Bloom Enterprise Case Study

       The company that have been chosen for this case study is Bloom Shop Florist Enterprise. Bloom Enterprise is the company that sell variety types of flowers and gifts. The purpose of this report is to identify the type of information system that the company been using from the past year till the current year and does the system help them to achieve their company’s goals and objectives? As a result, we did research about the company’s system and how they received their order that have been made by online customer and also how they arrange their delivery time and etc. First and foremost, as we know retailers used online system to make it easier for some customer and at the same time they can make their company’s expand and become better known. In this case, online system does help Bloom Enterprise to become more competitive in the market and have larger customer base. Besides, not only online system that they used, they still adapt the traditional method which is serving walk-in customer face to face. As for online system, the customer that lives around K.L will get free delivery while the other customer that stay at other city will be charged with certain amount based on the city or area that they lives. Furthermore, there are 2 types of information system that they used such as Content Management System (CMS) and Transaction Processing System (TPS).

       The company has started using electronic commerce since the year of 2007 for the benefit of the company and also the customers. Although they have started to use electronic commerce in their business, they are still doing their business via their shop based in Kuala Lumpur. Now, they are a click-and-mortar organization, a company that conduct some e-commerce activities, yet their business is primarily physical. In other words, it is a combination of traditional way of in-store purchase at their florist shop in Kuala Lumpur and also conduct e-commerce at their website, www.bloom.com.my with a trademark of “We Deliver Your Love and Concern”. In terms of the types of e-commerce, they are a kind of partial e-commerce. Customers are ordering the physical flower hand bouquets and flower baskets on their website and the items they ordered will be deliver to their doorstep after they made the payment. They are an electronic storefront as their website is only representing their store, a single florist store. They conduct their e-commerce in business-to-customer (B2C) form which means that they, as sellers are the organization and the customers who order the flowers from their website are the individuals. As the Bloom florist shop is the retailer that sell their flower bouquets directly to their customers, they are actually practicing online direct marketing in terms of e-commerce business models. Their website is easy to use, providing clear information about the types of flower bouquets, baskets and gifts they are selling. At their website, they are offering a vast quantity of flowers bouquets and baskets for their customers to choose from. They put a lot of effort into this mass customization because they hope to fit the desire of every customer, make every customer happy with the services they provide in order to meet their business goal at the same time. Bloom Enterprise has its own stock database that shows how much of stock they left and which product is out of stock. This will prevent the disappointment to their customers when they are informed that the product is actually out of stock after they have made their payment. In terms of payment method, Bloom Enterprise accepts electronic credit cards and also online banking method. For payment made through electronic credit cards, the website will “communicate” with a merchant system run by the credit-card processing firm to take payment using the customer’s credit or debit card number to confirm whether the customer has enough funds in his bank account. If the online transaction is successfully processed, a confirmation email will be sent to the customer and the company will ship out the product after the particular customer shows them the payment proof. (Woodford, 2016)

       There are some advantages when it comes to the complementation of electronic commerce system. Firstly, customers can get what they want easily by browsing the website and place their orders instead of having to visit the real world store. Also, they can place their order at any time regardless of the business hour of the real world store and anywhere with their device connected to the internet. For example, a customer can make an order at his convenience using the Bloom’s website if he lives far away from Kuala Lumpur or he cannot manage to visit the Bloom’s florist shop during their business hours from 9.00a.m. to 5.30p.m. on the weekdays. The advantage for the company’s side is that the use of e-commerce has helped the Bloom’s florist to gain significant amount of revenue. It also helps them to improve their customer satisfaction as their customers can have the detailed information about the delivery and order status. A customer that have made payment at the Bloom’s website can view his order status on the website by providing his order ID and email after clicking the “My Order Status” button on the function bar. On the other hand, the disadvantage of using e-commerce system is that customers can never see the actual products they are buying online until the products arrive at their doorstep.

       The fundamental part supporting the electronic commerce system is the use of Content Management System (CMS). CMS is a software application that are used to create and manage digital content. (Rouse, n.d.) In other words, all the contents of the Bloom’s website are created and managed by the CMS. The owner of the Bloom’s florist, Mr. Chin has a worker with technical background of information system to help him to manage the website from time to time. The advantage of the complementation of CMS is that it makes the website looks attractive and colourful, with very detailed information and pictures of the products they are selling. Customers can shop easily and effortlessly with this system. On the contrary, the implementation of this system has a disadvantage for the company’s side for that the cost of having a worker with IS technical background to manage their website from time to time is high.

       Besides, the information system used by Bloom Enterprise is Transaction Processing System (TPS). Bloom Enterprise uses real time processing system which is a type of TPS when transactions occurred. For example, customers pay with their own ATM card during their visit to Bloom Enterprise for their purchases. Customers will have to key in the pin number of their cards in order to access their purchases by using ATM cards. An order processing system is also used to conduct the business. When the company receives an order for a product, TPS will be used to check the inventory to determine whether the product is in stock. If it is, TPS will alert the employees to retrieve the product from the warehouse and then to ship the product to the customers. According to Mr Chin, TPS used by them have four different properties which are atomicity, consistency, isolation and durability. In fact, transaction processing system benefits the business by making the transaction more accurate and efficient while creating convenience to customers by offering credit or debit card transaction services. From customer's point of view, TPS benefits them by allowing them to compare the prices of the products which they have intention to purchase. This enables the customers to purchase products with lower price. Customers will also get detailed information regarding the products before transaction was made. On the contrary, hardware failure may occur during transactions which will cause a great loss to the business.