Business prospects of a virtual book exhibition in Singapore.

• Main Authors: Koh, Jasmine Sok Khoong., Lee, Kin Seng., Lek, Lee Eng.
• Other Authors: Arthur, Lee Gilbert
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Business::Information technology::Electronic commerce
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/20033
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This dissertation seeks to evaluate the business prospect of organising a virtual book exhibition on the Internet in conjunction with a physical fair. The approach to the research is twofold. First, it gathers general feedback on publishers' and consumers' interest to participate in a virtual book exhibition. Second, it studies the consumers' readiness to transact payments and receive electronic information through the Internet. The research was carried out by way of: consumers' focus group discussion, consumer survey questionnaire administered by hand, general mail survey on publishers. Selective interviews with channels were also conducted. The results of the survey are encouraging. Most professionals who have used the Internet responded that they would either shop in a virtual book fair or do a preliminary search on the Internet before visiting the physical exhibition. Interestingly, our research also showed that a sizeable number of people are willing to transact payments on the Internet although the majority still prefer to do so via cheque payments as they are of the opinion that current technology is still not sophisticated enough to allow virtual payments to be transacted safely through the Net. Nevertheless, our economics research showed that virtual exhibitions are cheaper from both the consumers' and publishers' standpoint. In addition, the rapid advancement of technology will no doubt soon allow virtual shopping for books and publications to be conducted successfully through the Net.