e.g., collected items for outdoor sports),
appeal mix refers to promotional and communication messaging (e.g.,
customer support), multimedia mix deals with the choice of media
(e.g., pictures of products supported by audio narration), and content
1.
1.
1.
1.
1.
type refers to the degree of time-sensitivity: current-content versus
reference-content according to high/low time-sensitivity
Community – communication between users
Community concerns the interaction between users (i.e., user-to-user
communication), including a feeling of membership and a sense of
involvement. It is divided into interactive communication and noninteractive communication. Examples of interactive communication
tools include instant messaging, message boards, and member-tomember e-mailing lists. On the other hand, some users seek noninteractive communication rather than be involved in a direct
exchange of responses.
Customisation – extent to which the site can be customized
Customization refers to the site’s ability to tailor itself (tailoring) or to
be tailored by each user (personalization).
Communication – site to user communication
Communication is defined as the dialogue between sites and their
users and has three forms: broadcast, a one-way information exchange
from an organization to users (e.g., e-mail notification), interactive, a
two-way communication between an organization and a user (e.g.,
customer service request), and hybrid, a combination of broadcast and
interactive (e.g., freeware distribution).
Connection – relationship between this and other sites
Connection refers to the extent of formal linkage from one site to
others. It is characterized according to the degree of linkage and the
amount of information quoted from other sites: outsourced content,
percent of home site content, and pathways of connection.
Commerce – e-commerce functionality
Commerce deals with the interface that supports the diverse facets of
business transactions, such as a shopping cart, security, orders through
affiliates, order tracking, and delivery options. If the website is
intended for commercial transactions, then it has to be safe, secure
and user information kept private.
Customers shop online for several reasons; the most important is the convenience,
cost, steep discounts & offers, large selection and the allure of control over their
purchases. This gives companies an even greater imperative to create a website that
will drive traffic to their website, appeal to their target markets, and create a lasting
experience that will create return customers.
The 7C Framework looks specifically at customer interface elements – what the
user sees. The interface elements encapsulated by the 7Cs represent the method
through which businesses communicate with customers to deliver the core value
proposition each company wishes to convey.
This coincides with the present study’s goal of finding out what e/m-retailers
should equip their Web sites with in order to communicate with their customers.