UNIVERSITY OF WALES,TRINITY SAINT

DAVID- LONDON

E-COMMERCE-[KALAHARI.NET]
ADIL JOHN

Submitted by,

NAME
COURSE
TECHNOLOGY
TSD ID
INSTRUCTOR
MODULE CODE
TERM

- ADIL JOHN
- BA[HONS] BUSINESS INFORMATION
- 29001902
- SBIT6002
-6

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Table of Contents
1.0 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................ 3
2.0 E-COMMERCE................................................................................................... 3
3.0 BUSINESS ISSUES............................................................................................ 4
3.1 Information technology application with regard to supply chain and value
chain................................................................................................................... 4
3.1.1 E-commerce in the supply chain............................................................5
3.1.2 E-commerce and Value chain (Michael porter).......................................5
3.2 E-business model.......................................................................................... 6
3.3 Success factors of www.kalahari.net and their current strategy...................7
4.0 TECHNICAL ISSUES.......................................................................................... 8
5.0 SCENARIOS (AFFILIATION WITH OTHER BUSINESSES)....................................10
6.0 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS........................................................10
7.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................... 11

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1.0 INTRODUCTION
The aim of this report is to perform an analysis on an e-commerce website
called Kalahari.net. The report will be based on certain scenarios,
business issues and technical aspects. The report is mainly categorized
into three sections.

BUSINESS ISSUES

TECHNICAL ISSUES

SCENARIOS

The business issues of the website will be examined based on their

information technology application in conjunction with supply chain and
value chain. In this section, an assessment on different aspects of the
company will be carried out with respect to some of the proposed ebusiness models. In the second section, a web evaluation criterion is
conducted to find out the technical issues of the website. Extended
web assessment method or EWAM is used for the website evaluation.
The suggestions and recommendations will be justified using the extended
web assessment method. The last section (scenarios) of the report
consists of the recommendations and suggestions to improve the business
based on the current strategy and a brief description will be presented on
affiliations and its effect on the future of a business. A detailed discussion
on these three aspects will be carried out further in the report.

2.0 E-COMMERCE
It is important to start off with a brief description of e-commerce before
moving onto the issues and features of Kalahari.net. E-commerce or
electronic commerce can be defined as any commercial or business
transactions carried out through the internet. Nowadays most of the
business transactions are done over the internet. It has become a wide
spectrum of business and ranges from retail, marketing, technology,
exchange of goods, trading and many other services. The emergence of ecommerce has eliminated the restrictions caused due to time and
distance. People can now transfer goods and services electronically. Over
the past decade, e-commerce has grown rapidly and is expected to
continue expanding at a faster rate in the coming years. It is evident that
almost 90% of the businesses have come out of the conventional business
to the electronic world. Another major advantage is for the organizations
that do business with multiple organizations (business to business) as it is
faster, efficient and cheaper compared to the basic traditional methods.
(Sell online, n.d.)

is a commercial website based on South Africa. It sells many products

such as multimedia, books, hardware, software and many health care
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goods. They are also associated with many online businesses from which
services like tickets for major events, movies etc. can be ordered. The
website was launched in october 1998. It commenced with little
preparations and inexperienced workforce; hence the company could not
even achieve a breakeven and was on the verge of a disaster. In march
1999, a new management took over the business and completely
renovated the old system. www.kalahari.net was then relaunched on
october 1999 and eventually it turned out to be a multibillion worth
successful organization. (www.ejise.com)

3.0 BUSINESS ISSUES

3.1 Information technology application with regard to
supply chain and value chain
Over the past few decades, information technology has become a major
part of business in many organizations. Business transactions have
become much easier and faster. As e-commerce is growing at a faster
rate, the alignment between information technology and business has
become very strong. In most of the developed economies, online buying
and selling has reached its maximum because it saves the consumers
time. It is also considered as the most powerful distribution channel
amongst all. By integrating IT in business many of the innovative small
and medium sized enterprises (SME) find it easy to communicate globally.
The restrictions caused due to the traditional methods such as time and
distance have been taken off and service oriented SMEs can easily step
into international market regardless of their location. Some of the
advantages of integrating IT in business are as follows;
- Communication and interaction with global organizations
have become much easier and hence organizations can
simultaneously do business with multiple firms globally. According to
Meg Whiteman Communications is at the heart of e-commerce and
community which is quite a notable quote about the impact of ecommerce in communication.
- When it comes to a supplier, a third party or a middle agent can be
eliminated and the organization can establish a direct connection
with the supplier. Other costs including documentation,
transportation are comparatively negligible.
- All the transactions are done over the internet and exchange of
goods or orders are just a mouse click away and hence save time.
- Building relationship between the customers and seller is a major
part of any business. With the help of IT services can be done more
efficiently and a regular connection with the customers can be
maintained with the help of feedbacks through e-mail and online
forums.
Information technology can be called as the backbone of Kalahari.net. The
popularity and fame of this website increased due to the ease of use,
simple web interface, less downloading time and smooth navigation from
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page to page which other websites failed to provide. The website is taking
advantage of the most advanced information technology to ensure that
they are still at the top of the game. If any aspect of the website falls
behind their rivals, the whole business will be affected by it. It is evident
that during the first launch of the website, the plan was not well conceived
and hence turned out to be a disaster. So it is important that, they must
be well updated with the information technology to maintain the position
ahead of their rivals. The annual turnover of the company over the past
few years shows that their business is still going strong without any
disruption and it can only be achieved through an efficient workforce and
IT department.
(Gandhi, 2006) (Dimitrios Buhalis, 2003)

3.1.1 E-commerce in supply chain

A supply chain is a network comprising retailers, distributors, suppliers
who take part in the production and delivery of a particular product or
products. As more and more organizations started to do e-business,
almost all the traditional activities were taken over through the internet
across the supply chain. A wide range of activities such as information
about the products, details regarding the orders such as tracking and
delivering, payment plans have started to do over the internet. Nowadays
organizations started to adopt different techniques using the internet to
improve the supply chain performance. Many organizations like Dell
started using the internet medium to exhibit their product information to
consumers. Customers can even track their products ordered from
different companies.
The major challenge for Kalahari.net is to maintain a real time bonding
with the consumers and suppliers which can only be accomplished with
the aid of information technology. Organizations like Kalahari.net carry out
direct sales with the customers thereby increasing their revenue and
productivity. Displaying online information across supply chain enables the
consumer to avail flexibility on certain products. For instance, if a person
requires a computer with a specific configuration than what is available in
the website, the company can arrange that configuration depending on
the availability and offer a price different from others for the particular
customer. According to experts, it is proven that the impact of ecommerce has resulted in a better understanding of the overall supply
chain management. The introduction of management information system
has integrated all the departments in an organization and compiled it as a
centralized unit. It resulted in quicker response time and also increased
the productivity. The supply chain has become much feasible and even
short time goals could be accomplished on time. For instance, in a retail
organization, if a department runs out of a particular product quickly than
expected, the supplier will get a notification at the same time (as a result
of centralized information system) and hence delivery can be done on
time.
(Sunil Chopra and Mieghem, 2000)

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3.1.2 E-commerce and Value chain (Michael porter)

Value chain is a chain of activities which are linked to one another in an
organization. A value chain is normally created in a business unit and
every product or service goes through different stages and a certain value
is added during the various stages. The idea of a value chain came up
when organizations started to see their whole process as a system. The
activities involved in the value chain are responsible for the overall outlay
of the organization which also has a direct effect on the profit. Every
organization conducts a series of activities while converting inputs to
outputs. Michael porter categorized these activities into primary and
secondary activities.

-Primary activities

1. Inbound logistics- it refers to the goods acquired from the

suppliers that goes through various stages to produce the end
product. Like any other business Kalahari.net acquires the product
from multiple suppliers that are ready to go through different
activities before reaching the consumer.
2. Operations- this stage involves all the activities needed to convert
the inputs to outputs. It means that the products are shaped to the
ultimate product. In this stage, the product will be given a value.
3. Outbound logistics- this is the stage where the overall output is
attained and certain actions are done to store and distribute it. Ebusinesses like Kalahari.net have most of its products already
manufactured. So they obtain these from different suppliers and
facilitate the sales by offering various services.
4. Marketing and sales- this is the phase where activities including
promotions are implemented to create awareness among the
customers about products and encourage them to buy. IT plays a
vital role in this stage. If you look at Kalahari.net website, the offers
and new products are clearly displayed so that the consumers can
take time and choose between the right products.
5. Service- it involves a series of activities conducted on a regular
basis to maintain the flow of products. In this phase, it is important
to ensure that the delivery and other services are done effectively. A
major highlight of Kalahari.net is that, If a customer spends more
than R250 (20GBP approx.), the delivery is absolutely free. Services
must be provided efficiently to build a strong relationship with the
consumers.

-Secondary activities
1. Procurement it is a secondary activity that includes obtaining
the best possible quality of resources for the firm.
2. Human Resource management this department deals with
activities like recruitment, training etc. During the re-launch of
Kalahari.net, the old management was taken over and experienced
staffs were placed which resulted in their huge success.
Determining the right person for the right task is important in any
business.
3. Technological Development technological aspects, hardware,
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software and management information system.

4. Infrastructure quality assurance departments, public relations,
transportation, finance and accounting etc.
(Porter, 1985)

3.2 E-business model

E-business or electronic business refers to as the business conducted
using the internet. Over the last decade, organizations have started to
integrate information technology in business to accomplish their
objectives. In the past few years, quite a lot of studies have been
conducting based on the classification of e-business models adopted by
well-known companies. E-business models vary from company to
company but the whole point is to analyze if a company is making money
or not. When you look at these models, the objective is basically the same
but different perspectives. For example, e-bay.com can be categorized as
a merchandiser model as well an auction broker business model. It is
basically the foundation of the business in all the departments of the
organization such as marketing, sales, public relations etc. it has four
basic components.
Value proposition
Customer relationship
Network of partners
Financial aspects
(Dubosson et al, 2001)

E-business models specify where it has to be placed in the value chain

activities to achieve maximum profit. The main categories of business
models are,
1. Brokerage
2. Advertising
3. Infomediary
4. Merchant
5. Manufacturer (Direct)
6. Affiliate
7. Community
8. Subscription
9. Utility
These basic types are also categorized into many subtypes. Kalahari.net
cannot be solely categorized into a single model. It can be analyzed on
different factors. It can be categorized into a brokerage model because
Kalahari.net facilitates buyers and sellers to do transactions through their
website. Every transaction is also accompanied by a transaction fee. It
also comes under merchant model because it is a web based retailer or
e-tailer. It sells goods and services solely through their website.
Kalahari.com can be called a virtual merchant which is a subcategory
that comes under the merchant model. Kalahari.net is also associated
with different partners and hence it can be grouped into an affiliate model.
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In fact, the website has one or more features that can make it associated
with many of the business models mentioned above.
(Rappa, 2010)

3.3 Success factors of www.kalahari.net and their

current strategy
There are many factors that lead to the success of kalahari.net. As
mentioned in the case study, it is categorized as an e-tailer 2. Since the
re-launch of the website, the company did not have to turn back because
their plans were well conceived and executed by the management and
workforce. The first thing that people notice about Kalahari.net website is
its simplicity in design. Another major aspect of the website unlike
other similar websites is that it very quick and easy to navigate. For
any company to be at the top of the business, their products must be well
displayed and promoted to the consumers. Kalahari.net has got all
their products displayed properly in the website with accurate
information and without any irrelevant advertisements. As can be seen
from the reviews, Kalahari.net does 100 percent justice to the customers
when it comes to product delivery, payment and other after sales
services. It also provides free delivery for those who spend more than
R250 which is quite an attractive offer. They have managed to create a
rapport among the customers. Another key factor for their success is
that the customers trust towards the company. People can even
access the website through their mobiles. Another important part of their
success is its online partners or affiliates through which products and
tickets for major events can be purchased.
It is clearly seen that one of the strategies of Kalahari.net is to maintain
their potential customers because e-business is a very competitive
market and companies frequently emerges with different tactics. What
they are trying to provide to customers at the moment is competitive
prices according to the products. Since it is difficult to stick onto to a
particular strategy due to market change, Kalahari.net often comes up
with many offers. Free delivery (R250 or more), efficient after
sales services etc. are important strategies adopted by the company to
retain their consumers. They also maintain their simple structure and
design of the website so that even people with limited knowledge of the
internet can avail the information from their website. The human resource
department of the company is stringent in choosing their workforce
as learned from the websites first launch with inexperienced staff. Their
current strategy also involves retaining their relationship with their
affiliates and also to add more online partners so they can expand
their business horizon to multiple areas.
(www.kalahari.net)(www.ejise.com)

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4.0 TECHNICAL ISSUES

The evaluation criteria used for the website is EWAM or Extended Web
Assessment Method. EWAM is used to evaluate the Kalahari.net because it
is mainly based on the consumers point of view towards e-commerce
websites. EWAM criterion is created by integrating a few other methods
such as technical acceptance model, theory of reasoned action and web
assessment method. The mistakes in those methods are rectified and
refined to build the EWAM method. There are two evaluation
questionnaires in EWAM. One is based on the users knowledge about
websites and the internet and the other one is the website being
evaluated. The method consists of different categories to cover all the
technical features of the website which is being analyzed. They are as
follows;
1. Information Phase
2. Agreement Phase
3. Settlement phase
4. After-sales phase
5. Community component
6. Final section
The categorization is based on three main components such as
trustworthiness, ease of use and usefulness.
Information phase- this phase is all about the information such as
quality of the content, ease of understanding and access to the
information. It also consists of the hypermedia used in the website. In
addition to that, the services, offers and benefits offered by the website
are also evaluated. Kalahari.net will get a good rating according to this
phase because their product information is accurate and easy to access.
There is not much multimedia used in the website except some flash
works which is light and easy to load.
Agreement Phase- the security of the website, payment methods and
pricing are being assessed in this phase. Kalahari.net is secure and
verified by Norton security (VeriSign). Their payment methods are clear
and precise. Some additional offers and loyalty cards are also offered by
the website. When it comes to pricing, it is reasonable and correct. The
privacy of the customers is protected in this website. They also offer a
return policy for legitimate customers.
Settlement Phase- it contains two parts such as e-commerce application
integration and tracking customer details. Not much application
integration is visible in Kalahari.net. Certain customer details (name,
nature of purchase, location and not payment details) are being tracked
like any other e-business to offer better service to the customers. Only an
average rating can be given to Kalahari.net based on this stage.
After-Sales- like the name implies it is all about after sales services
which are found to be good based on the customer reviews.
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Community Component- they have their own community in Facebook,

YouTube and twitter so that the customers can stay in touch with the
latest updates and offers. A high rating cannot be given for the website in
this section as it does not have an active forum.
Final section- all the legal activities of the e-commerce website are
analyzed in this stage. The interactions between the customers and the
staff, credibility of the suppliers, design of interface are also assessed in
this phase. All the suppliers and sellers of Kalahari.net are legitimate.
When it comes to the interface, it is a pretty simple design which makes it
user friendly.
(college of business, 2008)

A web analysis is performed using www.gtmetrix.com and the results are

quite normal. The overall rating on the technical aspects of the website is
average and certain suggestions are also given to decrease the loading
time of the website. A screenshot of the report is given below.

The main suggestions for the website are based on page loading time
and rest of the technical aspects like navigation, content etc are fairly
good. According to the GTmetrix website report, the image dimensions
are not specified in Kalahari.net, browser caching has to be improved,
optimize images and minify HTML. The best solution for optimizing the
speed of loading time is to enable gzip compression. It can be used to
compress the current data inside the website, so that the overall loading
time can be minimized.
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5.0 SCENARIOS (AFFILIATION WITH OTHER

BUSINESSES)
One of the most popular strategies used by emerging businesses of today
is affiliation. It means that creating online partners to enhance the
business growth. If a new company is good enough to get a partnership
with big companies, the trust aspect of the emerging company can be
enhanced which in turn has a big influence in their productivity.
Kalahari.net has affiliations with many online businesses. One of the major
advantages of these affiliations is an exposure to a wide range of
customers. Kalaharis customers were limited before having affiliations
with many other online businesses. In any affiliate model websites, a
certain financial incentive is offered to the partner websites. There are
three types of affiliate models.
Banner exchange- banner will be placed on partner websites
Pay per click
Revenue sharing- it is similar to pay per click but the commission is
based on the users purchase.
Kalahari.net has all types of affiliates mentioned above. There are also
some negative aspects of affiliations. If a partner website suddenly loses
its reputation, it indirectly affects all its partners. So choosing an online
partner has to be very accurate. There are also chances that malwares,
spywares and other worms can spread through an online partner if
affected.
(Rappa, 2010)

6.0 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

On the whole, we can see that Kalahari.net is one of the best e-commerce
websites available today. The simplicity of the website and the quality of
its content makes it unique among its competitors. They are doing a
brilliant job to retain its customers by providing daily offers and other
services. Kalahari.net has managed to become a well reputed company
and is even compared with e-commerce giants like amazon.com. At this
point, they can widen their spectrum of business to many other
departments like sports and athletic products which are popular among
youngsters. By doing so, they are likely to get many more online giants as
partners and hence the level of reputation can be increased. As of now,
they have huge annual turnovers and its growing at a fast rate; they
should try to acquire any of the most innovative e-businesses around the
world. This will help them to get an exposure to international market
where they can expand their business. Globalizing their business can take
them to a top position. When it comes to technical aspects, they are close
to perfection apart from the page loading time which depends on the
internet connection. The competitions held in the website are quite
amazing which keeps their customers entertaining. If it goes like this,
kalahari.net will come up as a major e-tailer in the world. Furthermore, the
current strategy of Kalahari.net is brilliant and works really well with the
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customers. So it would be unwise to step away from the current strategy

and go for a major change.

7.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY
college of business (2008), [Online], Available from:
http://www.webanalyse.info/survey/ewam.nsf [Accessed:25 May 2012].
Dimitrios Buhalis, O.D. (2003) Information Technology penetration and
eCommerce developments in Greece, [Online], Available from:
http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/1105/1/fulltext.pdf [Accessed:12 May 2012].
Gandhi, S.K. (2006) E-commerce and Information technology, March, [Online],
Available from: http://vidyasagar.ac.in/journal/commerce/7%20e-commerce
%20and%20information%20technology%20act%202000.pdf [Accessed:12 May
2012].
Magali Dubosson, A.O.Y.P. (2001) eBusiness Model Design, Classification and
Measurement, April, [Online], Available from: http://www.hec.unil.ch/yp/pub/01thunderbird.pdf [Accessed:25 May 2012].
Porter, M.E. (1985) Institute for Manufacturing, [Online], Available from:
http://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/dstools/paradigm/valuch.html [Accessed:14 May
2012].
Rappa, M. (2010) Business models of the web, 17 January, [Online], Available
from: http://digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html [Accessed:25 may 2012].
Sell online, [Online], Available from:
http://www.networksolutions.com/education/what-is-ecommerce/ [Accessed:10
May 2012].
Sunil Chopra, J.A. and Mieghem, V. (2000) E-business, 26 April, [Online], Available
from: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/vanmieghem/htm/ebusiness-scmr-april26.pdf [Accessed:13 May 2012].
WEBSITES USED FOR REFERENCE
http://kalahari.com
http://ejise.com
http://gtmetrix.com
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

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