Club IT, Part II
As a club that offers live music, dancing, and refreshments, the mission of Club IT is to “build a community that meets regularly at Club IT” (About Club IT, Our Mission Statement). The owners of Club IT, Ruben and Lisa, recognize that e-commerce is a market that other businesses within their trade have not taken advantage of. E-commerce is a market that is growing in popularity, and is becoming more and more common place.
Many of Club IT’s guests are of the net and millennial generations, and regularly use many different forms of wireless communication, so e-commerce is a logical addition to Club IT’s infrastructure. There are different types of e-commerce; this one in particular would be business to customer, or B2C. This type of e-commerce focuses specifically on activity between the business and its customers.
Club IT already operates a web site in which they advertise their merchandise and provide information to the guests about their menu and music. B2C e-commerce can expand on what they already have by allowing the customers to buy their merchandise online. In addition to their merchandise, Ruben and Lisa have expressed the desire to sell advance tickets to their special Friday and Saturday night concerts. The virtual terminal would be the best form of electronic payment system for Club IT, since most providers only charge a per transaction fee (Managing and Using Information Systems, Ch. 7). Ruben and Lisa are not selling a huge inventory of merchandise on their website, so it would not be feasible to have a very complicated electronic payment system.
Another form of e-commerce is business to business, or B2B, which focuses on transactions between businesses only. Currently, Ruben and Lisa are ordering their business supplies or purchasing them directly at the store. They now have the opportunity to order their supplies online from Sysco, a major restaurant supplier. By doing business with Sysco, Club IT can create a supply chain...