E-commerce - Cape Peninsula University of Technology

Chapter 2: Lnerature review Page 40
• Lack of Intemet standards: Lack of Intemet standards is another
technological impediment to e-retail businesses. This results from the
absence of well established and agreed-upon Intemet standards.
Intemet standards are used as guidelines for the development of
Intemet software which conforms to generally accepted rules for
communication between applications. For example, by conforming to
standard protocols, a browser developer can know the format needed
to request, receive and interpret HTML files. Using this format allows
browsers to communicate with all Web servers which also conform to
the same standards (Jackson & Hams, 2002).
Jackson and Hams (2002) further explain that problems occur when
there is either an absence of a standard or when an existing standard is
augmented. In the case where standards are augmented, multiple
parties are often augmenting the original standard in proprietary ways
to meet a new perceived need. The difficulty is that many solutions to a
single problem may coexist simultaneously without an agreed-upon
standard.
2.8 E-RETAIL BENEFITS TO E-CUSTOMERS
Walsh and Godfrey (2000) emphasises that it is the ability of e-retailers to
offer a high level of added value, beyond ease and convenience of the
shopping process that makes shopping on the Intemet a real threat to
traditional retailing. At its most basic this is a gift-wrapping service, at the
most extreme it is personalised recommendations, gifts or promotions. It is
much easier to offer these services in the virtual world. Musica recommend
new titles by a favourite author or topic of interest. CDNow.com informs the
customer that a long-awaited DVD has been released. Netflorist, South
Africa's known flower and gift service sends a reminder of Mum's birthday
and makes gift suggestions (Walsh & Godfrey, 2000). Travelocity.com