E-commerce

Objectives

The course replicates the creation of an e-commerce company taking the class through the major aspects of the value chain, understanding the relation between the different areas. The approach will be from the general manager’s perspective, practical and entrepreneurial, providing the tools and knowledge to build a successful e-commerce operation either as a stand-alone operation or as part of a larger corporation. We will understand the customer journey both in ecommerce and as part of an omnichannel experience. From there we’ll go over the major trends impacting the retail industry and discuss potential alternative futures, the future role of the physical store, the retail holocaust and the strategy of companies like Amazon.

General characterization

Code

2467

Credits

3.5

Responsible teacher

David Bernardo

Hours

Weekly - Available soon

Total - Available soon

Teaching language

English

Prerequisites

Available soon

Bibliography

Articles, reference books and cases will be provided throughout the course. Students that want to prepare are recommended the following readings:

Google adwords and Google analytics tutorials;

Email marketing tutorials;

Facebook insights tutorials.

Resources

Articles and lecture slides will be distributed via the course web site after the classes.

Lecture slides are supports to the teaching process and are not enough to study for an exam. Students are supposed to attend, pay attention to classes and take the adequate notes. Being PRESENT in class should be enough to prepare for the test.

Teaching method

The class will focus on introducing the framework and basic concepts of e-commerce and marketing for digital businesses and illustrate them with current cases and examples. Students will be asked to develop written solutions for exercises presented in class and will be given, further resources in every topic to allow them to develop in depth if desired.

Class participation and active discussion is highly encouraged and rewarded. Final project will be an ecommerce sector study for future publication.

This class is about continuous interaction between the students. The course is very intensive and homework will be highly practical with real life application.

There will be a final exam based on the content taught in class.

Evaluation method

Individual written work cannot count for less than 50% of the final grade. The final written exam cannot count for less than 30 % and more than 70% of the final grade.

  • Written exam (individual): 30%

  • Final blog post: 40%

  • Class participation and written assignments contribution (individual and group): 30%

There will be homework assigned in some classes (sometimes before the class). Homework is due before the class the morning before class and aims to have students trying to address the issues before they get the solution. Homework is graded as follows (20 – Went above what was required; 15 – Did what was required; 10 – Presented part of what was required; 5 – minimum effort; 0 – didn’t present the homework or what was required). Students are evaluated according their contribution to the class development. Classes are mandatory and the unjustified absence (major causes only) will reflect on the evaluation. Missing two classes without a major force justification results in the failure of the course. Punctuality to class will be enforced.

Presentations are only made available after the classes.

A grade inferior to 10 out of 20 in the exam will result in failing the course.

There is no individual revision of homework grading and correction is made in class.

The experience can be sometimes less traditional and not for everyone. Qualitative feedback goes all the way from ‘The professor is passionate and knowledgeable. One of the best or second best courses I took in my life’’ to ‘The professor is not as cool as he thinks’.

Average class grade (from previous years: 15,5). Remember this is an average.

Subject matter

-    Introduction and basic concepts: key concepts and terminology, main business models, high level viability assessment, industry resources
-    The relevance of Digital (similar to what is taught at digital strategy and transformation course intro)
-    Marketing and analytics: marketing framework, KPIs, SEM, SEO, content generation, e-mail marketing, social media, web analytics
-    Design: design principles, site optimization and user experience (UX), social commerce
 
-    IT: IT elements for ecommerce, understanding IT people
-    Operations, logistics and payment methods
-    Legal aspects: customer rights, privacy policies copyright and intellectual property
-    Omnichannel
-    Future trends of retail