With improved technology, more and more people are connected by electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer network. With widespread usage of Internet, the amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily. The buying and selling of products over electronic system is known as e-commerce.
There are 3 main platforms or categories of e-commerce: Businesses to Businesses (B2B), Businesses to Consumers (B2C) and Consumer to Consumer.
Modern electronic commerce typically uses the internet at least at some point in the transaction's lifecycle. In the case of our research project, we are looking at the term, e-commerce transaction broker. Transaction broker is someone or a business who crafts a transaction by bringing a willing buyer and a willing seller together and assists with the closing of details. They learn a commission for each successful transaction.
Introduction:
With more and more youth travelling oversea nowadays, hostels.com provides them with a cheap alternative to hotel. Staying in hostel significantly reduced the cost of accommodation, especially for youth who travel on a tight budget.
Hostels.com is the ultimate resource for backpacking and hostelling. Hostel.com employ a team of researchers who stay in touch with travelers worldwide to continually update their database of hostels.
Hostels.com is fully owned by Web Reservations International Ltd. (WRI). WRI is the leading provider of online reservations technology to the Budget Youth & Independent Travel (BIYT) market
Purpose:
Hostel.com understands the need to provide for independent and budget traveler. Prior to this, booking of hostel is a hassle for traveler as most hostels do not have a system for reservation.
Hostels.com aim to provide for traveler by featuring the most comprehensive selection of hostels on the internet with almost 26,302 hostels listed. They are continually developing the site to meet travelers’ needs by enabling travelers to make online confirmed reservations at a growing number of these properties.
Design:
At the main page of the site, there is a hostel searching function that allows travelers to search for any hostel, anywhere in the world.
Using the search function above will generate a list of hostel for you to choose from. This allows you to compare prices of the different hostel and a click on the relevance hostel would link you to another page where you could see the room type available at the hostel, the different price for rooms, the review of previous travelers who stayed in the hostel and the map to get to the hotel.
Strength:
Hostels.com allows you to convert the rate of the hostel to your native currency and show you the rough estimate of the charges. This allows you to better estimate your budget and allows you to better plan your spending.
Hostels.com connect to youth through many sites that are popular with youth nowadays, like facebook, twitter, Digg and Blip FM.
There are city guides on the website that allows travelers to know what expect and do in the city they are traveling.
Lastly, the site is also available in a wide range of languages to reach out to travelers who are not familiar with English.
Weakness:
There is no picture to show you what to expect of your room. Some of the hostel do you show some room picture but it does not inform you if it is the room that you will get. It might be the picture of the most expensive room type.
If you would require any additional information, you would have to search for it on your own. All the information on the hostel is provided on the site, any additional, google it on your own.
Lots of sites have a 24/7 live chat assistance which would be good. As lots of question could be answer instantaneously instead of waiting for email replies which could spell delays. In this case, hostels.com only provides such services at the page when you are trying to pay for the room.
A 10% down payment is also required for every transaction and this could be calculated in your only 3 major currencies (Euro, USD and British Pounds). But the remaining balance would have to be paid in currency of the country you are traveling
There seems to be no refund on your down payment should you decide to cancel your booking unless you purchase the cancellation protection. But even with the cancellation protection, there are many restrictions. The refund will be credit only as cancellation credit into your hostels.com account and not directly into your credit card.
Security:
The payment service is encrypted meaning there is a secure connection between you and hostels.com. Under normal circumstances, the information cannot be read or tampered with while being sent. The site encrypted its information using SSL. And the SSL certification is provide by Verisign.
Privacy:
Hostels.com assure us that any information provided by us will be treated in accordance with the terms of the Data Protection Acts, 1988 and 2003 and/or such amending or replacement legislation as may be adopted in Ireland from time to time.
Only your name, your nationality, your gender (or the gender of the group you are in), your phone number, your email address, your credit card details and the details of your booking will be provided to travel service provider. This information is required to accept a confirmed booking from you.
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