Research Report on Zuji.com

E-Transaction Broker
The rapid development of information technology has allowed the widespread of internet to become part and parcel of our lives. The Internet is a global data communications system that is often used in our everyday lives. It allows greater flexibility in working hours and location, especially with the spread of unmetered high-speed connections. The Internet can now be accessed almost everywhere whether it is home computers, laptops and mobile phones allowing users to connect to the Internet from anywhere with wireless network supporting the device’s technology. Today, The Internet has become a large market for companies and entrepreneur who advertise their products or commerce through the Internet, also known as e-commerce. It is the fastest way to spread information to a vast number of people simultaneously.

The purpose of this research is to explore the nature and operations of an e-commerce transaction broker website. So what exactly is a transaction broker?

A transaction broker is an intermediary who provides coordination services and documentary supports between the buyers and sellers (of products and services). In simpler terms, a transaction broker is like a middleman, merely providing the business link between a buyer and a host of sellers, and earning a commission for each successful transaction. However, transaction broker do not own the end products or services transacted. Some examples of transaction brokers are cTrip, Inspro, Zuji, Asiarooms, and etc. For this research we will be concentrating on Zuji.

ZUJI
ZUJI is Asia Pacific's leading online travel company, and a joint venture of 15 leading airlines operating in Asia-Pacific, and Travelocity, the most popular travel site in the United States. ZUJI is an established, trusted and credible travel company with an extensive Asia Pacific Regional network, offering travellers access to flight, hotel, car hire and attractions.
Zuji is an online travel agent whose aim is to bring great travel choices to travelers in Asia Pacific. They offer more than 400 airlines, 60,000 hotels, and thousands of cars hire activities, attractions as well as travel insurance to travelers.

ZUJI teams are located throughout Asia Pacific, and ZUJI has a network of online travel sites in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, India, Korea and Singapore.
ZUJI is part of the Travelocity family of companies globally, and owned by Sabre Holdings, a world leader in travel commerce.

Its website provides the following key functional online services: package holidays choices, hotel room reservations, flights booking, car hires, cruises booking, insurance coverage, arrangement of airport transfers, destination guides & travel tips, and last but not least, secured payment systems.

Strengths

One stop website to make your booking easier.





Zuji.com.sg provides convenience enabling travellers access to flight, hotel car hire and attractions to consumers which can all be booked and paid for online 24 hours a day, seven days a week. With convenience of booking in one transaction, travellers still have more than 400 airlines and 40,000 hotels to choose giving special discount rates to package holidays.

It also shows you all-inclusive pricing when you search for a flight, and a total summary which breaks down the airfare and any additional tax or other fee components before you make the final payment. You can also search for a specific date of travel and they will show you flights with available seats. Zuji Singapore provides car hires as well, making it easy for one to book a car for your journey.

It also provides destination guides and travel tips, giving consumer tips and inspiration for their next holiday. From their destination stores, one can find insights about about visa requirements, the weather, events and activities and much more. Moreover, there will also be travel tips from another traveller’s perspective, aiding you in becoming a well-informed traveller.

Lastly, the membership for Zuji is free and the account is automatically set up when the first purchase on zuji.com.sg is made. For future purchases, details such as address, contact number etc need not be given as records have already been captured in the data. This brings convenience to customers of Zuji. Signing up for their newsletter also provides customers information about the weekly deals and promotions they are having.

With all these strengths, it is not surprising that Zuji was awarded with numerous awards by which they feel most proud of was being recognized as Asia Pacific’s ‘Best Online Travel Agent’, as awarded by TTG travel magazines in Asia Pacific for four consecutive years since 2005.

Weaknesses
Weaknesses of an E-commerce business like Zuji is that they could not offer their services to people who do not have computers or do not know how to serve the internet. People such as the senior citizens do not access to internet as they are not IT savvy.

Also, being the intermediary of so many companies, Zuji might experience problems with their business partners if there is biasness towards any particular partner. Thus the problem is that Zuji must coordinate their services to see to the needs of not just one but more than 60,000 business partners.

Conclusion
While conducting this research, we realized that technology has definitely helped many businesses to expand its business and to generate greater revenue. A business like Zuji using e-commerce can reach out to millions and billions of people all over the world and it certainly has more advantages than disadvantages. We believe that in this era and in future, e-commerce will continue to expand and bloom till the extent that all businesses will eventually venture into e-commerce. However, we must take into consideration the consequences of information overload and privacy issue.

Zuji is a trusted website.