Pre course Survey Results for Ecommerce

Written by: Jonathan Briggs

October 4, 2004 [7172 views]

As part of this year’s ecommerce course I will be using online surveying to help me monitor progress, research key topics and provide feedback. The first survey looked at the existing level of knowledge of the students and at the topics they thought should be covered in the course.

What are the topics that you most want to be covered?
(Percentage of respondents who said it was important or very important)

Technical setup for a simple ecommerce store 94 %
Business to Business aspects of ecommerce 90 %
Improving the online customer experience 90 %
Case studies in ecommerce 85 %
Search engine optimisation and online marketing 85 %
Taking payment online 83 %
Business models for ecommerce 82 %
Graphical design and branding for an online store 81 %
Starting your own online business 80 %
Understanding the dotcom successes and failures 80 %
Costs and revenue models for ecommerce 69 %
Warehousing, shipping and fulfilment 67 %

It is not surprising that on a computer science course most of the students wanted technical information but other results such as improving the customer experience are perhaps more interesting.

I was pleased to see that all of the suggested topics were highly rated by the students. This suggests that we are going to cover the right mix of topics. I will use the results of this question to balance the coverage of the topics.

Pre-knowledge. These were the tasks that students said they could already tackle
(Percentage of respondents who said they could do it easily or attempt it).

Name 3-4 really great ecommerce sites and explain why they are successful. 82 %
Building a simple brochure website using HTML 81 %
Build a web front end for an Access, MS SQL or MySQL database 65 %
Advise a client on accessibility or usability aspects of their online presence 59 %
Outline the components needed to host and run a large scale ecommerce store including payment and fulfilment handing 57 %
Advise a client on search engine optimisation 56 %
Explain why most dotcom companies failed 46 %
Describe in detail the operation of an http server and how it can be extended to handle database activity 45 %
Configure and deploy a webserver such as Apache or MS IIS 30 %
Designing an ecommerce store using PHP technology 28 %
Designing an ecommerce store using Microsoft ASP or .NET technology 26 %
Designing an ecommerce site using a commercial package such as Actinic or Intershop 25 %
Design XML to transfer data between systems 25 %
Designing an ecommerce store using Java technology 20 %

I wanted to see whether students felt they could already tackle some of the issues that we are going to cover. The first answer is especially interesting because deciding why a site has been successful is often quite difficult. I would expect most students to be able to create a simple brochure site and perhaps attempt building a simple database driven site using Access. Most of the other figures are quite low. We will cover some of these in the lectures.

How many people have bought online?

Never 12 %
Once 7 %
Occasionally 42 %
Regularly 40 %

Each year the usage by the students of ecommerce sites has increased. I’m glad that most students have bought things online because this will give them a good starting point for evaluating sites for this course.

Here is a list of sites that students said they had used.

101-cds.com,
3com.co.uk
7dayshop.com,
airline-network
Amazon (28 people)
apple.com
Argos (5 people)
asda,
asos.co.uk (2)
awesome-gti.co.uk/catalog/
bananarepublic.com,
Best Buy ,
blackstar
BMI ,
Bol.com (2)
Boots
britishairways.com,
brownbag
buyagift.com
buypartsby.co.uk,
cclcomputers.co.uk
cd-wow.co.uk (3)
centurymedia.net,
cheapestflights.co.uk,
churchill.co.uk,
CircuitCity ,
comet.co.uk (2)
dabs.com (7)
Debenhams.co.uk (2)
Dixons.co.uk, (2)
easyjet.co.uk
ebay.co.uk (29)
ebookers.com
E-Buyer.com (7)
elephant.co.uk,
etnies.com
expedia
fleamarket.gr
gameplay.co.uk,
gap.com,
ghds.co.uk
Iceland (2)
insight.co.uk
interflora.co.uk
jags-online.com
johnlewis.co.uk (2)
kitbag.com (2)
lankafood.com,
lastminute.com
Leng99.com
Loaded247.co.uk,
LX Direct,
macys.com,
microdirect.co.uk
mobilefun.co.uk
MX2
newreg.co.uk,
next (2)
novatech,
O2
ocado.com
overclockers.co.uk (3)
pcworld.co.uk
pizzahut
play.com (7)
qxl.com
rochdalebooks.co.uk
ryanair.co.uk
Samsungshop.co.uk
savastore
scan.co.uk
teletextholidays.co.uk
tesco.co.uk (2)
ticketmasters
t-mobile,
tsohost.co.uk
ukreg.com,
virgin.co.uk
we-fly.com,
WHSmith,
worldcricketstore.com (2)

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