Review A Local E-commerce Site

myPinkyHouse

myPinkyHouse is an online gift shop that specialized in selling the variables of gift products such as soft toys, crafts, accessories, souvenirs, flowers, greeting cards, and so on. The overall of the site design layout is match with the name of the site (myPinkyHouse) as it used white and pink color in the design of most of the pages. Besides that, the web site has uploaded some pictures in order to described the products that they sell.

On the other hands, the font size that used by this web site is normal font size which still can be see and read it clearly. The download speed for this web site is fast, which the page will loaded in between 2 to 3 seconds. This can make customers feel more comfortable as compare to those site which need to take few minutes in order to load one page. Meanwhile, the site's navigation is quite easy which customers can just click on the 'home' icon in order to go back to main page. Besides that, the side links such as products, browse categories, price range, and so on is available in every pages no matter where the customers are browse through. This provides customers the convenient as they can browse whatever pages of the site that they want.

The web site also provides customers with the browsing categories which can make them feel more convenience while searching for the products that they want to purchase. In addition, it also have the same features such as price range, shop by size, themes list, new product categories, and the best sellers. these features enables customers to search for the products more quickly based on their needs and budget in stead of browse through all the categories of the products.

Furthermore, the web site consists of search engine feature. Customers who wish to purchase specific products such as bears or flowers can just type in the product name in the search engine. After that, the site will appear the relevant page of the product that the customers want. Other than that, the shopping carts feature is available in this web site. By having this feature, it enables customers to add in a number of different products that they want to purchase by just click on the 'add to cart' icon before making the total payment.

Finally, while customers want to make payment, they just need to click on the 'checkout' icon. Moreover, the web site has provide customers with several methods of payment. For example, they can choose to make payment by using credit card, by bank in or account transfer, by cheque or bank draft or money order.

Source:http://www.mypinkyhouse.com/index.asp

E-Government in Malaysia: Its Implementation so far and Citizen's Adoption Strategies

E-Government is the short form for electronic government. It also known as e-gov, digital government, online government or transformational government. E-government is the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) to transform government by making it more accessible, effective and accountable. E-government includes:

• Providing greater access to government information
• Promoting civic engagement by enabling the public to interact with government officials;
• Making government more accountable by making its operations more transparent and thus reducing the opportunities for corruption; and
• Providing development opportunities, especially benefiting rural and traditionally underserved communities.

The E-Government implementation seeks to improve the convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses; simultaneously it will improve information flows and processes within government to improve the speed and quality development, coordination and enforcement.

The Current Application of E-Government in Malaysia include:

• E-Filing : It means that filing income tax and other governmental forms online.

• Renewing Road Tax: The consumer may just enter its insurance details (cover note, etc) and make its payment online using a credit or debit card, and the road tax disc can be delivered to its home or office.

• Renewing Driving License online: Under the online system, drivers need only log on to a website and pay for the renewal with their credit card.

• KWSP(EPF) Account: With Online EPF service , the employees can check their balance, print EPF statement, EPF detail like when employer bank in EPF money into thier account, detail information about their EPF “Account 1″ and “Account 2″, and etc. The employee just need to have an online EPF account , so call “i-Account”.

• E-Perolehan: E-Perolehan is the new procurement system allowas the Government ministries to electronically select items to be procured from the deskstop, initiate an electronic approval process and also create, submit and receive purchase orders, delivery orders and other-related documents electronically.

Common Problems Encountered by Consumers
Although E-Government Malaysia has provided many services to the citizens/consumers, many of them still do not use e-government. This may because of several reasons such as:

Unfamiliarity with ICT
Although the citizens/consumers have known about the services provided by E-Government Malaysia, many of them still do not use it because of the unfamilarity with information and communications technologies ICT. The citizens/consumers may not have to knowledge to fully use the services online.

Concerns about privacy and security of information
Privacy refers to the right for information attributed to an individual to be treated with an appropriate level of protection. Meanwhile, security generally refers to the protection of information system assets and control of access to information.As problems relating to the privacy and security of information has been occured, citizens/consumers tend to be fear of giving out their information online.

Protecting the privacy of citizens and assuring them that their personal information will not be compromised is critical in e-government because this is the key to user trust. Without this assurance, no one will be prompted to use e-government services.

Inaccessiblity
Besides that, a most common problems encountered by the citizens or consumer is inaccessibilty. An E-Government site that provides web access and support often does not offer the “potential to reach many users including those who live in remote areas, are homebound, have low English proficiency, exist on poverty line incomes, suffer from chronic illness, are single parents or older adults.”

Ways to Encourage Citizens to use E-Government Application
In my opinion, it think that E-Government may provide ease and convenience in the delivery of public services, and offer innovative government services to encourage the citizens to use E-Government application.

Besides that, i think that training is necessary to be provided for the citizens who do not have the knowledge or unfamiliar to the use of E-Government application. On the other hand, E-Government has an environmental bonus which will helps to encourage the citizens to use the E-Government application. Why do I say so? This is because, online government services would lessen the need for hard copy forms. This will helps to reduce the use of paper as people tend to be more and more environmental friendly.

Last but not least, I would like to conclude that, E-Government in Malaysia has provided many services for the citizens. As a result, Malaysian citizens should make use of these services and benefit from it.


References:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Government
2. http://www1.american.edu/initeb/ym6974a/egovernment.htm
3. http://www.apdip.net/publications/iespprimers/eprimer-egov.pdf