Australian National University

Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology

COMP3410/COMP6341

Information Technology in Electronic Commerce

Tutorial 6 - E-Trading

1. Is each of the following a market, a marketplace and/or a marketspace, and who are the buyers, the sellers and the marketspace operator?
   • your local corner shop;
   • a suburban parking area that, each Saturday morning, is full of people trying to sell their cars privately;
   • an on-line share broker;
   • Open Day at the A.N.U.;
   • Graduate Recruitment Events at the A.N.U.;
   • Sourceforge.
2. Distinguish commodities from standard products.
3. What category of tradable item is the degree that you're enrolled in?
4. Identify tradable items that companies commonly buy using the 'spontaneous purchasing' technique, and that people commonly acquire using 'deliberative purchasing' approaches. Do companies ever purchase spontaneously?
5. Why are auctions more commonly used for commodities than for custom-built and customised goods and services?
6. Describe three ways in which you are taking a risk when you buy or sell using a mobile device.
7. Give examples of marketspaces in which participants are very likely to be concerned about protection of their identity and their personal data. What are currently the most practical ways for people to protect their id? And which privacy-enhancing technologies look like being the most effective in the future?
8. Identify strengths and weaknesses in the University Coop Bookshop's Online Service, at http://www.coop-bookshop.com.au/bookshop. How good a grasp does the organisation appear to have of:
   • cyberspace behaviour and net ethos?
   • the characteristics and needs of University students?