The role of eCommerce in the success of Vapeusa, an eCommerce business that is B2B and B2C -- using a website to sell vaporizer products and accessories to consumers looking for an alternative way to smoke. The company uses Symantec safety and security for its sales and shows that all purchases and shipments are guaranteed by Norton Guarantee -- which is meant to give consumers peace of mind about doing business with this website. This is a way of separating itself from the other players in the field and of looking more professional and credible. It shows that it has the backing of a reputable company -- so this is one way it is using eCommerce to build its marketing. Another way is that the company uses big data on consumers to gather personal information about users' history on the Internet, what they like, how they shop, where they live, how old they are -- all of this to develop ideas about their consumer base and target at an individual level new marketing strategies that are directed towards these shoppers. Aside from this, the eCommerce uses sales and external reports to generate interest in the company and its products: favorable reports on the industry are promoted using social media and so are sales and the shipment of new products as well. Thus, social media is the final method that is used to help the company excel in its marketing campaign.

Introduction

VapeUSA is an eCommerce organization that sells portable vaporizers, desk top vaporizers, tanks and chambers, batteries and chargers, herb and spice grinders, e-liquids made in the USA, replacement parts, cases and more -- offering free shipping on all items and thus making themselves an attractive one-stop shop for all consumers' vaping needs. The design of the website is very clean and easy to navigate: categories are visually represented according to type, with large but not too large pictures to catch the user's eye and direct the browsing experience. The navigation bar at the top of the page serves the same purpose but the rectangular box category links on the page that are seen via a simple scroll down are the most appealing way to shop. Simply clicking on a link takes on to the desired "aisle" where the user can choose to browse or sort according to best selling,... The site is very well organized and uncluttered which is effective in building sales, as a cluttered site does not facilitate return customers. Plus there are no distracting ads or celebrity endorsements -- a popular method of web 2.0 dystopia (Serazio, 2010): the eCommerce site is inviting to consumers who know what they want and how to get it or to consumers who want to browse, compare, research, and buy.  

Guaranteed Security

They also show the consumer in the bottom corner that all sales are guaranteed protected by Norton, which shows that consumers can shop with full ID theft protection, purchase guarantee (up to $1,000) and lowest price guarantee (if the price drops, the store pays the difference). Thus, the site is secured through Norton which is in turn powered by Symantec. This is a very popular way for eCommerce sites like Vapeusa to better secure their position with consumers; as there are a lot of scam websites on the Internet, consumers want to know that they are protected by a source they can trust -- and Norton, through its reputation as an anti-virus agent, is one such source. So I contacted the customer service department of Symantec Authentication Services to see how they through their ecommerce ingenuity helped sites like Vapeusa develop their marketing campaign, organization, product and service. I also contacted Vapeusa to see how it was acting as its own eCommerce advisor, by initiating a lot of strategies on its own to get its marketing campaign where it needs to be.

First, Symantec was reached through phone support and the question I put to the support staff was how SSL certificates, code signing and the Symantec Seal on the site helped a company like Vapeusa market itself to clients. The response was very typical of what I expected: the support staff said that these security ingredients help consumers to feel safe and that their purchase will be secure; when websites display a sign like the Norton/Symantec Seal, it sends a message to the casual web browser that here is a site that is legitimate, safe, and authentic; any transaction that is made is guaranteed by a reputable company, which is backing the eCommerce of the business whose site the consumer…