INFO 3304 E-COMMERCE

Assignment 1: WEBSITE ANALYSIS (Booking.com)

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Husnayati Hussin

Details:

Noorkhalida Binti Azmi 1113556 Section 1 October 23, 2013

INTRODUCTION Booking.com Alhamdulillah, finally I managed to finish my report in the given time. This report is about E-Commerce website analysis. I am very happy to be able to finish this report after a few changes of e-commerce website to meet the requirements of our lecturer in order to familiarize the common features and functions of a commercial website. I choose Booking.com as my reference company. This website provides us services to book for a holiday all around the world. It is one of the fast and easy website to be used.

I am very delightful when I first tried to book a hotel and captured every step as a proof for my report. Just by including the destination in my search, everything is on the list with the lowest price. Moreover, booking.com is a very friendly user interface with less advertisement and understandable even to those who are not into technology. Basically, I found out booking.com is the most suitable website to be analyzed as most of the thing I need to be included in the report is on the booking.com.

OVERVIEW

The Company Booking.com B.V., part of Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN), owns and operates Booking.com, the world leader in booking accommodations online. Each day, over 500,000 room nights are reserved on Booking.com. The Booking.com website and apps attract visitors from both the leisure and business sectors worldwide.

Established in 1996, Booking.com B.V. guarantees the best prices for any type of property, from small, family-run bed and breakfasts to executive apartments and five-star luxury suites. Truly international, Booking.com is available in more than 40 languages, and offers over 355,585 properties in 187 countries.

Booking.com B.V. is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and is supported internationally with offices in: Amsterdam - Athens - Barcelona - Berlin - Buenos Aires - Cambridge - Cape Town Dubai - Dublin - Grand Rapids - Istanbul - London - Loul (PT) - Lyon - Madrid - Montral Moscow - Munich - New York - Orlando - Paris - Rome - San Francisco - So Paulo - Shanghai - Singapore - Stockholm - Sydney - Tokyo - Vienna - Warsaw - Zrich.

Booking.com B.V. is registered with the trade register of the Chamber of Commerce in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, under registration number 31047344. VAT tax registration number is NL805734958B01. Registration number with Dutch Data Protection Authority is 1288246.

Structure of the Company

BUSINESS MODEL:

Booking.com is a B2C Community Provider and Portal Model. It uses online environment like Linkedin and also an e-commerce website providing their services.

Revenue Model Advertising Subscription

Transaction fees Sales Affiliate fees -Affiliate Partners Program Booking.com is the leading worldwide online accommodation reservations agency, currently offering over 355,585 directly contracted hotels with the best rates guaranteed. The Booking.com affiliate partner program has a demonstrated track record of great earning potential. The commission-based model we use with our hotels is the preferred sales model in the hotel industry and guarantees a longterm, mutually beneficial business relationship.

Value Proposition Benefits for their customers:

Lowest Rates Whether youre staying in a city, by the coast or in the countryside, Booking.com guarantees to offer us the best available rates. No reservation fees The Booking.com reservation service is free. They don't charge any booking fees or add any administration fees and in many cases rooms can be cancelled free of charge. Secure Booking The Booking.com reservation system is secure and our credit card and personal information are encrypted. They work to high standards to guarantee our privacy. For further details, please check their Privacy Statement

Market Space An information- and communication-based electronic exchange environmentis a relatively new concept in marketing. Since physical boundaries no longer interfere with buy or sell decisions, the world has grown into several industries specific market spaces which are integration of marketplaces through sophisticated computer and telecommunication technologies. Booking.com provides applications for smartphones (IOS, Android and also Windows)

It helps their customers to follow their updates and also check the customers booking. Booking.com also uses Google Ads as their marketing strategy so that their website is well known by others.

Main Competitors

ORBITZ Orbitz Worldwide is a leading global online travel company that uses innovative technology to enable leisure and business travelers to research, plan and book a broad range of travel products. Orbitz Worldwide owns a portfolio of consumer brands that includes Orbitz (www.orbitz.com), CheapTickets (www.cheaptickets.com), ebookers (www.ebookers.com), HotelClub

(www.hotelclub.com), RatesToGo (www.ratestogo.com), the Away Network (www.away.com) and corporate travel brand Orbitz for Business (www.orbitzforbusiness.com).

Comparative advantages The booking.com provides the lowest price rate among all the travel agencies. The most important thing about booking.com, it does not have advertisement from others being pop out and it is very convenient to has less advertisement on the website (personally view).
7

Booking.com is a properties worldwide with more than 40000 destinations. Website and customer service in English and 40 other languages which we can read reviews in different languages and also we can give feedback with the language we prefer. The website is also smooth and user friendly.

Strategy Booking.com is using Google ads to promote their website. Other than that, they also have Facebook account, LinkedIn to promote their website. It is a worldwide website so we can travel all around the world without problem. We can search hotel near to the shopping mall, and provides us with map so that it is understandable. Booking.com will include oversight of interbrand relations, including sharing of technology, best practices, customers and supply, coordination of relationships with key affiliates and suppliers, where necessary, and development of strategy relating to geographic expansion and competition among brands.

Task:

Task 1: Choose destination, dates if possible and guests.

Task 2: List of hotels and resorts depends on reviews, rates, and distances.

Task 3: Decide hotel.

Task 4: Availability.

Task 5: Reservation.

Task 6: Submit details.

Task 7: Payment.

10

While performing all the tasks, I experienced that this website is really smooth and easy to understand the steps. Also, it provides me many choices to select my holiday package. I do not encounter many problems during my session on performing all those tasks. I would recommend my friend this travel agent. Besides that, this website has less advertisement which make it looks very nice website to be viewed. I will give 4 stars out of 5 stars for booking.com.

CONCLUSION

After collecting a few information from various e-commerce website, I can conclude the business-to-business and intra-organizational segments currently dominate e-commerce. Many major digital retailers are as yet in the investment and brand-building mode and show no profits; yet many established retailers realize profits from the new selling channel. The technological infrastructure currently imposes several limitations on the development of a global market-space and on the personal convenience of the participants. An integrated consumer-oriented transaction space is yet to emerge. The capabilities of the new marketplace that combines the properties of a medium with that of a global location will be exploited to redefine many products and marketplaces. Notable are the possibilities to provide customized products, in the process moving ever larger segments of the supply chains to the Internet, branding through bonding to a Web site and thus to its sponsor, the advantages of virtual auctions, and the possibility to create large reverse markets. That is all I can conclude and understand after browsing most of the ecommerce website. It also helps me to further understand about the business model topic and the needs of the people nowadays followed by the technology we have today.

11