Souq.com is the largest retailer for online market in the Middle East. Over the years, the website has continuously advanced its business structure to attain an edge of the competitive e-commerce market in the region. Souq.com essentially deals with fixed prices in an effort to attract and to attract customary stores to advertise and sell through its website. As it is, potential clients surf the website to purchase products fro vendors or individuals. Souq.com has also invested its services by improving the websites platform to attract more sellers to business online through it. Most customers are happy with the website owing to its convenience and rich variety of online deals. The revenue model of the website is structure to revolve around transaction and advertising fees. The website receives payment in terms of fees from suppliers after selling their goods via the website. Adverts placed on the website also generate advertising fees.
Dubizzle.com is an e-commerce website. Its launch took place in 2005 in the UAE, but it has since catapulted the market share with its presence in 14 countries in the Middle East and North African region. The advanced website is available in three languages namely; English, Arabic and French. The website provides a platform for online classifieds and a community market-place portal where people can purchase and sell commodities from a wide variety of sources. The revenue model of dubbizle.com revolves around advertising fees from its online ad space and also from property ads. The websites thrives by allowing small businesses to flock the website with their products for free which is rather peculiar way of doing things.
Dailymotion.com is a website that avails hundreds of videos and allows users to watch such videos in the absence of commercial breaks. The website has its roots in Paris, France. Dailymotion.com revenue model has an inclination towards advertising fees. People upload their videos and have the choice to allow ad displays on their videos. Ad companies choose particular videos on which their ads should appear and then make payments per view of such advertisements. The people who upload such videos also gain from such an arrangement. Every time dailymotion.com serves an ad on videos posted to the website, the authors receive a percentage of the revenue.
All these websites constitute digital enterprises that use information technology to engage customers more effectively, improve operating efficiency and improve business processes. As a result, they also boost their revenues.
This category assesses the extent to which various government transfers to citizens take place electronically. The main entities in a G2C e-commerce are the government and its citizens. The government, therefore, provides an online portal through which civil servants, business partners, and the public can enter a state website. These transactions include; income tax refunds, social security benefits, government health benefits and unemployment, workers’ compensation and welfare benefits. E-government’s main function is to expedite the smooth flow of government operations dissemination of services and information from the government. As a result, the government gains a platform to render public services effectively and efficiently to its citizens. The likely benefits attributed to e-government include; improved public services, transparency and responsible accounts of events. Examples of G2C applications in Dubai include:
Emirates247.com is an example of UAE G2C website where UAE government posts potential career opportunities for UAE citizens. Citizens seeking employment can visit the website to identify potential employers and apply for vacant positions. The website also avails a means of communicating current affairs information to people all over UAE. Different areas covered by such information include current and breaking news, entertainment, sports, business, lifestyle, etc.
Government.ae/en is also another website that supports G2C e-commerce. The website has information about the government of United Arab Emirates and has a set of different services enlisted for individuals. Such services include; housing grants services, retirees’ application, training events, supplier information and road toll service.
Another formidable G2C website in UAE is ‘dubai.ae/en’. It is the official online portal of Dubai government. The website provides a platform with a wide range of services such as vehicle registration where motorists can register new vehicles or renew registrations of existing vehicles online. The registration renewal process takes place within minutes with payments made online using credit cards. Issuance of a temporary vehicle registration happens on the spot and motorists can drive their cars immediately they print the vehicle registration approval document.
Business to Business e-commerce websites refers to companies that avail platforms for purchasing and retailing of products and services among sellers and potential buyer businesses. As such, all participants in Business-to-Business e-commerce are companies or other organizations. Various websites use web-based B2B e-commerce business models.
One of the most innovative B2B companies in the United Arab Emirates is tradekey.com. It is an online business to business market-place that facilitates imports and exports of products such as construction, agriculture, food and beverage, clothing, automobiles, etc. from different countries around the world. It essentially concerns itself with helping world wide traders find new business and partners online. Suppliers post their company profiles to demonstrate their expertise while buyers post the products that they require on the same platform. Potential suppliers then contact the buyers and vice-versa. According to the website, businesses can interact with over seven million importers and exporters globally. The website has a revenue model based on subscriptions. Silver-key, Gold-key and Gold-key plus are the three main subscriptions available for tradekey.com.
Another perfect illustration of a B2B e-commerce site in UAE is tradeboss.com. The e-commerce website is quite similar to tradekey.com in terms of operations. It provides a B2B market-place and displays the names of companies, products and trade-leads from the United Arab Emirates. It bases its revenue model on subscriptions from companies in the United Arab Emirates or other parts of the world willing to get listings on the United Arab Emirates B2B Website. It reduces the cost and streamlines the processes of creating Limited Liability Companies. By providing their services online, such companies create a larger market to companies around the world willing to use such services. The benefits attributed to such B2B e-commerce businesses are quite numerous.
If a company copies the car advertisements from dubizzle.com and pastes them on its website in an effort to attract more customers, such a move would result in ethical and legal issues. In so doing, the company would be guilty of infringement. In the Copyright Act, infringement is a criminal activity of which parties are guilty of, if they disturb the copyright privileges of other people’s work. The rights to stop others from copying, displaying in public, or distributing other people’s work are among the privileges provided for in the Copyright Act. Consequently, it is against the law for web authors to duplicate work in other people’s websites.
The rule of thumb that best applies to such a scenario is that web authors should not take images from third parties. Even the slightest editing on any images picked from someone else’s website constitutes infringement. They should, instead, purpose to create original images or acquire them from their owners. For instance, instead of using another company’s website to acquire the advert, the company should strive to create a new advert with the original picture of the product coming from the seller.
There could be an argument, in this particular case, that copying the advert details could afford the exception of fair use from the copyright law. To some extent, this could be true only if the final website does not incorporate the Ad for commercial use. The moment they use it commercially, they forfeit the exemption and are liable for infringement. Another argument is that, instead of copying the details of the advertisement, the company could incorporate a linkage on its site to guide customers to the details. In such a case, there wouldn’t be any copying. If, however, the website combines the link with the text on the webpage, this would lead to the offense of contributory infringement on the part of the website owner. Therefore, websites should not include links to other people’s websites without permission.
References
[1] Bolin, B. (2013). Web Site Legal Issue. [Online]. Available: http://www.bitlaw.com/internet/webpage.html
[2] E. Steve, Electronic commerce: B2C strategies and models. John Wiley & Sons; Ed, 2002.
[3] Gobry, P. (2011, January). Here's The Real Story of the Dailymotion Orange Deal. [Online]. Available: http://www.businessinsider.com/dailymotion-orange-deal-2011-1
[4] Jahan, R. (2011, June 28). Dubizzle Sizzles. [Online]. Available: http://www.arabiangazette.com/dubizzle-sizzles/
[5] Jones, R. (2011, October 4) Souq.com refines its business plan | The National. [Online] Available: http://www.thenational.ae/business/retail/souq-com-refines-its-business-plan
[6] W. Vishanth. Technology enabled transformation of the public sector: advances in e-government. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference, 2012.
