Deck 1: The Revolution Is Just Beginning

Question 1

Cost transparency refers to the ability of consumers to discover the actual costs merchants pay for products.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

All of the following are major technology trends in e-commerce in 2014-2015 except:

A) cloud computing enables the creation of Big Data.
B) firms are turning to Web analytics to make sense out of Big Data.
C) the mobile computing and communications platform creates a new platform for online transactions, marketing, advertising, and media viewing.
D) computing and networking component prices continue to fall dramatically.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

The fact that e-commerce is conducted on the basis of universal standards reduces search costs for consumers.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

The Internet provides a unique many-to-many model of mass communication.

Question 5

The Internet has shown extraordinary growth patterns compared to other electronic technologies of the past.

Question 6

Social e-commerce is the largest type of e-commerce.

Question 7

E-commerce can be defined as:

A) the use of the Internet, the Web, and mobile apps to transact business.
B) the use of any Internet technologies in a firm's daily activities.
C) the digital enablement of transactions and processes within an organization.
D) any digitally enabled transactions among individuals and organizations.

Question 8

Personalization involves targeting marketing messages to specific individuals by adjusting the message based upon a consumer's preferences or past purchasing behavior.

Question 9

The emergence of mobile, social, and local e-commerce occurred during the Consolidation period of e-commerce.

Question 10

Retail e-commerce in the United States is expected to continue growing at double-digit growth rates in 2014-2015.

Question 11

The Web is a worldwide network of computer networks.

Question 12

The online marketplace is characterized by persistent price dispersion.

Question 13

The future of e-commerce is likely to include a decrease in government regulation both in the United States and worldwide.

Question 14

The Reinvention period of e-commerce is as much a sociological phenomenon as it is a technological or business phenomenon.

Question 15

Which of the following is not a major business trend in e-commerce in 2014-2015?

A) Social e-commerce continues to grow.
B) Small businesses and entrepreneurs are hampered by the rising cost of market entry caused by increased presence of industry giants.
C) Sharing economy companies garner multi-billion dollar valuations.
D) Mobile and social advertising platforms begin to challenge search engine marketing.

Question 16

Price discovery refers to the ability of merchants to segment the market into groups willing to pay different prices.

Question 17

In 2014, roughly ________ million people in the United States accessed the Internet via tablets.

A) 47
B) 67
C) 147
D) 167

Question 18

Which of the following statements about e-commerce in the United States in 2014 is not True?

A) Mobile e-commerce generates more revenue than social e-commerce.
B) Over 160 million Americans are expected to make at least one purchase online.
C) B2B e-commerce is about 10 times the size of B2C e-commerce.
D) Growth rates for retail e-commerce are higher in the United States than in China.

Question 19

The term e-business refers to the digital enabling of transactions and processes involving an exchange of value across organizational boundaries.

Question 20

Ubiquity enhances customer convenience.

Question 21

Which of the following is not a unique feature of e-commerce technology?

A) interactivity
B) social technology
C) information asymmetry
D) richness

Question 22

Which of the following is a mobile photo-sharing application?

A) YouTube
B) Tumblr
C) Wikipedia
D) Instagram

Question 23

Interactivity in the context of e-commerce provides which of the following functionalities?

A) the ability to physically touch and manipulate a product
B) complexity and content of a message
C) the ability of consumers to create and distribute content
D) the enabling of two-way communication between consumer and merchant

Question 24

Which type of e-commerce is distinguished by the type of technology used in the transaction rather than by the nature of the market relationship?

A) consumer-to-consumer (C2C)
B) social e-commerce
C) mobile e-commerce
D) business-to-business (B2B)

Question 25

Which of the following was the first truly large-scale digitally enabled transaction system in the B2C arena?

A) Telex
B) the Baxter Healthcare system
C) the French Minitel
D) EDI

Question 26

In 2014, the world's online population was estimated to be around:

A) 280 million.
B) 2.8 billion.
C) 28 billion.
D) 280 billion.

Question 27

Which of the following features of e-commerce technology enables merchants to market and sell "complex" goods and services to consumers via marketing messages that can integrate video, audio, and text?

A) richness
B) ubiquity
C) information density
D) personalization

Question 28

In which year can e-commerce be said to have begun?

A) 1983
B) 1985
C) 1995
D) 2001

Question 29

All of the following are major social trends in e-commerce in 2014-2015 except for:

A) the impact of social networks on privacy.
B) the continuing conflict over copyright management and control.
C) the refusal of online retailers to accept taxation of Internet sales.
D) the growth of government surveillance of Internet communications.

Question 30

Which of the following features of e-commerce technology allows users to participate in the creation of online content?

A) ubiquity
B) global reach
C) information density
D) social technology

Question 31

In 2014, there were an estimated ________ Internet hosts.

A) 1 million
B) 10 million
C) 100 million
D) 1 billion

Question 32

All of the following can be considered a precursor to e-commerce except:

A) the development of the smartphone.
B) Baxter Healthcare's PC-based remote order entry system.
C) the French Minitel.
D) the development of Electronic Data Interchange standards.

Question 33

Which of the following describes the basic Web policy of large firms during the Invention period?

A) Integrate social networks and the mobile platform with Web site marketing.
B) Emphasize the necessity for the Web to generate profits.
C) Use the Web to sell complex goods and services online.
D) Maintain a basic, static Web site depicting the firm's brand.

Question 34

Which of the following is not an example of a social network?

A) Uber
B) Twitter
C) Pinterest
D) Tumblr

Question 35

Which of the following statements about the Web is not True?

A) The Web is the technology upon which the Internet is based.
B) The Web was the original "killer app."
C) The Web provides access to pages written in HyperText Markup Language.
D) The Web is both a communications infrastructure and an information storage system.

Question 36

Which of the following is the best definition of transaction cost?

A) the expense of changing national or regional prices
B) the cost of participating in a market
C) the cost of finding suitable products in the market
D) the cost merchants pay to bring their goods to market

Question 37

Which of the following is not a major business trend in e-commerce in 2014-2015?

A) the growth of a mobile app-based online economy.
B) the weakening revenues of B2B e-commerce.
C) the emergence of social e-commerce.
D) the growth of the mobile advertising platform.

Question 38

Which of the following statements is True about the traditional tradeoff between the richness and reach of a marketing message prior to the development of the Web?

A) Marketing messages had little richness.
B) The smaller the audience reached, the less rich the message.
C) The larger the audience reached, the less rich the message.
D) Richness was unrelated to reach.

Question 39

Which of the following features of e-commerce technology is related to the concept of network externalities?

A) richness
B) interactivity
C) universal standards
D) information density

Question 40

The size of the B2B market in 2014 was estimated to be around:

A) $570 million.
B) $5.7 billion.
C) $570 billion.
D) $5.7 trillion.

Question 41

Which of the following is not True about the use of apps?

A) The average U.S. consumer spends over 2 hours and 45 minutes a day using apps.
B) Users still spend less time using apps than they do using desktops or mobile Web sites.
C) Apps are easier to control and monetize than Web sites.
D) Over 175 million people in the United States launch a smartphone app more than 60 times a day.

Question 42

The early years of e-commerce were driven by all of the following factors except:

A) an emphasis on exploiting traditional distribution channels.
B) a huge infusion of venture capital funds.
C) an emphasis on quickly achieving very high market visibility.
D) visions of profiting from new technology.

Question 43

Which of the following is a characteristic of e-commerce during the Invention period?

A) mobile technology
B) earnings and profit emphasis
C) disintermediation
D) extensive government surveillance

Question 44

Which of the following best describes the early years of e-commerce?

A) They were a technological success but a mixed business success.
B) They were a technological success but a business failure.
C) They were a technological failure but a business success.
D) They were a mixed technological and business success.

Question 45

The early years of e-commerce are considered:

A) the most promising time in history for the successful implementation of first mover advantages.
B) an economist's dream come True, where for a brief time consumers had access to all relevant market information and transaction costs plummeted.
C) a stunning technological success as the Internet and the Web increased from a few thousand to billions of e-commerce transactions per year.
D) a dramatic business success as 85% of dot-coms formed since 1995 became flourishing businesses.

Question 46

Which of the following is the top-selling online retail category?

A) apparel/accessories
B) computers/electronics
C) mass merchant/department stores
D) office supplies

Question 47

Which of the following is a characteristic of the Reinvention phase of e-commerce?

A) massive proliferation of dot-com start-ups
B) widespread adoption of broadband networks
C) rapid growth of search engine advertising
D) expansion of e-commerce to include services as well as goods

Question 48

One of the predictions for the future of e-commerce is that:

A) overall revenues from e-commerce will grow at an annualized rate of about 13% a year through 2018.
B) the first movers from the early years of e-commerce will retain or increase their market share as they continue to exploit economies of scale and switching costs.
C) prices will lower enough to encourage more consumers to engage in online shopping.
D) the number of online shoppers will continue to grow at double-digit rates.

Question 49

Which of the following statements is not True?

A) Information asymmetries are continually being introduced by merchants and marketers.
B) Intermediaries have not disappeared.
C) Overall transaction costs have dropped dramatically.
D) Brands remain very important in e-commerce.

Question 50

All of the following are characteristics of Web 2.0 sites and applications except:

A) they support interactions among users.
B) they rely solely on mobile access to the Web.
C) they tend to rely on user-generated content.
D) they tend to attract large audiences that provide marketers with extraordinary opportunities for targeted marketing and advertising.

Question 51

Which of the following is a characteristic of the Consolidation phase of e-commerce?

A) predominance of pure online strategies
B) emphasis on revenue growth versus profits
C) brand extension and strengthening becomes more important that creating new brands
D) shift to a technology-driven approach

Question 52

Which of the following is not a characteristic of a perfect competitive market?

A) Price, cost, and quality information are equally distributed.
B) A nearly infinite set of suppliers compete against one another.
C) Customers have access to all relevant information worldwide.
D) It is highly regulated.

Question 53

Unfair competitive advantages occur when:

A) one competitor has an advantage others cannot purchase.
B) market middlemen are displaced.
C) information is equally distributed and transaction costs are low.
D) firms are able to gather monopoly profits.

Question 54

Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce in the United States:

A) has grown at double-digit rates between 2010 and 2014.
B) has less revenue than C2C e-commerce.
C) now constitutes over 40% of the overall U.S. retail market.
D) is growing more slowly as it confronts its own fundamental limitations.

Question 55

All of the following were visions of e-commerce expressed during the early years of e-commerce except:

A) a nearly perfect information marketspace.
B) friction-free commerce.
C) disintermediation.
D) fast follower advantage.

Question 56

Which of the following is not True regarding e-commerce today?

A) Economists' visions of a friction-free market have not been realized.
B) Consumers are less price-sensitive than expected.
C) There remains considerable persistent price dispersion.
D) The market middlemen disappeared.

Question 57

Which of the following is an example of a sharing economy company?

A) YouTube
B) Airbnb
C) Tumblr
D) Facebook

Question 58

Retail chains account for around ________ % of online retail firm revenues.

A) 15
B) 35
C) 75
D) 95

Question 59

All of the following are issues facing Pinterest except:

A) copyright infringement.
B) inability to retain users.
C) spam.
D) scams.

Question 60

Which of the following types of merchants has the highest share of retail online sales?

A) virtual (Web only)
B) catalog/call center
C) retail chain
D) consumer brand manufacturer

Question 61

The ________ was the original "killer app" that made the Internet commercially interesting and extraordinarily popular.

Question 62

Which of the following statements is not True?

A) No one academic perspective dominates research about e-commerce.
B) Economists take a purely technical approach to e-commerce.
C) There are two primary approaches to e-commerce: behavioral and technical.
D) Management scientists are interested in e-commerce as an opportunity to study how business firms can exploit the Internet to achieve more efficient business operations.

Question 63

Which of the following is the top online retailer ranked by online sales?

A) Apple
B) Amazon
C) Staples
D) Walmart

Question 64

________ refers to any disparity in relevant market information among parties in a transaction.

Question 65

E-commerce is available just about everywhere and anytime. This is known as ________.

Question 66

The first evolutionary phase of e-commerce, from 1995 to 2000, characterized as technology-driven and ungoverned, was a period of ________.

Question 67

A firm that is first to market in a particular area and that moves quickly to gather market share is referred to as a(n) ________.

Question 68

In ________ commerce, information is equally distributed, transaction costs are low, prices can be dynamically adjusted to reflect actual demand, intermediaries decline, and unfair competitive advantages are eliminated.

Question 69

________ is the most successful online encyclopedia.

Question 70

A(n) ________ occurs when everyone in a group receives value because all participants use the same tool or product.

Question 71

The costs incurred by merchants in having to change product prices (such as the costs of reentering prices into computer systems) are referred to as ________ costs.

Question 72

The total number of users or customers an e-commerce business can obtain is a measure of its ________.

Question 73

________ refers to the displacement of market middlemen and the creation of a new direct relationship between producers and consumers.

Question 74

A(n) ________ removes a marketplace from a temporal and geographic location.

Question 75

Which of the following is one of the three primary societal issues related to e-commerce?

A) liability
B) anonymity
C) equity
D) intellectual property

Question 76

The ________ discipline spans both the technical and behavioral approach to studying e-commerce.

Question 77

Above all, e-commerce is a ________ phenomenon.

A) technology-driven
B) finance-driven
C) sociological
D) government-driven

Question 78

________ refers to the complexity and content of a message.

Question 79

Which business application is associated with the technological development of local area networks and client/server computing?

A) transaction automation (e.g., payroll)
B) desktop automation (e.g., word processing)
C) industrial system automation (e.g., supply chain management)
D) workgroup automation (e.g., document sharing)

Question 80

The term ________ refers to the practice of researching a product online before purchasing it at a physical store.