Value for e-business system

Tangible benefits
Improve time management and cost efficiency
With the feature of a pure-play organization, ASOS only runs businesses through
online which lead to time and cost effective for the business. The lower product
costs compared to physical stores result of extra manpower is not necessary to
operate the physical store which means ASOS saves on wages and rental for
physical stores. These appeals potential customers who look for cheaper price for
the same goods sold at offline shops. Eventually, these features of ASOS as a pureplay company profit maximization by cutting the complex costs.
E-business also makes it faster and easier to shop specially for those customers who
does not have much time to go to malls and shop, in this case they can manage to
shop from their home, work place or even while waiting in traffic, by using their
mobile application or PCs (Refer to the appendix).
Furthermore, marketing strategies which promote the brand and sales through
Facebook or within ASOS website is cost efficient meanwhile recognized by millions
of people. Besides that, improvement of logistics and inventory management for
ASOS are achieved by applying the e-commerce system. This is because of no
phone calls needed to be made to clarify and confirm purchases.
Open new marketing channel
With increased impact of ASOS.COM on fashion item shopping online, ASOS open
new marketing channel by e-commerce system. Of course, ASOS.COM is the main
site where ASOS has been successful in its online business by taking customer
orders and selling various types of fashion items. This contributes to open new
marketing channel to expand the influence of ASOS. One of new marketing channel
is ASOS magazine, which has been made for those who do not have access to
hardcopy magazine and offered online about latest fashion news. The magazine
viewers are easily able to buy immediately the items presented in magazine by just
clicking.

In addition, ASOS Life is a part of ASOS.COM to let users to form their own profiles
and to communicate each other by forums, blogs and groups. This helps to share
fashion news and information as if social networking services users do. Through
ASOS Life, consumers are more likely to access latest fashion trends and sellers are
able to find what consumers want and keep the up-to-date trend because fashion
business requires following updated trends to survive from ever-changing flows.
Intangible benefits
Increase customers loyalty
ASOS has become popular with outstanding customer service especially the free
delivery all over the world has become an important feature which attracts
international customers. This free shipping service has contributes to expand ASOS
globally among young- fashion interested people. With ASOS, young generations
staying in non-fashion leading countries are more likely to access and wear latest
fashion items at lower prices resulted from free shipping costs. When good
customer service and other benefits surpassed the customer satisfactions, it will
ultimately achieve a strong customer loyalty over the brand.
Enhance customer relationship
With appearance of social networking services and sites, businesses can be aware
of their customers tastes, interests and opinions easily in a short time. ASOS tends
to enhance its customer relationship by using blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and
more as the social networks play a vital role in keeping their current customers
updated with recent news or events like promotion sales. Furthermore, customers
are able to provide feedbacks, reviews or make complaints which help ASOS to be
aware of customers interests and what the customers really want. With a better

understanding of the consumers preferences, ASOS can build a better customer

relationship between business and consumers.
Improved strategic position of company
Unlike the competitors or other online businesses which are click-and-mortar based,
ASOS as a pure online retailer, solely focus on maintaining and ensuring their online
business which ensure website is constantly updated and managed professionally.
To strengthen ASOSs strategic position, it has expanded online websites in more
than 8 countries including Russia and China by 2013. This expansion brings the
business growth and increases its reputation internationally and eventually leads to
higher profits for ASOS Corporation. The competitive advantages of free shipping
open global website, 24hours standby customer service, providing mobile ASOS
applications have provoked ASOS to be one of the leading online fashion store
equipped with various competitive advantages in the fashion industry (Greenblat,
2013).

Alignment with Vision/Mission/Strategy/Objective

ASOS has a vision of providing a unique multi-channel shopping experience for
young adults aged between 18 and 34 years old who can communicate, share,
create ideas and their own styles then shop together. (ASOS, 2014). Currently ASOS
has been working to deliver a seamless experience on their website, across social
networks and devices from phones and iPads to laptops which will be increasingly
personalized and available in all places and time (ASOS.com).
After Web 2.0 has been placed commonly, ASOS online site and its social
networking services play a significant role to achieve its mission to lead the fashion
revolution. ASOS encourages customers to share and spread their fashion ideas and
knowledge to keep up with latest fashion flows. With e-commerce system, ASOS can
ensure to survive from ever-changing fashion industry by communicating with
customers and keep achieving its mission.

Possible e-business issues

Security and privacy issues
Security is crucial in every organization. Since ASOS is an online based organization,
there are various types of attack that they can encounter. The most serious online
security issue that is faced by both consumers and ASOS currently is the financial
data leakage as consumers fear the loss of their financial data while e-commerce
websites fear the financial losses associated with potential hackers. According to
Michelle Tolbay, the companys security officer, ASOS is targeted by hackers every
hour, which poses a very real threat to the sites security. She also said that more

serious attacks are made once a week on average by hackers trying to steal credit
card information ((Moth, 2012). To plug any potential holes ASOS runs frequent
security assessments and organizes hackathons to test the site for weakness prior
to any upgrades (Moth, 2012).
Privacy is also a major concern in electronic commerce, no matter what source one
examines. Fisher (2001) reported 41% of Web buyers surveyed last year by
Forrester Research of Cambridge, Mass., said they have contacted a site to be taken
off their databases because they felt that the organization used their information
unwisely. They also found that over 40% of online shoppers were very concerned
over the use of personal information, and 57% wanted some sort of laws regulating
how personal information is collected and used (Poll,2000). Similarly, Culnan (2000)
argued that privacy concerns were a critical reason why people do not go online and
provide false information online.
In regards to this problem, ASOS had taken several actions such as forming a
trustworthy partnership with high reliability Payment Service Provider (PSP), profit
protection and anti-fraud measures, frequent update of websites security systems
and other more. In addition, ASOS uses Comodo SSL certificate which help in
securing online payment system and reduce identity theft.

Figure 1: Asos security certificate

Marketing issues
The most concerned marketing issue that e-commerce faces including ASOS is
consumer behavior for e-business system. Particularly, for the elderly, they tend to
be lack of trust towards online shopping and transactions which probably due to not
having enough experience of shopping in virtual stores which tend to be consisting
of complicated design. Therefore, it is important to have a simple and clear
guideline to teach the new users of how to shop by online and how the transactions
work through online in order to build trust for them against the website. As long as

they understand the transaction and the website, this consumer behavior problem
would be solved as the elderly are more comfortable in online purchasing.
Another marketing issue threaten ASOS is a tough competition in e-business. With
the dissemination of internet, many organizations based on offline shop have
started to perform businesses online. It is suggested to be more creative and
innovative to maintain the position of ASOS in moving fast fashion industry, such as
keeping eyes on what customers want and response to feedback constantly or
giving customers with discounts to maintain stronger customer loyalty and
relationship.
Internet fashion retailing is global and highly competitive which can be a threat. Hence, ASOS must

effectively compete with high street retailers and other internet retailers so as to maintain its
market share. It should capitalize on its strength and minimize its weakness. ASOS can also
venture in opportunities as consumers continue to make more purchases from mobile platforms,
including phones and tablets.

References
ASOS. (2014). Marketplace. Retrieved from https://marketplace.asos.com/?
WT.ac=ASOS_grpnav_US
Croxton, K. L. (2003). The Order Fulfillment Process, International Journal of Logistics
Management, Vol. 14 (pp. 19 32)

Fisher, M. and Susan, L. (2001). Privacy By Design. InfoWorld, 23 (27), 20-22.

Greenblat, E. (2013, April 30). One purchase six seconds. The Age. Retrieved from
http://www.theage.com.au/business/one-purchase-every-six-seconds-201304302iqug.html
Moth, D. (2012). Security a 'major concern' for ASOS as hackers target the site
every hour. [Blog] Available at: https://econsultancy.com/blog/9175-security-amajor-concern-for-asos-as-hackers-target-the-site-every-hour/ [Accessed 30 Apr.
2015].
Turban, E., King, D., Lee, J., Liang, T.P. and Turban, D. (2012) Electronic Commerce
2012: A Managerial Perspective. 7th Global Edition. Pearson

Appendix